Clator takes new position at Akamai Technologies as a Senior Technical Project Manager

Submitted by Clator
on Thu, 05/10/2012 - 17:00

I am excited to announce the start of a new chapter in my professional career in Open Government and Web Consulting.  I have begun work in the Public Sector Services group at Akamai Technologies based in their Reston, VA office.  Seeing all the changes in Reston after a fifteen year absence is exciting.  More importantly, the ability to bring the skills I have honed to a company like Akamai, who delivers a third of Web content to the globe, is a proud step up and I look forward to serving them well in the years ahead.  This was a hard choice between several great opportunities.
Tags: 
akamai

IE on a Mac ... Finally A Reasonable Solution

Submitted by Clator
on Wed, 05/09/2012 - 14:49

If you’re a Web professional who consults with the Government like me, you’re inevitably routinely frustrated by the need to still test your sites on Internet Explorer (IE).  The Government’s slowness to adopt new technologies keeps us having to make things compatible for aging and poorly-implemented standards.  Worse yet, Microsoft’s unwillingness to make its versions of IE (going back to v6 … they’re up to v9 now) available for the Mac platform serves as a major hinderance for Web designers and developers who may (and often do) opt for the Mac.

Don't get me wrong, I still have a Windows

Tags: 
Windows
Mac
Internet Explorer
Virtualization
VirtualBox
Web Design
Browser Compatibility
Government Consulting

Breakin' Up Is Hard ... Rock ... Sometimes

Submitted by Clator
on Sat, 04/21/2012 - 12:30

Fair Warning: This isn't an album review.  It's a light pop-cultural study of one of Rock's most interesting dramas: Van Halen's career.  The departure of David Lee Roth due to creative differences with the Van Halen brothers after the mammoth success of 1984  shattered the hopes of many a teenaged hair-band wannabe.  After all, this band was ascending beyond the more good-but-cookie-cutter hair metal bands that were emerging at the time and were superstars.  What followed was, if you'll pardon the pun, the Best of Both Worlds.

Tags: 
Rock
Van Halen
David Lee Roth
Chickenfoot
Pink Floyd
Roger Waters
Break-up

Where Have All the Good Barbs Gone?

Submitted by Clator
on Sun, 04/08/2012 - 23:29

Happy Easter, my friends.  Sorry it's been awhile since my last post. I hope to make this blog a weekly thing, but I've been my usual busy self lately, doing so many things that I haven't left much room for sharing about them.  I wasn't sure what to write about at first.  With so many diverse topics to choose from (and I love free form expression), I was torn between something on the entertainment front or something on the religious front (it being Easter and all).  Well, why not a hybrid of the two?

Tags: 
religion
satire
free speech

Ceiling Unlimited

Submitted by Clator
on Sat, 03/03/2012 - 12:35

A few lines from my favorite lyricist Neil Peart of Rush explains my powerfully optimistic mood:

"Ceiling unlimited
Windows open wide
Look and look again, look again

Feeling unlimited
Eyes on the prize
Changes never end, never end ...

Hope is like an ancient river
The time is now again ..."

 

Being no stranger to irony, I often quote Peart, an avowed athiest, and yet draw a lot of religious and spiritual conclusions from him.  I woke up at 4 a.m. today (what should have been a sleep-in-Saturday) with this song and a lot on my mind and knew it had to be shared.

I've been told by many friends that

Tags: 
rush
seuss
religion
spirituality
self improvement
job change
life change

FUPCDC Site Launched!

Submitted by Clator
on Mon, 12/05/2011 - 14:00

Built on Drupal's Open Church installation profile, Clator has moved the small-but-eager First United Presbyterian Church of Dale City into the world of high-powered Content Management Systems.  Empowering all the volunteers of this community church to build and maintain content about their many ministries, missions, and other programs, this leveraged the power of Open Source to help an organization with an overworked office staff and shoestring budget to tap into the same communication power of the big leagues.

Content is still under development, but this is the start of a new era in

White House Petitions: The Greatest Advance in Gov2.0

Submitted by Clator
on Fri, 09/23/2011 - 08:00

The vast majority of the blogs we write can be summed up with three words: Technology Is Cool. It's why several of us have been in this business for so long, making a career out of manipulating 1s and 0s ... it's both exciting and challenging to solve customer problems with new innovations and be good stewards of the resources it takes to do so. Plus, it's fun to see what other people are doing online to provide innovations of their own, be they for productivity or fun, and apply them to our own lives.

But once in a blue moon somebody in the tech sector does something truly game changing.

Tags: 
Drupal
MongoDB
Open Government
Gov 2.0
First Amendment
Open Gov
Petition
We The People
White House

What is this thing anyway?

Clator's Impossible Triangle Solved
You see Clator use his trademark everywhere, but what does it actually mean?  Look closer ... it's an optical illusion known as the "Impossible Triangle."  There is also an impossible triangle in Project Management, where it's often said "you can have it fast, cheap, and right ... pick any two of the three."  But with Clator's approach in the center, the right balance of all three points can be found.