I Work For Amazon (Web Services) Now

The startup I’ve been working for for almost five years, E8 Storage, has been acquired by Amazon. Specifically, by Amazon Web Services. This makes me an Amazon employee.

Working for Amazon Web Services can be hugely impactful, so it will be exciting to make changes to code that runs there. E8 Storage was focused on making extremely performant storage, and I’m sure the team can utilize its skills within Amazon.

Speaking of the team… during my time in E8 Storage I met a lot of great people, all of them extremely smart and talented. Most of them wonderful people, too. It was fun, challenging and enriching to work there.

It will probably take a some time until code I write reaches the cloud but I hope it will do good when it does :)

The Day Is My Enemy Is The Next Prodigy Album

6 years in the making, we’re finally getting a new album from The Prodigy.

THE DAY IS MY ENEMY

A photo posted by The Prodigy official (@theprodigyofficial) on

You can imagine my excitement. The album will be out March 30th this year, and the first single, Nasty, is expected to be out this month.

Can’t wait!

UPDATE – Track list also published:

  1. The Day is My Enemy
  2. Nasty
  3. Rebel Radio
  4. Ibiza feat. Sleaford Mods
  5. Destroy
  6. Wild Frontier
  7. Rok-Weiler
  8. Beyond the Deathray
  9. Rhythm Bomb feat. Flux Pavilion
  10. Roadblox
  11. Get Your Fight On
  12. Medicine
  13. Invisible Sun
  14. Wall Of Death

Facebook Disables Contact Info Sharing (For Now)

This is what I get for reporting news on this blog – having to report change: Facebook will temporarily disable the new contact information sharing it just announced. PC Magazine reports:

Facebook announced Tuesday that it will temporarily disable a feature that allowed the social-networking site to share user phone numbers and addresses with app developers.

Douglas Purdy, director of developer relations for Facebook, said in a blog post that the site is “making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so.”

I still recommend you remove all “real life” contact information on Facebook. Put a current email address and nothing more. Your privacy is too precious.

A Day Of Privacy: Facebook Now Shares Your Private Info

Facebook announced they’ll be sharing phone numbers and addresses of users with platform application developers. I recommend removing personal information from your Facebook profile (I’ve done it a long time ago.)

Also, if you haven’t already turned off Facebook applications in the applications privacy section, maybe it’s time. If you don’t use Facebook applications – why not turn them off? Legacy apps, which you installed in the past, still have a so-called “legacy access” to your information.

The Trip – Day 33 – San Francisco

My days in the US are coming to an end. I went over the pictures from the trip and it felt like someone else was on that trip, not me. Did I drive all that distance? Was I in all those places? Flights are a long forgotten hassle. After a relaxed week in San Francisco I was sitting in the cafe, planning a lazy day here. The day started too cold and rainy to do anything and I was sleepy after a not-so-good night’s sleep. The weather forecast continued to promise that the sun would come out, but it continued to be cloudy.

I used the time to continue investigating about Hong Kong. My 14+ hours (!) flight from LAX to HKG goes through the International Date Line so even though my flight leaves March 1st 00:20, it arrives March 2nd 07:30. This leaves me only three days in Hong Kong (the next flight, to Thailand, is on March 5th 14:25.) During these three days I will only get a very short taste of the place, and there’s so much to do and see. Add to that the jet lag I’ll be experiencing and the extreme change in climate – I better have good knowledge of where I want to go and not waste time. It will be a return to the crazy pace of doing things after a very laid back week in San Francisco.

At 1pm the sun suddenly came out. I decided to snap out of my laziness and go jogging. I’m used to working out in the morning before eating but at 1pm and after brunch I got dressed for jogging and immediately felt refreshed and ready. I think Scott Adams’ Footwear Theory of Motivation is correct. I ran 10km in less than an hour at around 170 bpm. The same workout won’t be as hard for me in the gym, so I guess what they say is true: running outdoors is tougher than running indoors. Either that or I completely lost my aerobic fitness in the 4 weeks I didn’t work out. One minute after the workout my heart rate got back to 120 bpm (walking pace) so that’s an indication I’m not back to couch potato yet (short recovery time is one indication of aerobic fitness.)

