May 2005 Archives

When I got DSL, I mentioned on this blog that I was probably going to get VoIP service from Vonage. I did end up getting VoIP service, but it wasn't from Vonage.

Everything I've read online and heard from people suggests that Vonage's recent marketing extravaganza outpaced capacity and that Vonage was suffering from some very real growing pains. Well, if I'm moving away from rock-solid landline service and I don't want to hear from my wife about how I made a big mistake, I'm not going to be part of any growing pains—especially not paying for the privilege.

I evaluated Packet8 and liked them in general, but something was a deal breaker and so I opted to move along. I'd relate what that oh-so-problematic something was, but I honestly can't remember. Nothing jumped out at me while scanning through the web site. I've heard lots of good things about Packet 8, so definitely include them in any VoIP research you might conduct.

I ended up settling on AT&T CallVantage. I read their site and reviewed the online reports only for the sake of thoroughness. The more I read, the more certain things kept cropping up: "stable," "feature-rich," "worthwhile." I took the plunge. It was a painful process getting my number switched over but that was totally Qwest's fault.

AT&T requested the switch and then later tried to reschedule the request. Qwest decided not to accept the change and never told AT&T. So AT&T didn't start my service just as Qwest ended theirs. Frantic phone calls ensued and Qwest eventually relented, temporarily re-establishing my phone service until AT&T could turn on VoIP. Once they did that, I called to Qwest to cancel my home phone. Qwest said no problem and for the next two days all was well.

Then Qwest decided that, in cancelling my home phone service, I actually wanted to cancel my DSL too. Of course. Why would I actually want to use Qwest for anything? When I pressed them on it, they conceded that I was in the right and that they would have DSL turned back on within a week. I balked. Okay, by tomorrow evening, which is the absolute earliest a serviceman could get there. Apparently something in my home wiring setup had changed in the last hour or so and it required a home visit to fix. Uh huh. In the end, they re-activated my DSL within the hour but not until I had spent an hour on the phone arguing that nothing technically could have changed in my DSL setup that they couldn't remotely re-establish.

The actual phone service has been pretty good. The voicemail took some getting used to and we can't rewire the house so that every phone jack uses the VoIP because we're using DSL for connectivity. We had some weird behavior when a second call came in over call waiting, but one call to tech support seems to have cleared that up.

My only problem with CallVantage is that it depends wholly on the broadband connection. And I think everyone knows that that's not 100%. But the good thing is that all calls automatically go to voice mail and are still logged in caller ID. Plus, you can have alternate numbers set up so that calls automatically get forwarded to, say, a cell phone.

Overall, I would wholeheartedly recommend CallVantage to anyone considering VoIP. If you can't roll with the punches of occasional outages, then I would suggest keeping the land line or switching to a cell phone as your home phone.

I finally finished my feature today. I actually finished it last Friday but we decided to take it in a different direction during the code review. It was the appropriate direction, so I just tossed out the UI elements and moved everything into the Windows service.

I churned it out pretty quickly but ended up spending the last two days debugging an edge case. It turned out that the bug was present from the app's initial deployment but that the case had never come up. Unfortunately, my new feature would have caused it to come up occasionally so it had to be corrected before release. I implemented my feature—fixing the old bug, tested out all the various permutations, and synchronized my code design document with the development.

I presented the code design to my mentor and walked her through the code I changed. She approved of it, so we marked my feature done (insert Monster House "DONE" stamp and voiceover here). Well, it's actually just ready for QA but I'm sure it'll pass through that with flying colors. *ahem* Of course.

