Hi all,

Some of you may remember me from many years ago when I ran a very small board called Southeast Texas Chat. I disappeared, not for the first time, as life got very busy and I didn't have much time or energy to even keep up with and participate in messages.

Just to give a quick overview of what I've been up to, since I last put any real time and effort into this hobby, this is what has changed in the last 5+ years:

1. I went to college for an associate's degree in computer information systems (specifically web design & development)
2. After graduation, the instructors were impressed enough with me that I was invited to teach as an adjunct
3. After several instructors retired, I was made full time and program director for the CIS classes
4. I decided I absolutely hate academic bureacracy, mentioned my intention to leave to a buddy I'd brough in as adjunct, and he very quickly poached me to be a support engineer for his company Sycurio Ltd.
5. I spent the first year at the company learning the ins and outs of our application, resolving a few long outstanding problems and assuming responsibility for improving the monitoring system among other things
6. I quickly got a promotion to senior support engineer, and would probably be made team lead, except I absolutely do not want to be responsible for others and would rather focus on what I love to do -- develop solutions to problems and fix things.

My current profession is not exactly what I set out to be. I used to swear I would rather keep cooking in restaurants rather than be in technical support, but it runs out working in B2B middleware isn't so bad. I would also like to try my hand in development rather than support, but I'm planning to stick with this for so long as I'm happy and learning new things.

Life has changed quite a bit, and I've been playing catchup the entire time. But now that the ground has settled beneath me, I've been missing and thinking about this hobby quite a bit. I credit early BBSing (and hacking around the internet in the 90's) with teaching me most of my fundamentals, and Synchronet with keeping me interested and learning more throughout the years. I used to demonstrate it as a learning tool when teaching, and continue to bring it up when I get the opportunity -- even it's less often now that I'm not teaching.

And for Digital Man: I love the new setup flow. I was up and running on Linux in minutes with all the basics done. I didn't think there could be many new features, as complete as the board was a few years ago... but I've been proven wrong. :) Thanks for continuing to support and improve the software, and I hope that I can find the time in the future to add something of my own back.

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þ Synchronet þ Dreamer's Place

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

And for Digital Man: I love the new setup flow. I was up and running on Linux in minutes with all the basics done. I didn't think there could be many new features, as complete as the board was a few years ago... but I've been proven wrong. :) Thanks for continuing to support and improve the software, and I hope that I can find the time in the future to add something of my own back.

Thnak you for the feedback! I was pretty stoked when I added the configuration wizard to SCFG but haven't really heard much about. I think that's what you're referring to here and I'm glad to hear that it's working well for you.
--
digital man (rob)

Rush quote #83:
Bruised and sullen stormclouds have the light of day obscured
Norco, CA WX: 71.0øF, 53.0% humidity, 6 mph WSW wind, 0.00 inches rain/24hrs ---
þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

Welcome back. :) I hope you continue enjoying BBSing as well as what you're doing for work.

Nightfox

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þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

Hi all,

Some of you may remember me from many years ago when I ran a very small board called Southeast Texas Chat. I disappeared, not for the first time, as life got very busy and I didn't have much time or energy to even keep up with and participate in messages.

Just to give a quick overview of what I've been up to, since I last put any real time and effort into this hobby, this is what has changed in the last 5+ years:

That's good that you turned your life around. I remember you having issues with your ex wife and you had a low paying job as a cook.

You're a good example of not letting life kick your ass. I'm glad to see you're doing well. Most people would roll over and feel sorry for themself and not work on improving or getting out of a slump.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Digital Man wrote to Dreamer <=-

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

Thnak you for the feedback! I was pretty stoked when I added the configuration wizard to SCFG but haven't really heard much about. I
think that's what you're referring to here and I'm glad to hear that
it's working well for you. --

Yes, that's it. I couldn't speak from the perspective of someone who's never used the product, but having installed several times over the last 20+ years (gawd, can't believe that) it made a smooth installation even slicker.

I should also point out that, while I didn't put too much thought into it, the docs are also stellar compared to what I'm used to now. I had already purchased an SSL certificate with my domain, so I elected not to use Let's Encrypt. But, I had no problem importing it. And, I even got my DNS set up correctly for my email. I'm pretty sure I had these last two things figured out the last time I ran the board, but I was still able to find the references on the docs with one search and get pointed the right direction immediately. Very nice.


--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Dreamer's Place

Nightfox wrote to Dreamer <=-

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

Welcome back. :) I hope you continue enjoying BBSing as well as what you're doing for work.

