Just some thoughts, and a little Friday fun.

Looks like it's time for another update. I really haven't had much to post about recently, since it's pretty much the same old story; looking for work during the day, studying web development at night, and trying to stay positive 24/7.

Staying positive requires a lot more work lately due to all the doom and gloom that is in the news. It has gotten to the point to where I just no longer watch or read the mainstream news such as CNN because of their constant negativity. Personally I believe the economy has hit bottom, and is ready to turn around. I also believe that many of the companies that are currently laying people off are just taking advantage of the current "panic" and using the current situation to justify culling the herd, and clear out employees they consider "marginal" regardless of their work ethic and experience.

I also feel that news agencies such as CNN and Fox are focusing on negative news because it helps them sell soap, and they are doing so without any regard to how it affects people. The constant negativity from the mainstream news services is affecting people to the point that it may actually delay the economic recovery for an extended period. I'm not saying we need to put on rose colored glasses and say everything is groovy, but I do believe that the US economy is ready to recover, and it just needs a little positive push. So how about some good news for a change?

OK! I got that off my chest and I'll get off my soap box for now.

While bouncing around on the Internet I have come across some postings that I find interesting and I'd like to share with you, so take a look at the links below:

• Smashing Magazine - Clear And Effective Communication In Web Design This is an excellent article on how to present clear and effective information on websites and blogs, and I definitely recommend reading this article for all noobs such as myself.

• Guy Kawasaki - Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job Guy Kawasaki has some good suggestions for using networking sites like Linkedin to help your career, but as someone who has been on Linkedin for quite a long time I would also like to suggest that people use a little common sense and caution. Many of the business networking sites are now being overrun by scammers who want to join your network just to gather your personal information and spam you. My advice to anyone using Linkedin is to use a throw-away email address for your account, and change it regularly. I also suggest that you only connect with people who you either know directly or share common interests with you. Let me tell you that it really sucks to be unemployed and constantly get spam from some off-shore recruiter asking you if your company needs their services. Yeah right!

• GeenerComputing - Google: Our Green Data Centers Got a Lot Greener This is a nice article on how Google is improving the efficiency of their data centers. If you have any interest in data centers then give this short article a read. As the economy turns around and IT infrastructure grows, efficient use of power will become even more important, and it looks like Google is leading the way.

And now it's time for some Friday Fun: The IT Crowd - Break The Internet



Have a great weekend! ~ Jim
(Psst! If you haven't already, take a look at the "Geeks Who Care" link listed on the left)

Just a few updates.

I added my skills sets to the side bar, and updated my self study program to reflect the changes I have made.

Here's hoping that 2009 will be better than 2008. I am still looking at the possibility of selling my place and living off the proceeds to get by until things turn around, but the drawback to that is that when things do turn around I will not be able to afford the cost of a new home. That will be a tough choice, but it's either that or the sidewalk if I don't find work soon.

The things that really got to my after being laid off the second time this year, was that the lay off happened the day before Thanksgiving, and all through the holiday season the news kept posting stories about corporate greed. Reading about how the CEOs of some of those banks who were bailed out getting retention bonuses, and then buying million dollar apartments just put a damper on my spirits.

But to Hell with all that. I have got to move on and push myself to keep studying and looking for work. Eventually things will turn around for me and all the others who are hurting right now.

Lessons from the resilience of bamboo.

The Puget Sound region has been hit with snow for over a week now, and this has impacted everyone's travel including mine. Being unemployed I really don't have any where to go, but it is nice to get out now and then and being stuck at home has contributed to the funk I have been in lately.

Staying positive while being unemployed during the holidays is hard, and it's really hard when there is nothing but bad news and you are stuck at home. I have tried to avoid letting the news get to me, but I'm sort of isolated and without much of a support network, so my funk hit me hard during the last week.

During the last week I did make one observation though that has given me a new outlook, and I would like to share that observation here.

