Back with a Vengeance!
Well, not really a vengeance because I am not really mad at anything. I have decided to try to kick start my blogging career on both my tech blog (what you are reading) as well as my productivity blog. I am starting here, with 1-ManIT, because there have been a lot more changes in my life in this area then any other. I will hit some of the highlights now with more meaningful posts in the following days.
One of the biggest changes to occur has been my full scale adoption of Ubuntu as my operating system of choice personally and professionally. I have been active in the Alabama Ubuntu LoCo since September 2007, but dropped off around the holidays (as it seems everyone else did also). My main desktop at home has been Ubuntu 7.10 since release day, but took a down turn in October 2007 when the power supply melted the 3 pins on the connector to the motherboard connector. I am still searching for a new mobo and power supply on eBay. I have built a temporary machine and am running Xubuntu 7.10 on it. [Xubuntu is Ubuntu with the Xfce desktop environment, instead of Gnome.] I was running regular Ubuntu until last Saturday night when I decided to switch to Xubuntu. At this point, I like Xfce. I also like Gnome a lot. I can tell you that I really hate KDE4 when I tested it for a few days.
I have also adopted Ubuntu in my professional life. Two weeks ago, I reformatted my work issued ThinkPad T43 to Ubuntu, and setup Windows XP in a VirtualBox virtual machine (VM). I debated between using VMware for my VM environment, but after talking to some IRC and twitter friends, they convinced me to go with VirtualBox. I have not regretted that decision, yet. I plan on a detailed post about this process in the days to come.
I have gotten back involved in the Ubuntu LoCo community, but not just in Alabama. I have also joined the Louisiana LoCo Team. I grew up in New Orleans from from 1980 - 1990 when I left for the University of Alabama, and never left. There are a great bunch of guys who have embraced the truest sense of Ubuntu. They have a lot of great events planned, and I am going to try to get to one or two of them. I am envious that we, in Alabama, are not as involved as these guys.
I have started to embrace the Open Source movement a lot more. Personally that is not very hard for any of us to do. I will be working to spread the joys of Open Source Software (OSS) in all aspects of my personal computing. I am no longer using Windows at home. I will be moving all of my IM to the Jabber protocol through the use of my Gtalk ID. That means that I will be getting rid of my AIM, YIM, and MSN chat IDs. I will be helping with Open Discussion Day on May 19, 2008. More details will be coming forth, but Aaron Toponce is spearheading this years events.
I am getting involved in the next BarCampBirmingham2, which is set for April 12, 2008. I have signed up for three talks, but I fear that 1 will not come about (about the Alabama LoCo from lack of participation of the group members). I hope that this will change, and that we can do the Ubuntu talk. I am also talking about another passion of mine: Personal Productivity using Getting Things Done. That is the main focus of my productivity blog that I co-author with my friend Jason Echols. My last talk will center around Twitter: Fad or Phenom and will discuss the little micro-blog that can and does appeal to the masses. I have been twittering for almost a year now. I like the social aspect and the community that is built from it. I have a number of productivity nerds, like myself, as well as a number of actual ubuntu/linux nerds that I follow. And then there is @phillymac. Phil is a unique guy: die HARD Pats fan (still in mourning), and fitness junkie, a Mac Switcher as well as author of an upcoming ebook on Mac Switching, that I had the privilege of reading an advanced copy. He tweets like a madman (over 11,500 in 10 months), has gotten his wife to join twitter and I have expect some of his 4 daughters to appears soon. He is the living definition of the social networker!
I finally upgraded my MacBook Pro to Leopard. I met an awesome Mac Dealer (Michael Rodriguez at Mac PC and More) in Prattville, Alabama while I was down there on a conference. Unfortunately, I also found out that my battery is hosed. It is only holding about 55-59% of it original capacity. I had Michael check to see if it was covered under my AppleCare warranty, but alas it was a week out of the the one year warranty for batteries. So now my eBay searches are towards a new battery.
That is all that is happening in the personal side of life. The professional side is just as busy. I am awaiting 4 Cisco routers to be delivered to redesign my network and implement a 3-facility wide area network. I am also awaiting Microsoft Exchange 2007 to grace my doorstep so that we can get off of the ancient Novell Groupwise that we have run since the beginning of the City’s email system. My last bit of fun is migrating all telecom/networking from our current split system back to a single provider. That is so much fun that I recommend it for all IT manager types.
Whew, that is a lot for a 1-Man IT Department. But I love what I do, and I especially love learning more about computers and technology, be it hardware or software, online or offline!
Talk to you in the coming days,
Michael
Popularity: 60% [?]
1 Comment