Conecuh Software

The Southeast Linux Fest has been announced for June 13, 2009, at Hendrix Student Center, Clemson University. Several notable speakers will be there, including Mark Spencer of Asterisk and Digium.

This promises to be a well attended, and exciting event. The organizers have a wiki, and hold weekly IRC meetings on Tuesday on #southeastlinuxfest (irc.freenode.net).

Since this is at Clemson University, I plan on taking the Amtrak train from Birmingham (BHM) to Clemson (CSN). Coach price is $48 one way. The Amtrak site doesn’t have any upgrade options currently, but I’m sure that there’s an option to pay more and have more luxury.

Event details:
Where: Hendrix Student Center, Clemson University, Google Maps
When: June 13, 2009
Transportation: Amtrak, Greenville SC (GSP)

As I’m sitting in the WordCamp Birmingham meeting today, I’m looking around the room wondering “what does everyone have in common *except* that they’re interested in WordPress?”.

The mix of people here varies from WordPress gurus to people that don’t know what WordPress is exactly. We’ve got

• local developers
• graphic designers
• copywriters
• television news professionals
• and local bloggers

The parallel common theme is that the attendees are all interested in continuing their education. In this case, it’s new media. Last week, I attended an event in ATL (Atlanta Linux Fest), where a similar parallel common theme existed.

Traditional continuing education can’t keep up with “Internet speed”. As soon as a class can be developed, the concepts have changed. In a local event, the content changes right up to the beginning of the conference. The questions raised
can even add more content.

Attending these events can help to increase the connection between members of the local community. Non-local guests can help to cross-pollinate ideas. Mostly, the ideas and and experience from attending and presenting at these events help to establish the attendees as willing to do whatever it takes to stay current.

Don’t flatter yourself. Your content is most likely not the compelling variety that your boss has at the top of his RSS reader. It’s just hard to compete with the likes of 37signals, Seth Godin or even the wacky designers over at lesseverything.com.

Be forewarned, however. Even though your current boss is not hanging on your every word now, the odds are that she’ll see it at some point. If you decide it’s time for a scathing post on the parking situation, or someone’s lame decision to require cover pages on all TPS reports, you’ll probably get a few viewers you didn’t expect.

More and more, though, prospective employers are taking a look at candidates online life during the interview process. CareerBuilder reported that 22% of hiring managers look at a candidates online life (blogs, social networks, etc) currently, and an additional 9% plan on starting. A lively Slashdot discussion ensued around this particular article, mentioning some candidates’ propensity to post pictures of themselves drinking and committing illegal acts.

More and more, blogs and social networks help define who we are, and where we stand on issues. It’s important to remember that the Internet has a very long memory, and something you say today may haunt you in the not-to-distant future

In a recent post ( There’s no shame in looking good) DHH says

“it’s at the core about people feeling good about that which is pretty. That doesn’t make us shallow, that just makes us human.”.

I think, though, we’ve got our own perception of pretty. My idea of pretty is the Thinkpad that he mentioned in the article (up next to the MacBook Air). I agree that the MacBook Air has some aesthetics, but the beauty that I see in the Thinkpad is durability and support for my favorite OS (Linux). There’s a line there - I wouldn’t accept a brick for a laptop, but my perfect design is significantly different than DHH’s.

Embrace what looks good to you. Is it the aesthetics of a clean, svelte design? Or, like me, do you appreciate the durable and extensible? Where do you draw the line? What’s your perfect design?

Why do home grown frameworks (web and database mostly) seem like the right thing to do? I’ve had the opportunity to use a few in my day, and I think the reasons are:

• Not invented here
• We’ve got too much invested already

Both of these reasons (IMHO) stem from hubris, and end up costing many times more than just biting the bullet and accepting another framework as potentially better code than yours. NIH is among the worst, but it’s easy to spot, and easier to diffuse. “Too much invested” is often an disguise for

We spent a long time on this one idea, and abandoning it would make us look like we don’t know what we’re doing

Time moves on. Don’t live in the past. On the outside chance you’re right, investigation of other frameworks will encourage you to open source the one you’ve built. You’ll certainly get some ideas out of the endeavor.