While I enjoy retrocomputing and developing for dead recently resurrected operating systems, my day job has me working with technology that is significantly more cutting edge, and fun and interesting in it’s own way. While I’ve been working with the tech all the way through, I’ve been bad about keeping up with certifications. So, one of my resolutions for 2014 is to get my certs up to date, from the Windows Server 2003 MCSE and Windows Vista MCITP level to the Windows 8 MCSA and Windows Server 2012 MCSE level.

Fortunately, since I’m already in the system, I just need to study for and write the upgrade exams. It also means that I have to hit the intermediate steps as well. So, as a first step, I wrote and passed the Windows 7 upgrade exam last week, getting me my Windows 7 MCSA. Next up, Windows Server 2008, and a large textbook order from Amazon.

My company also applied for and received entrance into the Microsoft BizSpark program for startups, on the strength of another project that I am working on, so that’s another thing that I’m excited about and can reveal more about when it’s closer to ready.

One other thing – after much frustration with the lack of updates to the HP app catalog, I put together a Preware feed and a shiny new website for FeedSpider. So, the latest version (1.1.3) is available for download from feedspider.net. It adds the following features over the current version on the app catalog:

• Support for BazQux Reader, Feedly, and Tiny Tiny RSS
• A new JSON parser that won’t choke on certain feeds.
• The usual set of bugfixes and optimizations.