This little feature has enabled me to explore threading, Windows services, messaging, and the data layer. Not bad for my first feature. I also learned from my mentor that our boss welcomes suggestions for upcoming releases; that's right up my alley so I'm going to start pondering what my app needs.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

"Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas": I think this is an important essay for me to digest in understanding people. Here's the part that I found most pregnant (it's kind of long but way shorter than the essay itself):

… Smart people, or at least those whose brains have good first gears, use their speed in thought to overpower others. They'll jump between assumptions quickly, throwing out jargon, bits of logic, or rules of thumb at a rate of fire fast enough to cause most people to become rattled, and give in. When that doesn't work, the arrogant or the pompous will throw in some belittlement and use whatever snide or manipulative tactics they have at their disposal to further discourage you from dissecting their ideas.

So your best defense starts by breaking an argument down into pieces. When they say "it's obvious we need to execute plan A now." You say, "hold on. You're way ahead of me. For me to follow I need to break this down into pieces." And without waiting for permission, you should go ahead and do so.

First, nothing is obvious. If it were obvious there would be no need to say so. So your first piece is to establish what isn't so obvious. What are the assumptions the other guy is glossing over that are worth spending time on? There may be 3 or 4 different valid assumptions that need to be discussed one at a time before any kind of decision can be considered. Take each on in turn, and lay out the basic questions: what problem are we trying to solve? What alternatives to solving it are there? What are the tradeoffs in each alternative? By breaking it down and asking questions you expose more thinking to light, make it possible for others to ask questions, and make it more difficult for anyone to defend a bad idea.

I've dealt with difficult people in the past who did exactly this sort of thing and I could never put my finger on why it was working. I figured out the "obvious" conceit long ago when a former manager pointed out how it insulted the audience because very little is actually obvious. That was a very important lesson and something that I have strived to eliminate from my thinking ever since.

Why are people such cheap bastards? This guy clearly found Idea Champion's product worth the effort of stealing it from their web site and making a Palm version of it, but not enough to actually compensate the company for producing it.

I'm so freaking tired of people just thinking that they can take whatever they want online without paying for it. Something tells me that they weren't wantonly shoplifting before the Internet made it easy and discrete. They would have been too ashamed to actually steal something from a store but something about theft from the comfort of your own home removes the moral stigma.

He doesn't even have the courtesy to link directly to the victims. He states that there's a reason, though he never explicitly states it. I'm guessing that he didn't do it because that would have tipped them off to his activity, which makes it all the more smarmy. Don't worry, I sent the company an email apprising them of the trick.

[UPDATE (5/26/05): The "cheap bastards" moniker is an expression of my frustration with the widespread disdain for copyright I see among the people I encounter. I don't know if Ricky Spears is really one or not, so I moved the link to his entry off of those words. I won't change the wording because I really believe that most people who take what they haven't earned are cheap bastards; I'll leave it to the reader to decide if Spears' action rises to that level.]

[UPDATE 2 (5/26/05): I just got an email from Mitch Ditkoff from Idea Champions. He agreed completely with my view of the situation and definitely was displeased at having his property stolen (or copyright infringed for the nigglers out there). His webmaster has closed the loophole.]

Abusing Amazon Images: interesting research about how Amazon uses URL manipulations to dynamically-build the product images. It's quite an impressive feature from Amazon. Here's a good example of what's possible.

The new Firefox extension Piggy Bank sounds like a good idea. The Semantic Web is a grand vision that has altogether lacked a sufficient implementation. Piggy Bank is designed to bring the Semantic Web to sites whether they use it or not, kicking and screaming if necessary.

Unfortunately, this implementation takes down Firefox. I would say kicking and screaming but it's more like puts Firefox down like Rohypnol. I was just working on a blog entry when I had to quit Firefox. It started putting up an hourglass just to get an image's properties. I looked in the Task Manager: 671MB and 55% CPU utilization for firefox.exe. Uh huh. I'll wait for the kinks to get worked out.

Note to developer: killer apps don't kill. It's just a figure of speech.

I've had plenty of experience with bandwidth theft, mostly from youngsters using my daughters' pictures in comments on MySpace. I've replaced these pictures with traditional punishments to my continual delight. I've even got so good at replacing that I can replace a hotlinked picture with one of these within 15 minutes of discovering it in my logs.

