Year: 2006

Come to the Dark Side….

Or is it “into the light!”
Depending on your perspective, of course.

Yesterday I decided I was going to go down the path of the “righteous”.
I was reading about Windows Vista and it’s release delays and the new features and the latest “to protect your rights” DRM crap.
I read about pricing models – how they are now increasingly difficult to understand.
i read about Office 2007 and how that is becoming the basis for life everywhere and you can’t live without it.

And then I said to myself – I’m going to try an alternative.

For sooooo many years the home computer market has been awash with a single operating system (I’m not counting MAC’s as they are proprietary hardware and REALLY expensive) that could be installed on an i386 chip architecture (for the uninitiated – “Pentium”).

But now, the dawning of a new age has arrived, bringing with it a wide variety of full-featured operating systems, and all absolutely 100% at no cost.
Spend as much as you want getting custom hardware to tweak your system out – just make sure it’s Linux compatible.

So yes, I have installed Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft on my main desktop machine here at home.
It took a while, and is still incomplete.

For your average desktop user, who uses Internet (Web & Email), office-style apps and a few kinds of games, this OS is perfect. It runs well on really low-end hardware and I’m running it on a much more than low-end. 🙂

I think that this is slowly becoming one of the more user-friendly operating systems, and I must say that although I absolutely love sticking it to “Big M$”, it’s nice to not have to.

Let me know if you’re interested in more details.

Another take on a not-so-old idea

So I’m reading the official Google blog and I come across a link and an article about award money for making a movie.
Apparently, to promote ingenuity, they are offering cash for making cool videos.
So I check out what they’re saying and see this.

Now, I’m trying to figure out, how do I take something someone else came up with and make it bigger and better and make money off it? I mean, is seems to have worked quite well for big ol’ Billy boy, so I want a cut of the action too. If you come up with a cool idea, don’t tell me the idea. let me know about the idea once it’s public, and gets lots of exposure, so then I can rip it off and make something artistic about it.
Oh, and make some money.

And then, I find a cool new thingie happening over at Boeing. Now, consider the application of this kind of system on light, low-flying aircraft. And then have that aircraft fly somethwere close to an experiment area like the one in the abovementioned clip. I’d like to see some Air-to-ground lights display and I’d really love to be watching the news the next morning and hear how the newsanchors try to spin this ridiculous tale of mishap into something about terrorism.

And then I come accross this article that makes me wonder a bit.
The compnay involved has a suspicuosly familiar name – anyone who saw T2 might remember – and he’s calling the thing “HAL“!!!
So, what’s going to happen is that this thing is version 1.0, and the next one might be a “smart” one with a small CPU and some AI programming to keep it going. Then they’re going to develop a larger skeleton, give it a brain and name it version T-100. And you all know how the story ends, don’t you?
They send one back to the past and make it governor of California! Wait a minute…..

A quick chat transcript

10 minute chat transcript of an interesting conversation with someone pretty insightful.

[28/10/2006 12:20] miketheman: everyone wants something, needs something, urgently, now now now, and who gets to handle it?
[28/10/2006 12:21] friend: God? he is the one getting all the requests? doens’t he?
[28/10/2006 12:22] miketheman: yeah – but he’s got a lot of minions that he employs to handle things, and he MUST have some good infrastructure and request tracker system – and anyways, when was the last time you heard of him actually delivering?
[28/10/2006 12:24] friend: he has no tracker system or that shit. The guy consistently makes a bad job, and his delivery is a question of faith.
[28/10/2006 12:24] friend: i.e. that your solution lies in faith – you need to make everyone religious
[28/10/2006 12:24] friend: or to worship you.
[28/10/2006 12:25] miketheman: so what you’re saying is that I need to make everyone worship me so I can then treat them with indifference and never really listen to what they need?
[28/10/2006 12:26] friend: exactly – or at least burn them from time to time, make them die in wars and plagues..and here comes the good part…
[28/10/2006 12:27] friend: the idiots will keep calling you again and again for help no matter how bad you did…
[28/10/2006 12:27] friend: it’s an amazing start-up
[28/10/2006 12:27] miketheman: Is there any hope? A light at the end of the tunnel, that is NOT an arriving train?
[28/10/2006 12:28] friend: I hope so.
[28/10/2006 12:29] friend: Really.

