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Well, as most of you probably know by now, I no longer work for The Bakersfield Californian. I turned in my resignation and my last day was on September 8th. The split was amicable and the major reason I left had nothing to do with the paper. I greatly enjoyed working with everyone at the paper and I truly think that technology-wise they are pushing the newspaper industry to catch up with the rest of the world. Hopefully I will get to consult on some of their future projects.

I decided to strike out on my own and form my own small company, Aona Systems LLC, to follow a dream before it was too late. I have always wanted to have my own small business. Ever since college I never imagined myself working for someone else. I want the freedom to be my own boss and to work on whatever interesting project that might pop into my head.

Aliciana and I have been married for over a year now, and we are starting to feel that ‘itch’ to start a family soon. So, we came to the realization that if I was ever going to try to get a small company off the ground I should do it now, while I still have no one depending on me. We seized the opportunity so that we would never have those “what if” questions in the back of our minds in 20 years. If I fail, so be it, at least I will know what it was like to be my own boss. Life is about the journey, not the destination.

So what is Aona Systems LLC currently up too? The company has 2 major focuses: consulting and in-house product development.

Consulting

• Linux Software Development
• Web Applications
• Security Audits
• Linux Administration

In-house Products

• Palm Applications
• Aona Security Journal
• Python Hacks
• Various Open Source Projects

I have a lot more products currently in the planning stages. The coming months will definitely be interesting… keep an eye on this blog and the Aona Systems website.

Have you ever wanted a community site like The Northwest Voice or Bakotopia? Now you can use our software to make that a reality. The Bakersfield Califorian has officially launched a new venture, call Participata, which will be licensing our software to 3rd party companies.

We are still working out the details like the licensing terms and price, but you can get more information about the venture at www.participata.com and fill out our ‘Contact Us’ form to get added to the “we’re interested” list. We should have more concrete licensing information for interested parties in the near future.

For those of you who frequent The Bakersfield California’s home page, www.bakersfield.com, you might have noticed a new tab along the top. The new “People” tab leads to a section of the site powered by the latest and greatest version of the “bakomatic” platform.

I am on the team developing this great piece of software, and we are excited about a new killer feature in this version. Now, every user with a profile has the option of creating their very own personal web log, a type of online journal, also known as a “blog”.

On your “blog” you can write about your family, your hobbies, your business, or anything else you feel like sharing with the community. This is your personal space, we do not edit it for content, as long as you follow a few commonsense decency rules.

Also included in this new feature is the ability to “podcast”. If you have ever desired to have your own radio show, all you have to do is record yourself, save it as an ‘mp3′ file, and upload it!

Here is some interesting links to get your feet wet:

• View recent blog posts: http://people.bakersfield.com/home/recentblogs.php
• View my blog on bakersfield.com: http://people.bakersfield.com/blogs/cladd

I’d like to welcome to the world our latest contribution to the community of Bakersfield, The Southwest Voice. Like her older sister, The Northwest Voice, this new weekly newspaper will be written by the community, for the community, from the perspectives of your neighbors and friends.

Everyone is encourage to submit articles, photos, or even just questions to the newspaper’s online community, located at www.swvoice.com for The Southwest Voice and www.northwestvoice.com for The Northwest Voice. Once your content is approved it will be featured on the web site for all your neighbors to enjoy. Chances are it will get published in the weekly print version of the paper.

The Southwest Voice will be delivered for free to the neighborhoods of the Southwest part of town and also available at many local community areas. With Voice publications being distributed to 27,000 homes in the Southwest and 24,000 homes in the Northwest, our Bakersfield community has never had more opportunities to tell our community what going on in our schools, parks, and lives. Join the hundreds of your fellow citizens who have shared their voice and let your story be heard.

The Bakotopia team, The Bakersfield Californian and I were awarded a 2006 Digital Edge Award for Most Innovative Participation for our website, Bakotopia. The award, known as an “Edgie”, was awarded by the Newspaper Association of America’s New Media Federation.

Bakotopia is an online community for the ‘young adult’ crowd in Bakersfield. It’s a place for local bands to get together and announce events and their fans to converse. But it is more than bands, it is a place where the users can define a profile, sell and buy stuff, make new friends, listen to local music streams, and meet like-minded people in Bakersfield.

I spend my days at The Bakersfield Californian working on the software platform that powers Bakotopia and several other sites. The platform, known internally as “Bakomatic”, is written from scratch in PHP, runs on Linux, and uses MySQL as its database engine. We have many big plans for the platform in this coming year, including many additional sites and cutting-edge features. Stay tuned!

I’d like to personally thank the rest of my team and the leadership at The Bakersfield Californian for their great work, forward thinking, and enthusiastic support. Your willingness to embrace technological advances makes cutting-edge products like our platform possible. By looking at changing technology as a benefit instead of something for the newspaper industry to fear you insure the paper and all the company’s endeavors will continue to flourish.

Bakotopia, as well as our other sites, are really a team effort, of which I am only a small part of. Thank you to Publisher Ginger Moorhouse, CEO Richard Beene, The Bakersfield Californian executive staff, Mary Lou Fulton, Dan Pacheco, Mark Jackson, Mick Martinek, and the rest of the ‘Colorado Boys’, Matt Munoz, and the many others at The Bakersfield Californian who are making this project an astounding success.

I plan to write in more detail in the coming months about all the exciting work I am doing at the paper. Until then, check out our three existing ‘brands’ powered by the platform, make a profile, meet some friends, and have fun!

Bakotopia - http://www.bakotopia.com/
Más - http://www.masbakersfield.com/
The Northwest Voice - http://www.northwestvoice.com/