Posted by Mark Johnson on Tue, Aug 18, 2009 @ 08:37 AM
Last weekend I was on my Saturday morning run when I ran by the McLanahan Corporation headquarters (http://www.mclanahan.com/). They are a Blair County, PA based corporation that produces, among other things, large machinery used in agriculture and the mining industry. Outside of one of their buildings they had a big machine that presumably does something equally big, I have no idea what, but it was cool. It had large metal doors on the side, a large motor, fans and wires and pipes, etc. It made me a little jealous.
Working in the software industry, we don't produce big large machinery that you can touch and feel. Sure, we could print out the hundreds of thousands of lines of code we have written, but that really doesn't do anyone any good. We just don't have that tactile satisfaction that results from a physical product.
But that's why, as a software engineer, I particularly look forward to our Tech Hall at User Group. Our Tech Hall is where we get the once a year chance to showcase our products and directly show them off to our customers.
The nature of software lends itself to being caught up in vaporware and hype and customers and potential customers often think we are trying to sell them something that doesn't exist. The Tech Hall allows us to show off what we can do and allow our customers to interact directly with our products and give us feedback.
So, I really hope to see you in the Tech Hall at the 2009 DSI/ITI User Group. Please come say Hi!
Posted by Mark Johnson on Tue, May 05, 2009 @ 12:31 PM
Hello, I'd like to welcome you to my first blog post!
I'm starting this blog to help share my knowledge about technology and software and how it can be specifically applied within a corrections setting.
My name is Mark Johnson, I am the Software Architect at Digital Solutions and Inmate Telephone, Inc. I am responsible for the overall software design, architecture, and deployment strategies utilized by DSI for our flagship jail management and inmate telephone systems, as well as our newer banking products.
I have 10 years of experience developing enterprise software, and currently hold a Bachelor of Science and a Master's degree in Computer Science from Millersville University of PA and Penn State University, respectively.
In my upcoming blog posts, I intend to touch on integration concerns, NIEM (the National Information Exchange Model), software deployment strategies, software lifecycles, and maybe even some of the behind the scenes aspects of software development.
I am encouraging an open dialog between myself and my readers, so if you have a question, or an idea for a topic, please let me know. I'll do my best to get it answered.