Life as an IT worker...

... It has been a while ...

Sun, 21 Aug 2005 03:03:28 GMT

It has been a while since I've written anything here. Life has been fairly ordinary.

At work, development got moved from Atlanta to Bothell, WA. Even though Washington State is really pretty, the 6 hours flight are not fun. Today, I'm still feelling the effects of the red-eye and tomorrow I have to start fixing my lawn, washing my car, doing chores and preparing for monday. At least I'm glad that I'm off call rotation next monday (yipee). For the past few night I've been woken up at 5:00 AM with a support call.

At home, well, everything is fine. My wife is fine the same with my cats. The only problem has been the front lawn. I think I killed it :(. I'll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow and trying to buy stuff to fix stuff in the house, including the front lawn. Even though home ownership is one of the pillars of the American Dream, it seems that people seldom mentioned that maintenance, like batteries, are not included. Well, that's going to suck most of my sunday.

Other than that, I've been playing my Ukulele lately, I should post some recordings. Maybe next time...

Peace...

I live for weekends...

Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:34:44 GMT

Well, I'm happy. I just spent another weekend at home. This might not sound like a lot, but when you're on the road, you start to cherish these moments even more. I cooked some turkey sausages with some 'dogs at home. Then, I got my 'bent out of the garage and rode it. It was a short ride, close to 40 minutes from my house in Piscataway to New Brunswick and back. New Brunswick was deserted, it seems that all students went home or they were still enduring another night of alcoholic libations. On monday I am going on the road again, back to Atlanta.

It's a beautiful day in New Jersey

Ah... so what's a 'bent. That's shortened for recumbent bicycle. A recumbent bike is one that you sit on a real chair with your feet up in the air. Mine is a Vision R-40 (regretfully, the company went out of business) and I have ridden it many times around New Jersey causing people to stare at me, dogs go behind me trying to bite me and kids trying to follow me or making me to stop so they can take a look at it. I'll probably ride it more often this year, last year it spent most of the time in the garage.

Those are my babies, the blue one is the 'bent

That's it, enjoy the rest of the weekend, I'm sure I'm enjoying mine.

Lou

A very inconsequential entry

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 23:55:57 GMT

Hi:

I'm just compiled kluje on my linux box, and I'm giving it a try. Not that I mind logging in on the server, but it is nice to be able to do it on a thick client.

That's it... I'll post something better on another day.

Me

My response of the scarcity of computer sciences majors.

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:44:54 GMT

I was listening to the radio news this morning about Kim Komando saying that High School grads are not enrolling into Computer Sciences majors, partly blamed to the Internet Bust.

I do have more theories about this phenomenon, and it is only partly because the Internet Bust.

First, you will not become a millionaire doing computer work. It's interesting work and you do make an ok living, but you'll not become rich unless you create your own company. You may work your way to your retirement rolex and possibly hit middle management. If you really want to go up in the corporate ladder you need an MBA or a PhD to be taken seriously. If you think that you'll hit "the big time" bucks with a bachelor's you might get dissapointed.
Secondly, this thing is hard. You spend hours in front of a monitor looking at gibberish or listening to people whining about how the computer does not work. At the end of the day, you are ending up working close to 10 hours a day. If you think that working for a game company or an internet company it's "keewwl". You will never get out of the office on crunch time for a release.
Thirdly, you get no respect. Well, the fact that computer workers are maligned by the media as jolt drinking 4 eyed loonies that women run away at their sight, you do get no respect in corporations either. You're most likely seen as expenditure in which they'll look for ways to get rid of you and send your job to China or India.

If anybody wants to go to CompSci should be done because you find it an interesting field to work with. It's a labor of love, uniquely distinguished with those who work on open source software, not a labor of money. The good ole days of companies handing money out, just because you had a Microsoft Certification are long gone.

However, it's an exciting field to work with. There are still complex computer problems to be solved that are way beyond on what you see on the 'net, your PC or being sold at a retailer. For that you have to read specialized journals to have a clue on what's going. If you find this proposition boring, you'll have to think it twice if you really want to go into a CompSci major.

Probably they'll be shortages of workers in the near future, but with many computer jobs still being exported to China, India and Latin America, it's going to be a while before companies decide to hire computer workers in the US in droves like they used to do in the late 90's.

Lou

HomeNet

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:44:07 GMT

Hi:

This is going to be a very technical blog entry. It's sunday afternoon on memorial day. I already had my burger and a couple of beers in my belly. I'm taking this time to chill a bit and write about my home network.

In the beginning...

