So last night was the company’s annual Holiday Party. Call me crazy, but I like my company – they’ve held a few celebrations since I’ve been here, and all of them rocked my socks.

It was held at Pressure, which has this great top floor bar/pool hall/dance floor combo space, and we shared it with a party from NBC – but they were on the other side of the bar and didn’t really concern us at all.

Started off by grabbing a drink at the bar and moseying around, played a few games of pool, I even rocked a game of Guitar Hero! I didn’t do the whole buffet thing, I just wasn’t hungry I guess.

I think where I really had the best time was on the dance floor, where I’ve always tried to have a great time. It’s so awesome to see a bunch of crazy people, people I work with, break out their moves. Some of them more interesting than others, but all awesome. I guess it takes a certain type of personality to decide: “I can’t dance in the more conventional sense of the word – but I don’t care, I’m dancing anyways!” So watch out for that good old funky white boy dance – it can spring up at you at a moment’s notice

I had some nice salsa steps and merengue to base on, and then there was some group interpretive modern dance, that got some amazing response, and one more memorable one was Sir Mix-a-Lot’s memorable song, to which another dude and I totally rocked and cracked everyone up. I showed a bit of my groove to “Billy Jean”, a good song for footwork, and wished there was a little more step-worthy music, or at least clog-able, like “The Devil Went Down..” but hey, it was still awesome.

I got to meet a whole lot of people that I work with – some whom I’ve never met before – and some of their friends, spouses, SI’s etc. in a non-work environment. It was fun to see everyone relax and have a good time.

On the whole, it was one hell of a party, and I can’t wait for the next one. Big thanks to M, for making it happen!

Those that people always bitch about and those nobody uses.

Having said that, I think that it is clear to most, if not to all, my feelings on programming.

In case it isn’t, let me clarify.

It’s all well and good for anyone who likes to stare at tons of lines of code for hours, reading it all into their heads and then visualizing what the code is supposed to do, and then add one little semicolon, then spending hours figuring out what went wrong, and then ultimately hunting down some darned semicolon and blaming it.

So early on, when my father, a software engineer, attempted to get me interested in programming, I got the basics and then moved on to another field (more…)

Ever have a train of thought that started somewhere, then progressed a bit, then spawned two or three other thoughts, which took on a life of their own, and all of them important, all of them relevant, and each and every one really important? Now what happens when that happens recursively and begins to stack up?

Think fractals.

Then make whatever you picture that to look like much bigger.

Cram it all into my head.

Add water. Bake at 350°.

So it all started when at about 11:300 on Friday, our team at work gets word that at 9pm the power to both of our (more…)

Hi y’all.

I know I was going to complete the history lesson, but things have been a little delayed, and events have begun to unfold.

Here’s the low-down:

1. I have a new job in New York City – in the DUMBO neighborhood to be a little more precise.
2. I will be moving to Manhattan in about two weeks – June 2nd or so.
3. Most of my computer-related items are being claimed by Yehuda, but if you know of something specific that you want, let me know.
4. I am planning a going-away party on Thursday, May 31st, in the evening, and an eVite will be sent out at some point. If you don’t get the eVite by may 27th, drop me an email/comment and I’ll send it to you.
5. I am selling off my closed alcohol bottles – another post will detail what is up for grabs. The open bottles will hopefully be consumed during the party.

So there’s oodles and oodles more to go on about, but I don’t have the time right now.

Suffice it to say – go see “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” if you can. It came highly recommended, and was worth it.

… it has been over a month since my last post.

It’s been a busy time period, lots of things have been happening, and I’m still catching my breath. So now I’m finally writing this post to put it all out there.

So some of you may know, and others may not, that I am looking for a new job.

This is mainly due to the fact that the company I work for has brought in someone to replace me, an “IT Manager”, someone is supposedly to have a much wider range of experience than myself, in order to take the reins.

Personally, I’m not impressed by the choice.

Anyways, I’ve broadened my search parameters to pretty much anywhere in the world, specifically Manhattan or elsewhere in new York City (where this post is being written right now).
Unfortunately, the job market in and around Jerusalem is pretty weak, so any decent job would be in the Gush Dan area, and require a massive commute and/or moving closer to Gush Dan. I’m not happy about moving to another city that is not Jerusalem, as I’ve loved and lived this city for quite a long time now, and am VERY reluctant to leave.

Rationale: If I have to get up and move, I might as well make it a big move that improves some other aspects – better financial situation, better work environment, and less day-to-day crap that is the people in the public eye in this country.

Some history:
I came to Israel in 1988, in the middle of the First Intifada. Not the best environs for raising kids, but my parents believed then (and probably still do) that Israel is the place for Jews on Earth, as handed down by the Lord to Abraham, etc etc.
We lived in an Absorption Center close to Jerusalem for seven months, and I commuted to school in Jerusalem, and then back to after-school tutoring, and finally made it home “under the cover of darkness”.
We then moved to Har Nof, an ultra-orthodox neighborhood with the “suburbs” of Jerusalem, and along came the Gulf War. Just a personal timeline – my Bar Mitzva was a few days before the start of the war, my eldest sister’s wedding was pretty much the day after it ended. Thanks, George Bush, Sr. I will forever associate two important dates in my life with a war.

(more…)

So at work, a couple of months ago, our webmistress left for maternity leave a little prematurely, and two months later (!), we need some updates and whatnot to our website.

They company has a lot of people that can deal with: HTML, source control, and reading English instructions and following them.

