New diggs!

Hi everyone!

So, here, yet again, i'm making the effort to actually make mikeroysoft.com work.

I've had it up in a number of different iterations over the past few years, from portfolio, to blog, and probably in the future there will be stuff about some of the applications I've built. 

For now, I need a blog, and I don't have the time to manage a full server anymore.  It's handy having a dedicated box, but the thing is stuck in time.  If all of a sudden a post gets popular, than my little box will probably melt, or worse the ISP who have so graciously donated the box (my former employer, SevenL.net) will simply pull the plug if they start seeing multi-GB of traffic wizzing through their DC.

So, I chose Squarespace.  Leo Laporte advertizes them heavily on TWiT, and i like their features.  I didn't want to pay $20/month for a server when I just need a blog and don't want the hassle of dealing with security updates, managing a server, load balancing, scaling, database backups, etc. 

What will this site become?

Well, firstly it's evident I'm in need of a redesign.  Right now this is just a stock template, but I'll be taking some time and creating my own theme.  I'll probably revisit my colour scheme and get away from the old silver-blue-white theme.  I'm thinking red, black, silver/gray.

I'm hoping to get some thoughts and opinions out of my head and share with "le monde".  I figure I'm in a unique position to talk about tech.  I work for a leading virtualization company, VMware, who have been growing by leaps and bounds since it's inception.  I'm a Mac user, but not an apologist and certainly not blind to all the problems which are ridden in all of Apple's platforms. I just like Operating Systems.  Always have, which is why it worked out so well when I came to work here at VMware.

I used to spend nights on my old P2's installing whatever new breed of Linux would emerge.  I grew to being a Sr Systems Admin for a small datacenter in Downtown Toronto, specializing in Gentoo Linux and OpenBSD.

Our main router was built using OpenBSD and PF to create the IP addressing rules, etc.  Very un-sophisticated, but very stable and effective.  I helped build the failover using drbd and heartbeat, which was a fun learning experience also. 

Before the datacenter, I had a couple of call center jobs, leading up to my eventual run to entrepreneuring.  I ran a small design firm (employed 3 whole people, including me!), and partnered with a Printer Cartride re-man wholesaler.  The man taught me just about everything I know about running a business, and I'm grateful for my experience there.  I even employed my future wife, tho I had no idea at the time she would become that!

So, all in all, I hope that this serves to showcase some expressions of opinion, some reflections on things which i've come across, things to share and thnigs to advocate for. 

Soon enough there will be a section (probably the front page with the blog moving back a step) for the Mac applications i've been working on.  Once I actually get them finished (I'm learning, so this is a big challange for me not having gone through a BS SC program at University.), I fully intend on showcasing them here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, hopefully the next post is less about me, and more about something actually interesting =)