News (a.k.a. My Blog)

Here's the part of my site where I get to let you know what I've been up to, what I'm currently about, and what I may be doing down the pike. If you see something here and have questions or thoughts that you'd like to communicate to me, you can use the contact form or look up my contact info here.

Note that dates and times for posts are listed using the U.S. Eastern Standard time zone.

Post Index:
2012 (23 Mar)
2011 (22 Dec)
2010 (16 Apr, 08 Aug, 11 Sep)
2009 (02 Sep)
2008 (06 Feb)
2007 (07 Jan, 20 Feb, 22 Apr)
2006 (02 Nov, 07 Dec)

Fri, 23 Mar 2012

IPv6: The future is now!
I've been intrigued and learning about IPv6 for somewhat over a year now, and I started implementing and using it on my home LAN for some six months ago When I first started to implement it, I discovered that the Linksys WRT610n wireless router I was using as the network's main router has a half-assed implementation of a IPv6 tunnel. Normally I wouldn't print anything approaching such profanity on my web site, but it is the perfect description of what Linksys (Cisco) did: They made the router firmware so that a 6to4 tunnel is enabled, but they didn't document it, nor did they give the user the option of disabling it as part of the normal web interface. In my opinion, that merits the "half-assed" moniker.

Fortunately, someone else was equally ticked off by this, and had acquired the GPL sources to the router, and discovered an undocumented page that can be used to disable it. And just in case that site ever goes down, here's the fix in a nutshell: Access the hidden menu page (http://your_router's_ip/System.asp) and set the Vista Premium option to Disable.

In light of this crap, and because I had bought a Mikrotik RB750G router with which I was now familiar, I made two recent changes to my home network: 1) I now use the RB750G as the network's main router, and 2) I configured it to host my IPv6 tunnel. I'll be giving a very brief "HowTo" talk about configuring the tunnel on it at the TriLUG meeting next month, and I've posted the "slides" here.

posted at: 15:58 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Thu, 22 Dec 2011

Busy, busy, busy.
It seems that my friends are frequently the motivating factor for major updates to my web site. A few months ago, my friend Tommy told me about using business cards at job interviews. I realised that if I was going to do this, I ought to have a web site already prepared. So I re-configured my dot com domain so that instead of redirecting to this one, it now hosts its own material.

Also, I've been revamping this site. I've started using a lightweight blog software, that is much better than using the quick-n-dirty custom kludge I started with. Much less fuss now, as I no longer have to keep it all in a single file, and I don't worry about the timestamps any more.

Another bit of news: I've added a reading list and a wishlist to the web site.

posted at: 19:59 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Sat, 11 Sep 2010

Google's Diminishing Greatness as a Search Engine
I don't like Google futzing with the search engine home page. The folks there seem to be doing that a lot lately, and it's ticking me off! The latest change has been especially annoying. It's some kind of instant search that fades in while you're entering search terms. Today I got fed up and decided to tell the folks at Google that I'm getting tired of their shenanigans. I found their feedback page and sent them my complaint:

http://www.google.com/quality_form?q=google+feedback&hl=en&prmd=ivn

If they want to give folks a way to have a "Google Home Page" with all sorts of "features", that's fine with me. But why can't they just stick to using domains, sub-domains, and sub-pages, and put a link on the search home page? It worked fine for Gmail and Google Apps. I shouldn't need to keep turning things off. Fancy new "features" should be opt-in, not opt-out! If this kind of "suckage" continues, I'm afraid I'll have to find another search engine. Google is starting to lose it's greatness, and is becoming just another crappy big business, and it makes me sad to see it happen.

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Sun, 08 Aug 2010

New Projects
Although I've not found a new job yet, I've been keeping busy. In addition to looking for work (of course!), I've been working on various computer projects:

- I replaced a previously-created Linux embedded system with OpenBSD. It acts as my LAN's internal DNS, DHCP and NTP server. I originally came up with the idea to create some more-reliable NTP servers for iContact. One of the problems I had with using OpenBSD for this type of system is that OpenBSD's ability to edit ramdisk contents appears to rely on a custom kernel recompile. However, the OpenBSD maintainers will only support the stock kernels. I cooked up a unique innovation that implements a RAMdisk-based system without altering the standard OpenBSD kernel one bit. I'll post the details here.