I guess some MySpace cadets and LiveJournalians have noticed this and now they've started hotlinking my disgusting pictures to blast their friends. That means that replacing those pictures with even more disgusting photos would really just be playing into their hands. What's a blogger to do?

Replace them with Norman Rockwell paintings cross-stitched by prisoners? Ho hum, I guess so.

I know this is going to sound hopelessly naive, but today I discovered the power of a great debugger. I've read extensively and the advice is always to get comfortable with debugging software. Unfortunately, the realities of my previous job were such that I actually could not use the VisualStudio.NET debugger. I read that it was a handy tool, but I could only look longingly at the Debug menu and imagine what wonders it held leashed.

So today my mentor recommended that I step through the Windows service I was having trouble with. "Oh yeah," I thought to myself. "I remember something about the words 'step through' associated with the debugger." I let her give a quick lesson in the practical use of the debugger and I was absolutely floored. Logging is great and trace is neat, but a debugger that lets you watch and interactively ask for values is freaking fantastic.

Now it's time to investigate the debugger's power.

I found the following gem in the comments of a recent Mike Zornek blog entry about whether he should bring his camera to a U2 concert:

"If you treasure that thing, wedge it in your ass cheecks, that's nature's pocket." - Thomas Leonard

Waiting for the movie to start. we're going to see it in the Valley's only DLP theater. I hope this is good.

[UPDATE: Ho hum. I'm not sure that the DLP experience really added anything to the movie. That said, the movie was uneven.

Pluses:

• The special effects were incredible. Fantastic. Breathtaking. There was one scene where a spaceship is landing somewhere or another and I found myself thinking that that is exactly how a spaceship landing would look in reality.
• The original Star Wars now makes a lot more sense. I can see why Darth Vader said "we meet again, at last" when he fought Obi-Wan Kenobi on the Death Star.
• Jar-Jar Binks never spoke.
• Ewan McGregor played Obi-Wan Kenobi perfectly.
• Mitichlorians are only mentioned once.
• Yoda rocks!
• Mace Windu dies.

Minuses:

• The special effects were overused, overdone, and frenetic. What good is amazing detail when it's impossible to follow. The spaceship scene mentioned as a plus was only intelligble because it was given time to play out.
• Many of the loose ends tied seem very forced. The whole motivation of Anakin Skywalker doesn't really work. It's a long leap from being upset that the Jedi Council isn't taking you seriously to actively killing Jedi. And don't even get me started on him going to the Dark Side to save Padmé. Their romance didn't seem to matter to him enough that he should cast everything aside and join forces with a dictator. His wife was a freaking senator, for crying out loud. Unless he was completely stupid, he should have realized that he was putting her out of work.
• Jar-Jar Binks was still in the movie.
• George Lucas still thinks that the stupid Force philosophy crap is important enough to mention. It's enough that the Force is a mysterious power that can used for good or evil. We get it. It's science fiction: no one really cares about the backstory.
• The acting of Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen was unbelievably wooden. Anakin Skywalker is transformed from a brash, headstrong young Jedi (umm, parallels to Luke) into the most evil villain this side of the Emperor and the extent of his acting evil is a glimmer in his eye and a frowny face? Uhh, Darth Maul was a better villain.
• The pacing was very odd. Fight scenes take seconds, while the utterly inane staring off into space of Padmé and Anakin lingered for 20 seconds or so. It's like George Lucas hamhandedly tried to cram in as many action sequences as possible, realized that he had some more time and extended some scenes that didn't need it. Like the first two of this prequel series, I found myself being very conscious of how long this movie was. I never had that feeling with the three in the first trilogy.

Okay, so I guess it's a little more than uneven. I think it was far better than the last two in that it seems truer to the first trilogy, but it still pales next to them. There were supposedly some subtle jabs at conservatives, but I for one didn't see it. They may certainly have been there, but everything was happening so quick that my mind was overloaded. Things slipped by. I could do an entire entry on just the oddities of the plot itself, but I've spent enough time on this matter already.]