But somehow, it becomes my job, “at least until we find a webmaster”.

They have yet to interview one webmaster, and from past experience, it’ll take forever before they actualy know what they want, then another lifetime until the interview a lot of people, and then, after an ice-age long wait, they’ll hire someone.

If I wanted to be a web developer, I wouldn’t have gotten so attached to hardware, software and networks. Ugh.

So this weekend I hosted Dan for dinner, simple pasta, as Tha Siz was away, studying for some major exams.

Then this morning, I left on a wild Harley rider chase, that didn’t end with any results. On the up side, I ended up going to places I didn’t think I’d see anytime soon, and I also tried to barrel my way into kmelion & zachkessin‘s yishuv, but it was locked up tighter than I felt like breaching.

So I made it home, and found out that the Internet Service Provider (henceforth: ISP-from-Hell) has once again failed to provide full-time service, and my office is effectively off the grid as of about 3pm today. No email, no VPN, nada, nothing, zilch. You get the idea.
So the CEO catches me on chat on a different issue (which I resolved) and I inform him,
and I give my boss a ring and let him know as well.

See, the way it works is like this:

A service provider (let’s call them “GC“) that already has a stake (and equipment) in our building, leases service from a much larger (and VERY reliable) service provider (purely for clarity’s sake, let’s call them “NV“).

So GC leases a line with a specific capacity – let’s say 3MB (the actual capcities and rates are less relevant, you’ll soon see why). GC then sells line capacity to Customer A, Customer B and Customer C.

The only problem is – Customer C (me) has a contract for a 2MB line, while A & B have a 1MB line each. Now, it doesn’t take a math genius to calculate that something is wrong with this – but in comes trotting the concept of “line sharing”. Effectively, I get prioritized traffic for my 2MB of data, quashing the others on the same line.

But that’s not the main problem today – it seems that a main router is no longer capable of routing, and the specifics are a little blurry as of yet. The line has been down for over five hours now, and answers are still not forthcoming.

It turns out that NV has actually purchased GC, and that moving from one to the other might be feasible and even a good idea to replace GC with NV.

This open up an entire new array of options, including adding a router and using something called BGP to allow for fail-over communication line capabilities.

I foresee a change in our ISP future. Let’s hope it’s for the better.

Anyone out there who has a somewhat-literate position:

Is the term “alternate flights” or “alternative flights“?

Question came up at work, and I’m interested in everyone’s input.

Thanks!

Ever have one of the times that you feel like all you do is work?

And I don’t mean regular work, but mindless, brain-numbing stupid work, that could have easily been prevented if someone would have taken the time to do a little planning, and take your department a little more seriously?

Well, I’ve been having this kind of feeling for the last week or so. It’s been kind of hard to stay upbeat and positive when it’s all pushing down on you, especially when “that’s the way it is sometimes” and “shit happens” seems to be a recurring theme.

Today I was told that one of the higher-ups mentioned that he’s tired of hearing a lot of people throughout their day run into a problem and the more-often-than-not answer is, “I don’t know, ask Mike, he knows”. Now, this seems pretty cool to me – but it does have the added intesity of everyone relying on you constantly. That’s great for job security, but not so great for getting my own tasks done. Is it my fault that I am big fan of technology and that I try to keep abreast of everything and have a great capacity for remembering what I find?
So now we approach the dawning of a new era, where I will have someone added to my team – in a somewhat ambiguous capacity – which may or may improve things.
The way I see it, I’m currently working at about 180% overload capacity and the addition of another 100% capable person would drop 80% off me. This all sounds well and good, however the additional resource is coming directly at a time that the company’s infrastructure is expanding and becoming more complicated – so it doesn’t look like that much of my duties will be transferred.

Another interesting point is that the company is looking for a Linux-savvy person “to complement what you know, and allow you to learn new things, while allowing the new person to learn what you know”. I’m not sure how this will work out in the long run, but live and learn…

Anyways, this was a little rant, and I hope you enjoyed it.

So this morning, on my way to work, I get an urgent phone call that something is wrong with the network – people can’t get to the file server, or get out to the Net, nada.

So naturally, I do what any average person would do. Whip out my BlueTooth ear piece and connect it so I can have my hands free. Then I grab my laptop – someone else was driving – and connect to the Net via BlueTooth connection to the phone I’m talking on.

Once the net is up, I connect to my office VPN and check the status of the servers.

Servers seem ok, communicating nicely with each other and the world.

My guy on the other end of the phone is not a sysadmin, but is savvy enough to check some of the more advanced diagnosis problems, and it seems that the internal network computers are just not talking to the servers.

So I decide I’ll restart the server that hands out network access numbers (for the techies: DHCP server) and see if that does anything good for the universe.

No dice.

By now, I’ve pretty much arrived at the office and begin the point-to-point diagnosis of where it seems the failure is. I see that the servers, on their own switch, seem to be happily chattering away, but anything connected to that switch is not happy.

Power cycle the switch.

Nope. Not yet. So I power cycle the other switches that are connected to that switch, effectively disconnecting anyone connected to anything anywhere.

Still no effect.

Finally, I decide tht I’m going to swap a cable – a simple, 12″ cable – that connects one switch to the other.

Voila!

So everything works, power cycle the switches again, and all is well. What a great start to an even greater day.

This leads me to the following revelation: I am a hero.

Not a super-hero, just a hero. Batman was a hero thanks to his gadgets and capability to use them. I have some of that under my (non-utility) belt.

So there.