Some people have commented on updates to Facebook & Linked in, so thought I’d author a quick post detailing what I’m up to these days. For anyone who’s wondering, as of January of this year, I am no longer at CampusEAI – I’ve chosen to join ContextWeb, an advertising network/exchange vendor based in NYC, as a Sr. Java Developer. While I was very proud of some of the work that we were able to accomplish in the development group at CampusEAI, and will greatly miss both the team and many of the community members (and hope that we keep in touch), it was time for me to move on to doing something different (and possibly spending some time with my family, and especially my kids).

So far, ContextWeb is a pretty neat place – a strong technical team focused on Agile(Scrum) and trying to do the right thing. One of the interesting challenges is the company is currently in the process of moving much of the infrastructure from an ASP.Net/SQL Server backend to a cloud-friendly, Java, OpenSource, and Hadoop backed system. While the shift has been going on for a while, it’s accelerated recently due to a number of upcoming product offerings and business requirements (in fact, see previous posts, ContextWeb is hiring Java devs). So it’s exciting in a lot of ways, both being able to go back to doing real coding and hands on development (apparently I do mostly remember what all those buttons in Eclipse do…) as well as working with a pretty good group of guys (though, some of those C# conventions drive me batty).

If anyone noticed that I finally gave in and really added banner ads to my blog, well I do now work for an online advertising exchange… (It’s definitely not because this site is making me lots of money)

I will still definitely be following what happens with Jasig, Sakai, and Kuali, and am optimistic that it’s an exciting time for those projects and communities – and will eagerly read anything Google flags for me to look at.

A week or so ago, I got an email from a friend:

????????Just in case you haven’t noticed this yet, Google links to jay.shao.org now include warnings about malware: Jason E. Shao » Blog Archive » Sakai SVN Vendor Branch Outcome This site may harm your computer. Jul 17, 2007 … Soo… yesterday I completed my 2.3.1 Sakai vendor branch merge, … I had to use the trunk version of svn_load_dirs.pl and patch it — see Bug … jay.shao.org/archives/2007/07/17/sakai-svn-vendor-branch-outcome – Similar pages – Note this

The best kind of warnings are the ones you get about something you’re aware of, trying to fix, and hoping no one will notice. In this case, working through the baroque malware site removal process. How did I get dragged into it? Well…

I didn’t actually notice until I browsed to my blog using Firefox 3 (been my default browser for a while now — I really like Safari too, but Firefox 3 is not you’re daddy’s Mac Firefox) and got slammed with a really obnoxious error message noting that the site was suspected of malware. The page looks a lot like the kind you get nowadays when you visit a site with a self-signed certificate, except there was no way to dismiss it (but use Safari…). About the same time, I noticed that Google search results included the note referenced above. So, naturally I read in a bit to try and figure out how to get rid of it. Well…

1. Visit stopmalware.org
2. Read a pretty long written description
3. Find no way to identify what triggered the malware warning on my site
4. Submit a request to re-examine to try and get some contact.
5. twiddle…
6. Get a message back identifying a single problem with the site
7. Fix said problem (bad iFrame, possibly copy & pasted)
8. Submit a 2nd request to re-examine
9. twiddle…
10. Get another message back identifying a different, specific problem (not mentioned the first time)
11. Fix said problem
12. Submit a 3rd request to re-examine
13. twiddle…
14. exoneration (no notification though) all is well with the web

So, aside from my personal irritation at this process I thought I’d add some mentions based upon some customer service observations:

• not being able to find out what you did wrong is really irritating
• not being able to find out all the things you did wrong makes it worse
• internet accessing processes that require real-people time makes them feel really frustrating

(Actually from last night during the flight, but then I got home…)

As part of my new position for CampusEAI I’ve had a fairly aggressive travel schedule over the past few weeks (the cost of not relocating). It has however forced me to become much more closely acquainted with the airlines (and Continental in particular) and prompted a few observations:

1. Upgrades: Getting upgraded is nice. The biggest problem? Generally people who travel enough to get upgraded are flying on business — and — hence flying at the same time as others flying on business (who fly even more). It’s almost disheartening to watch half the people waiting for the flight standup when they’re boarding Elite Access. Still, it’s nice when it happens.

2. Delays: So far out of 6 flight segments between Newark (EWR) and Cleveland (CLE) I’ve been delayed 3 times. It doesn’t seem possible to get delayed by less than about an hour either, though so far I’ve been fortunate enough with nothing longer than about 2 1/2. Still, a 50% hit rate is pretty… good? bad?

