[Previous entry: "I'm liking this brief update idea"] [Next entry: "some jobseeking Q & A"]

12/01/2006: "cards, floppies, chat, and more!"

Step right up folks, I got something for everyone tonight:

1) Business cards - I got some, and ordered more for free.
2) Thought 5.25" floppies were dead? No, just hiding.
3) I have 441 English pages coming to me - no, not from parliament.
4) Is your website a good website, or a bad website?
5) Chat!

1) I'm almost out of business cards. These are the cards I designed myself with a "think outside of the box" logo. I'm quite proud of them. Regretably, I ordered them from Kinkos. They gave me the original PDF of my first batch, but since then I've changed my e-mail address. Last time when I re-ordered, I got them to change the e-mail address (narrowly avoiding a design fee), but they didn't give me the new PDF. Their service is so horrible I just can't bear to go back, so I've been hoping to find another copy shop that will edit the PDF, print my cards, and provide me with the new PDF. What I found instead was an online print company that will print business cards of my own design, but offers FREE business cards as well. They offer 250 of them, in fact. So I got those instead. They're free, but the 3-week shipping is $9 all told. Not bad... but my logo will be dormant for a while, I guess.

2) Who wants to bid on a box of 5.25" floppy disks? Yes, they still exist! On my current contract my office is in the "let's dump it here for now" mezzanine, so there's loads of junk up there. Included in that are boxes and boxes of 5.25" floppy disks, engineering backup disks. One treasure in all that is an UNOPENED box of floppies! Yes, it's still in the original shrink-wrap, totally unmolested! They were going to throw them out, but I'm going to eBay them. I can probably get about $10 (especially if I charge a little extra for shipping), so why the heck not? Incredible. Best of all? They're "virus free"! Zounds!

3) My LEED reference material is being sent today! The CaGBC called me, as I inadvertently ordered the French version ("consultante maison verte"?) instead of the English. I guess an order of French from SW Ontario flags as a possible error. It's all been straightened out, and it's on the way. Oh, boy oh boy oh boy, 441 pages of non-stop technical fun!

4) There was an article in the paper earlier this week about companies Googling propsective employees. It started with the story of one firm looking to hire a summer intern. The hiring manager allegedly Googled the top prospect for the position, and found that person's website on a popular social networking site. Unfortunately, said site contained posturing about smoking dope, shooting people, and obsessive sex, all in "vivid slang". That person's shot at the job was toast. I showed this to Jannette as the reason to have my own professional website - employers *are* Googling, and best to give them something highly positive and constructive to find, rather than whatever Google manages to dredge up, if anything. (And yes, I checked what came up on Google through searching for me... nothing to be afraid of, thankfully.)

5) The other night I finally got around to downloading and installing Adium. It's an instant messaging program that supports ALL KINDS of different chat programs. For example, right now I'm set up on MSN Messenger, AIM, Google Talk, and ICQ. I'm available through all of them, and I can easily add more. Jabber, Yahoo, .Mac, and others I've never even heard of! All I have to do is launch this one program and it handles it all. Sweet. Too bad it's Mac-only, otherwise I'd be tempted to install it at work. Hmm... maybe that's a good thing, then. (People might get suspicious about how much I'm typing when using 3D solid modeling is generally 90% mouse-based inputs.)

The only other thing going on right now (other than Christmas shopping stress) is that I'm trying to get some information on a LEED-accredited company here in town that is big into sustainable commercial buildings. The founder's son is a Green Party supporter, so I've sent him a message asking for information about how I might approach getting into his father's company. Here's hoping for a reply soon.