Jeff.Robbins.ws

Computer World wrote an interesting article on CIO’s that followed a non-typical path to the CIO/CTO position. You can read it for yourself here.

I’ve never made it a secret that I would like to move into a CIO/CTO type position in my future. I never did see myself as a grumpy old architect that had long debates over the proper uses of some esoteric programming technique. This is the reason I have gone back to school to get and MBA, I suppose it would be the more traditional path toward those positions. After reading that article, I am a bit disheartened.

As much as I don’t like to admit it, but the more I have learned it seems that the CIO’s and CTO’s of the world are still little better than bureaucrats. I suppose I had a rather Utopian view of what the positions were like, grizzled tech veterans with decades of development and administration under their belt. The perfect amalgamation of business savvy and tech know-how. It seems, however, that the truth is more watered down that that. Apparently a lot of CIO and CTO are simply business people that “showed an interest” in computers. Wow, I wonder if their Mom got them a ‘puter for Christmas (yes, I just quoted Hackers). It seems what is missing from these poor souls that ‘fell’ into the CIO positions is a techno-lust that consumes most computer geeks. I am open to idea that one must shed certain undesirable traits to become more universally acceptable when bridging the gap between business and technology. Its just a shame that many seem to build the bridge then sit back contently and wave to the other side.

I live Amazon MP3. They were the first to offer paid, non-DRM, MP3 downloads. So they get my business. I am not really into the indie music scene, my tastes usually run more mainstream, so that invalidates all the little pay-per-download sites that offer a couple hundred songs for download. The first time I go to look for a song and can’t find it will usually be the last time I merchant a site. That just the unfortunate part of the micropayment system. I want to get what I want now, and I am not going to spend a lot of time looking for a product to spend 99 cents. Make it fast, comprehensive and cheap and you’ll have my business every time. Sorry Ubuntu

Aaron Bockover, founder of the Banshee music player/manager, tells us that 100% of the affliate revenue goes to the Gnome foundation if you buy music from Amazon MP3 through the Banshee interface. Read his blog post here.. So, from now on I will be purchasing my music through Banshee. Sorry UbuntuOne music store, maybe given some time you will be competitive, but not yet.

Originally read from OMG! Ubuntu!

I just put the JRBackup script on Google code here: http://code.google.com/p/jrbackup/

I like not having to keep a server running at home 24×7 to host my projects any more. Now my shoddy bash scripting technique can be on display for the whole world to jeer at! I have found scripts easier to peck at than larger projects like the JHulk project, I have been bouncing JRBackup around by email to myself for a while now.

This post from Dan Heath was like a sudden ray of light for me. It amazing that something so fundamental and seemingly obvious, has slipped by me for so long. Rather than focusing on our weaknesses and trying to figure out why we can’t do something right, or why we seem to always fail at something, we should look at what IS working and why its working for us. Then, we can take those practices and lessons and attempt to apply them to what isn’t working.

Now you might say, ‘Well, I do that already!” I seriously doubt it, this is something that is so fundamental to human nature we don’t even think about it. Think about school (for some of us it is further back than others), when you got your marking card, did you look for bad grades? I bet you did. I know I did. Its natural for us to do this. Dan’s advice is to look at the good grades and analyze what worked with those classes.

This idea seems both fundamentally sound, but also terrifically difficult to implement. In my mind I can see two scenarios why something would work for me.

1. I found the subject fascinating and working on it didn’t feel like work so I was inclined to be far more receptive when dealing with it
2. The subject was simple, or it required little brain power to achieve great results

How then would I apply the ease of art class to the calculus class that nearly ended my sanity? I really have no idea. Calculus required an enormous amount of time for me to get below average marks, art on the other hand, required me to show up. Maybe its just a bad example but I think the idea has a lot of merit in specific situations.

I started a new little pet project called simple backup (yeah, real original, I know) Its a bash script that has grown out of my need for a simple way to keep a rolling backup of the various sites I host on my servers. Its really rough right now, please don’t blame me if running this on your server causes a nuclear winter in your vicinity.
Check it out: http://jeff.robbins.ws/code/simple-backup

Found this little nugget of humor in WordPress today. Go to edit a page, then go to compare to autosave (previous version), then try to compare the same versions. Nice little easter egg in there to remind you of your boneheaded selection..