Derek Ferguson's recent editorials occasioned comment, some of which is included here.

Where Do You Want to Go for the Next Four Years?
One glaring omission I noticed in your editorial is that the internet stock bubble you were riding to gain a ridiculous pay increase of 283% over four years happened on Clinton's watch. It also happens that the bubble burst in '99, before Bush took office, also on Clinton's watch. Not to mention 9/11 covering Wall Street in a thick cloud of dust and uncertainty. I'd say we could be in a lot worse condition economically than we are now.

Personally, I've had a 100% increase in salary in my IT job under Bush, so to misquote a phrase, I don't feel your pain.

Thank you,
Stefan Barlow, MCP
Beaumont, TX

I agree with your article too in that we need to think on November 2nd where are we heading. I do not think this is irrelevant for this type of magazine, the election of a new president or continuation of one will impact our lives in one way or another. I am glad you have written a brief article on this. I am also concerned about how our industry has changed in the last 4 years with jobs going overseas, salaries decreasing, and the cost of life going up. I hope more people start opening their eyes to where are we going if things continue the way they are going...
Romel24

Make a Great First Impression
I just read your editorial and I wholeheartedly agree with it. However, I agree with it in respect to authoring books. I wrote my first book for Apress (The .NET Languages: A Quick Translation Guide) and due to various circumstances I had to kill myself to get it done in three months. It was released very quickly and got great reviews. I then proposed to them the idea of writing a CR.NET book. They loved the idea and I got to work on it, but this time I would "do it better." I decided to really research every little detail and write the best technical book possible. I have to laugh when I look back at the chapter on Crystal functions. I laboriously found and documented the smallest  of bugs and how to get around them. It took forever! What I didn't realize is that before I could finish, Wrox had come out with a similar book and the market had already started its nose dive. Consequently, Apress cancelled my contract and left me with a book no one wanted. While bemoaning my circumstances I came across two other Apress authors who had their contracts cancelled due to changing technology and market situations. By taking the time to do the best job possible, we all lost our contracts. Technology moves too quickly to try to make it fit your schedule. You have to fit its schedule.

Luckily, my story has a happy ending. Since I never found a publisher I put my book on the internet for free. After accumulating 20,000+ registrations to read it for free I decided to self-publish it. Now the book gets rave reviews on Amazon (so paying attention to details helped me out in the end) and for the first six months I had the top selling Crystal Reports book written. But as you would expect, technology has changed again. Now Reporting Services is quickly taking over the reporting marketplace and in a year or two my book will only be read by a niche market. Consequently I'm changing gears and revising it for the Java and Delphi (1 million existing programmers) market. You gotta be flexible to survive!

In this industry, its not the strong that survive. Its the fastest that make it to the finish line. They may not look too pretty when they get there, but at least they made it.
Brian Bischof