Shenandoah Speaking Engagement

I have been asked by the Shenandoah Ruby Users Group to give my OpenID/Rails presentation to their membership. I’m scheduled for June 24, 2008 at their regular meeting locale, which is the headquarters of Rosetta Stone in Harrisonburg, VA.

Temporarily Unemployed

Ex-AOLAs of today, I am temporarily unemployed. Yes, this means that I am yet another ex-AOL employee, although my separation was voluntary rather than being the result of one of AOL’s notorious rolling layoffs. Fortunately, my unemployment will only last three days, after which I’ll start my new job as a Technical Architect for Voxant.

Dead Man Walking

This blistering article in the April issue of Fast Company exposes the management problems, lack of vision and business ineptitude that have transformed AOL from a high-flying Internet company and world-class brand-name into a slow-motion train wreck. The article is also strikingly negative about Randy Falco’s reign of error as the CEO of the organization.

Note: (2018/01/13) From my own experience at AOL, I think AOL is a technology company that never realized it was a technology company, with a tradition of hiring CEOs who never understood the Internet.

Arthur C. Clarke

Hal's Brain Room Pioneering science fiction writer Sir Arthur C. Clarke has died at 90. He’s best known as the author of classic science fiction novels such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Rendezvous with Rama” and others.

Regional Ruby Conference

JRuby I’m a member of a NovaRUG committee that’s organizing a regional Ruby conference for the Northern Virginia area, to be held sometime in June 2008. I’ll post more news about this event as it becomes available. I’m also tentatively planning to speak at the event, probably on a topic related to JRuby.

Joining Voxant

Voxant Well, after five productive years at AOL, I’m finally leaving for greener pastures. I officially submitted my resignation notice to AOL today. I’ll be joining Voxant as a technical architect, effective March 31, 2008.

AOL Ruby Users Group

I got a last-minute request to speak at the AOL Ruby Users Group, which is held the second Thursday of each month (March 13th for this month). So they’re getting a preview of my March 19th NovaRUG presentation. The topic will be “Implementing OpenID for Your Social Networking Web Site.”