Archive for May, 2008

San Francisco, Happener, STUB, etc.

May 22 2008 Published by Brad Kellett under Off-Topic

As some of you may know, I am departing to live and work in San Francisco tomorrow, and I really wanted to do a quick post thanking a few of the people involved in getting me there.

For a start, I truly want to publicly thank the guys at Happener. Markus and Greg totally blew away any and all preconceptions I had about recruitment by being personal, fun, and actually caring about the outcome. It pains me to put them in the same category as recruiters. These guys went so far above and beyond the call of duty, and have become both people I respect greatly, and very good friends. If you are sick of the old ‘bums in seats’ approach to recruiting, give these guys a call – they are in the business of hooking up fantastic companies with fantastic people. In any event, I’ll have more to say about them some other time…

Secondly, I’d love to give a big shout out to the folks at Massive Interactive, who I have been working with for the last two months. Had I not had the opportunity to travel to SF, I would have signed with them permanently in a heartbeat – they are a bunch of incredibly smart people working on incredibly cool things. I hope that if I do come back to Australia to live in the future, they might consider having me back. This is despite them being a .NET house, and me being an OS guy, so that has to tell you something.

I’d also like to thank all the fine people at 3jam, the company that I’m trekking across the world to be involved in. They have bent over backwards to help me out at every stage, and I look forward to meeting them all over a few beers tomorrow night.

Then, there are all the wonderful friends in Sydney. You are all fantastic people, and having so many come up to me at STUB to wish me well last night was a fantastic feeling. While I haven’t been a Sydney boy for that long, you have all been very welcoming, and are very important to me in your own special ways. I look forward to coming back for visits, and I hope that if any of you find yourselves in San Francisco that you get in touch.

Of course, I wouldn’t be at this point in my life without the help and guidance of my parents, and the companionship of my girlfriend. But I will be talking to them in a not-so-public forum…

There will be a few posts coming up over the next few weeks about the process I’ve gone through to get here, and of course the experiences I’ll be having over there. I especially want to post information about the visa process, which was far easier than I thought it would be, even though I have never completed my University degree. Stay tuned, and I’ll be life streaming the whole trip on Twitter and Brightkite, of course.

View Comments

Damn Twitter

May 16 2008 Published by Brad Kellett under Commentary

I write this as I wait for a late train – the perfect time for a bit of Twitter action – but the service is down once more.

Sure, their actual uptime rating might not be so bad, but it is one of those services that people (including me) really miss when it isn’t there. Like a comfy pair of shoes, we don’t appreciate it enough when it’s here, but can’t walk properly when it’s gone. Or something.

In any event, while I’d love to switch to a service with 100% uptime (which probably doesn’t exist), I really do love Twitter. When it’s good, it’s good.

View Comments

Pre-Launch Access to Schmap.com on the iPhone

May 10 2008 Published by Brad Kellett under Mobile Tech

Schmap.com, a local city guide and travel information provider, is all set to launch a very sexy looking iPhone interface in public beta on Monday. The Schmap iPhone interface encompasses the company’s City Guides and Local Search services, plus a unique feature that auto generates maps when the iPhone is turned sideways.

The Schmap guys were nice enough to pass on to me a code that will let you access the Schmap iPhone interface before it launches on Monday. To get a sneak-peek, browse to http://schmap.com/iphone on your iPhone and enter the access code 724627.

View Comments

New ObsoleteSkills.com Cartoon Series

May 04 2008 Published by Brad Kellett under Announcments

Just a quick note to let folks know that I have just licensed contributions from ObsoleteSkills.com to be turned into a weekly cartoon series by cartoonist Greg Williams of the Tampa Tribune. The series will take skills added to the site for the inspiration of each cartoon, similar to Greg’s previous work on a comic called ‘Blogjam,’ which draws from several online sources. Greg also produces WikiWorld comics for Wikipedia’s Signpost online newspaper.

The cartoon series, which should debut in mid-June, will appear both in the print edition of the Tampa Tribune, and on the newspaper’s website. I will post a link to the cartoon when it is available online.

View Comments