Each time it snowed, the bamboo in my backyard would bend over due to the weight of the snow and then as the snow would start to melt the bamboo would start to spring back. The bamboo went through this process several times over the week, and now that the snow is starting to completely melt the bamboo is standing tall again.

The resilience of my bamboo gave me inspiration to spring up every time the weight of all the negativity starts to lessen, and keep on growing.

I know there is a really bad analogy to my bamboo being bent over, and my being unemployed, but I am not going to go there (Sorry I needed to throw in a little humor there :-)

With determination and a little humor to fertilize my inspiration I plan to keep springing up and stand tall just like my bamboo.

(I added this image to this entry several days after I originally published it. I wish I had taken a picture of the bamboo when it was snowing to accompany this one, but as it is this image stands on it's own)

Going slow, just getting by.

Over the last few days I've been sick and out of sorts, but I am getting back up to speed. Right now my major challenge is not letting others negativity get to me.

It's hard, but I am finding that if I involve myself in projects I find I am not so down. It's hard to stay motivated, but it's preferable to getting in a funk. Hopefully the employment picture improves after the start of the year.

Recently I've been learning more about Visual Studio 2008 Express, and moving forward with my reading. I have also been cleaning up my other blogs, so that there is a common appearance.

Maybe the end of the week, I'll have some news of more progress with the Lego NXT bot.

Diving into C#

I finished the fist chapter of Head First C#, and I must say it was prettying interesting and fun. I was able to build a contact list application that used a SQL database in just a few hours.

I use the term "build" instead of "write" because it appears that with C# there is a lot going under the hood that the developer does not have to worry about like with C or C++. Never the less I think this will be a fun programming language to work with, and I am looking forward to diving in even more.

Other than that, I am still plugging away with the other studies, and working on strategies to find a new job.

Trying to stay on track

As I stated in a previous post, getting laid off sucks, especially if it happens twice in three months time.

To be honest I haven't been all the productive since getting laid off the day before Thanksgiving, and this being the holiday season hasn't helped my morale all that much. But this morning I woke up, and apparently was pissed off enough about the situation that I decided to give myself a good swift kick in the butt and get going again.

While it's not great progress, I have started reading Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML again. To be honest I should have finished this book several months ago. I am also cracking the pages of Head First C#, and setting up Visual Studio on a new system that someone gave me.

I am hoping that just burying myself in coding for a couple weeks will help me get over the funk and past the holidays. Playing with the NXT bot should help too.

I'll also be adding to the blog and updating some of the links I have, especially the Interesting employement links, and web development links.

That's it for now. Feel free to comment because it would be nice to know if somene actually reads this blog.

Working on a new plan and trying to stay positive.

I was able to get in a little decompression in over the holiday weekend along with quiet time to think about where I go from here. Getting laid off sucks, especially twice in one year, and getting laid off sucks even more if it's during the holidays.

I cannot let myself get down, nor am I blaming anyone, it's just a fact of life given the economy. I just have to focus on staying positive, and I know I can do this if I focus on my studies and several creative projects I have had in the back of my head for some time. This will help me get past the holidays, and I can move forward.

I have been expanding scope of the Urbanspelunkers blog, and will start reworking of the site this week. There are articles planned for the Cloudymidnights blog, several of which are focused on resources for visually impaired astronomers.

As for the studies, I need to finish up Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, then move forward with some more advanced web design books, along with starting up C# studies.

I am still flushing out my long term plans, but regardless of where I finally decide to go, I know it will the right move for me.

Back on the bus again.

I just found out today that I am being laid off due to a restructuring, so I am back to looking for work again.

What is particularly sad about this lay off is that I was working with a great group of people, and many of them are also being let go too.

I'm going to use the holiday break to decompress a little, and then get going with the job search again on Monday. I'll also be hitting the books harder too.

Wish me luck.

Settling in.

I am starting to settle in to my new job, and I am hoping to get back to my studies and hobbies in the new future. I know I haven't been posting here that much, but I haven't really had much to say with regards to studies or my hobbies.

