2009-10-18

Catching up

Wow. Lots of things have happened since my last post. Let's see...

  • In this economy, I found a job. I started back on April 17, working for Atlantic.net as their head Linux administrator. The job was almost perfect for me- it was an almost perfect match for the skills I already have, it gave me chances to learn about and play with new technologies, it gave me a chance to pass my knowledge and experience along to the junior-level techs, and I was working with a great bunch of people. Plus, even though I was the lead LINUX admin, my desktop machine was a Mac Mini. =)

  • In September, I was elected Vice President of LEAP, the local Linux user group here in Orlando. Before this I was a director, and I thought I was just running for re-election as a director, but when the ballots were handed out, my name was in there for the VP slot. And even though I didn't vote for myself for either office, I still got voted in as the VP.

  • Then, a few days ago, after just under six months, Atlantic.net laid me off. No warning, no notice, just "sorry, we don't have the money to pay you anymore." Apparently, when they hired me in April, they had just started a massive campaign of web advertising, particularly banner ads. They were expecting those ads to drive a flood of new business in the door, and they were planning to use the added revenue from the new business to continue to afford my paychecks. That new business never materialized, and they're now going back to physical billboards.

    One of the things my boss told me was that if business picked back up, that I would be "on the short list" to come back. At the time it sounded pretty good, however now I have to wonder why he didn't just say "we want to bring you back", unless maybe he didn't want to get my hopes up and have me sitting around waiting around for it. And a friend who is still assiciated with the company reminded me that Atlantic.net is sitting on enough cash to... well, I won't talk about their future plans, but suffice it to say it's more than enough to afford my salary and benefits for another year. So I don't really know what to think at this point, other than the fact that it won't do anybody any good for me to sit and worry about it, or to complain about it, in public or in private. What's done is done.

    I will say this, however... I genuinely enjoyed the job, they're a great bunch of people, and if they were to offer me the job back before I find something else, I would go back in a heartbeat. Knowing the people as I do, I think if anybody is going to figure out a way to succeed in this economy, Atlantic.net will be the company to do it. It's just too bad I can't be part of that.

  • I announced my new "on the market" status on LEAP's mailing list. Within 24 hours I heard from two other list members about potential openings, one of which the guy said he KNEW would be open, and that if anything I'm over-qualified for it. I've also polished up my resumé, and I plan to spend as much of next week as possible searching the job web sites and contacting headhunters. I got used to having money coming in on a regular basis, and while Atlantic.net did give me a severance package, it won't keep me forever. It is, however, enough to give me some time to find something else, and for that I'm grateful.

  • A few days ago, curiosity got the better of me and I signed up for Twitter. I'm not sure if I'm going to use it on a regular basis, but it's there. I wanted "jms1" as a userid, but somebody else grabbed it long ago... I guess that's what you get for not jumping on these things early.

  • I received an invitation to Google Wave. This one I jumped on IMMEDIATELY. The concept of Wave is different from anything I had seen before- it's like email, instant messaging, forum threads, and collaborative document editing, all rolled up into one thing. The best explanation I can come up with is that a "wave" is a message that multiple people can access and edit at the same time. Each person can add "blips" to the wave, which are kinda like emails being added to a thread. The interesting thing is that people can edit the wave AT THE SAME TIME- as in, if you and I are both editing the same wave, we see each others' keystrokes IN REAL TIME.

    My explanation doesn't come anywhere NEAR doing it justice. The best way to explain is to watch video on this page, which is when Google announced Wave at a developer conference. It's about an hour and fifteen minutes long, but it explains things VERY well.

    When you see the video, you will understand why I say that, when this becomes publicly available, it will change how people communicate.

That's about it for now.

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