I've started a couple of weeks work for a MegaBuck MegaCorp, hacking my way through a jungle of CSS with Geany, the machete of the Linux text editor world. There are a few interesting signs:
1. I'm being paid exactly the same amount as when I started out as a web builder proper back in July 1999. That's 10 years at the front-end coalface. Time to shift sideways into training perhaps. Training is more fun (if you like explaining, informing, cajoling and entertaining complete strangers) and it should pay more.
2. Unbeknownst to me, I'm sat in exactly the same seat as an old colleague Stu@ vacated just 2 days ago! It's a small world, and he reckons that there is no more than 10 front-end developers in the whole of London.
3. I am using my own laptop, as apparently there isn't the budget even for mices. This doesn't bother me overly, though it does strike me as a tad cheeky. The upside is that I'm using Ubuntu in a shared production environment for the first time ever. This includes GIMP, Geany, Evolution and Firefox.
4. I have had to find a GUI Subversion version control client for Linux. I had a look at RapidSVN but this is a standalone program. Then I found RabbitVCS, a Subversion client that integrates nicely with [Nautilus]. All is looking rosy, they're using the Subversion hosting service Beanstalk (which is new to me), apart from there's an error importing the repository. If at first you cannot fix it, then try again tomorrow...
5. I am by far the oldest in this glass-walled cube they call an office.