I do need to get back on track with the studies so I can improve my sites and actually make them worth viewing. Maybe I should just spend some time reworking the sites off-line, so as to push me to study more. There have to be some tricks out there to get the studies going again.

Any suggestions?

Catching up for the week.

I have been really busy over the last week, so I have not had a chance to post here until now.

Work is going great! I am settling in and I am making good progress and learning a lot. I would like to say I have been making the same progress with my HTML studies, but just haven't had time to sit down with the Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML book lately. I am hoping get in so study time over this weekend. Even though I have a job, I still want to develop and improve my skill set, and I definitely need to clean up my web sites. I also will continue to develop my interest in web accessibility.

I am going to drop the Apache, PHP, and MySQL studies for now, and start up with C# shortly. Studying C# will not only help me at work, but also may be beneficial with my robotics work using Microsoft Robotics Studio (MRS) from what I have been told. I will be using the Lego NXT system to start with because it can be used with MRS and it's easy to work with.

Given that it's now "that season" in the Seattle (cloudy, rainy, dreary) I'll be taking my astonomy interest inside and play with some of the free astronomy programs that come with Ubuntu as well as working with the Astro Link Blog and the Cloudymidnights Blog. I'll also be playing around with my CoCo, though I'll be posting more about that on the 8-Bit Retro Computing Blog.

I think I'll be busy for quite some time. Cheers! :)

New job is great.

Just a quick note to say my new job is great, and I am enjoying it. I haven't had any time to study, but I hope to get some time in this weekend. Once things settle down I know I will start making steady progress again. I'll post more later in the week.

Getting back to work.

The last few days have been really exciting. Like the subject says, I am getting back to work and will start my new job in a week. I'm really stoked about finding a new job, especially one that falls inline with with my goals.

I won't go into too much detail right now, but I will eventually rework my Linkedin profile to reflect my new position. What really made getting this job exciting is that it wasn't the only offer I had within a 24 hour period.

Getting back to work means I will have to change my self study program a bit, but I will still focus on web development. I plan to finish Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML before I start the new job and then move on to C# and do a little refreshing of my network fundimentals.

I'll add more over the next few days.

Not bad after a week off from studies.

I was pretty much able to pick up where I left off a week ago, and start getting a good grip on CSS.

It's pretty amazing how having each page reference a style sheet can add so much flexibility and streamline the design process. I can definitely see how this will help in the retooling of all of my sites, plus any projects that come my way in the future.

After some correspondence with one of the experts in accessibility, I have decided to forgo the HTML vs. XHTML debate for now, and stay focused on learning XHTML. Down the road HTML 5.0 will make itself know, but I need to learn the basics and focusing on XHTML is the best course for me now.

Catching up.

Wow! I missed a weeks worth of posting to this blog. I have been buried with my job search, and really haven't had time to do much else besides some cleaning.

I had to put my web design studies on hold last week, but I will be getting back to them now. I haven't lost my focus in the pursuit of my goals, just a weeks worth of time due to a very hectic schedule. I will get back in the swing of things this week.

Now that my place is more organized, including my SOHO network, I now can move forward with more aspects of my studies including running at least one dedicated web server. I'll also be able to dive into a few other projects like my Lego robotics system, and my retro-computing.

Things are moving along, maybe not as fast as I would like, but I am seeing progress.

Dealing with disappointment and moving forward.

Friday evening I found out that one of the positions I interviewed for last week went to someone else. Needless to say I was a little disappointed, but that's life and I have to keep moving forward in my job search and studies.

One thing I did yesterday to help get my mind off the disappointment of not getting the job was to go on a cleaning binge.

Not only did the cleaning binge help me deal with Friday's disappointment, it also helped clear out even more stuff that I don't need, and in the process I got better organized so I can move forward with my job search. Getting organized will also help my studies in web development as well as some personal projects (robotics, and retro-computing).

