personal

iMac Aluminum

iMac Aluminum: For those 24″ iMac owners considering purchase of a VESA mount, I’ve posted some photos of a mount I got from Ergomart. I purchased the SAA2415, which handles monitors up to 41 lbs. The SAA2718 will handle monitors up to 33 lbs. The cost of both is roughly the same. The 24″ iMac weighs 25.4 lbs.I decided to go with the beefier model, but now that I see how industrial-strength they are, I might go with the lighter model if I were to do it again. Give them a call and ask their advice, they’re friendly and knowledgeable. [Hmmm. This might work…]

Nine Inch Nails Becomes a Free Agent With No Record Label

Nine Inch Nails Becomes a Free Agent With No Record Label: Yesterday Trent Reznor wrote an amazing post on the Nine Inch Nails blog stating that he no longer has a record contract and that NIN is now a free agent.

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate. Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008. Exciting times, indeed.

This, along with Radiohead’s pay what you want release of their new album “In Rainbows”, are both signs of big changes to come in the record industry. [Finally. One of the reasons I left the music business was to learn enough about business to understand the record label model, and why it wasn’t working for so many talented folks I met. Then, when it became obvious that the disintermediation that the internet can provide makes it possible for things like the above to occur, it’s taken a long time for it to happen with major acts. That’s understandable. When a group becomes a break out smash without any help from the old mechanisms, that’ll be the next step.]
Source:

My own Oxygen story

I met Luke as I searched for work. I had just been offshored at a previous company, and was looking to continue working toward or in an Agile environment. I replied to a message on the XP board, and shortly, traveled down to the Market to meet Luke. We did the usual interview stuff, but I felt a connection to a kindred spirit that is usually a good sign. Despite a lengthy call back process that included an interview with everyone on the team from the CTO down to the newest hire, ultimately, I didn’t make it. At the time, I didn’t really understand why, but I shrugged my shoulders and moved on.

Many months later, coming off a consulting contract I saw a post from Luke looking for developers for a web project. I gave him a shout, and things worked out. I spent this past winter rebuilding Babynamerwith Evan, my pair, and despite some last minute whatever, the project was completed and went live. Sadly that meant saying goodbye to all these folks who I’d come to appreciate including Gerry, who was in the room at least every two weeks to review the products her teams were creating. That’s right, a busy CEO directly approving features, design, and involved in the implementation of her vision for the software.

I was expecting a break and relatively quiet spring and summer and had a couple of smaller projects lined up, when I get a shout from Luke about working on another site. But this time I stuck and I joined the team a month later.

Of course, this being me, the company has been sold, and the future of the team is unclear as I write this, but even if the worst happens and the team evaporates, it’s been a very rewarding year and change, and provided tremendous insight into the art of the possible in organizations, and some lasting friends.

Looking Back on Oxygen

Looking Back on Oxygen: I had no idea what I had gotten myself into or that the woman at the podium that night, Gerry Laybourne, would one day be a friend and personal inspiration to me.[It is amazing, and a credit to Gerry and the company she built, the folks who have stayed with the company, that so many have this to say about Gerry. I’ve barely met her, and she may barely know my name at this point, but I completely understand why people feel this way about her, and vice versa. A singularly incredible group of people.]
Source: Luke Melia

The first rule of career planning

Do not plan your career:
“The world is an incredibly complex place and everything is changing all the time. You can’t plan your career because you have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. You have no idea what industries you’ll enter, what companies you’ll work for, what roles you’ll have, where you’ll live, or what you will ultimately contribute to the world. You’ll change, industries will change, the world will change, and you can’t possibly predict any of it. Trying to plan your career is an exercise in futility that will only serve to frustrate you, and to blind you to the really significant opportunities that life will throw your way. Career planning = career limiting. The sooner you come to grips with that, the better.” [Nice.]
Source: Blog.PMarca.Com