- I purchased a MikroTik RB750G router for $70 and started learning how to configure it. It's the same as the RB750 that's been advertised lately in Linux Journal, the one that provides "MPLS for the masses". The only reason it costs an extra $30 is that the ethernet ports do 1000G in addition to the 10/100 of the RB750. When I'm confident I understand it properly, I plan on making it the gateway router for my LAN.

- I've been hosting this web/mail server from my home LAN for ages, running on an old Pentium 400MHz with a mere 128 Megs of RAM. When I set it up, the hardware was already ancient (an old small-footprint Compaq Deskpro), but the Debian version was the newly-released Sarge (3.1). Other than a security update or three, the OS went pretty much untouched. So a new OS version was way overdue. And because there have been a number of relatively long power outages at my home lately (>1 hour), I started getting rather tired of having to restart the server when the power came back on. Even though I've got it on a UPS, there's only about an hour it can run before it has to shut down to keep from draining the battery completely dry. Now that VPS hosting is an inexpensive commodity, I decided to go with the smallest virtual server that Linode provides. It only costs about $20 a month, and with 512MB of RAM and 4 virtual 2.27GHz CPUs it far outweighs what my old server could do! I installed the latest Debian on it, and the hardest part was all the configuration updates that were needed to get the web and mail services properly migrated. And in order to have a smooth and quick cutover, I had to keep all the e-mail and web data synchronized while testing. But all went well (as you can see by the fact that you're reading this :), so I'm happy.

- I'm also in the middle of creating digital copies of my collection of music cassette tapes, which although aren't many (some 100 or so, total), is a time-consuming task, because each song on each tape must be played and re-recorded in real time.

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Fri, 16 Apr 2010

Layed Off!
Hmm, I guess I'm doing somewhat better at keeping this up to date, being an entire year hasn't gone by yet since my last post. :) Quite a bit has happened though, so I really need to catch up here. On the 8th of this past December, I was laid off at iContact, along with three other guys from the same work group, all of us on the same day. The layoff consisted of three Sysadmins (including me), a Senior and a Junior Database Admin, and a Database Engineer. They kept the Junior DBA and the most-recently-hired Sysadmin, and let the rest of us go. In November they had laid off one of the IT group guys, and they later let another one of them go in January, from a group that had grown to a total of seven people. As I write this it occurs to me at eight out of thirteen people, that is more than half of the two groups laid off from iContact in less than three months time!

When I started there back in July of '08, the Internal IT and the Infrastructure IT staff were all one group. Heck, we were only three and a half guys, so of course it was one group: the Senior DBA (who doubled as a Sysadmin), the Junior DBA (who at the time only worked part-time -- he's the "half guy" in the count), the IT/Help Desk guy, and me. There was supposed to be another Sysadmin, but right after I was hired he moved on to another job elsewhere. During the first few months, most of my time was spent with the IT/Help Desk work back log by helping with the new phone system (one that I'd had no prior experience with), and with internal mail and file server issues. I've never been calendar-minded, so I'm can't put firm dates on when we picked up the other team members, but between late in '08 and the middle of '09, we had hired another Sysadmin, a Junior Sysadmin, a Network Admin and a group Manager, and the part-time Junior DBA became a full-time DBA. This brought the IT team head count up to eight, including the manager. Our IT team was a part of the company's Technology Department, which included the Development, QA, Operations and Project Mgmt teams, and those teams were all growing as quickly as well, and around the summer of last year the IT team was divided into two groups: IT and Infrastructure. The IT team got the Junior Sysadmin, and then picked up another couple of Help Desk guys, a Data Analyst and a Salesforce Admin. On the Infrastructure side, we got the team Manager and later hired a couple of Sysadmins, but unfortunately one of them only lasted a couple of weeks because he was offered a better position elsewhere.

