Not too productive

I don’t normally write about work, however, since I haven’t really done any work today, I don’t feel that this post is breaking the rule. I’ve done almost nothing, so far this morning, other than install software.

It started out with my copy of Enterprise Architect. I’ve been using the trial version, but I was given a proper key, today, so I had to uninstall the trial version, and install the “full” version. Incidentally, for you fellow computer geeks, if you’re looking for a good UML modelling tool, give Enterprise Architect, from Sparx Systems, a try. From what I’ve seen, over the last couple of days, it does everything Rational Rose does and more—even database modelling!—for a tenth of the price. (I believe there is a Linux version of EA as well, although I haven’t had a chance to try it out.)

Then I got a message from Pidgin, that there was a newer version available, so I downloaded that, and installed it. Pidgin is an instant messaging client I’ve been using; I was introduced to it when I first installed Ubuntu, because that’s the IM client that comes by default. (It used to be called GAIM, but there were some legal issues, and they decided to change the name to Pidgin. There’s some more detail on the Wikipedia article.) Incidentally, this means that I am currently running three IM clients, on my laptop: Office Communicator, which I use for communicating with the client; MSN Messenger, which is the main IM client I use for both work and personal; and Pidgin, which I only use for personal, and even then, hardly at all.

And finally, I opened up OpenOffice Impress—the “presentation software” that’s an equivalent to PowerPoint—to see how good it was at exporting a PowerPoint deck into Flash, and it told me that there was an OpenOffice upgrade, from 2.2 to 2.2.1, that I could install. So I downloaded it, and upgraded.

And it’s now quarter to 12, and I’m ready to do some real work. Oh, yeah, and I have to leave early today. So today won’t have been the most productive day I’ve ever worked, I don’t think. Unless I do a lot of work, over the next few hours…