This blog, as usual, has been dormant for a while. I’m not one of those blogger who spit out everything passing through their minds but I generally like to report events, technologies, and research ideas that I’m really enjoying and understand.
So, let me deviate a little from my usual scope to report a little bit about myself and my expectations for the new year.
Firstly, in my day job, I was promoted from my previous post. I’ve been working for a year and a half at St George’s University of London as a Systems Developer and Administrator. Last July a colleague left, so I applied to take over his post of Senior Systems Analyst which I finally got in November. I’m now in charge of the mail and backup servers, and of taking care of the storage systems over our distributed network. Most interestingly, after having the chance of dealing with the implementation of our Common Research Information System using Symplectic, I’ve been able to initiate a couple of projects that I believe will greatly improve our services and our positioning as an educational institution in 2011:
– the development of a new process for service support, using Request Tracker
– the design, deployment, and marketing of a mobile portal.
I believe that both projects will help – given the cuts we’ll be experiencing – improve the quality of our services and reach a wider audience. Internal behavioural changes will be needed and a lot of inter-departmental cooperation will be required to let everyone accept the changes and I’m already working on the advocacy sub-projects.
Secondly, 2010 has been a great year of Geo development. After starting to get interested in the topic a couple of years ago, I got in touch with some great people that are really helping me expand my knowledge and views. For 2011 I expect to increase my practical skills and manage to do some work in the area – the first opportunity is exactly our corporate mobile portal, which will have extensive location aware capabilities.
Eventually, as a photographer I finally managed to experiment some techniques like HDR and do some nature photography in the Salt Ponds of Margherita di Savoia. In 2011 I’m planning to do all I can to turn semi-pro, launching a photography website and organize my first theme exhibition in a local cafe. I created my own Christmas Cards this year, with the photo you see below: it’s a picture I took in Bologna, where I was living up to 2008, and it’s the Christmas Tree we have every year in the main square.
That’s all for the moment. Enjoy your holidays, whatever you wish to celebrate 🙂