I think what drove me back here was wanting to experience some freedom in administrating my own piece of a system. Master of one's domain and all that. It was a shock to me running Linux boxes for fun all these years, and now I'm supporting applications running on minimal servers. I expect to have lots of fun with this.


--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Dreamer's Place

MRO wrote to Dreamer <=-

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

That's good that you turned your life around. I remember you having
issues with your ex wife and you had a low paying job as a cook.

You're a good example of not letting life kick your ass. I'm glad to
see you're doing well. Most people would roll over and feel sorry for themself and not work on improving or getting out of a slump.

Well, in a sense life did kick me a bit. I really enjoyed the work I did then as well, and I was good at it. I was afraid if I starting working in anything computing, it might ruin my love of computing as a hobby. And, for the last two years, that's kind of been the case. I spend far less time playing with code in my off time these days. But, my burnout is getting less now that I'm adjusting.


--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Dreamer's Place

Re: Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to MRO on Mon Mar 24 2025 10:34 am

Well, in a sense life did kick me a bit. I really enjoyed the work I did then as well, and I was good at it. I was afraid if I starting working in anything computing, it might ruin my love of computing as a hobby. And, for the last two years, that's kind of been the case. I spend far less time playing with code in my off time these days. But, my burnout is getting less now that I'm adjusting.

I've always been into computers and technology, and even though I've been a software developer now for over 20 years, I'm still really into computers and technology, and I sometimes enjoy working on programming projects after work. Lately, most of my programming projects have been mods & stuff for Synchronet; BBSing has definitely been a significant motivator to think of stuff to work on for me, and Synchronet provides a good way to make mods with its JavaScript interface.

Nightfox

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þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to MRO on Mon Mar 24 2025 10:34 am

You're a good example of not letting life kick your ass. I'm glad to see you're doing well. Most people would roll over and feel sorry for themself and not work on improving or getting out of a slump.

Well, in a sense life did kick me a bit. I really enjoyed the work I did then as well, and I was good at it. I was afraid if I starting working in anything computing, it might ruin my love of computing as a hobby. And, for the last two years, that's kind of been the case. I spend far less time playing with code in my off time these days. But, my burnout is getting less now that I'm adjusting.

I don't think I would ever want to work in IT or anything like that. seems like it's too dog eat dog. Also, boring. I like to use my brain and my muscles.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Nightfox wrote to Dreamer <=-

Re: Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to MRO on Mon Mar 24 2025 10:34 am

I've always been into computers and technology, and even though I've
been a software developer now for over 20 years, I'm still really into computers and technology, and I sometimes enjoy working on programming projects after work. Lately, most of my programming projects have been mods & stuff for Synchronet; BBSing has definitely been a significant motivator to think of stuff to work on for me, and Synchronet provides
a good way to make mods with its JavaScript interface.

Yep, that's one of the areas I plan on revisiting. I haven't been able to do much coding beyond basic Bash and Python scripts for monitoring plugins. I'm feeling the need to work on some new things before I get too rusty.


--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Dreamer's Place

MRO wrote to Dreamer <=-

Re: Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to MRO on Mon Mar 24 2025 10:34 am

I don't think I would ever want to work in IT or anything like that.
seems like it's too dog eat dog. Also, boring. I like to use my brain
and my muscles.

Agreed! I specifically avoided my college's IT degrees exactly for that reason. In fact, despite my degree being in information systems, there aren't many opportunities here locally for that, so I ended up doing my internship in a city's IT department. All I learned was how boring IT is and a little bit about office politics.

My current role is at least a new challenge every couple of weeks and a few long term personal projects. I'm fixing things that have been problems for years, building some new things, and am basically the Linux go-to guru. It's a dual-edged sword, of course. I just want to work in my corner and be left alone, and there are some days I'm getting pinged by three different teams. So of course, the long term projects keep getting pushed back.

Some weeks I'm working 50+ hours, when I'm only supposed to be putting in 40. But, I'm getting better about cutting it back some these days.


--- MultiMail/Linux v0.49
þ Synchronet þ Dreamer's Place

Re: Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to Nightfox on Mon Mar 24 2025 11:45 pm

feeling the need to work on some new things before I get too rusty.

Was that a pun? Either way, you could mess with Rust and Ruby ;).

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þ Synchronet þ TIRED of waiting 2 hours for a taco? GO TO TACOPRONTO.bbs.io

Re: Hello World (again)
By: Dreamer to All on Sun Mar 23 2025 02:13 pm

Hi all,

Good work.
my first post.

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þ Synchronet þ Sent from the Sea of Fantasy BBS