Category: tech

Taking Stock

If all goes according to plan, I should be graduating in May 2010. When I went into my Business Administration program with an Information Systems major back in 2006, I didn’t think I’d be leaving it in the midst of an economic crisis. On top of that, I have been learning more and more about what kinds of work I find truly engaging and interesting, and I’m still figuring a lot out on that subject.

They say that during an economic downturn, the best investment you can make is in yourself: increase your own skill set and marketability to become more competitive. I know that my academic program is definitely helping in that regard, but I know that I will have a lot of learning left to do if I want to end up following my real passions. This means much more in-depth skills than are learned in IS programs – basically, trying to catch up with the Computer Science majors.

At this point, if I go for some kind of tech job, I could see myself freelancing, consulting, or torturing myselftrying my hand at a startup or other entrepreneurial venture. At the moment, I don’t see myself as a software engineer, systems analyst, or project manager for a large or even medium-sized firm.

And then there’s the question of the Peace Corps: I am seriously considering two years of volunteering in the Peace Corps after graduation. I’d be doing some kind of IT-related work in a third-world country, though the work probably won’t directly match up with my own career aspirations. Would two years away from the bad economy be a good thing? Or would I be losing my experience/knowledge/fresh job history? Would it be a resume booster? All of these questions are rather self-centered ones for something that really is about serving others, but they still are things I will have to consider for such a large commitment.

So basically, the question of how to best grow my skill set and enter the tech industry under unfavorable economic conditions has been very big on my mind as of late. I don’t have any definitive answers, but have stumbled upon a few helpful clues that might turn into more complete strategies later on.

Dear iPhone:

We need to talk.

We’ve been together for almost a year and a half now, and it’s been great – I have few complaints. You’ve freed up space in my pockets by letting me leave my PDA and iPod at home. You’ve made me feel more liberated with Google Maps at my fingertips. I even hacked your SIM-lock so I could bring you with me to Spain, instead of having a fling with some Spanish phone. But I have a confession to make.

There’s somebody else:

Her name’s Pre. I feel guilty saying it, but she’s giving me unfaithful thoughts. And it’s not just her features (though I do like her tactile keyboard and revealing slider): she’s got a great brain, too.

She does picture messaging and syncs with cloud services. She knows how to copy and paste, something I’ve patiently overlooked with you since we first met. And – I know you don’t do this because it’s against your values, too “kinky” – but she multitasks her apps.

I haven’t done anything yet but I wanted to get it all out in the open now. I want our relationship to work, I really do, but if you don’t start to pull it together and do some of the things that the Pre does so well – you’ve been promising me push notifications since September – I might have to reconsider. Nobody else is getting in my pants pockets but you, but if you don’t start working on improving our relationship soon, I’m not going to stick around forever.

I hope you understand.

-Zeke

iPhone 3G First Impressions

The good:

  • $199 8GB / $299 16GB
  • 3G internet/voice with a minimal hit on battery life
  • No longer has the proprietary recessed headphone jack
  • Real GPS

The bad:

  • Aluminum backing replaced with fingerprint-happy plastic
  • 3G data plan costs an extra $10, bringing the base monthly price to $70
  • Still no MMS picture messaging

Overall, the best thing to happen here is the $200 price drop. Apple finally wised up and works like any other phone manufacturer, allowing the carriers to subsidize the cost of a rather expensive phone.

I’m happy because the only things my current iPhone will lack are 3G internet speeds (I’m often on Wi-Fi, so no problem there) and GPS location. The new firmware is on its way, and I’ll have plenty of third party apps and Exchange/VPN support to keep me happy.

Dev Team

At my College of Business job, I recently moved from the security team lead position to an application development one. I’m really happy about the switch- I’ve been trying to get into a development role for about 10 months – but now I’m entering the nitty-gritty, “oh-god-I-don’t-know-these-languages” world. It’s an all-Microsoft shop, so I’ll be picking up some C# and ASP .NET pretty soon here.

So far, it’s been interesting trying to learn by fixing pre-written apps instead of building them from scratch. Not my learning method of choice, but it does let me see the results of my actions more quickly. Also, project scale and dependencies are way larger and more complex than anything I’ve done freelancing for small business customers. Welcome to the enterprise, eh?

