The sleepy software bug.

First thing this morning I got an email with ‘high’ priority. The subject was ‘The Learning Center seems to be down’. We’ve been having a lot of problems with the product that underlies our ‘Learning Center’ application lately (we’re currently making a major switch) so I thought it was one of the run-of-the-mill problems we knew exactly how to fix. How wrong I was. Before I explain the story, I should give you some background info…

Cue dreamy effect and go back in time…

I got a new job!

I have accepted a position at a company in Dayton.  The position is with a company that I have been working for as a consultant off and on (mostly on) for the last three years.  I will be a ‘Technical Architect’ in the ‘Enterprise Solutions’ group at WinWholesale. I am very excited about this new opportunity. In my new position I will be the technical leader of the group that is dealing with newer technologies. We will be making use of open source technologies where they make sense and employing an agile software development methodology. One of the most important things to me is

LinkedIn vs FaceBook? Even for career/professional stuff?

I’ve been ‘LinkedIn’ for several months now.  I’ve made contacts with enough of my current and past colleagues to feel like its useful.  I’ve also gotten several serious employment inquiries.  I am a firm believer in the whole ‘web networking’ thing.  When you replace the ‘web’ with ‘social’ in that statement is where I get a little sketchy – at least when talking about professional relationships. 

There are blog posts out the wazoo talking about FaceBook burying sites like myspace and LinkedIn.  I am certainly not bashing FaceBook because I’m not much of a user – it seems like it has a nicely designed web interface and certainly is getting a lot of pub so they must be doing something right.  I just don’t get the hype from the perspective of saying it will ‘replace’ sites like LinkedIn.  When I created my FaceBook account and started trying to connect to contacts I felt like I was in a dating service.  Maybe its more of a general issue with society, but the pictures of people are almost always in a party mode and most of the people seem to me to be in more of a ‘social mood’ in their profiles and comments.  Maybe I’m just turning into an old guy, but it just seems like the purpose is different, whether the creators intended it to be different or not.  Maybe the new wave is to totally mashup your personal and professional life.  I’m not sure I’m down with that though… that’ll take some getting used to. 

So, again I’m not saying use LinkedIn  over Facebook.  I’m looking for someone to convince me that I should invest the time into FaceBook for professional endeavors.  So… let me have it.

A foolproof way to end bank account phishing? Close, but not quite.

Slashdot linked to an interesting story today about a possible foolproof way to end bank account phishing. I think its a step in the right direction, but I don’t think it would be a sure fire way to prevent them.

Saving planet Earth – Personally and Professionally

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I rented ‘An inconvenient truth’. This is the documentary by Al Gore about global warming. In it, Mr. Gore presents pretty compelling arguments that we are headed towards great peril unless we immediately take steps to avoid it. I have long thought we were not doing right ‘by the earth’, but didnt think the effects would be evident as soon as he expressed. Fifty percent of the info I read are rebuttals to his claims and the other fifty are in support of it. After my own investigation (Google-o-rama) it seems that there is no doubting the ‘rapid trending’ in the negative direction over the last 30 years, to the degree to which it hasn’t been historically detectable over the past several hundreds of thousands of years. This affects me personally and professionally, doesn’t it?

The Miami University CIT Spring Meeting Details

I’m a member of the Miami University (Ohio) Computer and Information Technology Advisory Council. Basically, we’re a group of people who work in the IT industry that Miami U visits with at least twice a year to discuss curricula, industry trends, and other related IT issues that may help them increase enrollment, teach more relevant information, and better prepare students for a career in IT.

We had our Spring meeting today and it was pretty enlightening. Basically, the regional campuses are considering having a Bachelor’s degree program for CIT. That would mean that you wouldn’t have to transfer to the Oxford campus to ‘finish’ your 4 yr degree. I would have done it if they would have had it way back then. Another thing that was evident, and even mentioned by Marik Dollar (The Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science) was that computer science and IT degree enrollments around the nation were falling very rapidly. He mentioned some statistics that I found very interesting.

Entering the blogosphere – with purpose.

So why do I blog? Well, a few weeks ago I heard a guy in a podcast or something, can’t remember exactly, say something along the lines of “With the way information is flowing today, and what KIDS just know about the internet and online identities, if you’re in a tech field and you don’t have an online identity in 2010 then you will be at a disadvantage to those who do.” I can’t remember the details because at the moment I giggled about it. A few days later, during my daughters 3rd birthday party at my house, I walked into my office and found my wife trying to help my nephew upload a picture she had just taken of him into his myspace page. We fiddled around with it for a bit and finally got it done. I was somewhat taken by the fact that he’s 12 years old and was talking about this friends page and that friends page, how cool they were, and how many people visited them. I decided that the guy I had heard was probably right. I wish I would have paid more attention to who he was. I do remember that he had started and sold 4 or 5 companies that were on the edge of technology – basically the commentator was saying he had a knack for seeing things coming and being right about them.

Running into an old friend

I ran into an old friend Saturday night. We hadn’t seen each other or talked to one another in nearly 3 years for one reason or another. We were in a band together for years, he the lead vocalist and I the rythm guitarist. We were great friends for way longer. I left the band as soon as my wife and I were expecting our first daughter because I didn’t have the time that I would have wanted to devote to it. Anyways, we exchanged numbers and hopefully we’ll be able to hang out again soon.

His band’s myspace page gives a glimpse into what a great success they’ve become. I mean, look at the client list for the recording studio where they recorded their album. Listening to their songs takes me back… being on stage with a guitar was fun. Im not sure whether it was more fun than the Tuesday and Sunday night practices, but definitely more gratifying.

Resume Writing 101 (says me)

Part of my job at my company is to interview potential employees whose resumes fit a technical profile – basically they’re a Java/WebSphere person (or aspire to be). They range from entry level people (who don’t really fit this blog post) to people who have been doing development for many years. I have two major pet peeves about resumes for potential candidates.