3. Airline Clubs: Worth every penny. If you travel a lot. Normally I try to cut my arrival at the airport pretty tight with my flight departure, to grab more time at home with the kids, but during those aforementioned delays… There’s a big difference between an hour delay in the concourse fighting it out with other grumpy bench residents, and an hour delay while sitting in the lounge on the wifi, by the bar, munching on an apple.

4. Security: Surprisingly I’ve actually gotten used to security — to the point where someone I was traveling with was like “wow — that’s crazy” and my instinctual response was “eh”. Of course, I no longer travel with belts, a watch, coins in my pocket…

5. Pricing: This is kind of a crazy subject. Right now — a Sun-Wed roundtrip between EWR-CLE is ~ $260. A Sun-Tue roundtrip? ~ $850. Whaaaat!?!?! I’m not sure that there’s any way to explain that other than trying to segment the market into business travelers,since who else would stay less than 3 days? Though, if I book 2 weeks at a time, with 2 weeklong stays that just happen to overlap… hmmm…

In general, business travel (especially regular, sustained travel) has been something to endure. It feels good to vent though

Well the questions are pouring in (mostly due to my tardiness in writing this kind of announcement) and so, without farther ado…

What Happened?

While it still feels a little strange to say it, as of 2 Fridays ago (2/8) I am no longer employed at Rutgers University. Over the last 9 years as first a student, then staff member, I’ve had the chance to: first study under, and then work with some incredible people. I’ve gotten to watch projects and services grow and evolve into solutions that are used every day by tens of thousands of students, faculty, and staff.

Before addressing my personal situation, I feel the need to speak a bit about the Rutgers Sakai deployment which up until now has occupied so much of my thoughts and energy. I was fortunate enough to see myRutgers grew into a service providing tools and services to every student at Rutgers. Sakai usage is currently somewhere on that curve, with usage growing by leaps and bounds. This Spring’s semester in many ways feels like a qualitative shift in the nature of the service — marked by a huge increase in the number of students asking “where’s my class’s Sakai site.” This semester these questions are particularly significant, as many of them are coming from students in classes where either:

1. Class was not yet in session. This is a big change from the dynamic in previous semesters where students typically visited the first meeting of their class, and were then directed to visit the Sakai site. Now students are looking to visit the Sakai site to see the syllabus, readings, and get a leg up on going to that first class.
2. Their instructor had not created a site. Sakai seems poised to make the jump into ubiquity, as in some students minds it’s already there.

Now to handle the really common question — if the Rutgers Sakai deployment is so clearly poised for greatness, where am I going and why? Well…

Starting this past monday (2/11) I have taken a position with the CampusEAI Consortium, where I will be serving as the Director of Open Source Solutions. Recent years have seen a huge upswing in the popularity, and visibility of open and community source solutions in Higher Education. Sakai, uPortal, CAS, Kuali, and othes have garnered attention, awards, and deployments. Due to significant interest expressed by member institutions, CampusEAI is looking to complement its existing strengths on the Oracle platform with broader offerings in the open-source space.

Answers to some personal-ish questions:

Are you moving to Cleveland?

No, I’m going to be based out of NJ, though Continental is certainly getting a good chunk of my time for the next few months as I schlep back and forth.

What does Lisa think?

She’s excited. Well, more excited when I’ve been gone < 2 days as opposed to > 3 days…

What do the kids think?

The kids are still getting used to not picking me up at Rutgers. They think it’s really funny that daddy works somewhere they can’t see. Sunday nights are hard. Phone calls are bittersweet. Coming back is good.

Aren’t you on the JA-SIG Board?

Yes. When my career change became definite I notified the board at the January video call. JA-SIG has always been a community of volunteers (stellar volunteers more often than not) and particular given my new employer’s willingness to continue backing my involvement in JA-SIG it was felt that there were no significant barriers to my continuing to serve in this capacity. As always, JA-SIG

So… is your Rutgers job open?

Yes. Though (see below) I’m hiring too…

What’ll I be doing?

So what does this mean in concrete terms? My personal definition is pretty simple. We’re looking to help members deploy solutions built on open source software. Given my background, Sakai, uPortal, CAS, and maybe even Kuali are obvious possibilities. I think however, that it’s a broader story than just support for deploying a few specific products. Many institutions have experienced challenges in building around open-source due to shortages in staffing or specific skill-sets. Others have successfully deployed open-source solutions, but been burned trying to deepen integration, or due to staff turnover (a problem which I should note also happens around commercial solutions). So the goal of this new unit is to make deploying solutions built on open-source:

1. Easy
2. Cost Effective
3. Low Risk
4. Sustainable
5. Did I say easy?

Basically the goal is to allow schools to leverage the strengths inherent in the open-source development model:

• Try before buy
• Rational licensing and cost-containment (instead of getting wracked with heavy licensing burdens as you get “too successful”)
• Open implementations, generally of open standards
• Economy of scale versus custom developed institution-specific software
• Freedom from vendor roadmaps and strategy shifts — even to go as far as obtain competitive bids from multiple vendors on the same solutions
• Peer interaction with really bright people working hard to solve the same problems you see

So that’s the goal. Make open-source easier, removing barriers for schools large & small — the kind of topics that have continually been commented on lists, in journals, and at conferences. Reducing installation pain. Helping with patch management. Providing support and training. Taking the pain and risk out of going open-source, all while working to make strategic contributions to enable the production of more good software.

It should be exciting.

P.S. Did I mention we’re hiring? Drop an email talking about your love for open-source, and how you really want to join in making it easier: jason_shao@campuseai.org. Oh, and mention you saw the posting in my blog

Hi everyone,

I hope the holidays finds everyone happy and well.

I’m proud to announce that yesterday morning at 12:46 and 12:55 PM Leila and Penelope Shao entered the world.

Leila was 5 lb. 11 oz, and 19 inches long. She’s the quiet thoughtful one, but she’s looking around an awful lot so I’m suspicious that she’s picking up more than she lets on. She’s eating pretty enthusiastically and looks set to catch up to her larger sister shortly.

Penelope was 5 lb. 15 oz and definitely has a good set of lungs. So far she seems like she’s the assertive one — if there’s an elbow in someone’s face, it’s usually hers.

Lisa had a swift and easy labor, and is currently recovering at St. Peters, and should be home by Wednesday morning.

I’ve posted some initial photos of the girls online, and I’ll probably be updating them over the next few weeks: Twins Photo Album

Happy holidays to everyone and I’ll see you in a few weeks.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and support, Lisa and Jason

Personal

I’m originally from St. Louis, MO, but really grew up in New Providence, NJ (home). I spent a stint in Beijing, PRC but now hang my hat in Piscataway, NJ. I have three beautiful children: Chris (5), Leila & Penny (both 4) and an amazing wife Lisa who holds everything together. Given the 3 small children, and immediate proximity from our current location to their grandparents I’m fairly rooted in NJ, though I love travel and do hope to someday be able to have a pushpin in my world map on every continent.

Professional

I’m a Rutgers University graduate who is currently employed as a Sr. Java Developer at ContextWeb focused on our Server-Side Ad delivery platforms, though I am also keenly interested in Web 2.0, online collaboration, and identity management issues.

I also perform independent consulting related to portals, learning management systems, enterprise architecture & object oriented design, open-source software and community involvement, and agile development practices.

I have also worked for: the CampusEAI Consortium where I led development of the myCampus social portal platform, Rutgers Office of Instructional and Research Technology working the Sakai implementation, and Enterprise Systems and Services as an Application Developer focused on the myRutgers portal, which is based on uPortal project, as well as Identity Management.

Overdue debtors beware: You may not be able to rely on Caller I.D. to screen out those annoying bill collectors much longer. A California entrepreneur has a plan to bring the hacker technique of Caller I.D. spoofing to the business world, beginning with collection agencies and private investigators.

Slated for launch next week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller I.D. spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose. ‘It creates an extra avenue for them to have someone pick up the phone,’ says founder Jason Jepson.

I haven’t blogged on this site for a while. I have made some posts to my RUJason site using Blogger. Since blogger’s redesign and the launch of MT 3.0 I’ve been comparing the 2 services and have come to the conclusion that both are now mature, capable platforms specialized for different styles, comments & links, or articles and discussion. Continue Reading »

Jason Smathers, a West Virginia man who worked in AOL’s Dulles, Virginia, data warehouse, is accused of stealing a list containing 92 million subscriber screen names. Interim U.S. Attorney David Kelley said Smathers, 24, sold the list to another man, Sean Dunaway, who then sold it to two spammers for $52,000. Dunaway was also charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan.

Considering the number of people who much have access to these kinds of lists, I wonder (long term) how you can stop people from taking a gamble and trying to make a quick 50k. That’s a lot of money for just about anyone.

Ms. Schultz,

My wife and I were reading the paper together when we saw a syndicated copy of your column titled “Morning after pill brings ad new day.” As someone who after some careful thought generally supports the idea of the morning after pill being made an over the counter medication (as long as the fine print is cleared up to add an explanation of just what the manufacturer’s studies conclude is the maximum safe doses a month) I would have to say that your article is potentially one of the most damaging pieces in the debate for that ideal that I have read in recent memory. Continue Reading »