Web Developer/Programmer position:
Location: Middlebury, Vermont

We are a successful and established Vermont e-commerce web site development and Web marketing firm that offers a fun and stimulating environment with great co-workers, flexible schedules and lots of contact with interesting clients. 

We are looking for a responsible, team-oriented individual who is interested in programming for Web development in a Microsoft environment. Candidate should be as comfortable in front of the client as in front of the computer and be technologically inquisitive. You will need an understanding of Object-Oriented development, .NET 1.1/2.0, ASP.NET, VB.NET, Visual Studio 2003/2005, and MS SQL. Web design skills and Flash would be a plus.

Salary is commensurate with experience. Love of dark chocolate and interest in bicycling and/or fencing a plus.
 
Candidate must be a US citizen or possess valid green card.

Please respond with resume: jobs@tli2.com.  No phone calls please.

Timberline Interactive, Inc.
PO Box 992, Middlebury, VT 05753
We are an Equal Opportunity Employer offering health
Benefits and competitive salaries

Oracle DBA/SAP Basis Administrator

Burton Snowboards is looking for a talented senior level administrator to join our fast-paced IT team to help manage our enterprise database and SAP Basis environments. This position requires a broad set of skills and will be responsible for designing, installing, configuring, documenting, and supporting Oracle databases in an SAP environment as well as providing SAP Basis administration support in a MySAP/ERP/Netweaver landscape.

Responsibilities include installing and configuring software, applying patches, disaster recovery processes, backup and recovery procedures, capacity planning, and regular maintenance tasks. Maintaining database availability, including: monitoring, alerting, and proactively maintaining databases to avoid loss of database access and availability. Database performance tuning--including analysis, performance optimization, and memory management. Experience with Oracle-specific backup, refresh, and restore procedures is essential. SAP Basis administration duties include archiving, performance tuning, security and user administration.

A Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate field and a minimum of 3 years of senior level experience managing Oracle databases in an enterprise ERP environment is required. Demonstrated experience with planning, designing, configuring, installing, and troubleshooting Oracle 9i/10g is needed. Preferred candidates will be well-versed in Oracle SQL and PL/SQL and have previous, demonstrable experience supporting SAP. Familiarity with Linux file systems, tape backup procedures, and SAN environments is a plus. This position requires strong oral, written and organization skills, excellent time and project management skills, and a strong ability to prioritize tasks.

To apply: Please complete our online application at www.burton.com

Clearing up few points of common confusion about the next version of ADO.NET... read more

[A DevLife post]

Title:  IT Marketing Analyst

Location: Bennington, Vermont

Perks:  Relocation assistance available, plus excellent benefits

Salary:  $65,000 - $75,000++

Type position:  permanent (not contract)

This is truly a unique, positive company with a hi-tech environment and significant focus on marketing and customer support.  Great corporate culture!   The IT Marketing Analyst will be a key player in all MARKETING efforts for this well-established and highly successful Vermont company.  Will be part of IT staff, but work closely with internal Marketing groups to develop & enhance critical reporting systems which analyze customer behavior and buying patterns; will provide business analysis to increase the success of corporate marketing programs. Will also assist IT groups in recommending database and user interface to support; assist tech-support team in supporting software infrastructure to optimize performance and usability of end-user tools; test new versions of software developed for the marketing groups.   Company will assist with relocation costs for qualified candidates in state (Vermont) or out of state.   They will not allow telecommuting – you must live within commuting distance from the position. 

 Requirements 

●         Ideal candidate will have strong IT experience combined with strong marketing knowledge or be an experienced marketing analyst with very good computer skills. 

●         Technical skills should include some of the following: BI / Business intelligence and reporting tools and techniques (e.g. Business Objects, MS Reporting Services, Crystal Reports); and Relational and/or Dimensional database design in data warehouse database; Oracle and/or SQL Server database tools and techniques.

●         Skills in scripting languages preferred:  VBScript, PL/SQL, Visual Basic or .Net. or SAS.

●         Experience with IT Analysis in marketing concepts such analytics, CRM, data analysis, Business Intelligence, eCommerce, data mining, SAS or statistical tools are desirable.

