Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Thank You Steve Jobs

Very sad, and ironic that the news was delivered to me on a device that he had so much to do with. He helped revolutionized the PC, the music, the internet, and mobile industries - to name a few. Apple was clearly not the same without him while announcing the iphone 4S yesterday. His death was certainly premature for his age, but the man accomplished 3 lifetimes worth of work and contribution. His death is a blow to technology. He will be missed, but more importantly he deserved a retirement. Much respect. RIP.
http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/


Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Getting Selenium Remote Control to work

I was recently tasked with creating a suite of automated functional tests to run against a website in Internet Explorer. I've been using Selenium IDE for other functional tests because of how easy it is to create a baseline script with the record/playback feature, but unfortunately using IDE limits your testing to Firefox since IDE is a Firefox plug-in. So, we must use Selenium Remote Control instead.

Selenium RC allows for flexibility with browsers used, among many other things. Setting up Selenium RC though is more complicated than getting started with IDE, so I thought I'd commit my findings to the Internet - as other posts I had found during my setup process on the subject were inconsistent.

Prerequisites:
1. PC running Windows (I love Mac's but I'm using a PC for this)
2. Firefox with the Selenium IDE plug-in installed (see Selenium Downloads)
3. Selenium Server downloaded with a correct java version running on your machine. (Java download if needed; & more info if you have trouble)

Step-by-step instructions on setting up Selenium RC:
  1. Create a working directory on your hard drive (ie: C:\Selenium). Tip: Keep it close to the root so you don't have to type long paths in the future.
  2. Copy the Selenium server file to the working directory. Tip: You may want to consider giving this file a shorter name so you don't have to type so much in the future (ie: "selenium-server.jar").
  3. Write 2 different sample tests using Selenium IDE (just to get this set up) and save them to the working directory.
  4. Change the extensions of the sample IDE files to .html
  5. Create an html file called "TestSuite.html" and save it to the working directory. This file should contain a directory of tests in the suite, as illustrated in the image below. Just rename the variables to suit your needs or add more rows as needed.
  6. Create a blank html file called "Results.html" and save it to the working directory. (Selenium RC needs a file, blank or not, with this name to operate)
  7. Open a command prompt in Admin Mode (Start > "cmd" > CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER)
  8. Navigate to the working directory in the command prompt.
  9. Type this command to start: java -jar selenium-server.jar -htmlSuite *iehta "http://www.yourwebsite.com" "C:\Selenium\TestSuite.html" "C:\Selenium\Results.html"
From here the Selenium Server should start up and start running the test suite. It will use the "TestSuite.html" file to navigate to your individual tests. The "*iehta" in this case opens Internet Explorer, but other commands can be used to open other browsers. At the end of the test, a nice report will be saved to "Results.html" for you to review.

Happy automated testing!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Verizon iPad2 Activation Fee

I wrote Verizon Wireless to see if they are indeed going to have an activation fee for data services on the iPad2, and the response I got was "YES". That is unfortunate for Verizon. AT&T's GSM 3G already has the advantage over Verizon's CDMA 3G in that GSM can roam internationally, and some say GSM 3G is faster than CDMA 3G. Verizon might have the edge over AT&T in reliability, but for a lot of people an activation fee will be unacceptable - especially since AT&T's data service for the iPad2 does not carry one.

Score 1 point for AT&T.

-----Original Message-----

Primary Subject: Internet and Data Products
Secondary Subject: Blackberry/PDA Smartphone
Message Body: Will the monthly iPad2 plan charge an initial $35 activation fee, and will this activation fee be changed again if I decide to stop using data for a few months and then order data again?

-----Response-----

Hello Craig,

My name is Clyde. I apologize for the longer than usual response times. We are currently experiencing a high volume of emails at this time. I would be more than happy to assist you with your inquiry about the Ipad2 data plan.

If you already have an Ipad with us, then you will not be charged an activation fee. An activation fee is only charged on a new line of service. If the Ipad 2 you're getting is a new line of service, it will be charged an activation fee. While you have the device open as an active line, you may opt to have our data services active on your device.

There is an activation fee if this is a new line of service, and wont be if the line already exist for a current Ipad. This would just be a device change. You may have the data services inactive for up to 60 days, and anything past that will have a $35 activation fee.

Thank you for letting me resolve your concern about the data plan on the Ipad2. It was my pleasure to serve you today.

