Well, the New Year tends to have a weird effect on me - I tend to get very depressed about life in general. Actually, that's not weird for me at all, quite normal in fact, but each time we go Year++ I suddenly realise another fairly unproductive year has gone past...

(You can skip this bit, if you wish...)

Young Unstimulated Programmer/Writer Seeks Companies Who Know What They Want

After graduating, I spent four months hunting for a job. Despite the fact that the UK allegedly has a chronic shortage of programmers and skilled computing personnel, finding work was pretty difficult. Despite a reasonable turnout of companies considering me, I managed the grand total of 2 interviews and only 3 acknowledgements of my application. Naturally, I was depressed about moving from student life to a career before things had only just started...

Interestingly, technical skills weren't the problem - only the experience. At one rather impressive electronics company, I was actually congratulated for being the only applicant to complete several of the test questions successfully. Naturally, I didn't get the job - though looking back it may not have been my sort of thing. I will also never forget an advert which stated "Recent graduate with 3 years Industrial experience required for..." which must have got a lot of interest.

I've now clocked up (as of writing) 15 months experience in my alternative career route, Internet development. It wasn't my first choice, but it has proved very useful in grabbing a large chunk of skills you're unlikely to find in one particular job very easily - I've progressed from a general assistant to project manager for three sites, as well as technical support, CGI development, electronic publishing research, and disaster management and recovery. The only problems are that I'm underpaid, overworked (each site is a one person job, and I have no assistants) and do not get any recognition for technical skills - I have to drop important development tasks (which I'm contracted to do) for less important managerial tasks (which I'm not contracted for, and which I'm not skilled at doing effectively). Okay, granted it's a small company with an unfortunate past and a hazy future, but it just gets to me that I can't show off what I'm good at and enjoy.

So now I'm starting to look around again - looking for a programming job before my technical skills rot. I have one simple directive: no Windoze development. I know that limits things quite considerably, but I personally don't find the most interesting developments on Windoze. So, if you know of an interesting non-Wintel job in the UK for a rusty programmer who is willing to spend days without sleep to bring his skills up to scratch (assuming an adequate supply of Coca Cola and real dark chocolate), I think we need to talk...

(Click here to find a CV which needs a bit of an overhaul)

Windows Refund Day

Speaking of Windoze not having interesting developments, it appears Windoze has attracted some unusual attention as regards refunds. Now, I've known for a long time that, while finding a decent PC compatible without Windoze installed is difficult, you do not have to accept the licence and can get a refund. I did hear that it could often be tricky, but it is legal and has been done. Well, now it appears a lot of people have suddenly discovered this aspect of the licencing agreement. The net effect (sic) is that 15th February 1999 has become Windows Refund Day.

So, if you're a Linux, NetBSD, OS/2, QNX, BeOS, NetWare, user and had to suffer the indignity of buying a top-of-the-range machine with a bottom-of-the-pile OS 'bundled conveniently' with the system, you can now join a bunch of wise people around the world and get some money back. Also, this goes for all those who bought a Windoze machine and had to deal with bloatware like Office 97, rather than a more useful piece of software - you can refund that too. The only requirement is that you did not break the seal on your software pack, and did not use the software if preinstalled. If this applies, demand a refund from the company you bought the machine from, or Micros**t, on the 15th February - and make sure everyone knows about it (great photo opportunity for local papers, by the way).

More info at: http://www.linuxmall.com/refund/

Accelerator Explosion

One of the nice things recently has been the explosion (not literally) of accelerators featuring next generation processors now in the pipeline. For too long, Phase 5 have had a monopoly on the PowerPC accelerator market. While I've heard criticism of their software implementation, the hardware has been well received, and of good quality, judging from the comments of the growing list of satisfied customers. However, I'm always cautious when a company holds a monopoly on something so important - even after the price reductions on the Cyberstorm PPC, I would still prefer a cheaper board with, perhaps, a 603e rather than the (admittedly, very nice) 604e in increasingly larger MHz.

Fortunately, it seems Haage & Partner's 680X0 emulation software is providing a strong foundation for the move to more PowerPC accelerator manufacturers, and even the removal of the expensive 680X0 for good. ESCENA broke the monopoly by announcing their own Brainstormer boards based upon the G3 processor - and not just one, but multiple processors if required! By using a Zorro-III slot, they've also ensured a better one-board-fits-all policy - and maybe even the potential for racks of G3 cards in multiple slots. Beowulf-style G3 Amigas could end up being introduced if someone ever has the inspiration.

IAT Manufacturing (does anyone have a URL for them?) then strolled in casually with their Coldfire board, of which details are scarce at present. Starting with relatively sedate 70 MIPS processors, the system aims to move towards the top-end Coldfire systems featuring performance in excess of 400-600 MIPS (depending on your source of specs) - cheap multiprocessing, which will actually run existing 680X0 code unmodified (using a library to emulate some missing instructions). Multiprocessing seems to be all the rage for the Amigan about town...

Now, thanks to an alert from the wonderful guys at Czech Amiga News, it appears the Viper accelerator line is going PowerPC too! Although an A1200-only development, the Viper PPC looks set to introduce the G4 processor to the Amiga line, as well as 'traditional' Amiga favourites the 604e and G3. It's interesting to note that the Brainstormer and Viper lines neatly cover pretty much all Amigas out there.

Hardware-wise, we live in interesting times. Who said the Amiga 'Classic' has an uncertain future?

[metaljoe@oocities.com]