Jeff Longland

I’m a geek. I’m on a computer all day at work and I spend a good part of my evening (transitioning into early morning hours as I write) on a computer. As I’ve commented earlier, I’m grappling with the issue of intellectual property ownership in an environment where the typical nine-to-five day doesn’t exist. I’ve sent email at all hours of the day and I’m less and less surprised when I get a 5:03am response to my 4:59am email. There are simply people coming and going at all hours of the day and technology obviously facilitates such movements. A definition of ownership as work completed during a specified period is difficult for me to grasp. When I’m at home I may be puttering on one of my computers and answering a few emails or trying something I haven’t had a chance to play with. Does my physical location have any significance in defining ownership? The rising popularity of smartphones and PDAs would lead me to say no. That said, this isn’t my area of specialty… just an interest from someone who empathizes with those who enjoy their work and how they’re credited.

The passing of time has always intrigued me. How we mark the passing of time and our progress. I have a directory where I keep all of my Java development projects. I regularly take snapshots, usually when I hit a milestone of some sort. Looking back over the last year, I realized the memories that I’ve associated with these snapshots. Bits and pieces of my life marked in Java. Early evening snapshots in late June, walking through the campus after a late day thunderstorm… Small snapshots, debugging in early winter when it’s dark before the work day is done… It’s nice to look back and feel movement, progress. I knocked down a domino today and I’m hoping there will be some more to come!

Over the weekend I came across a Thunderbird extension that has spiced up my life in ways never imagined. Seriously. I read a lot of email in a day, so things like this are very amusing. With every message I view, there is a small icon representing the email client you used to send the message. If you’re still reading – that little icon is more than an email client, it’s an avatar. A little bit of you, wrapped up in a geeky user agent string. Outlook Express, Outlook, Exchange, the hierarchy of Microsoft email. Netscape, Mozilla, Thunderbird, open source gecko. A few via Novell and Eudora. And of course, pine – simplicity. You may want to refine the list of browsers – I found that Netscape was being misrepresented as Mozilla, but that’s a quick change. See the author’s site for more info.