In closing, I just wanted to take this time to appreciate your being a very valued part of the Verizon Wireless family. Should you have additional questions or feel your concerns are not resolved, please reply to this e-mail.

Respectfully,

Clyde
Internet Response Team

Thursday, January 13, 2011

A Tribute to Wikipedia

This weekend, on January 15, 2011; Wikipedia.org turns 10 years old. Wikipedia is a website I use at least weekly, and it is absolutely wonderful that they have been able to continue operating for all these years without the use of advertising. I am not the only one who uses it; the PEW Internet and American Life Project reports that 53% of adult Internet users use Wikipedia. I even have the free Wikipanion app on my iPhone for fast and easy access on the go.

I use Wikipedia for a variety of reasons:
1. Most commonly, in the course of my daily activity, I may come across a person or event that I know little about. I use Wikipedia to give me a brief synopsis on that person or event. In this case, I am just looking for some quick background information - and Wikipedia delivers.
Example: I was reading a news article yesterday about how Arianna Huffington angered a fellow air traveler by not turning off her cell phone before takeoff, and I wondered how she came to be who she is today. Wikipedia gave me the background on her.
2. When I am bored and want to read a story. You can look up a host of things to read about. The other day, I was randomly thinking about how crazy the Salem Witch Trials must have been; so I read about it over lunch.
3. The key to Wikipedia's success is user contribution, so I started a page for my father-in-law Dr.David E Smith - who did not have one but is well known enough to have one in my opinion. Since I started the page, it has been edited by others. It is this collaboration and sharing of combined knowledge that makes Wikipedia great.
4. I used Wikipedia for research while I was in graduate school at USF between 2005-2007. Which is where I will give the one warning on Wikipedia. It is editable by anyone who feels they have something to contribute, and sometimes that information may be slightly inaccurate or from questionable sources. I haven't come across too many inaccuracies as the articles are moderated by the user community, but I was careful to never use Wikipedia as a cited source while I was in grad school. It was extremely helpful though as a starting point for a lot of research I needed to do for my degree.
Wikipedia operates off of donations and per their FAQ page, they are a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization with offices in San Francisco, CA.

Thank you Wikipedia for providing a free, open, and collaborative forum for collecting an enormous wealth of information.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Facebook Like and Advertising Collisions

I thought I'd post this problem to the Internet to see what response, if any, I would get. I've spent hours "chasing ghosts" with it, and have not been able to identify a good set of repeatable steps to recreate the problem (thus, it is difficult to pin-point and fix). I'm hoping that keyword searches will bring people who might be searching for information on this problem to this post. Please comment or email me directly if you have any insight on this issue.

The Problem
Facebook Like buttons swap and/or interfere with Google Adsense Ads and other advertising (ie: Halogen). The problem is intermittent and difficult to reproduce, but it seems to happen more often than not when the button on a browser is used. This could be navigating to an external site and clicking to return or navigating from within the site. It is not browser specific and has been seen in Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.6, Safari, and Chrome.

The Screenshots
This is what a normal webpage looks like. Notice there is a banner ad on top, a Facebook Like button/link under the blog title, and some advertising in the right margin.



This is what one of the problem pages looks like. It is the s
ame page as above, but the Facebook Like button/link has replaced the banner ad, Google Ads has replaced the Facebook Like button (thus causing the Twitter button to wrap), and the right margin advertising is not rendering.



Here is another rendition of the problem. The Facebook Like button/link has been replaced with a banner ad that is far too large for the space; thus pushing the Facebook Like too far to the right, the Twitter button has been pushed to the right margin, and right margin advertising is not rendering.


By all estimates, not very many regular users experience this problem. Nevertheless, it exists and it is a problem I would like to pin-point and eliminate.

Have you seen or experienced this before on your website, and do you know what might be causing it?

Friday, August 27, 2010

Your Hotmail is H@cK3d

There seems to be an epidemic going on. I'm getting spam email from friends linking me to websites on v1agra, s3x enhancements, and all sorts of other spam worthy products. In the past week or two, I have seen 3 Hotmail accounts from friends get hacked. The final straw was one night when I was at my desk - Julia was in bed and I got a mass spam email from her Hotmail account (freshly hacked)!

This is not the first time I have seen Hotmail accounts get compromised so someone can send out link spam to the entire address book. Is the problem the security of the Hotmail account itself, or is it the lack of security precautions taken by Hotmail users?

