I started my new job as Communications and IT Officer for BioRegional, a charity who work to bring sustainable technologies and practices into the mainstream. I'm really happy to be working for an organisation that I can believe in and be passionate about, and it's even better that I've got a decent salary doing work that interests me as well :) Two days a week of press work, one day helping with site tours and two days managing the IT stuff.

So far the IT work has been a baptism of fire, learning about each system and the problems they've had in the past. We use an outside company who deal with major issues, which is a relief, but there are plenty of teething problems. Ironically, the week before this free software advocate started his job BioRegional had to shell out a massive whack of money on new software licenses! It's a bit early for this but I'm looking forward to investigating the potential of free software to save money, if only I can ensure that we keep the level of on-site and remote support, don't inflate budgets in the short-term, waste valuable staff time in too much retraining, etc.

It's also odd being back on Windows, having mostly worked freelance using my own PC for the past four years or so. I've got Firefox, PDFCreator, Sumatra, Freemind, Inkscape, Putty and 7-Zip installed, but I'm stuck at the moment on finding a good scratchpad, something a bit like BasKet that I can use to gather random ideas and work in progress. Dear old lazyweb, any suggestions of Free programs for Windows would be most welcome!

Now I need to watch some West Wing and relax. I don't know how much energy I'll have for the Green Party or KDE in the short term ;)