Lively by Google

"Sure, you can leave a comment on a blog or write a text blurb on your social networking profile. But what if you want to express yourself in a more fun way, with 3D graphics and real-time avatar interactions?"

It would be nice if it could actually do something for me. I've been expressing myself for the last 3 hours and cannot seem to accomplish anything.

Here's my room:



If by chance it says there is one occupant in the room, I'm there, stroll on in for a chat.

I think it's a good start as a competitor to Second Life - but not nearly as developed. I would like to see what happens after it leaves beta - what could actually be done for the training and dev. community.

The Contractor Chronicles - #2

I have the power!



It seems to be the accepted scenario where if you are a contractor, you will end up giving away your services in some way or another during your contract. My situation is an hourly position, which has it perks both with overtime and flexiblity.

However, not knowing what I've gotten into, I found that there wasn't enough work to really fulfill all the time that my contract stated. Being the hard working little bee that I am, I started asking for more things to do that were outside the confines of my contract - because I wanted to keep my work week full and be of value to my employers.

Well, um - that's really not the way to go. I should have not given them an opening to underpay me at my insistance. My bad.

It so happens that I did find a line that I was comfortable with and renegotiated what my work week will be like as well as my duties. It came about in an interesting way - but suffice to say, they didn't want to do the work themselves and were willing to work with me on some of my demands, as well as I was willing to give a little on my line to make sure they got what they needed.