Tony Ciccarone

Tag: code

  • Internet vs internet

    Internet vs internet

    I’m 44.

    I grew up before the Internet was the internet. Back when everything was slower, stupider, and magical.

    I’ve been in tech for half of my life. Maybe more because I started coding when I was a child. But right after high school tech didn’t matter to me. I drifted.

    Nomad vagabond.

    Call me what you will.

    What if I were that age today? Ground shifting under my feet.

    I’d stroll fashionably late into the job market and think “uh wtf happened?”

    The world flipped. AI everywhere.

    Tools that can do what entire teams used to do. Work that once took a month now takes a week. Sometimes a day.

    Sometimes an hour if the prompt is good enough.

    And I can’t help but wonder, having been out of office since 2017, do managers know this? Do CEOs know this? Are marketing and web teams acting oblivious?

    Are they using AI?  Are they allowed to? Does anyone need to do anything anymore?

    Knock knock.

    One smart person with the right tools can replace a whole team of process followers.

    As a small business owner, efficiency matters to me. Money matters. Time matters. Not wasting resources matters.

    Things are moving fast, are people being left behind? Unknowingly? Unwillingly?

    Try not to blink.

  • Me + Web Development

    Me + Web Development

    I began tinkering with BASIC code on a Commodore 64 in the 90s, but my path really started in the early 2000s when I hitched a ride across country, from Rhode Island to California.

    I was only 22 years old and had just completed a year long certification in Web Design & Interactive Media program at Gibbs College, an unaccredited private college that had zero intention of following through on their initial promises of job placement.

    Disappointing, but for the best as I had nothing going for me and neither did Rhode Island.

    I wasn’t hired as a web developer at first, I started my first day as a technical support rep at Contra Costa Association of Realtors, taking calls about IDX and RETS and helping users navigate through Paragon MLS.

    In between calls, my manager began tasking me with updating news and events on their website. It wasn’t long before I was helping with the development of an open house tour website and then a QR code styling web application.

    After a couple years of growth I was poached by their neighborly competitor, and actually went back and forth between the two associations one more time over the next 8 years.

    It was from within the walls of these AORs that I learned the backbone of most of what I still use today; PHP, CSS, HTML, Python, JS, SQL, FTP, and Git (well, Subversion first).

    I made it all the way to Silicon Valley during my ten year stint in California.

    But, I was lost and lonely. It was really hard to find people with fast-paced minds, it was even harder to find good Italian food.

    California to Rhode Island

    It took four days!

    Anyways, I’m still a web developer but have become much more well-rounded marketing agency dropout since forming 3tone Digital with my wonderful wife.

    The only W2 I need.

    > be me
    > take bow