I will admit that I have a daily struggle with being online. I've been online for longer than I care to think about at this point as it shows my age, but I realize it is very easy to get me down when it comes to online interactions. I started out on IRC and Usenet and those of you old enough to actually remember the Time Before Web know how nasty it could get, and most likely still does.

When I first saw Gary Vaynerchuk's entreaty to participate in Good People Day, I really didn't think I could participate. My world has gotten very small writing primarily about Web 2.0, a community which is at risk of exploding like the sun and turning into a huge black hole if the infighting continues. And while Gary insists that the people out there who have attracted a lot of haters have a good side too, I'm not seeing their Frosted MiniWheats sweet side at all.

I've been reading others' contributions to the day and had to do a lot of soul searching to think about my time online and the people I have met along the way who have made my experiences online a better one. In no particular order:

my husband, Jason Carreira. While he no longer blogs and generally scoffs at anything with the terms "social" or "2.0" in them, he is generally able to tamp down his impatience when I quiz him on a development issue or architecture question. He's forgotten more about web development than I ever knew, and I'm grateful to have him as a sounding board when I think I'm getting in over my head when I'm writing.

Sundry. I think most of her readers know her real name by now, but in the realm of the "mommy blogger" she's a stand-out. While her reader base has grown over the years that I've been reading her blog, I have NEVER seen her tire of replying to comments, engaging her community, or replying to individual emails, unlike many other bloggers I've seen who have gotten too big for their britches. Every time I feel like I can't reply to people, especially detractors, I'm reminded of her example of how to truly build an online community.

Drama 2.0. I know it probably seems like an odd choice, but this industry needs a healthy injection of humor. The timing is probably coincidental, but every time I'm seriously ready to pack it all in and toss my laptop out the closest window, there is a new post about Kool Aid drinkers that reminds me that in the overall scheme of life as we know it, the bitchmemes really aren't very important.

Svetlana, who took a chance on someone shifting career gears for about the eleventy-hundredth time. She's encouraging, trusting, and allows me to log in every single day to rant away, even when it's a controversial topic and it may end up biting the hand that feeds us.

Every single person who has commented or linked back to me, or emailed me about a post. I have a terrible time with email debt, where I see a trackback or a comment or an email and want to sit on it for a little while before responding with whatever blather comes out of my mouth, and lose it in the sea of communications. I have appreciated each and every one, whether it was a compliment or a put-down. The compliments are what keep me going, and the put-downs always make me think.

Lastly, my eight-year-old daughter, who begs me regularly to let her spend more time online, and who already wants to learn Java and Ruby. I watch her and I remember myself and the first time I ever wrote a BASIC program  on a TRS-80. It's girls like her who will be the future of women in tech, and I hope each and every day that she has a brighter future in tech than I did.