Mario Talavera Writes

One of the more empowering tools working in IT is automation tools. Some of my time best spent in past few weeks has been devoted to deploying a WIKI, a SCM System (SVN), a Bug Tracking System (Mantis), etc.

Notice how all these are open source. At the same time, there are plenty of commercial alternatives to each of these. One Company whose products excel (I think) is Atlassian. My issue is that, while their offerings are fantastic; there is usually an open source alternative which, while not as feature rich, is more than feature complete to cater to my needs.

However, yesterday they started offering a starter licensing program where you can buy any of their products for ten dollars each. Looking at their details page, it is easy to see how much ass kicking one gets for $60.00.

This time Adobe is giving away non-commercial licenses to Flex Builder to any unemployed developer (or any unemployed).  Just head over to: https://freeriatools.adobe.com/learnflex/ and fill short form.

Adobe seems to always giving away some awesome software in a similar fashion.  Good move!

Having wrapped my last work gig a bit more than a month ago; I’ve devoted all my time to building a business (or two).  I am fortunate enough to have joined forces with two old time friends from the dot-com era, really.  They both have been working independently now for quite some time and we’re betting on the success of joining forces to establish a better rounded team.  God knows I could not pull such a thing by myself  Between the three of us we figured we cover all the skills and needs we could not fill independently.  We each have varied aspirations individually and hope to help each other.  Kevin Fraser, at Eolatech, is mostly interested in the hardware side of IT and maintains a thriving business hardware support single handedly.  Cameron Thomas, at Creativeroot, mostly focuses in design and software business development.  I kind of fall in the middle having done a bit of both. My primordial intent is to help them both as best I can so that we can grow together.  Once we have the ball rolling, my utmost desire is to focus on developing sustainable websites.  Not one-off customer commerce sites but revenue generating sites.  There should be more time for these in due time, we have barely any time to deviate from our main task of doing what it takes to grow this business portfolio and client wise.

Having wrapped my last work gig a bit more than a month ago; I’ve devoted all my time to building a business (or two).  I am fortunate enough to have joined forces with two old time friends from the dot-com era, really.  They both have been working independently now for quite some time and we’re betting on the success of joining forces to establish a better rounded team.  God knows I could not pull such a thing by myself

Between the three of us we figured we cover all the skills and needs we could not fill independently.  This is not a post to peddle our services so I won’t write about that (yet).  Suffice it to mention that I am in good company.  We each have varied aspirations individually and hope to help each other.

Kevin Fraser, at Eolatech, is mostly interested in the hardware side of IT and maintains a thriving business hardware support single handedly.

Cameron Thomas, at Creativeroot, mostly focuses in design and software business development.  I kind of fall in the middle having done a bit of both. My primordial intent is to help them both as best I can so that we can grow together.  Once we have the ball rolling, my utmost desire is to focus on developing sustainable websites.  Not one-off customer commerce sites but revenue generating sites.  There should be more time for these in due time, we have barely any time to deviate from our main task of doing what it takes to grow this business portfolio and client wise.

In this short time flying solo, we’ve been fortunate to get a few medium sized sites which are taking care of the bills…

The first site I’ve been involved with is Parker Business Planning (for the locals, of Parker Boats fame).  This is a typical B2B application for accounting and all sorts of monetary forecasting for boat dealers.  Representative of Coldfusion sites, this is mostly a closed site with nothing to show outside the walls.  If I were to put it on a portfolio in one phrase, I would say ‘Distributed-excel-accounting-wizbang-package’.  I am certain at least one of you went ah!  Enough said.

The other site I am putting lots of efforts now is a ropes course management application.  The site, LeapCM.com, written in Rails, is a bit easier to describe.  A Home Brewed CRM for a niche type of adventure camp.  That sounds about right.  We all have high hopes for this as well.

That’s it for my status report.  I am hoping for the time to post more about the daily grind self employed, the good and the bad. I am very excited about this opportunity and where this different career path may lead!

I just discovered Warehouse 13 on Hulu and really like it.  Warehouse 13 is a science fiction show reminiscent of old sci-fi shows. There is no gore, gratuitous sex or cheap shots for laughs so common nowadays; just entertaining sci-fi plots.  British science fiction shows still do this.

Whenever an american show does this however, it risks getting canceled before first season wraps up.  Ever heard of Masters of Science Fiction?  Either that or their script writes change from science fiction fans to infomercial producers (too many to list).

Warehouse 13 is up to episode 4.  So far, it has many features worthy of fandom: good plots but not too serious, classy cheesy sci fi elements of yore and even a cylon guest appearance.