I started with a single computer in college, a Tandy 1000SX. Even though it's quite a obsolete set up for today's computers, it took me through 5 years of college with a lot of abuse. I still have it somewhere in my mom's house. When I moved to NJ, my company gave me a venerable IBM-PC. I had it running Minix, because it was a better alternative than running DOS. Eventually I purchased my own computer, a Compaq 75E Laptop. It served me well until I gave it to one of my wife's cousin 4 years later. Then I purchased a HP computer that had a bad cache in the motherboard. I limped along for a while until I started the building of home net.

Building Home Net

Homenet was built basically for me to learn about networking. After working as a developer for a good while, learning networks was something that was lacking in my professional experience. After I purchased the HP PC, I decided to go with residential ISDN service at home. From there I purchased a 4 hub port with an ISDN modem. For some ISDN might have look like an overkill, but we have ISDN modems at work and they work pretty decent at 2B channel. This allowed me to have two computers at home, the HP and my work laptop when I brought it home. I also had an old HP Laserjet III printer which I hook up with a SMB print server, also from hawking. This setup worked for me for the next 5 years, until I decided to move from residential ISDN to DSL.

Home Net today

This is a conceptual view of home net

The Hawking hub was changed with a SMC barricade 8 hub that was able to understand PPPoE on the DSL modem. It was later expanded with a WiFi hot spot from NetGear. They are both sitting in two different lans because the NetGear does not operate in pass through mode. This set up works well anyway and there is no reason to change it. The Barricade has its own lpd print server in which I have an HP 812C Ink Jet that provide services for all the computers in the network. The barricade also has the main HomeNet firewall. I have no services open to the public and there are not plans to do so.

There are three main computers, and yes, they do have names.

Yucayeque is the Windows 2000 machine and serves as my main desktop for work. It runs on a dual CPU 500 Mhz PC with 384 Megabytes of RAM and 40 Gigs of disk space. It has hooked up the film scanner and an HP T-600 multiuse printer with scanner and fax. This machine is mostly used for me to connect to work and for home finances. It is also my wife's main desktop because she does not understand Linux systems very well. (Well, I'm trying to get her hooked ).

Bairoa is running Knoppix 1.3 Linux, it is a mini-itx micro PC and is used for sorting email and it is used as a network services broker. It is a 1.0 Ghz Via Mini-ITX with 256 Megabytes RAM and 10 Gigs drive. It's main purpose is to provide IMAP access to all the systems in the network and to eliminate as much spam as it can. It also consolidates 5 emails accounts into one stream for me to read. It's also used as a desktop because it is always on all the time.

Bairoa and Yucayeque are both handled with the same keyboard/mouse and monitor using a KVM switch and they sit side by side in my home office.

Anacaona was supposed to be the server, it runs on a full tower with Linux Mandrake 9. Anacaona runs on an AMD k6-300 Mhz Mobo with 256 Megs of RAM and 20 Gigs drive. Currently it's used as a backup desktop and I used it when I need to develop Oracle PL/SQL scripts for work. I could've I used Bairoa for it, but I do not have enough disk space to run Oracle and email. Anacaona is also used to cut CD's. Anacaona is scheduled to be decomissioned this year in favor of a faster system, most of the peripherals will be swapped out into the remaining systems.

The WiFi spot is used mostly by my computer from work. Although I can have it wired to one of the hub's.

I also have an IPAQ running Linux connected to Bairoa. Right now, it is only used for experiments. I'm planning to purchase a Wi Fi card and have it as a network applicance. I also have a Palm IIIc given to me from work, but being that it is my work PDA I like to keep those separated one to the other.

Well, so that's my set up. Probably compared to othe people's setup is quite a complex setup. The plans for the future will be as follows:

1. Phase out Anacaona, probably with a MacMini or a modern WinTel desktop.
2. Rearrange the disk drives on all computers, get rid of junk and do some well deserved house keeping.
3. Get the Ipaq wireless via Wi Fi.
4. Increase memory to Yucayeque to 1 Gig, Swap Windows to Linux, if I get a Wintel Desktop.

Of course, I'll do that when time permit and I have no specific timeframe. These computers serve me well today and I expect them to serve me well for the next 5 years. That will give me a chance to purchase a 64 bit system when all the kinks are bugged out and 64 bits software is more prevalent. We'll see.

Next entry will be more general and less boring.

Lou

Tequila...

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:42:56 GMT

God... what a fracking headache... ... Went to the beer place with the account exec and some of the folks of the project last night and he had the greatest idea of handing me a shot of some tequila concotion. I personally do not drink a lot of tequila, because I end up waking up at wee hours of the morning writing crap on the blog. So I did... now I'm here... God, what a headache.

Our waitress and some of the folks from work.
Yeah, she's kinda cute...