[UPDATE (5/22/05): Lessons Learned]

[UPDATE 2 (5/22/05): Reason wonders whether the separatists might have been on a libertarian track. I found myself thinking that as well.]

[UPDATE (5/23/05): Howstuffworks explains the Sith. If you just rolled your eyes, perhaps this guide to Episode III for non-geeks is more your speed.]

[UPDATE (5/24/05): Wow, I knew things were whizzing by and I missed a lot, but I can't believe I missed these goofs.]

[UPDATE (5/26/05): Here's an excellent rant about RotS and George Lucas' constant tinkering with the first trilogy.]

[UPDATE 2 (5/26/05): And here's more commentary.]

[UPDATE (5/30/05): Episode III Easter Egg Guide.]

We just got notified this morning that Go Daddy has taken the third spot in the shared hosting market. Apparently, Go Daddy has over 670,000 shared hosting accounts.

All I've got to say is holy moly! I had no idea that the hosting was so big, though this comparison of our plans is a big clue as to why. What's even more impressive is that all these accounts didn't exist in December 2002.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

My Google?!

Well, I now own the right for two to sit in the Harkins Arrowhead 18 theater with the digital projector on Saturday, May 21th at 8:50 am. What am I going to see? Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Oh yeah!

[UPDATE (5/20/05): Through a fortuitous Netflix return, I got Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones this afternoon. Refreshed my memory, I have.]

Clay Shirky has a new essay up about tagging, which he believes is as revolutionary as the Web itself since it casts off the taxonomical pretensions of the professional classifiers and fully realizes the power of the virtual space.

To be sure, rigid categories and elaborate hierarchies do have their place and Shirky notes that they are great in the sciences. Since they have stable entities and experts both producing and consuming them, ontological classification is appropriate for the periodic table or animal classification.

It's a long essay—19 pages printed—but it's worth the time.

• I got some change back from my usual Rooster Booster Lite refill at QuikTrip and in it was the new nickel. That is one beautiful coin. I'm glad that they went with the Houdon sculpture, which I've always loved. The buffalo on the back is even neat: it's a great nod to the nickel's history.
• The portion of the Loop 101 that runs through Scottsdale has a reputation for being perilous. I never really believed it, but that was because my excursions into the Scottsdale portion were either short (to Scottsdale Road) or infrequent (like trips to Scottsdale Healthcare Shea). I believe it now that I was almost run off the road by someone who proceeded to make at least a dozen more lane changes before I lost sight. Inspired perhaps by this maniac, three other vehicles decided to do the exact same thing. Lots of heads were shaking.

Yesterday marked my first week at Go Daddy. The euphoria is still going strong, though tempered by some configuration hassles. I made my first checkins yesterday, fixed my first bug, and got assigned to my first feature. It's a global spam blacklist for the product I'm working on, so it's a good starter project. I'm just happy that it involves me getting to work with Go Daddy's incredible data layer. My mentor and the top developer in the department will be reviewing it and I'm thrilled because these two are very astute.

Contrary to what some jerks might say, I am very aware that there are better (and much, much better) coders out there and I am a willing apprentice. I've got a lot of experience in a very narrow product—that means that there's a lot of stuff I've never had to do. Like most athletes, I believe that you only get better by playing with the big boys.

Oh, and the mentor I mentioned is an official relationship. Every new hire at Go Daddy gets assigned a mentor and Go Daddy pays for three lunches together wherever we want (within reason, presumably). It's my mentor's first time in this program so it will be a good experience for both of us.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

I'm not a big fan of Donald Trump. Oh sure, he's a repeat self-made billionaire and that definitely earns him some respect in my book. However, his crass, self-serving schtick leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I realize that it got him where he is today, but it's decidedly not my style.

That said, I am glad for his outspokenness. The Freedom Tower design is really, really bad. It's a shadow of the former World Trade Center and that sends exactly the wrong message. "Please, terrorists, this one isn't worth destroying."