I have never liked Hotmail as an email service, as I have known it to be unreliable at times and very easy to compromise. Take, for example, the "forgot password" security questions they offer in case you forget your password. They tend to be very simple questions like "What was the name of your first pet?". So even though you have a very beefy secure password of "hWbkj5@g", it is easy for someone to figure out that "Rover" is the answer to your security question - and thus gain access to your account through the backdoor (so to speak).

Someone who knows you well but has malicious intent may easily be able to figure out your first pet's name, and thus gain access to your account - even though your password is uber secure! Another possibility is that a hacker with intent to send out link spam to your entire address book can easily program a script that will try thousands of possible pet names, quite possibly coming up with yours. In reality, how difficult are the pet names we usually choose?

One of the better options, if it is offered by your service, is to allow the password reset instructions to be text messaged to your cellular phone. You are usually the only person carrying your cell phone, and if someone does try to hack your account - you will know becuase you are getting the text messages. (gmail offers this)

This largely seems to be a problem with Hotmail. I rarely, if ever, get spam link emails sent to someone's entire address book from friends on Gmail, Yahoo, or any other email service. I know it is hard to change your email address, but if you are using Hotmail - I'd highly recommend switching to another service.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

iPhone cannot be synced

I received an error recently while trying to synch my iPhone. I searched the Internet and did not find a clear cut solution to fix it. I figured the problem out on my own and am posting the issue and resolution for future reference; in case anyone else has the same issue and happens to search for the solution.

Error:
This error occurs while in iTunes and attempting to sync your iPhone to new content:
"iPhone 'x' cannot be synced. The required file cannot be found."

Versions:
Mac OSX 10.6.2
iPhone 3G 3.1.2
iTunes 9.0.2
iPhoto 8.1.1

Root Cause:
Photos were not syncing from iPhoto to iPhone via iTunes properly because the "iPod Photo Cache" was either changed or corrupted.

In my case, I recently used CleanMyMac to free up some disk space and it deleted the iPod Photo Cache. Later, when I attempted to resync my iPhone; the photos on the iPhone did not match the photos in the iPod Photo Cache, causing the error.

Fix:
  1. In iTunes, select options on the Photos tab to manually manage photos that synch to iPhone. (Select option to "select albums..." and include "no events")
  2. Uncheck all photos (Albums, Events, Faces) and sync. The result will be a sync that removes all photos from the iPhone.
  3. Next, follow these instructions from Apple to delete the "iPod Photo Cache".
  4. Once complete, return to iTunes and select which photo albums/events/faces (or all) you want to sync to iPhone and sync.
The issue should now be resolved as iPhoto will create a new iPod Photo Cache and sync your photos without error. As always, back up your data before deleting or altering system configurations. Good luck!

Monday, December 14, 2009

De-friending on Facebook

I have only had to do it 3 times, and I am about to do it again. I am de-friending someone on Facebook. It has become a social step one takes in breaking off ties with people. People getting into an argument is one thing, but if they decide to take the step to de-friend, then it is an indication that things really are over. Someone will say "..S/He even defriended me on facebook..." - O M G!

It has become the final slap in the face, the final insult, the final indication that the person de-friending you no longer wants contact with you. It is interesting that taking this small action in the online world can end up having such impact in the real world. Well, at least there is no more ambiguity. A word of caution though, make sure you mean it before you do it. People take it very seriously when they find out they have been de-friended!


To the person I am de-friending: when I try to reach out to you and you continue to ignore me, well then, sadly - what is the point of staying connected if we aren't going to stay connected? Good luck to ya...

Friday, December 11, 2009

iTunes Sucks

I have to say, I have always had problems with iTunes. First it was their DRM on all of their audio tracks. Then they lifted the DRM, but if you bought DRM music in the past and wanted the DRM lifted, you had to pay. Now, I hate them because of POOR QUALITY!

I ordered "Dub Like an Antelope: The Legends of Reggae Celebrate Phish" from iTunes. It's a fantastic reggae compilation album of reggae stars performing Phish tunes. One of the songs, however, is cut off at the last 2 seconds! (Makisupa Policeman) How could that happen? The guy who ripped it must have made an error. Seems like an easy problem to fix, just rip another copy of it and upload it to the store.

