What’s Next?

With the frantic pace of most people’s life’s these days it’s easy to get swept along. However, from both a personal and professional point of view it’s important from time to time to take a step back and look at the larger picture. As Martin Sheen’s character, President Bartlett in The West Wing used to say – “What’s next?”.

By asking yourself this question when thinking about for example – personal development needs or how the industry/field you work in may change will help keep you focused, anticipate any opportunities/challenges ahead and maintain a sense of momentum.

Cisco, EMC, VMware’s Virtual Computing Environment Coalition

Whilst researching an article on desktop virtualisation, it was impossible to ignore this announcement which could have a major impact on this emerging market and the field of virtualisation in general.

Legacy Systems

Having just read today’s SANS diary entry on the above topic made me recall my own personal experience from a couple of years ago. I was already performing a systems review for the regional office of the company I was working for at the time but a downturn of the economy and a corresponding one within the particular industry this company operated in resulted in a number of lull periods; Although there was zero budget and I was the only remaining member of the IT Department, by taking advantage of these times, through the audit, documentation and simplifcation of the systems I made my job more manageable, improved systems security and as it later turned out paved the way for a significantly smoother transition to ownership by a new parent company.

To date – it was one of the most rewarding times of my professional career.

AppleBites and Twitter lists

I’ve been looking for a simple way to share my Apple related twitter “channel” – AppleBites, for some time and with the introduction of lists (currently in Beta) Twitter now enables this. As lists can also be made Private as opposed to Public lists however they are also a simple means of organising who you follow into specific categories for easier browsing.

As a result I’ve created the following Public lists:

• http://twitter.com/apple_bites/mainfeed
  Composed of both official and unofficial Apple news sources.
• http://twitter.com/apple_bites/enterprise
  Articles and opinions from Mac software developers and system deployment specialists.
• http://twitter.com/apple_bites/how-to
  Mac hints and tips as well as troubleshooting advice.

Although at first glance the introduction of lists may seem a small change it is likely to be hugely popular due to the enhanced follower and filtering management functionality it introduces.