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Check this out. Way to go DP and Ganesh!

Success Story 1

Well, I'd about decided that it was time for me to look for something more challenging. I'd been looking off and on over the previous month using a number of sources, but not the GeekFinder. On a Monday morning, I decided to try Geekfinder.

The search I entered (senior AND systems NOT admin, or something like that) returned 5 pages of hits. I found a position on the second page that looked interesting and e-mailed my resume to the headhunter, then continued searching. While I was on the 5th page (about 45 min later), I got a phone call from the HeadHunter. We talked for a while and decided that she should go ahead and send my information to the hiring company. That afternoon, at about 1:30, she called back and said that the company wanted to interview me the next day! ...full story

John F.

Success Story 2

I'm a Perl/PHP programmer in a rather low paying position, but I've been stuck here because of my lack of real experience. However, after 7 months in this job, I decided... what the heck. I submitted my resume to Geekfinder on Sunday, just to see what sort of a response I would get, not expecting much.

Boy was I wrong. It is now Wednesday, and I've had three phone interviews already, with a dozen emails at least, asking if I'd be interested in a position. ...full story

Matthew W

Thanks and congrats to John and Matthew!

Things at UF have been moving in a pattern reminiscent of a road trip between downtown cores. It takes you a while to get out of one core, then you move at pedal-to-the-metal speed, then you brake and stop-and-go until you get out of that core, and you start the cycle over again. This, I presume, is what people refer to as "growing pains." You're always (thankfully!) moving forward, but it isn't necessarily at a constant, comfortable pace. The end result is a little dizzyness and some confusion, but you always get to where you want to go, and the learning experience is invaluable.

You've been seeing some new names on the news page, such as Yohimbe (our systems and tech manager), Wildcard (our lead code warrior) and y'all know WebDiva (our webgoddess). They and others have been trying hard (and I feel succeeded admirably) to fill in for me, because my cycles have been consistently maxed out every month. This has changed a little, mostly at the cost of not attending quite as many shows or making as many trips, and I think it's a fair trade-off. This gives me more time to work on creative projects and to be a little more visible on the site, the first instance of which you're reading now. You can expect something like this from me once a week, and a longer, more in-depth column monthly in the upcoming UF newsletter. [Have you opted-in yet? :)]

I'm a big advocate of keeping announcements of vapourware to a minimum, so there isn't a lot about the projects that are upcoming that I can get into. What I can say is that we've been working steadily on many of the ideas that community members (that'd be you) have suggested to us. Cripes, at this rate you won't need me, just the lot of you and the development team. I've always wondered what it'd be like to be royalty here in Canada.

Something worthy of mention is a six-week old Salon article that covers a speech by Courtney Love that addresses the entire Napster/RIAA/artist conundrum. I'm not a big fan of Courtney's music, but damn does she ever do a fine speech. Bright, bright lady.

And that segues into the first article I'll be writing for the newsletter, which is about the very same thing that Ms. Love addresses -- middlemen in the age of the Internet, from a cartoonist's and writer's point of view of course. I'll get into some of the internal history of UF and the business side of things, as well as the question of syndication. Hopefully it'll help more people understand what it is that creators of any sort have to deal with when they get in bed with a giant middleman.

Lastly, thanks to all of you who have taken the time to write in. I read everything I'm sent, mostly because you guys are the ones who (still!) make what we're doing here so worthwhile. We made you crack a smile on a Monday? What better praise could exist? :)

http://207.109.148.70/dswmedia/ufoq.dcr I have to admit that I busted a gut laughing when I shot Mike. The accompanying sound was not what I expected. :)

Kenneth also stated that multi-player mode was also in the works. Very cool. Way to go Kenneth!

We'll have a couple of surprises, a couple of announcements and some new schwag to give away. Hope we'll see you there!