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The Return February 23, 2007

OK, Ant pinged me a few days back with a sarcastic comment about whether or not I was going to write again - it’s been five months, after all. So, I know at least HE’s still reading… If there’s anyone out there that’s still reading and watching and wants to make a comment, this would be the place to do so!

I’m going to try and contribute again; I haven’t entirely worked out what the focus of that contribution should be. I know that my Blackberry and ITIL posts are still getting regular hits, so there’s certainly interest in that area. Unfortunately, I’ve “sold out”, and that’s now an area that I’m trying to make money from!

By that, I mean that I’ve been doing some consulting work on the side over the last few months (with more than one client assignment delivered, I feel that I can say that honestly now!). I’m still in the market for full-time employment, but I haven’t found the right place, or level, yet, and there are certainly some benefits to working for yourself. Only time will tell whether that offsets the negatives of doing the same.

So, if you’re still out there and reading, thank you, and “hello again!”. If you’re new, hello and welcome. And if you’re looking for a technologist, with experience in systems large and small, systems process implementation, or project and technology management, amongst other things, drop me a line - my “regular” resume is still at the top; I’m still in the process of considering how/where to indicate consultancy work up there. I’m based in Florida, but I can work remotely or locally, don’t worry about that - just let me know if you think I can help, and we’ll go from there. All my contact details are at the top of the page, or here.


Distinct Lack of Writing… September 5, 2006

I’m still around, but the work I’m doing right now just doesn’t lend itself to being able to write on here as well.  I’ve got some (non-technology or management related) training coming up from next week that may lead to some interesting topics and/or photos - we’ll see.

Apart from the work I am doing, I’m also in heavy jobsearch mode, and that isn’t really blog suitable either.

But “I’ll be back”, as the man said.


Life, Interceding May 24, 2006

It’s very easy to get out of the habit of writing posts to these things, isn’t it?  For those that have been checking in - sorry…   I’m back on top of things now, and should have some interesting bits and pieces up over the next few days.


Anyone Home? April 26, 2006

It seems that I have, somehow, managed to go nearly two weeks between posts here, and that’s after a vacation!  Oops…  That wasn’t the intent.

Part of it was that it’s a little hard to get back into the groove after a vacation, part of it was that I was trying some non-blog related writing (didn’t work out, don’t sweat the details - I did learn some things from the attempt), and I guess the Easter break took a few days out of the loop as well.

The biggest aspect, I suspect, was that I’ve been putting together a “Worst Case Scenario” bag, for hurricane season.  There’s a post coming up on that - I’m working on it in a different window, so stay tuned.  Then I’ll get back to the “usual business at hand”.


Standby, Standby! April 9, 2006

New content IS on the way, honest… :) You’ll see from the last couple of “links for” posts that I’ve been catching up on my reading. A vacation where you almost completely drop off the grid is a very good thing, but it does leave something of a backlog when you get back…


Still Relaxing March 30, 2006

Vacation is a good thing, and I’m still relaxing in the UK.  No substantive posts to come until next week, I’ve decided, but here’s what’s coming up when I get back to the States next week:

Good chance you’ll get to see some family photos in the next day or two as well - sorry about that ;)   One of the reasons I’m here in the UK is that Saturday is a party for my stepfather’s 60th birthday, and his and my mother’s 25th Wedding Anniversary.  Warning: Gary + Alcohol + Digital Camera + Internet Connection Ahead!

Gentle reader, I thank you for your time and attention, and I’ll see you next week!


Brief Hiatus March 27, 2006

Still alive - on “real” vacation in the UK at the moment. Normal posting will resume later this week.

The “Family” Category March 22, 2006

I got an email asking me why I was posting the sort of stuff I was, under “Family”, as well as some of the other categories - i.e. shouldn’t “Family” actually be about my family?