The beer place is called Taco Mac, and it is an i_nstitution here in Georgia (where I'm stuck for work). The place reminds me this Sam Adams ad of "Da Haus of Bier" because it has gazillion beers on tap and other gazillion beers in bottle. It gets filled out with teens on a weekend that fill the restaurant part of the place, while the drinking crowd are at the bar getting drunk. It is also the local meat market on weekends as well. The wings are really good, but the beer selection is hard to beat.

Yeah... we had about... 7 or 8 of those... I can't recall...

I have not gone not out like this on a thursday in a while, it reminded me my days in College. In UPR, and probably like other colleges in the world, "go-out" night was thursday night for students. This is because on friday everybody leaves town to go home. When you go to school in a fairly small island, you do have the luxury of having a good home cooked meal at home on the weekends. Although to be quite honest, in the later part of my college yeacrs, I seldom went home because I was swamped on project work.

Being that I'm on the Linux expert blog group, I'll probably write about my setup at home on my next entry.

WARNING It's going to be a very technically inclined entry. Sure to bore you to death. If you have problems sleeping and you do not want to get hooked on pills, read it.

Lou

So... Do you travel for work?

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:41:34 GMT

The part that irks me about my job is the fact that you have to spend an enormous amount of time in a hotel room. Many people believe that because you travel for work you get to see these "neat and exciting" places.

Well, it's all bull. It's just a long commute. At the end, you wake up in the morning, shower, eat breakfast, work, eat lunch, work, commute, have dinner, work go to sleep and repeat until you are done or dead. The only difference is that you take a flight at the beginning and end of the term of the job and then you have to fill out a million forms just to get your money back.

Everything that you need for a square meal,
a microwave and a fridge.

Yippee... That sure tells you how good it is traveling for a living.

If there is any consolation, at least I have two more days to go before memorial day weekend. I hope to have great plans for it. One thing for sure. I'll be glad to sleep on my own bed for a change.

Well, where I sleep it's not bad...

Well, y'all have a nice memorial day.

On the road again...

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:38:11 GMT

Hi:

Well, I'm on the road again. One week from the comforts of home back living in a hotel, eating in restaurants and trying to complete my current assignment. I've been doing the same kind of work for the past 9 years of my life doing exactly the same thing for different clients.

Waiting, at EWR...

As you guessed, I work with computers. (I guess the photo might give you an indication on that.) working with big corporate UNIX boxes. I can't complaint. The pay is ok, free food and beer once in a while and all the computers I ever wished to play with.

Thankfully, I'm married, otherwise, I would be, as they say, up the creek without a paddle in the dating business. I do miss my wife when I'm away from home (hopefully she's not having an affair... I'll know in a couple of years... I guess ...).

Ok..

A bit about myself. My name is Luis Roberto Anaya, or Lou. I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA Territory (or Colony) in december of '67 (yeah, I'm an olde farte). I got raised in what it used to be a small town in Puerto Rico called Cayey. Now Cayey is a metropolitan area. I still think of it is a small town. Went to High School in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and I got a degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. I also have a masters degree in Computer Sciences from Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Pretty nerdy stuff. I also have a certification for jungle rescue from the Civil Defense (now called State Emergency Management) in Puerto Rico and was member of the jungle rescue team from '82-85. I also have a gun and motorcycle license. I also have a ham ticket, my callsign is N2ZXE. Not that nerdy stuff, is not it? .

I currently live in the New Jersey, USA. Although a lot of mainlanders have questioned my choice of state, I can certainly attest that New Jersey is a fine place to live. (even though that breathing its air is hazardous to your health and The Sopranos have not helped the cause of living in NJ).

I'm also an amateur musician, mostly classical guitar. I played puertorrican cuatro professionally for 2 years in Puerto Rico and now, well, I mostly make noise just for kicks. I still try to keep serious in my classical guitar practices. I also have an electric guitar if I ever want to annoy the neighbors. I also play the harmonica, uke, flute, whistle and mandolin. It keeps me busy when I'm on the road. I still wish to learn how to play the fiddle (but I'm afraid that I'll get thrown out from the neighborhood).

I also like cycling, although I have not done it lately. Well, c'est la vie.

I like to travel and I've been in many places in the world. I hope to keep on going, as long as health permits. This has forced me to learn different languages. I'm currently fluent in spanish and english. I know a bit of french and I'm getting better on my esperanto.

Air France, EWR to CDG. Bon Voyage!

That's about it for today, I'll bore you more in a later day.

Lou

PS. All photos were taken with a Camera Phone, Ericsson T316 with Communicam at 320x240. I do have a better digital camera, but this one is small enough to take with me on the road.