If you have been following this blog for any length of time you may be wondering how much stuff I really have stashed at my place. The simple answer is "way too freaking much"

I am a geek, and like many geeks I have more than a passing interest in way too many things. I have been making good use of my time off from work to refocus my life and priorities, and it is starting to pay off.

Some times you just have to take the disappointments in life, and use them to motivate yourself to better things, and that is what I am doing.

I'll have more on my studies and and possibly other topics in the next blog entry.

Moving on to CSS!

Because lot's of stuff came up between this and the previous blog Chapter 7 of Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML took a lot longer for me to finish than I wanted to take, but it's done and I am diving in to Chapter 8.

Chapter 7 dealt with XHTML 1.0 which is very close to HTML 4.01 that was covered in the prevouse chapters. According to the book XHTML is supposed to next thing, but given that the book is now several years old and that HTML 5.0 is coming out, I wonder if this is still true.

Does anyone out there have an opinion regarding HTML vs. XHTML that they would like to share? If so, post a comment because I would like to others think.

It's hump day, and I am tying to get over some humps

The brand new printer that I got to print out cover letters and customized resumes died yesterday. I have solutions to work around the problem until a replacement printer arrives, so I am not completely stuck and I am moving forward (albeit a bit hobbled).

What was left of my time yesterday was spent working on my job search, so didn't get in any time for my studies. It looks like today will be focused exclusively on the job search, but hopefully tonight I will be able to get in some time and learn more about XHTML.

I know what I want to do with the knowledge I will get from Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, but I am not sure if I should move forward with the PHP studies, or shift my focus to C#. I would like to learn both because both interest me and I see the demand for those skills, but I only have so much time.

While I know what my long term goals are, I am struggling to find the right path to get to where I want to go. There are so many pathes that present opportunities that I lose my focus at times. Keeping my focus and continuing to stay hopeful are are just two more humps in the road ahead for me, but I will get over them.

Done with Chapter 6 and moving to XHTML

I finished Chapter 6 of Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML over the weekend, and I can definitely say I learned a lot about web standards and compliance.

It was interesting to use the W3C Markup Validation Service to check the code samples in the book, as well as my own sites (miba51, cloudymidnights, and urbanspelunkers) I wasn't surprised to find that all three of my sites had bugs, but I am still going to hold off correcting and updating my sites until I am done with book.

Since I am paying for hosting those sites, I might as well use them as part of my portfolio with cloudymidnights emphasizing accessibility, and urbandspelunkers to experiement with style.

I am now starting Chapter 7 and diving in to XHTML and hopefully in a couple more chapters I'll begin working with CSS. I wish I were making faster progress, but there are other priorities, and at least I am making progress on many fronts right now.

I scapped out 4 old PC hulks I had lying around, and I have two or three more to scrap out by the end of next weekend. My place is looking more organized than it has in years. Who knows, I may actually get some of my other projects off the ground. It's amazing what you can accomplish once you define and narrow your focus.

Coming up for (but just for a little bit)

The job search is plugging along and I am starting to make some good contacts. I am still staying positive and working toward my goals.

I've been networking with some great people in the accessibility field and I have found some great resources that will help me move forward. I am impressed at how helpful people are in sharing information about accessibility.

My studies have been going in spurts. As I have stated before this is due to the time I am spending on my job search, but like my job search I am making progress. I am currently on Chapter 6 of Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML and I hope to finish it by the weekend.

I am finding that HTML seems to just come naturally to me and even though I haven't started working with CSS I have been able to understand the few examples that have been listed in the exercises.

Even though it's a cloudy day today, I'm feeling pretty positive about where I am heading.

Really made some progress.

I finally finished Chapter 5 of Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML and I am ready to move on to Chapter 6. The reason it has been taking so long is that I dove into a major cleaning project over the last few days. Things are a lot more organized now and I believe I can make a lot of progress now.

I want to post more but I'm just drained right now. I follow up tomorrow evening with more news.