Well, this does not make me too happy. I’ve been a happy foxmarks and then xmarks user for some years. Its meant the ability to travel and share bookmarks with all my computers running firefox. Then I happened to read this farewell from them. I tried to write this response on their blog but it did not seem to make it. Xmarks; I will pay 250.00 to a paypal account for an opt-in account and will then pay a commensurate annual fee if you agree to keep the service active. I don’t care if there are others. I want xmarks. I’ve donated to a variety of open source and community pages because it helps the developers and other users reach goals. I will do the same for xmarks. I strongly suggest you canvas your users. If each person would pay an opt-in amount and then agree to a yearly maintenance fee, would you stay in business?

Give it some thought xmarks.

Today was one of my running all around to stand still days. I had to pick up my daughter and her friends early because school had a minimum day. My daughter wanted to eat a special lunch so we did that. We got back and our family cat was under my daughter’s bed making unworldly sounds. We could simply not act decisively enough and she died under the bed. I ran around calling vet’s, animal hospitals, and trying desperately to figure out what to do. My daughter was heart-broken and cried all the way to the animal hospital. Our kindly vet told us she was gone. In a matter of minutes I had to decide what to tell my daughter. Arry loved the cat more than anything and Aurora would follow her around the house; settling in on my daughter’s lap, purring, starting up her motor. We used to sit and watch the cat manipulate our 90 pound golden retriever and the dog would just take it from a 10 pound cat. Now this was gone and I had to walk out of a small room and tell my sobbing daughter that her cat was gone.

This is not one of the jobs that is good. This hurts and it still hurts. I tried to think through whether I could have done anything different. Yes I could have. Could have acted faster. But in the end, it probably would not have mattered. I had the choice of getting a cat autopsy done and I said no.

Now its the time after with no black and white feline eyeing my lap, silently asking to be attended to. I’m not a cat person; but I’ll miss that cat that turned into a family member.

Signing off. Sayonara Aurora. You will be missed.

Its been roughly a week since I last worked. Been a pretty good one all told. I’ve been casting about a bit for work and have found some pretty interesting positions mostly at the consulting/contracting level. I’d probably take a 6 month to one year contract but I am actually in no big hurry at this point. Too much is going on at home now with jobs, schools, meetings, etc. My wife and I agree that its easier for me to not work. Not to say I would not take something if it were offered.

I’m pretty much windows free and loving it at this point. I have one system left with Windows 7 but that’s gonna go bye bye as soon as ubuntu 10.10 is final. Everything else has Linux on it as a server, desktop, laptop but its the beta for 10.10. There are some rough edges with it. I get crash notifications every so often for gnome-power-manager and once the xorg-core package failed. I report all the crashes using the bug reporter and most are duplicates of other issues; except for the xorg-core issue.

This beta has been a lot of fun but it will be interesting to see how things go over the next 10 days as we move from the beta to the RC release. On ubuntu, its just a “apt-get” away. Going from RC to final is the same. On the 10th of October, I’ll update that day and it will be the release version. That’s how difficult Linux is. Truthfully, after working around Windows updates, patches, security updates, service packs, hotfixes; it amazes me how they sustain the whole thing. Linux figured out the update thing years ago. I’ve also wondered why I have to reboot Windows boxen when I rename them? On Linux I edit the /etc/hostname file, perhaps change a entry in /etc/hosts and its done. Is there some reason why that simply renaming box prompts a reboot? I guess its better now than NT4 Workstation. The joke at the GAP was that you move the mousie anywhere near the network neighborhood thing and it signaled a reboot. Of course, Linux is just harder to figure out with its myriad text files that you have to learn how to edit. Blah, blah, blah.

Third thing is that I’m pretty happy with the Linux Mint Debian Edition and its nature. It rolls the updates continuously so you install once and it just keeps on cooking. Just like regular old Debian testing. You never really have to re-install a Debian testing box unless you commit the sin of “fubar”.

Someone asked me what I do to while away the days now. Most of the time I stop at this super-secret starbucks that has great wifi, lots of tables, and some pretty nice looking women. I sit there from 10am to 1130am and consider the world, my place in it, nature of the beast, technology, and a host of other things. Its a great rebooter for me each day and it clears the home cobwebs. Starbucks lets me sit for just about as long as I want/need/desire. I sometimes reflash my NexusOne phone or get it on the wifi as well and let it update the Android Market applications that have come out.

All in all, a very relaxing few days that turned into a week. I’ll take things into some other gear in October but I’ll also file for unemployment comps then.

I join the ranks of the unemployed. I was at Celestix Networks for 2.6 years. I enjoyed the time spent there immensely and enjoyed most everyone I worked with and for. There are a few notable exceptions but being a political animal I won’t name them. They probably can guess anyways that I never really cared for them. In the spirit of closing out this portion of my life; here are the things I truly enjoyed:

The people. I really liked all the people. Most of all I appreciated the folks in Celestix India and their can-do and will-do attitude and always going the extra yard during my visits to make sure I had stuff to do, great food to eat, beer to drink. Chennai truly is my second home.

The work. I found the work extremely challenging. I am not a big Windows guy but the challenge of bringing major products to market across multiple geographies, different team members, challenging technology terrains produced a very rich and textured work environment for me. I appreciate all that made this happen for me.

The times. I had some very rewarding times. The last trip to India was not too rewarding to tell the truth and I did not enjoy it that much. Going to a place to terminate almost 20 people is not a reason to rejoice. I would cap this entry by saying I did the difficult stuff for Celestix and when the times were difficult, I feel that I rose above and accomplished.

Thanks to everyone at Celestix Networks for always being there for me. I’ll resist stating those that should  get attitude adjustments, stop believing they are almost God-like, or operate in some exclusionary world. They are the minority and companies are made up of more than just those types.

Someone asked me what I’d do next. Why run Ubuntu Maverick 10.10 beta of course! Because Linux rules and Windoze Drools.

I’m done at one thing and just starting at another. Starting another chapter of my life. Getting rid of the rather annoying Windows 7 systems today and putting on ubuntu 10.10 beta which I think all considered is more my cup of tea. Its definitely better as a beta than Windows 7 final.

Onward and upward to new things. Simpler things. Linux things. I feel better sitting in front of a ubuntu desktop or laptop than I ever could running Windoze. Refer to first paragraph above for why.

Other things have changed and I feel relieved.