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Thoughts and things I care to sharePatch Tuesday – May 2007
I am really not going to miss the monthly patch cycle for thousands of computers. Instead, I only have 5 systems (myself) that automatically update themselves. By the way, don’t forget to reboot next week folks.
New smartphone from HP
I’m not sure that I really trust HP to produce a good phone… why is that? I really enjoyed my HP iPaq h4155 a few years back, but everything since has been a disappointment. Please note that I haven’t bought an HP mobile device since the 4155, so my opinions are solely based on limited-time tests, betas, and technical specs.
Trusted Reviews has a one (a review that is) on the new Hewlett Packard iPAQ 514 Voice Messenger which they rate as 8 out of 10 on an average.
Though the screen is a bit low on the resolution side (176×220 – how old school), it is a full 2″ diagonal screen. Other features include a 1.3MP camera, WiFi, and Bluetooth. It does have a quad-band radio with EDGE support, 200MHz processor, standard 64/128MB RAM/ROM, and microSD slot.
It does run Windows Mobile 6, so its not likely to be behind the OS feature curve for some time, but for me, the low resolution, standard “candy bar” layout, and lack of a QWERTY input device means that it will not be on my list any time soon.
links for 2007-05-02
- IBM goes for the small business. This will indeed be a big segment of the market in the coming years. That’s one reason I left a corporate gig – to be able to help position those small businesses for growth.
- Do you follow the GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology? If so, Lifehacker has a great article on using Google Notebook in your GTD routine.
- A little lamenting that someone has beat them to the Santa Rosa scoop…
Of email, feeds, research and planning
That is the makeup of my tasks this week. While I’m pretty much caught up on my email, I do have a large backlog of feeds that I need to parse through and read. Luckily Google Reader makes that easy.
As for the rest of the week, I’ve got a lot of work in the research and planning phases that will help me find and meet with new clients. I’ve got a number of ideas and will pursue them along with some good old-fashioned in-person networking.
A few things that are tripping me up this week are my phone and those little config details on my new laptop. My phone has been kind of goofy every since I got back from Florida last month, but it really is acting strange in the past week. I can’t seem to get everything to sync in Vista yet (though I have had it work in the past) and the alarms do not go off when they are supposed to. A little later today I’ll try re-flashing the firmware to see if I can weed out the bad apples on the darn thing.
Also, even though a person gets all the major applications, utilities, plugins, bookmarks and other such items set up on a new computer, there always seems to be some last little things. I seem to find that I’m missing little bits of productivity every 30 minutes or so, just because of a forgotten config, tool, bookmark and so on.
Other than that, it’s been a productive 1st half of the week, can’t wait to meet with a few other people that I want to connect with and see what happens from there.
Setting up a new laptop
So, I’ve picked up a new Acer Aspire laptop for my consulting work. It was a pretty good deal – $750 for a 1.86GHz Dual Core, 2GB DDR2, 160GB HDD, Dual Layer DVD Burner, 802.11abg WiFi, and a 15.4″ Widescreen.
Spent a good portion of the day loading up Windows Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, Firefox, Virtual PC, OneCare, and a whole host of other software. So far, I’m impressed with the device, it is really responsive. I’ve not had a new PC since the Pentium 4 HT’s came out several years ago.
So, finally its ready to go – guess I better get to work!
Blogging Outdoors
Finally, after a summer of construction, a difficult and disappointing winter we are able to sit outside on the patio. It’s sunny, quiet and really relaxing. So I’m just blogging a quick aside while sitting at our patio set we picked up last fall and just listening to… nothing!
Moving on to the next phase of my career
So I’ve completed my last day with Michael Foods. The last two weeks have been an almost non-stop brain dump and documentation marathon. It’s taken extra hours each day and left me drained of ambition to do much else when I got home.
Now that this transition is over, I’m going to be able to focus my attention on clients. I’ve also got a lot of work to do yet with that – there is a tremendous amount of work on the web site that needs to be done, marketing materials (glossies, cards, brochures, letterhead, etc…), and numerous other items.
