Calm your fears...

My previous post about obtaining my MCITP doesn't mean I've lost all faith in Novell.  I haven't, but I do have to be more marketable - especially given the news that we'll be told if we're on the list of "layoff-ees" in October. And I'm 99.9% certain my name will end up on that list. So I'm concentrating on trying to crank out 7 exams in just a few months.  I've done it before, I'm just hoping my brain hasn't turned into mush since my last big certification push.

I'm really liking a lot of the cloud stuff I'm seeing from Novell.  There's some really critical needs being addressed by Novell.  The next decade is going to a bumpy, crazy, insane, thrill-filled joy ride for techies.  Not sure how long I'll be able to hang on to it all.  I'm hoping to do a bit of leap-frogging around the edges to avoid a few pitfalls and hopefully end up in a sweet spot.  Time will only tell.

For those with cash left to invest in the stock market you might want to take a look at whatever company makes Excedrin.  I'll be going through a lot of bottles as I bang my head on the table muttering "what were the MS folks thinking of when they came up with THIS chunk of code?".

Still bleeding Red N's here, just a lot slower.  BTW - BrainShare 2011 has a confirmed date and RSVP page on FB.  I'm listed as a "maybe"...I'll need as close to a free ride as I can possibly get this year.  And I really do feel bad about that, but considering I may not have a job by that point, it's a luxury for me this year, and my wallet's just full of moths at the moment.

Novell's been busy!

If you haven't been around Novell lately, you may not be aware of all of their cloud security offerings.  You really should take a look at them.  There's some really cool stuff coming down the pipe.

GroupWise 8.0.2 has also been released - earlier than I thought it would.  Nicest part is we can use the 8.0.2 client against the 8.0.1 backend.which makes life a touch easier for me.  My next window for a big update is the day after Christmas, so having a client that may potentially fix a lot of the unusual issues we've been seeing is most welcome.

Public beta of the new Data Synchronizer for GroupWise for mobile devices is here as well.  Happy day for me, but may be a tad late for some of our users who've started forwarding all mail to gmail and sync'ing that way.

I'm hopeful that Novell can really turn this ship around, but I'm not holding my breath.  Based on our results with 8.0.1 and randomly crashing agents, I'm hesitant to say things will be much better.  Yep, from the one who bleeds Novell Red, I've become cynical.  I haven't migrated to the "dark side" just yet, but am actively going after my MCITP just to be more market-ready in the event of changes.