This is the first post as part of my 30 days of geek challenge.

Anyone who knows me would easily be able to confirm that my level of geekiness is high enough for me to go on for hours listing the reasons, however sadly it’s 23:25 and I still have a mountain of tasks to complete before going to work tomorrow. :-(

I think it’s my obsession with computers which makes me a geek – I think my friend Chris Neugebauer summed it up well in his post – being a geek means going above and beyond a normal level of interest in something.

I’ve been using computers heavily for almost half my life and my interest has never diminished, although it has certainly changed over time and moved into different areas – the thing is technology is so exciting and I love the problem solving aspect of it and the new exciting challenges that arise almost daily.

So other than obsession, why am I such a geek? I’d go with a number of reasons:

• There is no space on my desk that isn’t covered by computers – I have an obscene amount of computers and systems, probably enough to rival a small telco. ;-)
• The sticker on my laptop which says “my other computer is a data center” isn’t a lie. I really do have a small datacenter. (2x 42U racks)
• The internet is the most important thing in my life, I would argue perhaps the most important development for humanity to date.
• I will spend hours, days if I have to, to track down and resolve a problem – to get something like Linux working on a tricky bit of hardware I’ll dig through mailing lists for kernel patches, dig into the code and lose my sanity all in the goal of obtaining a solution.
• Real life is that thing I have to endure to get between computers.
• My most important and cherished asset is the data on my hard drive. Everything else is just stuff that clutters up my life. (yes, it is backed up BTW!)

(As a side note, why “geek” rather than “nerd”? I consider geek a badge of honour and can be someone quite cool, nerd implies it in a negative sense, eg maybe someone more socially inept.)

Today was the first day of my new old job (no, that’s not a typo) at Prophecy Networks, feels strange getting back into a regular routine and doing normal people things like eating lunch at sane hours of the day and waking up in mornings.

It’s not all smooth sailing just yet, I still need to complete a number of hand over tasks and some ongoing projects, but I’m getting there – by the end of November, I should have a much more sane/normal life. :-)

If you follow along on my blog much, you will know that today is the start of 30 days of geek (#30daysofgeek) which I posted about here.

I’ll be posting the first day shortly and there are a few people joining me! :-D

I haven’t been particular good at keeping up with my aim of a post a day since the end of the 30 days of me challenge, part of the problem is I need to plan in advance what I’m going to write, otherwise it’ll never get done.

The other issue is that the next couple of weeks are hectic as I prepare to transition to my new job – November will (hopefully) be a much saner month.

So I’m proposing a new challenge, which I’m going to call 30 days of geek… for every day in November, I’m going to post something geeky and computer related. Maybe this will help balance out all the introspective stuff from the 30 days of me challenge that people had to suffer. ;-)

If you feel like joining me, please do! Post a comment to this article with your blog URL so others can find it easily and use the hashtag #30daysofgeek on social networks.

• Day 01 – Why do you consider yourself a geek?
• Day 02 – Preferred programming language?
• Day 03 – What does your day job involve?
• Day 04 – Greatest application written to date.
• Day 05 – Quick nifty hacks you’re proud of
• Day 06 – Primary geek fuel (snacks/drinks)
• Day 07 – Preferred smartphone platform. And which do you use?
• Day 08 – Preferred method of communication with humans
• Day 09 – What OS/distribution do you run?
• Day 10 – Picture, screenshot and specifications of your primary computer.
• Day 11 – Favourite hacking environment – music, light, seating, etc
• Day 12 – What area do you want to expand your skills into?
• Day 13 – How did you become such a geek? Career? Personal interest?
• Day 14 – Favourite computer conference?
• Day 15 – Earliest geek experience
• Day 16 – First computer you’ve ever owned & your favourite ever.
• Day 17 – Post a useful HOWTO to solve a challenge you’ve come across recently.
• Day 18 – Most cringe-worthy geek moment
• Day 19 – Most hated computing environment.
• Day 20 – Where do you stand on Internet Censorship?
• Day 21 – Favourite thing & worst things about working in IT?
• Day 22 – Release some software under an open source license that you haven’t released before.
• Day 23 – Post a review of an application that you use.
• Day 24 – How do you feel about Open Source vs Proprietary software?
• Day 25 – Microsoft – friend, foe or other?
• Day 26 – Apple – friend, foe or other?
• Day 27 – Fix a bug in some open source software and commit the patch
• Day 28 – How many computers lying about the house?
• Day 29 – Looking back (at geek life), would you have done anything differently?
• Day 30 – Where do you see technology advancing in the next 20 years – and where will you fit in?

So that’s 30 days of geek, which I’ll be starting on the 1st of November, join in, it should be fun :-)

I’ve been talking about making some changes lately and moving to a new career path or even going overseas.

I’ve decided to stay in Wellington NZ for now and accepted a position with my previous employer, Prophecy Networks who focus on delivering IT services for businesses and enterprise, starting from the beginning of November.

My new role will be as a consultant working with their clients with particular focus on enterprise & telco level engineering and development projects – exciting and challenging work to keep me from getting bored. :-)

If you’re wondering about what will be happening with Amberdms, don’t be too worried – the company will continue to exist and continuing to develop our open source products but the IT support side of the business will be moving to other providers.

Whilst I’ll miss the busy life of a startup, I’m certainly looking forwards to saner hours (40/50hrs rather than 80hrs) and the stable income it brings.

I’m planning to use some of the free time that results to hack on more open source projects and do some R+D projects of my own as well as a few possible new Amberdms products.

More information and plans will undoubtedly get posted over the next few weeks so add the RSS for this blog to your reader if you want to keep informed. :-)