●         Bright creative person with solid technical skills who takes initiative and contributes creatively to project and team goals.

●         BS Computer Science, Marketing or Business is preferred / not required.

TO APPLY:  forward your resume in Word.doc format to joycehunt@hamiltontech.com.   

Or, call with questions:  888-497-8462 x101  (our placement firm is located in the Albany, New York area. 

Title:  WEB DEVELOPER

Location: Bennington, Vermont

(just north of Bennington)

Perks:  Relocation assistance available!  Plus excellent benefits

Salary:  $65,000 - $75,000++

Type position:  permanent (not contract)

Challenging opportunity for WEB Developer interested creating complex, sophisticated features for e-commerce environment.   

This is truly a unique, positive company with a hi-tech environment and significant focus on marketing and customer support.  Great corporate culture!   Will build user interface applications and back-end databases using various programming and scripting languages; program complex and custom Web pages; assist in project planning and technical Web site design and architecture; create prototypes and functional specifications for software projects;  determine new Web technologies to utilize, such as browsers, languages, and plug-ins based on company's needs;  conceptualize long-term needs of Web development.   Company will assist with relocation costs for qualified candidates in state (Vermont) or out of state.   They will not allow telecommuting – you must live within commuting distance from the position. 

Requirements:

·   Strong skill in development of corp web sites / e-commerce sites

·   Prefer exp with Microsoft based tools: .Net,  VB.Net,  Visual Studio, ASP, Visual Basic, SQL-Server, Commerce Server

·  Will consider Java/PHP web development experience

·  Should have min 3-6 years exp including developing corporate web applications

·  Industry experience in wholesale, retail, marketing, POS or service oriented businesses is a plus.

·  Solid work record with good references will be required.

·  BS Computer Science or similar technical degree

·  Growth opportunity with world-class ecommerce systems.

TO APPLY:  forward your resume in Word.doc format to joycehunt@hamiltontech.com.   

Or, call with questions:  888-497-8462 x101  (our placement firm is located in the Albany, New York area; the position is in Vermont)

Lots of people are up in arms about Microsoft's attempt to hold onto their new UI paradigm for a while with a crazy licensing scheme. I'm wondering when I'm going to have time to read, digest and implement their 120 pages of guidelines! Read more ....

[A DevLife post]

Rich and I saw Borat last night and I couldn't agree more with Charles Petzold's assessment:

If Mr. Cohen's intent is to explore people's reactions in intolerable situations, then it makes no sense for this movie to have scenes of Borat by himself, or with his "producer." And yet, Mr. Cohen has obviously become so enamored of his fictional creation that the movie really becomes about Borat rather than his American victims.

I found the movie nearly intolerable myself. Excluding a few scenes that seemed pretty real (the homeboys teaching him how to dress a little more homey and the very human Lunelle and everyone's incredible patience) Cohen's version of "Candid Camera" was over the top, but not really in what I saw as an intellectual or enlightening way. His outrageous public behavior was just outright mean and not funny. So much commentary of the movie is about how he tricked people on camera, but the ruse goes much further. He tricked us into the movie theater to shock us too. I'm pretty liberal and extremely tolerant, but there was way more in that movie than I felt like witnessing and nearly walked out.  I truly feel duped that I got lured into the theater with all of this promise of some fascinating expose of human behavior. And to top it off, I have now paid my $8 and brought my husband (who was hoping to see James Bond instead), and therefore contributed to the success of the movie. The joke has been on all of us, not just the "characters" in the movie.

No, this is not a Koolaid induced post. It is really true. I have been saying it to friends and realized I should blog about it. So I did over here.

[A DevLife post]

I have posted the powerpoints and demos from my four talks at DevConnections last week.

They are all on http://www.thedatafarm.com/talks.aspx.

Each session is listed alphabetically. At the end of the session description you will find a link for the PowerPoint deck and for the zip file with the demos.

