Construction of Black Freight

I'm spent my career developing both proprietary software for companies and contributed to *many* open-source projects on an unofficial basis (never obtained the fabled labeled developer status)... :(

One of the projects I took the most pride in is the overhaul to the TS 2000 plus project at Trans-soft. I had started migrating the application to a Java infrastructure before the source line was closed when they merged with our compeitor CargoWise. The Transportation Logistics market is an interesting market in that companies come and go quite rapidly and there are so few companies that service the space.
The companies that do service the space are either extremely expensive; or they are developed with dead (read Visual Basic) or dying (read Delphi) programming environments. The reason to be concerned is that these companies will have a hard-time staying at the top of their game by taking advantage of the changes that come with the evolving architecture.
There are many that use hackish solutions by emulating web clients by using products like Citrix Metaframe and using their aging server architecture to 'serve' their dying applications and passing the costs to their customers.
After I had heard that my former employer agreed to no longer sell and develop the TS 2000 Plus application, I started on a design for an open Transportation Logistics application I have labeled Black Freight to be distributed by Coding Rage. I plan to blog about the design and development of many of the aspects of the application as we gear up for our first public release of the application.

My goal is to release the public alpha as "Free"; however, importing of data from customers of Magaya, CargoWise, former Trans-soft customers will be billed out on an hourly basis.

Stay tuned!

Can I play Ball 2?

It doesn't really matter the industry or the profession of the individual, but I always seem to run into 'protectionism' of the job. And it almost always results into damaging the company in some way or form.
Can't we all just work together to fix neat problems and make the world a geekier place to live in?

Microsoft Web Hosting

You can definately tell its a down economy when the biggest of the big gets into a lowly market like basic web page hosting to scrape a few extra dollars. Microsoft has formally entered into the web page hosting business with its Office Live product. They even offer a year free if you sign up today?
Microsoft has already entered this market on the side with their Azure Windows product line that we learned about during the 2008 PDC Conference.

Price Gouging By Sirius

Yesterday, I received a email from Sirius Satellite Radio with the subject line of:
"Immediate Action Required Regarding Your SIRIUS Service"

The email was notifying me that my satellite radio was going to cut me off of the internet streaming for my Sirius Stiletto unless I pay an extra 3 dollars a month or an extra 36 dollars a year. I am already paying 12.95 a month and don't feel I am getting the value for an additional increase.

I am very upset about this because I no longer have a competitor to switch to. The foundation of the arguement for the merger was that there would be no price increases and greater content available for the average consumer. Less than one month after the merger, I started to lose channels and now I am loosing the single greatest feature for the average office worker "to listen to sirius when I'm not in the car".

Sadly, I will be selling my radio and dropping my subscription after march 11th. Sirius defrauded me and now I am paying the price. What is on regular radio nowadays?

The 'what' is not as important as the how

As we are nearing the close of January, I have had some time to reflect not only on my New Years resolutions; but other folks that surround me. A common thing that people do is they set a generalized goal rather than a specific. Such as: Lose weight, Drive Less, Be More Green, Smell Better.

I find that more often than not I fail at generalizations and others fail because they are just a goal, there is nothing specific to them that gives you a reachable target. For example, if my only goal is to 'lose weight'; there are dozens of ways to accomplish this and you lose target. If your goal was to smell better, this could be accomplished by bathing, using soap, changing your sheets, etc..etc...

Do we generalize for the secret wish to not achieve our goals?

To Fat To Fish

So, I just finished reading Artie Lange's new book "Too Fat To Fish". The book was an interesting read into the mindset of a self destructive person that had every reason to celebrate his success but consistently chooses to destroy himself. It's worth the read.

Meta-blog: Programming: love it or leave it.

Yes, I know Orin doesn't believe in meta-blogging, but this is a topic that is close to heart. I'm referring to Jeff Atwood's recent comments regarding programming as a career and specifically Joel Spolsky's remarks. I have to say I am in total agreement. While programming wasn't my first (or second) career choice growing up I have fallen totally in love over the last 15 years with software craftsmanship. Software programming is an 'excellent career' that will feed you daily challenges and mind puzzles to work over. How many job's out that evolve on a daily basis? I do totally commend the original authors aspirations to obtain a new degree. Personally, I think everybody should be updating their personal skill sets and knowledge core over the course of their life. I don't believe education is ever completed; regardless of life's course.

I have worked for large ISV's, micro ISV's and in house IT honing my craft and have never been bored. I have met many fellow developers that grumbled and griped and it never failed to amaze me that they don't share the same passion I do.

I agree totally Jeff: Programming: love it or leave it.

But then like Jeff, I am spending New Years Eve working on Black Freight and updating my blog.