Career Calculus
Eric Sink has some really good analysis of looking at acquired knowledge over a career span.
I agree that learning over time is vitally important, there needs to be someone there to realize the value of your cluefulness.
There are also free ways to increase cluefulness.
- I look to user groups and their SIGs. Java user group, Microsoft regional site. If you are interested in more San Francisco Bay area resources let me know.
- I check out conferences in the area I may be able to browse during a lunch break or an evening. Exhibition passes and keynotes are usually free and some sessions are easy enough to sneak into without the expensive passes.
- Read through the source code of a respected open source software project. Look for both style and content. Sourceforge is a good starting point.
- Loiter at Borders. Most big bookstores now have a cafe where you can sit down and drink some coffee while you read about a new concept that interests you. I wanted to learn about Acrobat SDKs but did not want to buy a book, so I spent an afternoon at Borders instead. Yeah, it’s pretty nerdy, but I at least fill semi-social because there are other people bustling about.
- Network to find fans of your cluefulness. It is nice to have people to bounce ideas off of and hopefully they may know a way for you to capitalize on your skills.
- Be the boss of something. It’s easy to be bitter at managers always holding you down. I started my own sporting goods business because I wanted to have absolute control over something. I learned a lot about what it takes to run a business and I now have management experience without waiting for someone to promote me.
Motion Hardtop Keyboard
Higher level programming
Secret blog
Heather Mitts
Crash Different
Spidering Hacks
I have been busy over the past week writing for a new O’Reilly book. Look for me in chapter 4 a to be released book named Spidering Hacks, part of the O’Reilly Hack Series.
Interestingly enough I was the only person to author to use Java. I have a feeling this is going to be a book full of a lot of Perl. There is only one Python example.
I wrote a hack that gathers data about Alexa toolbar users traffic to your Web property on a daily basis. Alexa collects subdomain information as well as property rankings, and I grabbed it all. The information is then saved to an RSS feed.
After speaking with Tim O’Reilly at Gnomedex I had a pretty good understanding of some of his frustrations with usage data. So I am hoping O’Reilly & Associates can use my code internally and also sell more books.
I wrote a total of 5 classes, which is too large to stick in the book. So the entire source code will be on the O’Reilly Web site for everyone to play with.