And when I thought we finally had enough people to start getting ahead of the game rather than just barely keeping our heads above water, the groups started shrinking again. The Team Manager was let go, and maybe a month later the Network Admin was sent packing. After that, it was the Junior Sysadmin. And on the morning of the 8th of December, four of us received an e-mail with a subject line saying something about an upcoming scheduled maintenance window, that asked us to attend a meeting at 10:30 later that same day. When we walked into the meeting, we were met by the Director of Technology and, much to our surprise, the HR Director. As soon as we sat down, the bomb was dropped: We were told that we were being let go immediately, but that we were being offered severence packages (provided we agreed to the terms therein, naturally). As you can imagine, this came as a bit of a shock, and was definitely no-one's idea of the best Christmas news ever. During the meeting, the words of Dickens' Tiny Tim kept echoing ironically inside my head: "God bless us every one!" It was totally unreal.

After the meeting, we were walked back to our desks to get our personal belonging, and then out the front door. I guess you could say we were all in shock. Three of us just stood outside, looking at each other in unbelief and watching as the DBA stormed off in his car. Not knowing what else to do, I asked the other two: "Hey, you guys want to go somewhere and get a beer, so we can sit down and figure out just what happened?" Being that it wasn't even lunchtime yet, we decided to just buy some sixers and go hang out at the house of the one who lived closest.

It wasn't all that bad though, once the shock wore off. Although I naturally can't go into any detail about the severence (you know how it is: mum's the word), I decided I could afford to take a much longer "Christmas" vacation than usual. It's been great being able to spend time with my wife and son. As well, when my brother recently came to visit (during the week), I was able to take the time to enjoy hanging out with him and my two young nieces. When it was time for him to leave, I got to ride with him to D.C. and spend a couple of days there as well. And you know how we all have "around-the-house" projects that never ever seem to get done? Mine are all finished! In the past, my wife and son have spent vacation times together when he's been out of school, while I enviously went to work. But just last week, we took a road trip together to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, and to see NYC for the first time.

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 02 Sep 2009

More "Year in Review" (2007-2009)
Hmm, more than a year has gone by, with nary a post here. Not good. I'll have to try harder. To bring you up to speed, here's another "year in review":

The job at Opsware "went south" on me. Technologically speaking, it was a cool gig, especially at first. I was to be Tier II support, helping sysadmins use our product, and to fix problems. The game plan as it was pitched to me was was that I'd get to delve into the inner workings of the product to solve difficult problems, and help find and fix bugs. I was told that I would never have to answer phones, rather, I would be initiating any phone/remote-desktop interactions that might be necessary. However, all too soon (August 2007) the Tier I group was dissolved to merge with the Tier II group. We were told that the support heirarchy was being re-organised temporarily so that we could better train the Tier I group and to create a "Tier 0" call center, and that us Tier II folks would only have to man the phones for a month or two. But we found ourselves becoming the typical support droids, responsible for answering phones, opening tickets, handling first contact with angry customers, etc. It was not only demoralizing, it became extremely difficult to work the Tier II problems. The constant interruption of answering the phones and having to make "ticket status update" calls, along with handling numerous Tier I issues made it almost impossible to give the Tier II problems proper attention, so our case load kept increasing. My job turned into a mind-numbing, ticket juggling, customer appeasement, socio-political nightmare rather than the technical investigation, research and analysis that I had signed on for.