The four sessions I just posted are:

• Advanced ADO.NET 2.0 (3 hour post-conf workshop)
• Asynchronous Programming for ASP.NET Developers
• Managing and Deploying ASP.NET 2.0 Applications and Web Services
• Persisting Ink on the Web
  

I LOVED this book. It is one of those that I found myself reading until 2 or 3am in the morning (and then sleeping late because of it). I won't be going, but just thought I would share in case other locals read my blog but not the Free Press where I learned about this.

Vista madness (that which comes when Vista is released to MSDN subscribers....(yesterday)) is not quite like Playstation madness, but I'm sure lots of people will be so eager to get their new bits that they might forget this very important piece of information.... read more

[A DevLife post]

The front page of the Burlington Free Press showed a guy pitching a tent for his second night camping out in front of Best Buy in Williston (where all the big box stores are just outside of Burlington). Sheesh. Not the swarms we've seen on the national media though. Just 20 or 30.

GEM Resourcing emailed to let me know they have a bunch of .NET jobs all over the country. If you go to their job search, filter the category to "Information Technology" and then type ".NET" in the Search Words, that shows 13 jobs from Pennsylvania to California.

Oh, I like this. No longer do I have to wait for Word or Excel to open up. It's a lot faster. I can just take a quick look at an attachment in Preview mode. Images too. Not PDFs though.

As noted in my previous post, I have flagged and forgotten over 500 emails since 2001. With Outlook's new UI, flagged items are up front and center and now really useful, but not with 500 dead emails floating around in there. So I started going through them and got it down to 200 so far. Then  I got even more inspired. For the first time ever, Iused the archive. I always thought archive meant that it would be stowed away somewhere but difficult to access. Now I see that it just mean creating an addtional PST file and putting emails in there (duplicating my folder structure also). My main PST is now somewhat smaller and much more responsive. What the heck took me so long to do that?

After installing Office 2007, I decided to downlad the newest OneNote to see if it will finally do the trick in getting me into the habit.... read more...

[A DevLive post]

Office 2007 arrived on the MSDN Subscriber downloads this afternoon. It's 70% downloaded on my machine so far.

In a previous blog post, I moaned about TechEd 2007 being moved to Orlando rather than the originally scheduled New Orleans. Many of us were so happy that it was going to be in New Orleans for the sake of supporting the economy there. The reason had something to do with the airport saying they couldn't handle the traffic for such a big conference.

I just received this comment from Matt Brewer and it really makes me wonder....

The past two days at DevConnex have been busy indeed. I got a chance to write about them while waiting for my midnight flight home. Read more...

[A DevLife post]

I have two talks to do today - one for ASP Connections and one for Mobile Connections. Therefore, this morning I decided to treat myself to room service breakfast. I learned years ago from Kate Gregory to have a good breakfast and protein when you are speaking. Kate is one of the best presenters I have ever seen (and usually one of the highest rated at conferences) so I pay close attention to her advice! Rather than stuff myself with the yummy bagels and breads they have for us in the speaker room, I ordered eggs benedict. Yummmy. At about the right time, I could hear the room service cart bouncing down the hallway. The hallway is long with stretches of carpet followed by a stretch of marble. So every time it went from carpet to marble from mrable to carpet, it would rattle. I could hear him approach my room and went and opened the door and there was the poor guy kneeling on the floor next to the metal box that is used to keep the food warm. The box had fallen off the cart as he bounced off the carpet on to the marble in front of my room. Eggs all over. The guy really felt bad, but I assured him it was not a problem and after he poured me a cup of coffee, headed downstairs to get me another plate of breakfast. In the meantime, I have sun streaming into my room and can look out at the beautiful range of mountains past the airport.

My first two days at DevConnections have been busy. Read all about it here. Now I need to get back to making sure tomorrow's talks will be great.

[A DevLife post]

Lots of news in the last few days! Here's a list of all that has rtm'd and what is finally very imminent: read more...

[A DevLife post]

Who else but the energetic Stephen Forte! HEre's his account of running yesterday's marathon. Now he's on his way to TechEd Barcelona. I'm on my way to speak at DevConnections in Las Vegas. But my marathon was a marathon weekend of sitting in front of my computer.

Getting SqlDependency to work takes an enormous amount of orchestration up front - especially with regards to SQL Server permissions. Steve ran into a problem which made SqlDependecy work only intermittently. He finally got to the bottom of it (was related to the dbo owner) and has blogged about it here.