The right thing to do would be to erect something bigger and better, a double middle finger for the New York skyline. Trump is right about the difficulty of renting space in the new building, but he's also right that that is inevitable no matter which building is on the site. So he's fighting for the right design.

It's nice to hear someone doing the right thing. And I applaud Donald Trump for that!

This is an intriguing publishing model.

[UPDATE (5/16/05): For those keeping track, this is entry number 900. Not the 1,633 I've done over at Found on the Web, but it's a respectable number.]

Now that I work in the Scottsdale Airpark, I figured that today was the day to start exploring. My previous place of employment was in a prime area to wander around because Papago Park was nearby and the Salt River riverbed was within walking distance.

The airpark, on the other hand, is pretty landlocked and commercial. I figured I'd at least get to see some interesting artifacts of the human environment. That was nice, but not fifty yards from my building did I stumble upon my first discovery.

Awesome dirt! It's probably an odd quirk of mine—growing up as an adventurous boy in the desert—but I love dirt. My favorite kind of dirt is the powdery stuff; you know, the dirt that has the consistency of powdered sugar or flour. Because I was at work, I opted not to scoop it up but it gave me some pause.

After about a block of walking, I chanced upon a Scottsdale municipal park. And it wouldn't be a Scottsdale park without a horse trail and some lumbering equines. I couldn't believe my luck in finding the place and so I proceeded, Phoebe-style, to run at full tilt across the park's expanse. I checked out the playground for future family gatherings and watched some squirrels frolic.

All in a half an hour. Good times.

Yesterday's I, Cringely offers an analysis of Apple's forays into video that makes total sense once you read it and relies on the testimony of one As Seen on TV, the mysterious Slashdot user that I've been obsessing over for the last four months.

Read his article. I think his conclusions are reasonable.

Today was the Quarterly Employee Appreciation Event at Go Daddy. They really went all out for it, putting up a huge tent in the parking lot and bringing in air conditioners. We ate a nice lunch (ham, chicken pieces, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad) and chatted. I got to know some of the developers that I got introduced to on my first day; they're a great bunch of people and I can't wait to work with them more.

The highlight of the event (for us developers, at least) was the speech by Bob Parsons. I had listened to him on Radio Go Daddy and he was just as funny in person. First, he outlined his vision of where we're at and where we need to be. Then he gave an overview of the last quarter's financial statistics, which I can't reveal. I know I've gushed about how great Go Daddy is for the last few days and how Bob Parsons was one of the reasons I wanted to work there, but I honestly feel that. He was inspiring and he made me want what he wanted. I wonder if this is how Apple employees feel.

For the call center people, the event was incredible. He picked random employees (as far as I know) and gave out prizes like mortgage or rent paid for a year, a new car, and an all-expenses paid trip for two to Hawaii. And cash. Scads of cash. I was cheering even though I couldn't possibly share in the bounty because it's just great that people are being rewarded so lavishly. If I were a call center person, I would be all over that opportunity. All in all, it was a great experience.

Unfortunately, it was totally dwarfed by my first rummage through the code for the product I'm working on. I truly wish I could go into specifics because it is an impressive code base. I actually worked 10 hours today: I was having that much fun. I've found myself waking up at 3:30 am the last couple mornings and having to convince myself that I shouldn't just go into work. I'm sure that my giddiness won't last forever, but I'm also sure that it's not going anywhere soon.

I haven't had such a feeling of completeness and joy in my life in a really long time. I mean I've got an awesome job, an incredible wife, and three fascinating daughters. The only thing I'm missing in my life is a boatload of money. Enh, that'll come eventually.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

I wasn't sure what all the hoopla was about the new H.264 codec for QuickTime until I saw this excellent comparison of it with Sorenson 3. A larger-sized video encoded at a lower bit rate looks better than a smaller, bigger video clip—that's good stuff!