I complained, expecting that result. Instead, they gave me a credit for 1 song. I used the credit to download the exact same song that was damaged to prove to myself it wasn't a problem on my end. I was right, the 2nd version I downloaded was still messed up. I complained again and they gave me another song credit.

Totally, Totally, unacceptable. If I bought a CD from the store and it skipped, I would return it and probably get a full refund. I fought for a refund from iTunes, and got it (rightfully so). It might seem like a minor problem, but I expect the download to be in perfect order just like you would expect your brand new CD to work perfectly.

But SHAME ON YOU ITUNES! They continue to sell the same poor quality track to other people!!!! Instead of fixing the problem, they tried to make me go away with a song credit. Poor customer service. I tried to leave a comment in the iTunes store warning people of the problem, but iTunes censored me and did not post it.

WARNING: DO NOT BUY THIS ALBUM FROM ITUNES!

How could they accept such poor quality in their store?

Question: Why don't online music vendors sell FLAC files? I want FLAC files for my music downloads. WE WANT QUALITY!

Friday, September 25, 2009

The "Lloyd" Ringtone

Entourage is one of my favorite shows, and I love how Ari is always yelling at Lloyd. It's comical. I created a "Lloyd" ringtone for your iPhone. Enjoy.

Right click to download: lloyd.m4r


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

oh no you DIDNT


Want Kanye to disrespect your website? Simply type this URL in your browser: "http://kanyelicio.us/" and then add your website after it.

Example: " http://kanyelicio.us/http://blog.craiggiven.net "

Good laughs for a 3pm on a Wednesday (plus Kanye is a total douchebag - always has been).

Thanks TechCrunch for turning me onto this. I know not everyone who reads my blog reads TechCrunch regularly, so here you go...just for fun.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Technology meets Nature

On a recent camping trip to Mount Tamalpais State Park, I learned the hard way that the iPhone is for the birds! (Thank goodness that did not land on the ear speaker). In what culture is this considered good luck?
:-/


Image courtesy of Eric Kashnow
(iPhone, unfortunately, courtesy of me)

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Connecting to Solaris from Windows via GUI

Had an interesting dilemma recently that I thought I would immortalize into a blog post, as it took me a few days (on and off) to overcome. All applications used/mentioned are open source.

I am using an application called Jmeter to Load Test a web application. We procured a remote box from which to run Jmeter, b/c we discovered that if I run Jmeter from within the company network I could get false readings and/or slow down other business critical applications in use. The remote box I was given to generate the Jmeter load is running on Solaris 10 with a desktop environment installed. Solaris is ok in this case since Jmeter is pretty much O/S independent. To fully utilize Jmeter's listening features though, I need to open and run it in GUI mode from this remote box (as opposed to running it from command line).

The task:
Connect to the Solaris box from my Windows lapt
op in GUI mode, and run the Jmeter GUI.

It would be great if I could just use Window's Remote Desktop application to connect, but that would be too easy (and it doesn't work in this case). I need to use an X Window manager to accomplish this task.

First step, I made sure I could establish an SSH connection to the remote box. I use PuTTY for quick SSH connections, which is a quick and easy (and free) SSH client.

Next, I downloaded and installed XWinLogon (Download | Documentation), which is a simple and free interface to the X Server which allows you to connect to a Unix/Linux box from your Windows computer. Once connected (I selected SSH to connect), it runs another application called Cygwin/X which allows you to use applications from the Unix/Linus box via GUI on your Windows machine.

Cygwin/X comes installed already with XWinLogon, so no need to install it separately (in fact, they recommend you do not). Here are some info links to Cygwin/X nonetheless: (User Guide | FAQ)

Finally, I needed to install Jmeter on the Solaris machine. Fortunately installing Jmeter is as simple as moving files over - which I accomplished using SFTP via FireFTP. Make sure you put it in a folder you have admin rights to and can easily get to via SSH command line.

