Techie Stuff: July 2008 Archives

Since I don't work in an office anymore, my MOS Certification is now pointless.  No need to renew that.  I should be working on my MCITP certifications, but I'm not.  The books just lie there, staring at me accusingly.  Also, I owe someone some reviews on those books.  I'm just such a slacker.  Also, taking exams is expensive and I am broke.

I could make an effort and get a Cisco certification, if I actually thought that a promotion would follow, or that I'd get reimbursed for it. Since I don't believe in the IT exam fairy, I'll have to put the Cisco one off until I am either back on the market (or about to be).

Then again, maybe I should just go ahead and get the Cisco certification, since it would be a lot more valuable in today's job market and then I would have it, just in case.  It is a useful certification - IT security is always going to be necessary.  And people like to see certifications on your resume - especially when it is backed up by experience, which I have.  I've come a long way for someone with so few certifications and no formal training.  I'd probably be better off if I had focused earlier on reinforcing my practical experience with job related education.  Sadly, I'm just stuck at the point of 'planning' to do it because of the current employment situation.  Also, my schedule sucks at the moment so I don't physically have time to take any classes.  As soon as my schedule changes (*crosses fingers*) I plan to follow through and add some useful shiny certificates to my resume.  Then I can negotiate better for a pay raise, or if all else fails, have enough confidence to walk away and go back to technical day-slavery.  I mean, contract work.

Someday, when I get a larger reader base (HAH) I might need to communicate with them, and let them know when I've updated.  Hey, it could happen.  I used to run an online game, and we would send out updates using these crappy MLIST things.  And I've also tried Yahoo! Groups for doing updates, which was nice except for constantly bouncing messages and people who would reply thinking they were emailing me and instead sending it to EVERYONE.

Also, none of those things handle formatting for portable devices well, which meant nothing to anyone else but I used to keep track of the day's email on my PDA.  Gave me something to read on the train.  Only by 'read' I mean 'scroll endlessly sideways' because people didn't know how to use word wrap.

So when I come to think of a new email newsletter for my one-to-many communications, I want something that will:

• let me control design (in case you haven't noticed, I like a good clean usable layout)
• let me keep my past mailings (f'ing Yahoo non-archivable crap! no more of that!)
• let people sign up and leave easily - not too easily, but unsubscribing shouldn't require you to donate a freaking ovary
• schedule messages - wouldn't it be nice to write something to send out while you're away?  makes you look like a total geek freak who has no life and emails people while on vacation!
• supports text and html format for ease of use on PDAs and for paranoids who don't like html email
• oh, and did I mention FREE?  If I didn't, I should have because that's kind of important

And that's why I'm going with Zookoda. It has everything I listed up there, and more.  It's fast, easy to use, and FREE.  It lets you manage your subscription base, make custom signup/dropout forms, keep track of bad email addresses (bounces and so forth), scheduled newsletters, text format for mobile users, and I could go on but you really should just sign up.  It's free, after all, so what do you have to lose?