I’m flying out on a red-eye to Toronto via Chicago tomorrow night for a Flash conference. I usally don’t go on trips without Laurence, but I’ll basically be at the Conference for the whole time. Plus with the weather there and the way she’s feeling, its all worked out for the best. I’ll be back late Monday night with a little luck. I’ll be trying to show off my Pocket PC apps and meet some new people. Hopefully it wont Snow, last time I went to this a couple of years back, my plane comming home was delayed for an hour and a half waiting to get de-iced.

http://pocketpcflash.net

I built this little application for the Pocket PC a little while back, and at Flash Forward I met Bill Perry who runs the site above through a mutual friend “Shawna http://www.artzest.com who co-chairs the local “Pocket PC user group NorCal Mobile Computing SIG.

At the time I met Bill, I only had half of the application finished. But he mentioned when I was done that he would be glad to help me publisize it on his site. Last week I sent off the file to him, Bill wrote me back and suggested adding something to compute the tip. I got that wrapped up pretty quick, and now I’m featured (at least for a few days) on his site. I’m also in the example area. So go and check it out! Thanks Bill!

Well, my interview with ASK Learning went pretty well. I met with one of the designers (Allan) for ~40 minutes. I was the first interview (at least for this position) and I set the bar pretty well I think. I showed my Pocket PC examples, a couple of Product Tours, and a little of my manageStar stuff. I think I left him thouroughly impressed.

This postion will be more ActionScript development for fun (corperate) e-learning stuff, which would be idea. They had a cool office on Potrero Hill which would be pretty easy to drive too, or even BART it. Initally it will be part time, but have a possiblity of more.

Keeping my fingers crossed…

Off to do some more Cold Calling…SOMA here I come…

Tomorrow morning @ 10am I have an interview with askLearning over on Potrero Hill. The company looks interesting, I might be able to work on some e-Learning solutions, which would be pretty cool. After I finish there, I’m going to go out and try some more cold calling South of Market…Hopefully I get lucky somewhere…

Well I never really saw myself as a salesman, but yesterday I hopped on BART with my Pocket PC, laptop, and a few resume’s and targeted a couple of firms that I had submitted an application to. I’ve sent out hundred’s of cover letters and resume’s and have had little response. But I’m sure that my stuff is just getting burried in an avalanch of applications.

Recently I found out that Craigslist offers an RSS feed to their web design jobs…Isn’t that just FANTASTIC!!! If you are not familiar with RSS, I plan on writing something on it soon, but basically its a feed you can monitor and get alerts from as changes happen. So what this means for me is that I can monitor any job updates on their site, so I can be hopefully found at the top of the Heap…

So I decided that yesterday I would go up to the city and drop in on a few places since I can be much more memorable and charming in person. I first met up with my friend Tom to show him a small XML thing I’ve been working on for one of his projects, and we grabbed a quick bite. It was nice to warm up with chatting over lunch since I tend to get too shy meeting new people. So after we wrapped up I headed to my first destination…up the street.

*The Creative Group*
After finding my way through the various banks of elevators, and hoping that security wouldn’t just escort me out for looking lost, I made it up to the 10th floor of thier building, walked up to a very nice receptionist, and told her that I was there to meet with someone from The Creative Group. This company seemed to be just one part of a larger organization, so I explained further when she asked me who I was there to see. So I very innocently told her that I had applied for a position on-line with that company, and I was wondering if someone might come and meet me for 5 minutes to see my Pocket PC applications. She made a quick call, and asked me to sit down. There seemed to be about half a dozen people waiting around in various pre/post application/interview/hiring phases, so I wasn’t too out of place…luckilly.

After about 15 minutes waiting around and wondering if I should just run away, and trying not to let my palms sweat, Greg came down and met with me and kindly gave me 5 minutes of his time. I showed him my two Flash based Pocket PC applications (sushiFiend and miniFrench), gave him my resume, and a quick background on me. He asked me a couple of questions and seemed very interested in what I had made. He walked me to the elevator and I thanked him for his time, and in turn he thanked me for comming by. WOW!

*Publicis*
This was the second place I tried yesterday, it was a 10 block trek to their office, but I was feeling pretty good, so the walk went quickly. I walked in and basically did the same thing. The receptionist was very nice, but said that it was a policy not to allow drop-ins like this unfortunatly. I tried to show her my little Pocket PC apps but she wasn’t very interested. She did give me the generic company card and said to give a call if I didn’t hear anything in the next week or so…

I really hope they contact me…but again I’m just one of many people looking for work right now…

Oh well, 1 out of 2 isn’t bad. I kinda wish it was the reverse, I got a much better feeling from Publicis than from The Creative Group. Not necesarily the people, but just the feeling of the office overall while being there. Publicis was in a cool brick building, and it felt homey, The Creative Group even though they were much nicer to me was in a very sterile office building…like you were in a bankers office…

On the way home I found out I have an interview on monday @ 10am with a company called Ask Learning…hope it goes well…