More on the remote usage…

So there ain’t nothing quite like sitting at home on the couch – which is nice and comfy – and watching “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” while happily typing away and setting up a nice new linux server at work, all remotely.
Oh, and sipping some nice cognac, too.

And then i get a call from the office at 11:30pm informing me that some crucial data has been left out of a product that they are supposed to be completing today.
So I Alt+Tab to another window, discuss the problem and figure out what is needed to resolve it, and then set a few pieces of code to run and do a whole lot of work for me. (This is being written while that runs in the background!)
After these are done, I’ll email the files to the office and they will incorporate them into the product and continue the process from there.

Mobilization is grand!

Wireless-enabled and more…

So today I spent the day at the office, as usual, and I completed X amount of work.
After leaving, instead of going home, I stopped at a nice wireless-enabled cafe and continued to handle issues from there, emails, VPN, etc.

I feel like in the three hours I spent there I completed X+40% more work in a much shorter amount of time.

What does this mean? That I am more productive away from the office than actually when I am there?

Catching up…

So it’s been a while since I’ve even opened my LJ’s pages and follow up on what people are doing.

Over the past 2 days I have done just that, and it’s fun to watch things develop and happen, things that I had no idea about, no clue and then try to piece together reality again.

I did not make it to iCon this year, for a couple of reasons, which I won’t elaborate on here. If you know why, good for you.
I did, in fact, miss seeing everyone, even though I got a post-con visit from a couple of friends who particularly missed me. That was pleasant.

Thanks to the technology of this Internet thingie, a lot of people have posted pictures and videos, but I don’t know if anyone has seen this one. And yes, I do believe the main focus silhouette is .

It is my feeling that the annual iCon Festival has turned into jsut that. It is no longer a “convention” – where like-minded people convene and meet and discuss, explore and disagree loudly about any topic under the sun. (Yes, I’m sure this still happens, but is no longer the focus.) It is a full-blown commercialized event, and is now a film festival, like we don’t have any of those ever.

My image of iCon was a large meeting of people from different backgrounds, different streams of life, different preferences of entertainment media and genres, and a common place where one can be exposed to more that what they are used to, other sides of a similar or dissimilar concept, a place that no matter how weird you are, there’s bound to be someone weirder right around the corner.

Some of you remember the early con’s. Some of you were there, active and kicking to make it bigger, better. The sheer amount of background chatter I have heard about the pre-con preparation, the suring-con stuff, and not much of post-con issues have been written about yet, make me wonder wht the future will bring. For the past 2-3 years, the organizations have been struggling to find people that will take on the enourmous responsibility of running such an event. It seems to pretty much everyone that no matter what, at least one person will continue to be a major part of the game. Is this a good thing? Yes and no. Experience teaches you a lot, but once a bad habit has set in, it’s much harder to break.

I don’t know where this rant is going. All I know is that I used to be a major player and I am in no longer. I can sleep easier, but there’s a certain amount of “oomph” that seems lacking.

WTF.

So here I am…

Sitting in Aroma, using the wonders of wireless technology, yet again.

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks, and now’s time to rest a little. Over the next few days, I will be on vacation, and will be pretty disconnected from everything.

At work today I had a nice long talk with our chief systems architect, and I think I may have made an impact on the future. We shall see as events unfold.

Anyways, to all out there, have a great weekend, and if you observe, have an easy fast, and if you don’t, have a nice day off.

Job listing

Technical Support Specialist

Description:

Responsible for providing reliable, responsive and appropriate resolutions to the most complex, critical or highest impact problems related to network and data storage systems.

Requirements:

  • At least 3 years proven experience in networking (network switching and routing and knowledge of TCP/IP protocols), and/or high end data storage systems (knowledge and experience in storage NAS and SAN and IPSAN environments).
  • Hands on experience with NetApp and EMC storage arrays – Advantage
  • Native English (or equivalent verbal and written).
  • Excellent interpersonal and conflict resolution skills.
  • Experience in customer service via telephone and web.
  • Strong organizational and methodological skills.

If you are appropriate candidate, message me.