Perhaps this is news to me and not most of you? I’m trilled either way with the show and think its a nice break from science fiction ‘me too’ shows most networks put out… I hope Hulu distribution helps shows like Warehouse 13 find a fan-base and stay true to their original premise.

I am being asked to update my resume with the latest job description.  I am posting it here first for everyone’s perusal.

For the past few months I have served Caxiam Group (a Coldfusion Shop) as a Team Architect/Consultant. My time was mostly spent studying and contrasting, if need be, how the IT team worked and promoting modern development practices where I thought they would benefit them.

The most significant changes embraced by the team where:

• Aided in project task time estimation and management.
• Researched and outlined PCI compliance requirements and prepared a plan to reach this goal.
• Adopted subversion as their source control server.
• Moved to using Coldbox as their Coldfusion Framework of choice from a home brewed solution.
• Implemented Coldspring to manage ColdFusion Objects.
• Implemented Bugzilla and Mylyn as their bug/ticket tracking system.
• Promoted the use of MxUnit for unit testing. (Never got to mocks)
• Implemented Hudson, a continuous integration (CI) server.
• Integration of SVN, Hudson, MxUnit (with Ant) and project management software for Coldfusion projects.
• Outlined and set in motion a development workflow for new projects. Workflow was fairly comprehensive as well, starting from a job or task request up to automatic deployment (if chosen) of completed items thru CI server.

Even thou thee is not an original thought in the duties described above; I found great satisfaction in helping this team as best as I thought and encouraging the changes that I deemed most beneficial to them. In general, this has been a very pleasant and learning experience.

These are my last days here so, yes, I am seeking employment (again) and hoping to entertain more full time positions this time.

If anyone is intrigued or interested in any of this; I encourage you to contact Ethan Pitsch and Eric Sharp, the owners at Caxiam here.

You may be aggressively contacted by ‘Three Star/RightFitStaffing’.  Stay away.

I was and even setup an interview for Friday. (By the way I am looking for a job, hopefully full-time.)

Doing homework on leads I found this which points to this report in our own local news channel.

Update July 23.

I had both posted and made this post private because I wasn’t 100% certain. After doing some more homework, this seems to be not so uncommon nowadays.

I foung lots more information at this blog.

is dreamy! Lot’s more sparkle now

In case anyone cares and for those spiders that scour… here is the link to my previous MacBook for sale on ebay:

… oh so brief a message. One sentence only!

If you’re thinking about upgrading to a newer Mac and go the refurbished route (I do); buying new from Amazon saves you tax making retail that much more attractive so you may be able to move to a newer lappy with long lasting battery, etc. for the same money (after adding tax) as you would have spent at Apple.

It feels like a month has passed since taking a developer position at Caxiam Group. All the signs are there. Colleagues do not stop daily at my door anymore. I can’t state wether the coffee at Caxiam is better or worse than the coffee at Highwinds. I have even taken out the trash. I feel fully assimilated (or almost!). So far, this team feels about right (it helps that some are old friends). Regardless, It feels great to be able to share and work with, yet another, great Team.

By now, I have a decent idea of how I can help this Team and how much I can learn from them. One of the biggest differences from other Teams I’ve been a part off is how design heavy Caxiam Group is. If anything, Caxiam’s development process teaches me how much variety there is in going about our jobs. Were I use to go from concept/meetings to specs, etc, here the design usually comes first. Only after the customer is happy, does development begins… I am still getting acclimated to this ‘order’ and trying to bring perspective into it. We are living in interesting times

Looking towards the future, I am spending my time at work revisiting the Coldfusion Universe with all its goodies (Frameworks, SDLCs, religious wars). We have lots of exciting decisions ahead of us which will help us grow and attract more and larger clients. I miss working on Flex during the day but I am certain it will sneak its way into our daily routine in due time

I am excited to share that today starts my first full week of employment at Caxiam Group. I am grateful to Ethan Pitsch for the opportunity to serve him and join his development team. I think I even have a cool title but haven’t dome my email signature yet

Having rested and enjoyed my family for these past few weeks; I am happy to have an office to go to and practice our craft. A few more weeks of slacking off would’ve been close to the point of no return! Hanging out with my kids (and wife) turned out to be too much fun and certainly puts this ‘company switch’ in perspective. I do miss my old team but they’re not far away anyways…

For anyone considering moving jobs or looking for that opportunity that suits you, I recommend you hit Craigslist for this has been the best resource for me. There are plenty of job postings added daily and most of them are business owners with real IT needs. Noise ratio from agencies is low and little fluff that gets posted is easily ignored.

Moving on, lots of thank you emails to write for your support and reaching out! Always thankful…