But I’m in a job where my brain is tickled, I like the work, and I’ll know a lot more coming out of it. That makes for a happy Zeke.

(now if only I actually knew the languages I’m using…)

Social Network Overload

While technology has generally done huge things to help people communicate, I’m starting to feel like the internet has reached a kind of “saturation point” where the technology- or lack of integration and accessibility of information across applications – has become more of a limitingfactor in how I can take advantage of these communication channels.

Point in case: instant messaging. In the ’90s, AOL and Yahoo were king, and everyone was on. Now, I have to run a multi-protocol IM program to keep me logged into AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and Jabber. On top of that, I have to log into Office Live Communicator for my work contacts, Skype because it doesn’t work with my multi-protocol program…. What a mess!

Point in case: cell phone plans. Everybody has a “free mobile-to-mobile calling” plan to get existing customers to draw others in their social network to that cell service provider. Verizon has an amazing marketing term for this – you are “in.” Back in Arizona, it was very important to be “in,” because otherwise my friends would be more worried about calling or texting me. Now, providers are starting to let people choose a few numbers from other networks to add to the unlimited calling for an extra charge.

Point in case: social networking sites. Some people are on Facebook. Some people are on MySpace. Some people are on both but really would prefer that you use one over the other. If you’re not on one, you’re missing out on your friends’ activities and whatever they have to share. If you take pictures, are you going to publish them to Facebook? MySpace? Flickr? Are you going to take the time to upload them everywhere so that everyone sees them?

What it comes down to is competing products with the same basic functionality. Because most of these products/services lock your data into their network, it is hard to upload a photo or blog post and have it simultaneously show up everywhere: your social network profiles, photo galleries, your friends’ news feeds, your personal website. On the technical side, a lot of this could be improved by decentralizing data storage and making everything both publish and import RSS like crazy.

From a business perspective, I think that companies thriving on their social networks need to be wary of what happened to the record industry. At first, labels did extremely well because they controlled the distribution methods. Without their power to manufacture and distribute, artists were powerless. But technology improved and now the means to both produce and distribute music are much more accessible to everyone. Likewise, today much of the focus is on the site itself – are you on Facebook? Are you blogging on the same service as your friends? With time, this too will be come irrelevant, individual sites becoming homogeneous while technology still improves our ability to communicate.

On a much more practical level, I am frustrated by the need to keep up with everyone on different sites. I wish I could write my blog here, post my photos here, IM from one application, and have it all get to my friends. I don’t care about the transmission medium. I just am tired of all of the effort and upkeep involved in using many different apps that do the same thing. But if I don’t do it, I can’t reach everyone! Grr.

Cell Phone Bills

I am overspending a ton on my AT&T Wireless bill. My plan:

  • 450 Anytime, 5000 Night & Weekend minutes ($40)
  • Unlimited iPhone Data ($20)
  • 1500 Text messages ($10)

After taxes and fees, my monthly cell phone bill comes out to $80.06. My actual usage, however, is much less:

  • 116 daytime minutes (almost 75% of my talking happens during nights & weekends, or on free mobile-to-mobile calls)
  • 58MB iPhone data
  • 346 text messages

I got my iPhone for the internet features, not the talk ones. And if I break it down, the $30/month I spend for data and SMS is a really good deal compared to the competition. But why am I spending $40 a month for a lot more than I need? It’s pretty ridiculous that the lowest I can go with an AT&T plan is 450 minutes per month. I guess I could shave off $10 by reducing my texting to 200 a month. (I won’t go into how ridiculously inflated text messaging charges are. It’s like charging ten bucks for three-cent soda.)

I don’t like spending almost $100 a month on my phone. Humph.

Post-Break Motivations

Right now I really, really want to:

  • Kick the tires on FL Studio 8, which just came out
  • Build the new Deliver Me Seven website on WordPress 2.5, which is in Release Candidate stage and looks like an awesome update to the CMS software
  • Write out a couple of percussion pieces for the band (think 3 drummers, one bass.)

Notice anything missing on that list? Yeah, school kind of gets in the way of things. Grr…