Still, I’m excited about getting started with Avatar Consultants, the name of my consulting firm that I’ll be working to launch over the coming weeks. If you visit the site, please be aware that it is still under construction. I’ll be getting a lot more done this coming weekend, but it may look a little sparse on the services and such.
So stay tuned, I’m going to be pretty busy, but I’m going to be blogging a lot more. I’ll also be on Twitter much more than today as well, just due to the nature of working in different environments and having the opportunity to network more.
Saying Goodbye to Michael Foods
This is a difficult post for me, and an exciting one as well. There are many good times that I’ll remember from working at Michael Foods, and I have to admit that I’m going to miss working with such a great group of people. Anyone looking to join Michael Food’s IT department couldn’t look for a better team of people – seriously, the people are great and the environment is a good one – don’t hesitate.
So why am I leaving? Because it’s time. I’ve been with Michael Foods for a total of 9 years, the first two as a contract employee, the remaining as an FTE. The experiences have been numerous and varied. It is simply time for me to take the next step in my career – my goals no longer match the needs of the position I held, I simply need more room to grow in the directions I want to pursue. Simple as that.
So, to my former coworkers, and friends that I leave behind on a day to day basis I need to say goodbye. I’m sure that I’ll get a number of calls and questions on a number of topics, but for many I’ll probably not be in touch. While this is a shame, I look forward to the possibilities of working with any of my former coworkers again someday in the future. Simply to all, I want to say thank you.
There have also been many, several people that I want to thank individually – and I couldn’t fit it all in my goodbye email, so here it goes.
- Jon – For patience & answer for every question – you’re a good friend
- Pat – For teaching me how to appreciate individuals potential & look for new ideas
- Jimmy – As a mentor in leadership & team building
- Craig – For the importance of bandwidth, details, & the big picture
- Pete – For project management & planning
- Deb – For people skills & career coaching
- Guy – For a different perspective & approach to things
Again, to everyone else I’ve worked with at Michael Foods, both in IT and the business – thank you for 9 great years. It will not be forgotten. Best wishes to you and your future endeavors.
Bring It On
Sincerely,
Rick Mahn
Working my last week with my employer
Sorry to not have posted for so long, but I’ve been extremely busy getting things arranged for me to leave my current employer. Surprising how much hard work is involved in preparing your own transition out of a company. So its not a big surprise any longer, I’m in the transition phase working to hand off a number of technologies, systems ownership, and knowledge as smoothly as possible.
I’ve been fortunate to work with a group of real pros, and so, transferring responsibility and such has been fairly simple in many cases. There is still much to do, and it is taking more of my day than before I contemplated leaving the company – strange irony to it I suppose.
Anyway, I’ll be trying to catch up on some topics and address the launch of my consulting web site all this week. Hopefully I’ll have something to post about here as I get the work done. Again, sorry for the intermittent posting this month!
~Rick
Looking for feedback on The Mobile Lifestyle
So I’ve had this blog called The Mobile Lifestyle running for a year, and have really not kept it up to date at all. I originally wanted this site to become a leading source for information on mobile technology & how it affects us day to day.
Guess what? It never happened. It was simply because I never committed the time and energy to developing it in that fashion. Another fact of life is that there are people who are much more passionate and knowledgeable about such topics than I am. Don’t get me wrong, I really, really, enjoy using and talking about mobile tech, and recommending solutions to people, but writing about it just didn’t interest me as much as I had thought it would.
So I have this dilemma – I have this site with a fairly good (really good?) domain name that could be made into something. Do I look to sell it? Do I hang on and try writing more there as I begin the next phase of my career as an IT consultant? Do I shut it down and keep the domain name for awhile?
I’m just not sure – I hate to quit it, but am really starting to home in on my true passions, and it isn’t necessarily technology.
What do you think?
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They’re using it as leverage to stop enforcing immigration laws.