jonathan carter

Turning 30

// February 8th, 2012 // 4 Comments » // Free Software, Jonathan

I’ve always heard people complaining about turning 30 before and wondered what it would be like for me.

I’m thrilled to turn 30. I feel like I’m 20. I think I’m some kind of late bloomer, my 20′s were probably more like what teens are like for most and while I still feel young and restless, I’m slowly but surely growing more confident, more relaxed, more content, more independent and I’m becoming more and more ME.

I’ve overcome quite a lot of personal problems in the past, and I’m glad to be at a point where all my current problems are solvable without much help from anyone else (even though that means I had to mark some things as ‘wontfix’). Having said that, I’m really happy having the people in my life that I do. The people that are always there for me, whether I’m in SA or in Canada (my support network!) THANK YOU! I’m grateful for every moment we get to spend together!

I have a good feeling for this year and the future, there’s some great things on the way!

It’s all lies!

// December 10th, 2007 // 4 Comments » // Free Software, Jonathan

Working for Microsoft

No no no!!! It’s all lies. Well, not really lies, just a misunderstanding. It’s another Jonathan Carter that has gone to work for Microsoft, not me. I’ve received two phone calls today and one email asking me about it. The other Jonathan’s about page says “I am currently acting as the technical evangelist for the .NET framework and Visual Studio at Microsoft” – that makes it quite obvious that it’s not me.

Moving to Jo’burg

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Jo’burg the last 2-3 months. Lots of people have told me things like “I hear you’ve moved here permanently now” or “I hear you’re moving to Jo’burg next year?”. I don’t know where you’re hearing this, but it’s not true. I might spend more or less a week or so there every month next year, but that’s about it, there are no plans to move to Jo’burg, and it’s extremely unlikely that there ever will be.

Hope that clears everything up :)

Ubuntu Certified!

// March 29th, 2007 // 11 Comments » // Free Software

Tonight I got some post from my old place (which mostly contained some old bank statements), but inbetween, there was a really cool surprise, my Ubuntu Certified Professional certificate and card!

Whohoo!

Shutdown Day – Can you?

// March 23rd, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Project Mayhem

Tomorrow is “Shut down day”, a day where you are encouraged to shut down your computer for one day.

When I initially heard about Shutdown day, I said I could do it, but I can’t. I just have too much stuff that I’d like like to do this weekend, and besides, the weather isn’t looking to good either:

Will you be able to shut down tomorrow? I think I’ll make up for it the next weekend by switching off the entire weekend. I’ll even switch off the TV and cellphone to make up for missing it tomorrow :)

First week at Impi

// March 11th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Free Software

I spent the last week in Johannesburg, at the Impi Linux offices, where I’ve been freshly employed. It’s quite exciting, our local government is making a strong move to open source and free software, and Impi Linux is already signed up to do big parts of the migration, and it seems that more and more government departments are switching fast in what seems to be a domino effect. What’s also interesting is to see how government is turning away from vendors who have dodgy policies on patents, although we have good local people to thank for increasing awareness on the patent issues.

Impi Linux have recently been working hard on recruiting good technical staff, and I’m glad to be in a team where I can learn from so much. They also have Thomas Black on board, who initiated the Open Source team at the Shuttleworth Foundation way before Ubuntu even existed, out of which tuXlabs, Freedom Toasters, the Go-Open Source campaign and other interesting projects emerged from. I enjoyed working with Thomas in the past, and I’m looking forward to working with him in the newly formed Cape Town office. They’re also hiring some cool people from all over to work on the new government implementations. If you’re good at what you do, and you want a decent free software job that pays good, consider sending your C.V. to my new boss.

Working with free software in your day job is challenging and rewarding, remember to tell your friends to learn and use GNU/Linux!

New company & new blog

// February 23rd, 2007 // 6 Comments » // Free Software

New Job

What an interesting month this has been! A few weeks ago, I got leads for some very good commercial opportunities, but the other decision makers at my company decided that we should not pursue it, and stick to the educational and development sectors instead. I really wanted to chase those deals, so I sent in a proposal where I start a new company, where I’ll be doing my current job as a service to the company, and I’ll be able to take on the new, lucrative commercial work. I was real excited about starting the new company, I planned to do some groundbreaking Linux work here in South Africa…

But all of that changed just 6 days before I planned to get the new company off the ground. Word got out that I’m leaving, I even got job offers from Google and IBM, which quite surprised me, I declined and decided to go ahead with the company. I also felt that I wasn’t quite the right person for the positions they offered. I then got a real interesting offer from a local Linux company. They will allow me to bring in my customers to their company, and I will give technical guidance to their development team, and gain access to their resources for the projects I’ve planned to work on. It also means I have short-term security in terms of a steady job, and I can continue working on the tuXlab distro and some other interesting things. I’ll only be able to give more information next week, so sorry for being a little secretive here! One of the coolest things about the new job is, that we’ll play a big part in the government’s conversion to ‘FLOSS’. Exciting times!

New Blog

I also started an Afrikaans blog. I decided to make it a separate blog to avoid confusion for people who are subscribed to by blog, but who does not understand Afrikaans :)

New Laptop and Granny’s Camera

// January 16th, 2007 // 10 Comments » // Free Software

The plan was to get a new ultra-compact IBM X60 (the non-tablet version). I figured it would be nice to have an ultra compact laptop that has long battery life, so that I can comfortably work on long flights or at conferences where plugs are always a problem. Unfortunately there were no local stock of X60′s.

But then I found something interesting, the Sahara CJ55. It’s the same size, and specification as a X60, but exactly half the price. The only thing that I don’t like about it is the keyboard. It’s decent quality, but they’ve made the shift keys smaller to make space for the Windows keys (yuck), and it’s a UK layout keyboard, which would normally confuse me, but I just mapped it out to a US keyboard style. Perhaps now is a good time to (finally) switch to Dvorak.

The build quality is good though, and it has a very “Apple-like” feel to it.

The new one is the one to the left. It has a 12″ display, while the MSI S262 has a 14.1″ WXGA display. The Sahara battery lasts 3 hours and 50 minutes, while the MSI’s battery only lasts 1 hour and 20 minutes. The Sahara came with Windows XP Media Center edition. I didn’t delete it yet, I’ve been having trouble getting my video camera working properly in Ubuntu. I was glad to see Mark Shuttleworth’s post on hardware compatibility, part of a series of posts about challenges that need to be overcame to win the hearts of the desktop user. BTW, according to the frequency of those posts, post #1 should be there tomorrow. I’ve been wondering what his #1 will be. In my humble opinion, I think games is a strong #1. I know many, many high school kids who would instantly ditch Windows if their games worked properly on a GNU/Linux system. I’m sure that Windows won’t last long on my new laptop either. I’ve been enjoying being completely Microsoft-free for the last 4-5 years, and with the efforts of the free software community, that silly old legacy system will be trashed again soon.