My work since joining Automattic would not make good conversation pieces.

I am learning a lot. It has been hard work and will continue to be.

I have focused almost exclusively on bug gardening and isolating problems for WordPress and internally for WordPress.com . Before I came on board Matt was honest that it would probably take six months to clean up the tickets.

I have lots of ideas (and expertise) for various projects, but the quantity of bug reports needs my focus.

Slowly, I make progress — it is the customer, tester, and developer communities that make progress possible. Reporting problem well; isolating the problems and testing solutions; and fixing and testing their fixes. These people are the best!

It is hard to work with the very best, because they challenge me to great. I love the learning and the challenge! I enjoy even more the team, communities and products.

I would not mind if it takes any extra six months to get the bug gardens in order, if that was because more people were participating in reporting problems, testing, and developing WordPress.

Comments like Josh Wilkens‘ “Mom always said you can’t play with your toys until you’ve done your chores” expressing his disappointment with Flock’s lack of release in seven months, and Matt’s post Disconnect and the comments help keep my focused, and also relate why sometimes it is hard to take a break to blog.

I stay focused, one bug at a time.

That is a 234 new tickets, a reduction of the backlog by 122, for total tickets closed of 356 in October. Fantastic results!

Thanks to Matt, Ryan, Mark, Nazgul, Masquerade, westi, Viper007Bond, jeremyvisser, Sewar, filosofo — I am sure I forgot someone, if I missed you let me know.

I am looking forward to another successful month of bug gardening!

The general (think web, Windows, Mac) topic is regularly on the minds of lifehackers. Now, Web Worker Daily asked the question and provided a round up, but has done nothing interesting with the information. On Linux it is not GnoTime.

Time tracking does not necessarily need the same solutions as scheduling, nor even to do lists (prioritizing).

I still plan to try Rachota and GTimeLog. Anything else?

The website has a tacky line about “We heard you” six years later.

Performance does not seem good for Web 2.0 sites compared to the soon to the Firefox 2 (expected within a couple week).

I find it interesting that Microsoft is the first to market. It will be interesting to see the timing of the other browsers’ releases and when Microsoft forces upgrade to IE 7. With the upgrade, tech. savvy people will be considering all of there options. Browser wars will soon be here again.

What browser do you use? Trust? The company behind it? The community?

The flyer for the course read “Constructive Living is an educational method of personal development created by David K. Reynolds, Ph. D. It is based on two psychotherapies, Morita and Naikan, which in turn have their roots in Zen and Jodo Shinshu Buddhist psychology.”

I have already learned some interesting tools, but as Helga suggests “try it”.