Well, that’s one way, sure, and I can see why folks would think that.  I’m using it a little differently though - stuff I tag “family” is stuff that I think my family might like to read.  That’s all, plain and simple.  So, it’s unlikely any of my Blackberry or ITIL stuff will end up under that tag, but random observations about life, or my travels, etc., probably will do.


Daily Link Postings, Revisited March 20, 2006

Mike Sansone, over at Converstations has written a piece “Finding Value w/ Daily Links”, and was kind enough to include myself as one of the folks whose daily link postings he found value in. Well, first – “thanks!”. But I thought I’d expand on the “why” behind the daily link postings (or the not-so-daily link postings as they tend to be).

Mike’s opening observation is:

When I first began blogging, I thought daily links were a lazy way to publish a post. It almost stopped me from subscribing to some feeds. When I show these posts to others, their initial reaction is similar.

I know exactly what you mean. If I’m subscribing to a feed, and all it turns out to be is a series of link postings, it’s unlikely to stay in my feed list for long. There are plenty of places I’ll get information like that already – digg, Newsvine, Slashdot, etc.

Mike closes his piece with this:

By sharing what you’re reading - sharing your knowledge - your customers become smarter, and you’re all on the same page.

That’s a fair part of why I do the link posts, when I do them – there are some folks reading my site that I specifically want to see what I’m working through, web wise. But there’s more to it than that.

Back in January, I wrote “On Daily Link Postings” and addressed the reasons I was doing the daily link posting thing then. This was in response to Bren, of Slacker Manager, stopping the publishing of his daily links. I’ve thought about it a little more since then, and thought I’d expand on the nature of the daily link post, as it relates to me.

  1. To show the blog is “alive” – if I get caught up in my “day” job, I may not get around to writing a “real” post on the blog for a few days. I don’t want to re-blog, and post snippets of news or whatever that are going to be seen in a multitude of other places, so a post with a few links that I came across that day “keeps the blog ticking over”.
  2. That said, it may be that the reason I’m busy is I’m researching something or other – and that typically leads to a number of pages and links on the same or similar topics. That may be useful to others, but will also serve as a reference point for me.
  3. As a part of my daily GTD process, I look at the blog during my morning review, making sure it’s up and seeing if there’s any comments that I should respond to. Daily link posts only publish if I marked items through to del.icio.us the day before, so it’s the top of the page if there is one – sometimes, I may mark a number of items during the day, and not actually get to look at them as closely as I might want to. The link post the next day reminds me of that fact – and indeed, I use a del.icio.us tag of “@ToCheck” specifically for things like this.
  4. As I noted in my January post, having the daily links come in to my RSS aggregator, and then be indexed by my desktop tool, provides me quick access AND a backup of these links, should del.icio.us be down.

I want to be a creator of content, rather than a republisher, and it’s my aim to keep the daily link posts in the minority on this site; at one point, when I was setting them up, I was tempted to have them post to a category that I then didn’t have displayed on the front-page of the website. But that ties us back to Mike’s final observation, that sharing your reading (much as I do with my 2006 Reading page is a good thing, and lets folks know “where you’re at “.

(edited: fixed a couple of the links)


Sunset - Testing Flickr Blog Posting March 17, 2006


Sunset

Originally uploaded by GarySlinger.

“Just playing” - there’s a “Blog this” option in Flickr that I haven’t used. I want to see how it works out.

Edit: I quite like how this has turned out.  Chances are I’d normally edit out the title link and “originally uploaded…” part for my own photos, but this works out reasonably well.  I like it when things “just work”.


Ah, Irony…

Oh well.

Actually, I probably wouldn’t have noticed until the end of the month when I looked at the stats, except I noticed yesterday that I couldn’t upload images with the built-in Wordpress editor.  Looking into that, I noticed that the automatic upgrade had gone through, and that led me to look at various other things.
So now I need to figure out what part of Wordpress changed in 2.0.1 that affects the image upload.  Any suggestions from readers gratefully accepted!


