fooWare!

As if my last blog post didn’t give you the impression, I’m pretty dependent on mobile devices. My iPhone (formerly my Blackberry), my iPad, and my laptop are all tools I depend in for my professional life, and I also find they help me significantly in my personal life. My brother takes a slight different approach, commenting “And I don’t even have a smart phone yet. I personally think it is ridiculous to pay another $30/month for something I don’t have/use now.” His comment illustrates another side of what Chris Brogan writes about on the American Express OPEN Forum about the “mobile divide”.

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I’ve been using a Blackberry for 5 years. From the start, I was a typical Crackberry addict. Twenty-four/seven, I had my Blackberry. Over time, I used 4 different Blackberry models. At one point, my wife asked me what would happen if she took my Blackberry and flushed it. I told her another one would grow back in its place.

So how did I shift to the iPhone? And how does it compare for me to the Blackberry which I had gained such dependence?

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One of the people I follow on Twitter, @ccseed, tweeted a question earlier today “What was the best class you ever took, at any level, and why?”. My answer to this was short (limited by the 140 character limit on Twitter, “Aerospace Propulsion, senior year in Eng. at SU. Very challenging, coupled with very motivating and encouraging professor.” I wanted to take a minute to tell the rest of the story.

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An interesting side effect of the connected world, the emergence of the citizen journalist. I’m not the first one to make this observation; consider the reporting of the US invasion of Baghdad as reported by Salam Pax in his blog Where is Raed?. Blogs have allowed anyone to report “the news” as they see it, in their corner of the world, from their perspective.

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I did my civic duty earlier today, and cast my vote in the presidential election, as well as the local elections and ballot questions here in Massachusetts. And I have to say that as I did, what was most important to me was the act of voting. Regardless of your political persuasion or choice, whether I agree or not with your choices or reasons for choosing, what matters most to this democracy is your participation. I listened to the debates, I did my research, and I made my choices. I hope that many many of my fellow citizens did the same thing.

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Here in Boston, it’s a beautiful day. Perfect spring weather, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. But I’m working my cha-cha off because of three different major projects, each with critical deliverables this week. Blood pressure spikes everytime the Blackberry buzzes. Worked 70+ hours last week, expect in the 80s next week, have only had two days this year I haven’t done any work. My wife and son are in FL with her family for Passover…I gotta get out of Dodge…

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When U2 released “The Joshua Tree”, it was a pretty cool album. It was 1987, sophomore year at HHS for me…

It was so cool, I thought, I want to go find and see the Joshua Tree. It’s not shown on the album cover (I checked to be sure). Nobody told me there was more than just one…way more…

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“It’s In The Way That You Use It” – Eric Clapton

Nice guitar riffs (of course, this is Eric Clapton we’re talking about) and a good drumline.

“Bleed It Out” – Linkin Park

I wasn’t so impressed by the iTunes clips of the other songs on the “Minutes To Midnight” album (except “What I’ve Done”), but this is a good screamer; even though it’s only about 2 minutes long.

“Tarantula” – Smashing Pumpkins

Another good screamer, reminds me of some of the tracks off “Siamese Dream”.

“You’re Not Alone” (Airplay Mix) – ATB

This is a song for driving down the West Side highway in New York City at 1am. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, but this is what I would have on the stereo.

“Werewolves of London” – Warren Zevon

This is a Chuck’s song. If you went to Syracuse in the early 90′s, you know what I mean. Long live Hungry Charley!

This is a test posting from Word 2007. I’ll go ahead and admit it from the start, I’m a Microsoft fan (quick, get the flame-retardant trousers). How can I not be? For more than a decade I’ve been writing software for Windows using all kinds of Microsoft technologies. Say what you want about Microsoft being the evil empire, but they help me keep a roof over my head and food on my table.

I’m sure there are other tools out there to do the same thing, but one feature that I like about Microsoft Word 2007 is the fact that I can write my blog posts from it, and post them right to my site. Nice integration folks, seems to work like a treat. While I’m at it; a comment on the RibbonBar. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal before the release of Office 2007 about Microsoft’s gamble on the RibbonBar, being a major UI change to such a widely-used piece of software. I like it. Very much so. Took maybe a day to get used to, and mainly because it changes where you find things. Now I’m used to it, and I actually find it tough to go back to a regular menu.

This is the new foo-Ware! Well, as of summer 2007…

foo-Ware! started out as a site supporting my shareware development, and then supported my consulting and contracting jobs. Now I work full time as the Application Development Manager for a global economics consulting firm, CRA International. CRA keeps me pretty very busy, so foo-Ware! has taken a backseat for the past 3 years or so. But, after feeling guilty about letting the virtual cobwebs grow, I decided to rebuild as a site for me periodic thoughts and interests. We’ll see how things go with foo-Ware! v3.0…