Something to write home about! 

(It's my mom)

Torn between wanting to just get 'er done and wanting to have a complete comprehension of everything that is going on under the covers? That's the line I have to constantly wrangle with when giving conference presentations and it's truly hard to please everyone, though I do know who I'm aiming for. Read more...

[A DevLife post]

DevConnections is this coming up this week! Here are some last minute things to know about.

The registration is unbelievable this year. There are nearly 5000 people registered for the combined shows. More stats: 190 speakers and held in a convention center that is literally one million square feet!

1. If it's not too late, don't forget to vote before you leave! Check with your town clerk ASAP.
2. There's a Women in I.T. Lunch on Thursday for attendees and speakers. Space is limited, so sign up for it when you register.
3. Bring your suit! You may find some time to enjoy the beach and big pools at the Mandalay before, between or after sessions. The weather is looking great - low 80's and sunny during the days.
4. Bring comfortable shoes since you'll be doing a lot of walking. Not that I've ever seen a programmer in high heels.
5. Evening activities
   1. Monday Keynotes 6:30 - 8:30pm
   2. Tuesday 5-7pm reception in Expo Hall
   3. Tuesday 7:15 - 9:15 Microsoft Unplugged for attendees of ASP.NET/SQL/Mobile Connections (w/pizza & beer)
6. If you've never been to Las Vegas, get a pass for the local 2 decker bus that drives all the way up the strip and back. The strip itself is 4 miles and ends at the Stratosphere, but the bus goes past that and through the old downtown, too.  It's $5 for a whole day (just pay for the pass as you get on the bus) and seeing the strip at night is a must. I only did this for the first time last year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Vegas_Strip
7. I've never done it but have constantly heard that the last minute tickets to the Vegas shows are the way to go as they are heavily discounted. I think the deal is just walk up to the ticket window shortly before the show. Something to consider. 

We have gone to see the Telluride Mountain Film Festival for hte past few years because it comes to us. It will be in four locations in Vermont this year - Burlington, Waitsfield, South Royalton and Middlebury - during the month of November. Luckily I'll be back from DevConnections in time to see it in Waitsfield, which is near where I live. Here's the schedule.

One of my clients rolled out the Beta version of their big project this week - a public website with brilliant plumbing that allows end users to build their own interactive floorplans and maps. Drop your map or plan onto the site, upload pictures that represent views of different locations on the map/plan (a bedroom, a vista on a trail map), link them up, type in some descriptions and voila - you have a beautiful end product that any user can easily navigate. There are no refreshes to bring the various pictures up and I'm not talking AJAX style partial post backs. The photos just transparently change on the page.

It was a major undertaking and is all done in asp.net 2.0. I did not do the site, but mentored them through a good chunk of the process. It was wonderful to work with folks who were not only software smart, but their level of attention to the user experience was hugely impressive to me.

It's called MapsAlive.

Go check it out and it's a beta - so feedback is appreciated!

Here's a screenshot of the home page.

I was on a flight yesterday that required a re-boot of the plane's computer system. Huh? [Read more ... ]

[A DevLive post]

Rich and I went to a halloween costume party this past weekend. I did something I've always wanted to do - put wire in my braids to make them stick out so I can be Pippi Longstocking. My hair is a little long for doing this which made it hard to get through doorways and a little dangerous to walk around the party. Rich was a villanous Vampire.

The U.S. elections are Nov 7th. There are two big conferences next week in our community: TechEd Europe in Barcelona, Spain and DevConnections in Las Vegas, Nevada.

If you are leaving home for these events, don't forget to vote before you go!

In Vermont, absentee voting is allowed for 30 days prior to the elections. I'm not sure how this differs in other states. Here, you can get an absentee ballot in the mail from your town clerk (which needs to be back to the town clerk by Nov 6th, or to the polling place by 7pm on Nov 7th) or just go there and vote. I went to the town office and just sat down and voted there.

It didn't occur to me to do this until about a week ago even though I've known for a long time that I'd be gone. I just hadn't put two & two together!