Ok now for the fun:
  1. Open XWinLogon and connect to the remote box (fig 1)
  2. A Cygwin/X window should open, asking for a password. Enter it. (fig 2)
  3. You should be logged in now at the SSH command line. Navigate to your Jmeter directory and run Jmeter. (Common SSH Commands)
Your commands may look something like this:
user@machine01$ cd jakarta-jmeter-2.3.4
user@machine01$ cd bin
user@machine01$ sh jmeter

Results:
The Jmeter GUI should display (running on the remote box though) and you should be able to use it with your mouse and keyboard. Hurray!!!! (fig 3)

Note, however, that the GUI (fig 3) is not as stable and user friendly as you might be used to in a Windows environment for instance. Also, the connection to the remote box could be delayed, making actions (like mouse clicks) take several seconds to register. Be patient and deliberate so as to not make any mistakes and get stuck. It is advisable that you create your Jmeter scripts from a more stable platform (like directly on your Windows machine) and then transfer the .jmx files to the remote box, using Jmeter on the remote box ONLY to run and view the scripts.

fig 1

fig 2

fig 3

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A Really Goode Ride

They announced the Top 10 for the Murphy Goode Winery's "really goode job" today, and I was not on the list. :-( It was an honor to be supported, publicized, and encouraged by my friends, colleagues, family, and people they know - so thank you all for the support. I realized though, realistically, that the odds of being on that Top 10 list were against me. However, I was quite proud to have made the Top 50 out of nearly 2,000 applicants, and I believe the show of support I had from people helped. Wow, what an honor! Thank you!

Reflecting on the process to reach the Top 10, there was a huge focus on the video itself however I think there came a point in the process where it was not all about the video. The video got you noticed (and provided a barrier to entry for the 'not so sure' applicant or the technically challenged one), but your experience got you further in this process I believe. I definitely have the technical and professional acumen for the job, which likely carried me into the Top 50 - but probably lacked in media and culinary/wine industry experience to make the Top 10. It's not clear what Murphy Goode is looking for in a candidate exactly, but since it is a job process and not a contest - I imagine the most well rounded applicants in their eyes prevailed in the Top 10.

C'est la vie as they say! I had a great time being creative, making the video (thanks again Brent & Estella for creative input), breaking down personal barriers, and meeting people via social networking. I still think it's possible that my work & experience here could lead to something. Like, maybe I'll get some calls from people about something or other, eh? o_O

There were certainly some noteworthy people when it came to votes and views, like Martin Sargent ~the overall vote leader with thousandSSSS of votes and views (who wasn't selected to the Top 50 somehow :-/ )~ but I thought I'd mention that the shortened link to my video that I created and publicized (http://tr.im/goode) received over 1,000 clicks as of this post! I had some big days too; like ~300 clicks on May 21st when I launched my video, ~100 on May 29th after a little self-promotion, ~125 on June 26th when I made the Top 50! People viewed my video mostly in the United States; but also in Sweden, France, Germany (@AndysGoodeLife?), The United Kingdom, Slovenia, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, China, Mexico, Georgia, and Taiwan! (Whoa!) -- As of this post YouTube shows my video received over 1,100 views! Not too shabby, if I can toot my own horn for a sec! Hey, it is my blog afterall. :-)

But Craig, what we really want to know is -- who do YOU think is going to get the job? Well, I am not going to be politically correct here, say something cheesy like "they all should get the job", and pretend I don't have a pick in mind on who I think is going to get the job! Based on what I've seen of people online, I'd put my money on Todd Havens with Hardy Wallace a close toss up. Good luck fellas. Of course though, Goode Luck to all Top 10 candidates!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Twitter has jumped the shark

I am not the first person to say it. I did a quick search to see if I could find the person who said Twitter has jumped the shark first, but seems that many people have been saying it since earlier this year. Was it Ashton Kutcher's push for a million follows? Was it OPRAH'S first (all caps) tweet live from her show? Was it members of Congress tweeting during Obama speeches? For me, it was some girl named "Kitty" being my 200th follower sending me a message to look at her porn pics (blocked you, sorry Kitty).

What has happened this year is that Twitter has gone mainstream. Ashton and Oprah contributed to that, but recognition by mainstream news services like CNN really sold it. All of a sudden, CNN is reporting on what people are saying on Twitter about this or that. Then the Iran Election happens. Twitter buzz is news worthy now. All of a sudden, everyone wants to be on Twitter - or at least try to understand it. It's certainly a household name now.

What has followed is SPAM! Twitter used to be relatively free of Spam, and I have seen Twitter try to keep up with fighting spam by deleting bogus account
s periodically. I think though they are likely overwhelmed and unable to keep up with accounts that are bogus or spam.

