Ramblin’ On

by crankygeek ~ December 1st, 2006. Filed under: Geek Stuff, NewsGator, Tech Support.

Leaves are falling all around, It’s time I was on my way.
Thanks to you, I’m much obliged for such a pleasant stay.

- Led Zeppelin - Ramble On

December 6, 2006 is my last day at NewsGator.

I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Nick Bradbury better as well as work closely with the rest of the team at NewsGator. And it’s been very cool participating in the (lea/blee)ding edge of the RSS space. But after a year-and-a-half, I’ve decided that working from home just isn’t for me. As I like to joke (and my geek physique confirms), I miss birthday cake.

Now that I’m back in Olympia (after that bit of adventure of moving to Las Vegas which was the motivation for getting the job with NewsGator in the first place), an opportunity came up to go back to work in the IT department at the same school district that I left. I really enjoyed that environment and doing my small part for education, so I jumped at the chance. (Remember to vote “YES” on any school district bonds or levies that finance technology. The job you save may be mine. ;))

Special thanks to Ronnie Gilbertson (get a blog, dude) and Jonathon McDougall for being such a great team to work with. Those guys really care about NewsGator’s customers and I feel good knowing that they’re still there as our advocates.

I’m still a TopStyle and FeedDemon fanboy, so I’ll be hanging out in the forums; I’ll just be doing support for free again. (I still expect to have access to pre-releases, Mr. Bradbury.)

I really am much obliged, NewsGator. Thanks for the pleasant stay.

13 Responses to Ramblin’ On

  1. critter42

    Tried to post this via the NGO comments link, but don’t see it yet :):

    Congrats, Jack - so does this mean you can post what you REALLY want to say in the forums again now? :) :)

  2. crankygeek

    I’ll wait a few months before I ‘get real.’ :)

    And of course, I’ll continue to respect my NDA. Wouldn’t be professional to do otherwise.

  3. Nick Bradbury

    Jack, you will be sorely missed as a co-worker. All I can say is thanks for the excellent work you’ve done at NewsGator - you’ve certainly made my life easier, and helped an awful lot of our customers.

    And yeah, you’ll keep getting pre-releases, provided that you don’t call me “Mr.” again :)

  4. critter42

    I can tell from experience that the probably worst part is going to be the withdrawal symptoms you’ll have from not having access to the bug tracker when you find one :)

  5. critter42

    grrr… “that probably the worst”

  6. JB

    Jack, my thanks too — you’ve been a tremendous contributor to a fundamental NewsGator asset — our relations with the folks who use our products.

    Good luck!

  7. Andrew Herron

    wow… seems like only yesterday Nick was announcing you had joined the support team. That IT department are lucky to have you, good luck with it :)

  8. Gita

    Congrats (Jack) and condolences (NG). Best of luck to you, and welcome back to the “end user” fold. =)

  9. Anonymous

    So I guess I’m not good to work with huh? Oh Jonathon and Ronnie are sooo cooool…

    You had to know that was coming. Right? Now you have to list all of us.

    Jack, although we did not get a lot of face time together, I respect your abilities and appreciate the work you did while you were here. Well done.

    We are all better for knowing you. Good luck and keep in touch.

    BC

  10. Nick Bradbury

    Jack Brewster is an ex-NewsGatorite

    If you’re a TopStyle or FeedDemon customer and you’ve ever contacted our support team, chances are you know who Jack Brewster is. A couple of years back, Jack was an avid poster to my support forums - and he was

  11. Brent Simmons

    It was great working with you — thanks for all your help and good luck with the new gig.

    Since you’re in my neck of the woods these days, we’ll have to get together sometime.

  12. crankygeek» Blog Archive » My apps are mine again!

    [...] Now that I’m a civilian one of the first things I did was wipe FeedDemon and TopStyle on my computer and configure them the way I want to use them, rather than leave them at the defaults. I found it was easier to stick with a mainly default config to do support rather than try and flip-flop all the time. [...]

  13. JC

    Fair winds and following seas my friend! Its been a pleasure Jack! Job well done here at NG. Good luck in your future pursuits.

    -JC