The only thing I'm not clear on is if DVD players support this right now or if it has to wait for the HD-DVD format to take hold.

[UPDATE (5/13/05): Jeff Harrell has expanded his already excellent comparison into a full-blown H.264 smorgasbord. Thanks for doing this, Jeff!]

I recently had to buy a new cell phone since my previous one was provided by my employer. I shopped around for the plan and provider that best suited me—not an easy task since they all have similar, but not the same, features. I eventually decided on Sprint PCS because they had a plan that seemed reasonable, they seemed to consistently work with the latest technology, and their phone selection/pricing resonated.

I ended up choosing a Samsung i500, which is a hybrid Palm/cell phone. It's a flip and much more compact than a lot of the Treos. The clincher was the $100 price tag (after $150 instant savings and $50 service credit). I've already ditched my Hipster PDA; the only reason I ever used it was because I found myself unwilling to carry either my Palm III or my Palm Zire 21 with me at all times. By marrying my cell phone, which is similar to my wallet in its reluctance-to-leave-home-without-it quality, with my Palm, I've freed up a pocket. Sure, the stylus is tiny and the Graffiti area is small: I can live with that since I do most of my data entry through the Palm Desktop.

In my first week of experience with the phone, I can say that I would be hesitant to leave Sprint because it would mean giving up this phone.

[UPDATE (5/18/05): After extended use, I can safely say that this phone rocks! I've looked at the Treos and used a Blackberry and they're basically just PDAs with a microphone and speaker oriented for people's heads. The i500 is a phone with a PDA grafted into it. The separation of the screen from the Graffiti writing area is inspired: it allows for an elongated screen and only a marginally bigger keypad section. More screen is rarely a bad thing.]

Today I wore some tan shorts, an MC Frontalot t-shirt, and my sandals. It felt so weird being comfortable at work, but I definitely think I'll get used to it. I started at 6 am and was easily the first one in my whole suite, which meant that I scored the perfect parking space (and I lost it when I went to lunch).

I got the job at the perfect time because tomorrow is the Quarterly Employee Appreciation Day, which includes a speech by the president and other things.

I also got my first glimpse at the products I'm going to be developing. Once again, I was impressed at the sophistication of the designs and functionality. I, as usual, cannot go into any more detail.

Don't worry, there is no danger of this becoming an all-Go Daddy blog. In the next few days, I'll be busy at work with stuff that I can't publicly discuss. I just wanted to get some first impressions out onto the Web in case anyone out there is interested in working at Go Daddy; I know that there certainly wasn't anything like that available when I started researching the company.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

And this is the kind of asshole that I had to put up with at my last job—he's a testament to making snap decisions in job interviews. I sure wish this had come out six months ago.

[UPDATE: The aforementioned asshole restricted access to his blog, presumably so that the link above wouldn't work. I wish I had copied the text so his rudeness would be preserved for posterity. C'est la vie!]

[UPDATE (9/16/2005): On a lark, I decided to try out Google's new Blogsearch tool with this particular entry in mind. Thankfully, Google provides contextual snippets of the entry's text. With a little work, you can practically get the full entry. Here's Adam Saxton's rudeness:

Work has gotten a lot better in the last week or two. One of the people on our team found a new job so that allowed us to really start focusing on what needed to get done. Our roadblocks within the team are finally gone from my perspective. I was actually contemplating about leaving the company because of that one individual mainly because that is not how a team should be. He made for one of the worst work environments i have ever seen.

Needless to say we really have a "team" now and it's not one guy trying to run the whole show who has no idea what he's doing. I won't even go into what his code was like. Oh well. Life moves on. I know he is happy now, which is great. And so am I, which is also great. Time to really get to work.

After rereading it with the perspective of time and additional information about the work environment there since I left, his little rant is particularly ironic. The "one guy trying to run the whole show" wasn't him, but that's certainly changed. The "perspective" from which I was a "roadblock" was that I didn't bend to his every whim. He was right about one thing: I am certainly happy now!]