Spam will be the downfall of Twitter. Users experience spam in different ways.
  1. You get a random reply from someone trying to sell you something (like this from a conversation between @adamjackson and I)
  2. You are followed by a user who has only one or a few tweets, trying to link you somewhere (usually to porn)
  3. You mention something and all of a sudden people who 'specialize' in that are following you or replying to you. For example, I mentioned "Tequila" in a post recently and all of a sudden I had people selling tequila following me. Below is an example of a reply I got after mentioning "Vegas". (Imagine if you mentioned the word "sex" or "porn" in a post!)

I try to do my part by blocking bogus followers, as I'm under the assumption Twitter looks at accounts that are blocked excessively. But I will only have the patience to police my account for so long. The next thing that will happen, like what happened with the Craigslist killer, is that someone will get hurt or killed as a result of using Twitter, it will be widely publicized, and it will hurt Twitters reputation and credibility (as the Craigslist killer has done for CL in my opinion).

One thing Twitter users can do to protect themselves is become more private by protecting their updates, but this defeats the purpose of sharing publicly - something which is key to Twitter's current success.
I have already started looking for a Twitter substitute, and plan to curb my usage.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

What's Your Testimonal?

I am in the process of working with a technology consulting firm on being placed in a contract position for a large, well branded company you have probably heard of (more details later perhaps). One of the things they asked me to do was to help them write a short but pointed "testimonial" about my experience in 3rd person, as it pertains to the contract at hand.

I didn't think much of this process, until I completed it. It's actually a valuable thing to do if you are in a job search. Not only do you think of your qualifications, but you write them down as if someone was reading an article about you. I think it's a good mental tool before an interview, and also a good tool in helping create objective statements. Here's what I came up with. What's your testimonial?

Craig is a proven web application development professional, having 7 years experience in Quality Assurance, 7 years experience in Project Management, and a Masters Degree in Information Systems. He recently led the QA team at a small software company through the testing phases and successful launch of a new web application built from the ground up. Craig also has experience working on web application development teams for large companies such as Verizon Wireless & AT&T. He has a solid understanding of SDLC methodology in both Agile and Waterfall environments, and practical experience in creating a web application quality assurance strategy. He has a good-natured personality and will quickly earn respect from the rest of the development team.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Brand Can Have its own Personality

A lot of great talk going on about what the Murphy-Goode candidate who lands the job will leave behind in 6 months. It started on Andy's Goode Life Blog and continued over onto Hardy's Goode To Be First blog. The person who lands the job will have a "ton of equity- similar to a TV host or DJ". The Murphy-Goode position may be an anomaly to this, but does a Social Media position have to put so much stock in the personality of the person hired? My response on Hardy's blog:

There are certainly ways to promote the brand in social media without promoting one's self. I can think of several brands I follow in social media that definitely have personality, but I don't really know who the real person is behind it. If the person changed, I wouldn't know so long as the personality stayed the same. If you *create* a personality for the brand without linking it to you personally, someone else could potentially carry on that branding indefinitely. I think any brand looking for a social media professional should consider this, or else end up like Sirius w/ Howard Stern.

This may not be possible with the Murphy-Goode situation because of the publicity, we all know who is applying and eventually who will land the job. However, if I were at Murphy-Goode I would definitely be asking myself "...if after 6 months we don't keep this person on, would we lose all of our followers?".

I think the successful candidate will portray a little bit of "it's not about me, it's about Murphy-Goode".

Sunday, May 31, 2009

SalesForce!!!

Just got a bunch of great job leads for SalesForce.com that I am excited about. I was networked in to emailing a recruiter at SalesForce who has 14 positions open in her section. At the same time, I got an email from my old boss David Mosher (who was the CEO of my past employer Embark Corporation), telling me of an open position he had heard about that he thought I would be a good candidate for.

This is exciting. It means that there are certainly opportunities at SalesForce, and to be in contact with a recruiter from there makes it even more promising.

SalesForce is a definite leader in CRM and cloud computing. The sales team at my former employer, Embark, used to use it to manage prospects and they all raved about it. I've consulted for The Green Zebra, where we used it to manage client information that is to be published in their coupon books. I wrote a PHP middleware program to interface their front-end data gathering web form to SaleForce, so that the staff at Green Zebra would not have to enter client information in manually as they had to do in previous years. It would go from the client, to the web form, and then directly into SalesForce. Brilliant!

Looking forward to hopefully talking to SalesForce more about their open positions!