J
Jennifer_G
Guest
I work in IT, too (State of Maryland), and even we have our slow times - especially February, and most of March. I try to get some Spring Cleaning done on the servers by clearing out my old backups and old data I don’t need anymore (a programmer can accumulate a LOT, especially wtih data backups, images, etc.).
It’s actually funny, my co-worker (another girl - it’s only two of us programmers now) and I were ‘Spring Cleaning’ back in January, and the networking guys just decided to do some Spring Cleaning now on the servers to clear up some old data and archive it. We’ve been doing that for 3 months already!
Since I create web applications for internal use, what I do are things like:
It’s actually funny, my co-worker (another girl - it’s only two of us programmers now) and I were ‘Spring Cleaning’ back in January, and the networking guys just decided to do some Spring Cleaning now on the servers to clear up some old data and archive it. We’ve been doing that for 3 months already!
Since I create web applications for internal use, what I do are things like:
- creating log files to track how the user is using the software, thus they can be made more efficient later on by seeing what things the user uses (or don’t use). I’ve found a few things this way.
- Try to improve efficiency (especially in any SQL code) to make a program run faster. I’m doing this on a few MS Access databases now.
- See how existing programs can be made better “in the next version”.
- Practice creating queries relating to a 3rd party software we use (a small to average sized database by any state agency standard, but large enough that it does have a level of complexity).
- Check up on users to see how they’re doing with any software we’ve created for them.
- Update any software documentation (user’s manual, specs) if needed.
- Create a little code library, especially for when we (hopefully) get a few new programmers.
- Take a look back at old projects (and think to yourself, ‘Wow, I did that and I didn’t know I could do this?’.
). - Take a look through software specs of a major piece of software the company/agency uses (if you have them).
- Try to figure out just what was that password the retired programmers used so you can actually perform administrative functions in an MS Access database. (Fortunately – or unfortunately, MS Access security is null and void)
shudder Don’t remind me! :bigyikes: We’re just starting to get ready to move over to the .NET version of a 3rd party web software (won’t be fully used until this time next year - the company isn’t releasing certain features until winter), and we’re starting to patch our current version. This includes a new government standards they’re switching over to (i.e., job codes going from a simplified version to a more indepth version). Now I have to rewrite a half dozen things I just helped work on and finished last month.