[UPDATE 2: Oh and his little justification for pulling it—deciding "not to broadcast my life to the internet"—was clearly insincere since he's had a blog up for awhile that offers lots of details.]

Wow, today was absolutely incredible. There was the traditional fumbling awkwardness of getting everything set up but, by and large, Go Daddy really has its act together. I can't go into specifics—naturally—but its philosophy of rolling their own apps makes for some excellent integration and sophisticated functionality.

I was also surprised about how serious Go Daddy is about security. Without going into specifics, Go Daddy is 10x more serious about information and physical security than any financial institution at which I've ever worked. This isn't a knock on any major financial institutions, but more a testament to how impressed I was at Go Daddy.

I can't talk about the products I'm working on because I don't know much at this point and also because I can't. One of them is an established product and the other is an unannounced one that I especially can't discuss. Sorry, but I'd like to have a second day.

Finally, it looks like I'm going to be working with a great group of people. If their first impressions are representative, I think I'm gonna like it here (to paraphrase Annie). It doesn't hurt that the dress code is very casual: shorts, t-shirt, and sandals are de rigueur! It's very true that you're more productive when you're relaxed.

Their blogging policy requires the notice below and for me to refrain from disclosing sensitive information of any kind. I'll run this entry by my boss tomorrow and make sure that I'm reading things correctly.

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

The latest As Seen on TV comments indicate why there won't be a video iPod and where Apple is going with video distribution over the net, how he's probably not Steve Jobs, and why Apple doesn't care about "alpha geeks".

He's probably not an Apple technical writer and he got his bachelor's in physics (Schiller got his in biology).

Yes, I've read every comment of his on Slashdot. I firmly believe that this is an Apple employee and this is a glimpse rarely possible, so it should be savored.

[UPDATE (5/10/2005): ASOT suggests that this patent might not be all that it appears to be.]

[UPDATE 2 (5/10/2005): Gizmodo has picked up the story quite awhile after Kottke covered it (based on an email I sent him). I'm sure dying to know who ASOT is but I share Gizmodo's mixed feelings about publicizing his candid commentary.]

[UPDATE (5/15/2005): Christopher Allen has some great insights into some of what ASOT was intimating.]

Didn't I say I wasn't going to blog anymore for awhile? Like eight entries ago? I said that I was going to try to focus on my s00per sekrit project, but our daughter was born April 20th and I took two weeks off from work—I just haven't had time to devote to that project so I guess I figured why not blog here?

I'll warn you, though: it could stop at any minute. So get your fill while you can.

As I hinted at in an earlier post, I've accepted a job at GoDaddy.com as a Senior .NET Engineer in the Starfield Technologies division. I start on Tuesday, May 10th and I couldn't be more excited.

Sandi has repeatedly told me that I shouldn't get my hopes too high, that every workplace has its flaws. But I just can't help it: it's a new environment and every day will be new—as opposed to every day being more of the same. I don't know any of my colleagues at this point and I've searched around for any Go Daddy bloggers to little effect, so I can't really say that my anticipation has much foundation.

Go Daddy has three great things going for it in my mind: its CEO Bob Parsons, its longevity, and its rapid growth. With an inspiring leader at the helm, it's possible to feel like your employer has a vision and to develop a desire to help him reach it. When a company has been around for several years and is still growing at a phenomenal pace, there's ample opportunity for advancement and personal growth.

On Tuesday, I'll inquire as to whether there's a blogging policy so that I might share future thoughts instead of maintaining the radio silence I've had for the last several years.

[UPDATE: Here's the Go Daddy bloggers I've been able to find in my searches:

Marc Gawith ModBlog, Paul Hahn, Geek Refuge, My Journal or Something, intraa dot net, cliffud, Dylan Baxter]

[UPDATE (5/20/2005): Found another one: Hohle.net.]

[NOTE: The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Go Daddy Software, Inc.]

Kinda sad.