infowave

 by Brendon J. Wilson

So, What’s New With You?

It’s been a while since I updated my profile, so now is as good a time as any. The last two months have been hectic, and it’s not like I’m gaining any free time these days.

I quit Infowave on August 25th (as opposed to getting laid off) to start at a new startup in Yaletown called PKI Innovations. Before starting my new job I took three weeks of vacation, one of which was spent in the Rockies on a heli-hiking trip, and visiting my parents in my home town of Cranbrook. The new job is quite interesting, as it focuses on one of my major interests: cryptography. The company is currently working on technology to allow Outlook users to request Digital IDs on behalf of other users, thereby enabling encrypted email communications.

The MP Survey I did has managed to gain some attention, most notably from Hillwatch and the CBC. During my vacation I did an interview with Hour Magazine (published in Montreal), and last week I did a radio interview on the Al Stafford Show for 630 CHED in Edmonton, and have another radio interview this week with CBC Radio Halifax’s Maritime Noon program. Some time in the next two weeks, an article on the survey will also appear in Canadian Business magazine. It’s amazing what a little effort, and a visit by National Security will get you in terms of publicity these days.

My wife’s Sony laptop finally got fixed, and Mark Hanson, the VP of Sony PC Marketing, emailed me to confirm that everything was working properly. I took the opportunity to chew him out for a crappy product, horrible service, and nine months of fighting with Sony to fix a problem they knew about beforehand. It felt good. I’m still getting emails from people who have had the same problem with their VAIO laptop, and I’ve sent every one of them on to talk to the Sony engineer that helped me. That’ll learn’em.

Finally, I started working on a book for New Riders on JXTA, which is taking up all of my free time these days. Today, I’m releasing the first three draft chapters to the JXTA Community to get their input, and provide something back to the community.

And that, in a nutshell, is what’s going on with me.

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 by Brendon J. Wilson

And Tomorrow, Oblivion

We’re driving along Broadway, “we” being myself and the two other members of my carpool: Francois, and Michael. Cruising to the mellow sounds of MC Solar (a Francophone rapper, whose alliterative lyrics are only mildly more misunderstandable than those of his Anglophone colleagues), life is good; the sun is shining, we’re hitting green at every intersection, and we’re off to our high-paying software jobs at local wireless company Infowave.

Or at least we hope we are.

An email the previous afternoon told us to be at work at 9, with a special “company meeting” to commence at 9:45. Translation: heads will roll tomorrow at 9, and those left standing will huddle at 9:45 to examine the bodies, before beginning the ritual pilfering of monitors and chairs. Punch and pie.

The drive to work reminded me of my orientation in first year university: look to the student on your left, then the student on your right; only one of you is going to make it. So, who would it be of our travellers three?

Personally, I was ready to go. My desk may have looked identical to the previous day, but in truth it was entirely different; the sum total of my desk contents:

  • one stapler,
  • one package of staples for said stapler,
  • one package of paper clips, and
  • one unopened roll of Scotch tape.

In a similar fashion, my computer hard disk was squeaky clean, freshly uploaded to my home machine about twenty seconds after receiving the email.

I wasn’t afraid of being laid off. I was afraid of having to waste my time cleaning out my desk before beginning The Hunt.

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