After that I ate again at the Vietnamese restaurant Golden Flower and following that I completely crashed on my hotel bed for a few hours – I was tired and my leg muscles hurt (I walked a lot yesterday, too.) And suddenly the day was over. I’m currently having my dinner and after that I think I’ll go to sleep. So that’s how it feels like to rest :)

I have a ticket to see an Iranian stand up comedian, Maz Jobrani, for tomorrow. I saw the crowd lining up for today’s show and heard people speak Arabic for the first time since I started this trip, I believe. So it should be interesting tomorrow. Other than that – no special plans. I’ll do some laundry and probably be busy packing for warm weather. I won’t be needing a coat or long sleeve shirts or sweaters until I get to the UK. This is great :)

The Trip – Day 28 – San Francisco

As expected after yesterday’s workout and bicycle ride, I woke up with my leg muscles aching. The day was supposed to be rainy but started out nice, so I used this as a chance to walk to Presidio National Park, an urban park inside San Francisco. I walked to the park through the famous Lombard Street. Then, going back to the hotel, I went through Japantown, Union Square and Chinatown. There were many people outside shopping, dining or just walking around. It was nice to see a busy city (in New York City I didn’t get the chance because of the wintery weather.)

I took a nap and then decided to go to Cobb’s Comedy Club, which is 50 meters away from my hotel. I got a ticket for later in the evening to see Greg Behrendt, who wrote the book (and now there’s a movie too) “He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys.” It was raining lightly outside so I just spent the time in between hanging out in my favorite place around here, called 901 Columbus, which has great music, good food, free Wi-Fi and is 60 meters away from my hotel. It’s great when you have a lot of time in one place so you can just waste it on relaxing without feeling like you’re missing something. Anyway, the show was funny and a good ending for this day.

I have no plans for tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain most of the day so I don’t even know if I’ll do my morning workout, which would be a real shame.

The Prodigy “Invaders Must Die” New Album And UK Tour

Yesterday night Liam Howlett, the mastermind behind The Prodigy, announced that the band’s 5th studio album will be named “Invaders Must Die” and will be released March 2nd. Additionally, an “Invaders Must Die” UK tour dates have been announced.

By pure magical coincidence, the tour dates overlap the dates I plan to be in the UK in my upcoming 3 months trip, which I haven’t mentioned so far on this blog, but I will.

The UK tour has 9 dates:
April
5th – Cardiff International Arena
6th – Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
7th – Glasgow SECC
9th – Birmingham NIA
10th – Manchester MEN Arena
11th – Nottingham Trent FM Arena
13th – Sheffield Arena
14th – Brighton Centre
17th – London Wembley Arena

If you’re interested, you can see the locations on this map.

I will attend the shows on the 5th, 9th, 14th and 17th. If you’re looking for tickets you can get them in the next 2 days before they are in major box offices in The Prodigy’s Tickets online store (the link was sent to fans registered to The Prodigy’s website.)

I Blinked And Now I’m An IBM Employee

It’s all over the news: IBM acquired Diligent Technologies, the place I work for (or worked for, I wonder what the right term is.) I think IBM made a good choice because I truly believe that ProtecTIER, our flagship deduplication product, is a great product of great value to customers.

I joined Diligent Technologies just about 2 years ago (April 23rd 2006 was my first day at work.) This is the first time a company I work for has been bought. From a personal point of view there are mixed feelings – on the one hand, the ride was too short. I wish we had more time to operate as a (relatively speaking) small company so that I would feel I contributed more than I did during the past 2 years. Also, even if we won’t feel the change immediately, we are probably no longer the small family we used to be. On the other hand, being an IBM employee is definitely a good thing for many obvious reasons.

Diligent Technologies (now “an IBM company”) is a great place to work. We have great, award-winning products and technology. Most importantly, Diligent has great people who care about their work. These were definitely 2 good years, career-wise. I hope the next 2 will be at least as good.

p.s.

In the past, during the difficult post-bubble times, IBM’s HR would not even consider interviewing me for a job despite my many attempts. Kind of funny :)

Windows Vista Capable – _They_ Should Have Known Better

A class-action suit against Microsoft’s “Vista Capable” stickers is scheduled to go to trial in October. Microsoft decided to lower the bar on what would be considered a Windows Vista capable computer, and so if you bought a computer that had one of these stickers on it you would basically have a computer that wouldn’t really run Windows Vista in a compelling manner.

Additionally, during Windows Vista’s launch, many drivers were missing. Even drivers for things like top-of-the-line-best-selling printers, not to mention hardware that is not so mainstream. Even today Windows Vista lacks many drivers. NY Times brings the story of three people who should have known better but upgraded to Windows Vista and instantly became disappointment (free registration required).