I’ve had a home office of some type for several years now. Last year we built an actual office in our basement (instead of always using an available bedroom for the task). One wall has been painted with IdeaPaint. Painting a whiteboard onto the wall wasn’t cheap but I wanted to cultivate a creative environment. Consequently, my son thinks it’s an awesome place to draw monsters or dinosaurs.

Ultimately it’s still at home. If I’m at home for too long, I tend to get cabin fever and need a change of scenery. I will go to  a coffee shop or the library to work and then maybe to the office later in the afternoon. Here are some pros and cons to working from home:

Pros

• No travel time. Just walk downstairs and get going.
• Place to work while kids are running around upstairs.
• Little way of distractions.

Cons

• Easy access for family to interrupt.
• Easy access for family to interrupt.
• Easy access for family to interrupt.
• Too easy to work more often than one should ( aka “all times of day and night” )

It has been over two years since I have moved my blog off of tumblr and wrote my own software to support it.

I have a couple of projects that I am writing services for using Go. If you haven’t heard of the Go language, you can check out the project from http://golang.org. The software stack for this blog is pretty simple. 

I ended up rewriting in Go from Python due to the high memory usage on a small VPS ( 512 mb ). I also decided against using any web framework ( primarily to learn the base Go language feature set ) and to use straight SQL ( I hadn’t written just pure SQL in years ). The results are interesting. Whereas django takes up anywhere between 100-150MB of ram, the go server is plugging along at roughly 8MB of memory. Using straight Sql I was able to implement features such as pagination and full text search without much difficulty.

So far features include:

• Custom metaweblog api implementation ( allows me to post using MarsEdit )
• Full Text search on article content and titles.
• Custom URL shortener.
• Page through all published posts, by year, year and month and all archived posts.
• Easy deployment ( cross compile the blog binary and upload it to the server and launch it ).
• Automatic image uploads to S3.
• RSS.

So far my experience with Go has been pretty positive and I will continue to use Go for new web/api projects.

I am writing to let you know that I will retire as CEO of Microsoft within the next 12 months, after a successor is chosen. There is never a perfect time for this type of transition, but now is the right time.

My original thoughts on timing would have had my retirement happen in the middle of our transformation to a devices and services company focused on empowering customers in the activities they value most. We need a CEO who will be here longer term for this new direction. You can read the press release on Microsoft News Center. 

This is a time of important transformation for Microsoft. Our new Senior Leadership team is amazing. The strategy we have generated is first class. Our new organization, which is centered on functions and engineering areas, is right for the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Microsoft is an amazing place. I love this company. I love the way we helped invent and popularize computing and the PC. I love the bigness and boldness of our bets. I love our people and their talent and our willingness to accept and embrace their range of capabilities, including their quirks. I love the way we embrace and work with other companies to change the world and succeed together. I love the breadth and diversity of our customers, from consumer to enterprise, across industries, countries, and people of all backgrounds and age groups.

I am proud of what we have achieved. We have grown from $7.5 million to nearly $78 billion since I joined Microsoft, and we have grown from employing just over 30 people to almost 100,000.

I feel good about playing a role in that success and having committed 100% emotionally all the way. We have more than 1 billion users and earn a great profit for our shareholders. We have delivered more profit and cash return to shareholders than virtually any other company in history.

I am excited by our mission of empowering the world and believe in our future success. I cherish my Microsoft ownership, and look forward to continuing as one of Microsoft’s largest owners.

This is an emotional and difficult thing for me to do. I take this step in the best interests of the company I love; it is the thing outside of my family and closest friends that matters to me most.

Microsoft has all its best days ahead. Know you are part of the best team in the industry and have the right technology assets. We cannot and will not miss a beat in these transitions. I am focused and driving hard and know I can count on all of you to do the same. Let’s do ourselves proud.

Steve

I wonder who they’ll pick as the new CEO. "after a successor is chosen” may suggest that they aren’t looking strictly at internal candidates. His retirement comes almost two years to the day that Steve Jobs retired from Apple.

I have to admit I am surprised that he received such a harsh sentence. The climate of government surveillance in the united states seems to have no bounds

What immediately caught my eye was the phrase 

Apple® today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams

That says to me that Scott Forstall was viewed as an obstacle in getting things done.  It didn't help that Apple took some hits to its reputation with Siri and iOS 6 Maps ( both under his management ) .

Jony Ive will provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design. His incredible design aesthetic has been the driving force behind the look and feel of Apple’s products for more than a decade.

Putting Jony Ive in charge of all design is huge. I think the last person to have that kind of power was Steve Jobs himself. While I never like to see people lose their jobs, I have felt for the last few months that John Browett was definitely the wrong person to head up Apple Retail ( and he was just fired and not transitioned out like Scott Forstall ).

I think things will be more interesting going forward with Jony Ive in charge of all design as well as both iOS and OSX under Craig Federighi. What I admire about this change is that Apple sends a message to everyone at the company that it doesn't matter how long you have been with the company or your position, everyone is expendable

The full press release