And we’re back… March 9, 2006

A little busy in the day job, followed by a few days sickness, led to the recent dearth of substantive posts here.  “Normal service is resuming”.  Coming up, maybe some iPod stuff, definately some more ITIL notes, and who knows what else.  Thanks for reading.


Spelling with Flickr February 27, 2006

Just a little silliness to start the day…

Spell with flickr

GARY ese-dos.jpgLINGER


CoComment’s Open February 19, 2006

If you hadn’t noticed from GTDWannabe’s comment, or his her post here, note that CoComment no longer needs an invite.

Recommended, and worth checking out.


On the Generosity of the not met*, Unexpected Surprises, and Written Responses February 18, 2006

These days, I tend to say, and believe, that it takes a lot to surprise me.  Been there, done that, and all that jazz.

Well, I came home on Thursday night to find a shipping company notification label stuck to my apartment door.  That’s how we do it around here – the apartment company accepts delivery for us, and we can go and collect the package when it’s convenient.  Saves having to have someone home.  (Sidebar – this is great, but if anyone from Post Apartments is reading, you having office hours of 10am to 6pm is “less than customer service orientated”.  Think about it – most everyone is going to have to leave for work before then, and not get home until after then.  So it’s a special trip to see you, or we have to wait until the weekend.  Not cool.).  But back to the topic at hand.

I was working close to home yesterday, so I swung by the apartment office after lunch and collected the package.  It was a package from Amazon, and there’s no great surprise there.  Except that I normally have my Amazon stuff delivered to the office.  I opened it up, and found it was a copy of “The World Is Flat”.  Well,  that’s definitely a book I’ve been meaning to read, since I heard it recommended on Manager Tools, and then listened to the author talk, on LearnOutLoud.com.  So, I wondered if I’d just put the order through, chosen home by mistake, and then forgot about it.  That would have been a lot of coincidences, though, wouldn’t it?

So I checked the shipping label.  Sure enough, it was a gift, from someone who has been reading this site, and had seen that it was on my Amazon wish list.  “Wow!”  OK – that surprised me.  And you know what?  In all the time that I’ve been using Amazon (trust me, a far greater percentage of my income has gone to Jeff Bezos and his merry gang than I ought to be comfortable with!), I’d never realized that you could do that with a wish list.  Thinking about it, it’s blindingly obvious, and of course, I could always have paid more attention to the web pages themselves, but I’d been using the wish list simply as a convenient “to do” list of books that I planned to buy myself someday.  I link it from my Reading Page for my own convenience.

So, this surprised me, and it was a very nice one.  And as I suspect that the person who sent the book is also going to see this post, let me now say “Thank you.  I appreciate it very much”.

And that takes me nicely into my next point – I’ve just written, and mailed, a thank-you note of the old-fashioned, pen and ink variety.  Now, I’m wondering, and fractionally concerned, that the book sender may have seen that I’ve received the book – the joys and wonders of package tracking, don’t you know – and wondered why I hadn’t said anything.  Well, with this post, I’m cheating a little – they get to see my instant “thank you”, and then get my real one when the USPS delivers it – sometime early next week.

Doug Hampshire and I both made references to hand-written notes in recent posts of ours about job interviews, and received both positive and negative feedback about it.  It occurs to me that in our modern world, with expectations of immediacy and always-on communications – there’s a Blackberry on the counter in front of me as I write this – that there’s a risk of perceived lack of courtesy or appreciation, in that gap of time between something being offered, received, or done for – whatever – and the acknowledgement and/or “thanks” making their way through the paper and mail system.

And that’s a shame, because for some things, email just isn’t enough.

This post, incidentally, was drafted in a Moleskine pocket sketchbook, with a Pilot G-2.  I am somewhat biased in favor of the pen and ink way of doing things! J

* Because “stranger” isn’t appropriate, but I don’t know if “friend” is – yet.


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