Note: This weblog is my personal site, and does not represent my employer. What I write here is my own opinion, etc. I am posting a couple job openings here because I figure some quality people reading this might have an interest, based on the readership of this weblog. I am not compensated for posting this, and I don't get a bonus or anything if these positions are filled. I am the hiring manager for these positions, so if that doesn't scare you away...

My employer, Corillian Corporation, is hiring for a number of positions. We're an awfully-darn-cool software company that's fun to work for and where employees have opportunity to really challenge themselves professionally. Corillian is a leading-edge technology company - and some of the smartest people I have ever met work there. I work among technical giants. It can be a little intimidating for me at times (in a healthy, good way), but mostly it's just very, very inspiring.

Among the openings at Corillian, we're looking for three employees to work in our Security department, focused on development and support of our commercial security software products. These positions are at our Portland, Oregon area location. The people filling these positions will be getting in early in the process of developing and selling the next generation of a truly cool and innovative software application. Maybe, just maybe you're the person we're looking for? Here are the positions I'm talking about:

• Security Software Engineers - two positions - mature OO programmers (.NET's a plus) with solid n-tier app experience
• Security Sales Engineer - works in concert with sales execs to meet pre- and post-sales technical and support needs

While I can't go into the specific software applications here on the blog (if you interview, we'll talk more), let's just say if you think security is important and cool, you'll enjoy working on this stuff.

For the Software Engineer positions, you're an experienced OO programmer and you approach things from a whole-design, architecture direction. We're not looking for people who need a list of tasks handed to them. We're looking for people who can organize and make good decisions based on requirements, which they can transform into a terrific software product. You're probably experienced in .NET development and have worked in an iterative/extreme dev environment. you challenge yourself and others, but you're a great person to work with.

For people interested in our Sales Engineer position, you're an excellent presenter in all sorts of situations and audiences, and experienced supporting technical sales efforts related to commercial software products, maybe even related to security software. You're able to deal with matching the priorities and needs of a talented and demanding sales staff, and thrive on doing an excellent job and delivering real, measurable results. You're also able to travel when needed.

To find out all the details about these open jobs, visit Corillian's web site and browse through the openings. You'll find we're also looking for employees to work as QA professionals and support engineers, as well as an IT Help Desk crew member (at least as of the date of this post).

If you have any questions, email or call me. You'll find my contact info over on the right side-bar of this web site. Call or email me - I'll be glad to chat.

Like Scott, I am always curious where my readers are from. Here's my guest map - please add your location! Just click on the guestmap image below to open a new window to view and "sign" it (I had to change this, the heavy iFrame version was killing my site - and I fixed the issue that was preventing some people from being able to sign the map):

Looks like Microsoft on Tuesday released Microsoft Messenger v5.0 for Mac OS X. And since I recently became a Mac owner and added the Apple brand to my computer family, stuff like this make me a happier guy.

"Messenger for Mac 5.0 makes it easy to take advantage of the full power of instant messaging. Messenger for Mac offers two types of communication services - a personal account and a corporate account. A personal account works with the MSN® Messenger service on the Microsoft Passport Network. Contacts that you add to your personal account will include friends and family members. A corporate account uses the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server service and can include contacts who use other instant messaging services, such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, and iChat users who are signed in with AOL accounts."

More info here, and download here.

At http://wigle.rustyredwagon.com/ you can search for an address and see a whole list of WiFi connections mapped by war drivers from all over.

I noticed no one is war driving out in my ultra-remote neck of the woods, though.

And they say there's LOTS of WiFi in Portland - this pic proves it (click for full size - and check out the error, heh):

"...wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a native Windows version that resided totally on CD and could be used to recover your distressed PC..."

Yes, it would. And as JK points out, there is one available. It's called BartPE (Bart Preinstalled Environment), and it lets you construct an awesomely useful boot CD. There's lots of plugins available, too.

• Screenshots here
• Download and get started here

Okay for personal use, and for business use in your company, but not free to redistribute.

Astronaut Steve Robinson has done the first Podcast from space... Say what you want about Podcasting. You have to admit that when someone does it from the space shuttle, that's pretty big deal.

And to think a year ago nobody had ever heard of podcasting...

Listen here (MP3)

"At any rate I will close this very brief first podcast from space with a greeting to all Earthings and a thank you for your interest and support. Whether you support the space program or not, you're learning from it. You're learning from it the very moment you hear this and think about what we're doing. And I think that learning is what looking over the horizon is all about, and don't forget that learning can be exciting and fun, too, because that's certainly what this mission has been all about."