When Opsware was bought by HP in November of 2007, we were told by management that by January of 2008 all calls would be handled by a new HP call center being put together elsewhere. But at the end of January we were told that although there were delays, it was just around the bend. We complained about the workload, and were told that HP wasn't allowing any new positions for our product support team, things would turn out alright if we could just hold out a little longer. February passed and the story was the same, "just keep holding the fort for a little while more". By the end of April, the team was burnt out. Most of us were merely showing up for work, spending any time not on the phones with customers staring off into space in a depressed fugue. A number of us were on medication to deal with various stress symptoms. Finally, the team lead jumped some management levels and spoke frankly with mid-level HP management (our old top-level Opsware managment) to let them know that our team was on the verge of imploding. I think this was in May, but my last months there were such a depressing and mind-numbing blur that I can't be sure. I think it was in June that a meeting was scheduled and we were told to prepare details about what we thought the problem was, along with possible solutions. We put together a manifesto that not only explained the details, but the magnitude and implications of the problem. My personal statement in that meeting was that, "for the first time in my career I was admitting defeat. Due to insane stress levels and burn out, I was too tired to care any more whether or not the product succeeded, or to feel pride in my work. If things didn't change, I'd be lucky to last another month. And regardless of whether or not changes came, I was done. It was no longer a question of if I'd be leaving, it was now a matter of when. Once I finally hit the wall, I'd be resigning on the spot."

They had hired some new team-members that were based in Brasil, so I was trying to hang on until September, so that I could work to get them trained somewhat before leaving, but I wasn't sure whether I'd last. Fortunately, during this time, a friend of mine (Scott Brady -- going way back to the founding of SyrLUG) was working for iContact, who was looking for sysadmins. He kept hounding me to send them a copy of my resume. I was too burnt out to even care, so to appease him, I told him to download it and give it to them himself. He did so, and they pulled me in for some interviews. Because they were looking for someone right away, and I had given them September as my available date so that I could recoup from burnout, the process sort of went dormant after the initial interviews. By the end of June though, every minute of every hour of every day at HP was a herculean struggle to not quit, so I decided to tell them that I was available immediately. That was apparently the news they were waiting to hear, because they brought me in for a final interview with the CEO, after which they offered me a position. I gave a two weeks notice to HP, making Friday the 11th of July my last day, and arranged with iContact to show up for my first day on Monday the 14th of July.

I could say quite a bit more about the many problems with my time at Opsware/HP, but the fact of the matter is, it's over. I've learned quite a bit about myself and start-up company evolution though, I can say that for sure. Although I'm really enjoying working for iContact, to be completely honest, I think I'm finally just about fully recovered from burnout. I know it has affected my productivity this past year, but I told them going in that I was pretty burnt out, and they still hired me. We'll have to see how well I can pick up the pace and get back into high gear.

I also should say that my home/social life has been really low key during this past year and a half too. Other than a trip to the Hiddenite Gem Mines in western North Carolina and a trip to Central New York to pick up the last of our belongings in storage there, 2007 was rather uneventful. In 2008 we managed a trip to North Carolina's Outer Banks and spent Christmas in Puerto Rico. This year, we spent Memorial Day weekend in Washington D.C. visiting my brother, and a week this summer near Chicago to visit my sister-in-law and her family.

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 06 Feb 2008

Love is...
As I've mentioned elsewhere on this site, my wife has mandated that I not post details about her and my son. So to comply with her order, I've censored the previous posts and will be more careful with what I write from now on. Consider it an active demonstration of my love for her, as I'm carrying out the request in spite of how totally bogus I think it is.

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Sun, 22 Apr 2007

New Address
We've sold the house in NY, and we're supposed to close on the new house on the 26th. So our new address will be 90 Portsmouth Island Drive, Garner, NC 27529.

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Tue, 20 Feb 2007

New Home
Although we've only been house-hunting for a short time, it looks like we've found one that is almost a perfect match for our wish-list. We're in the midst of selling our old house in NY, and buying a new one here in NC, so we've been pretty busy. It looks like 2007 is going to be another busy year, with another move in the works. Fortunately, this one looks like it won't be quite so much of a change, as we'll only be moving from Cary, NC to Garner NC (only about 20 miles away or so).

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Sun, 07 Jan 2007

The Year 2006 in Review
For me, 2006 was an extremely eventful and life-changing year. It started with the death of my Dad on the 6th of January, at 15:12. When I found out he had died, I wrote a letter to him. Even though I knew he would never read it, I needed an outlet for the thoughts and feelings that were overwhelming me. My Dad had previously put my sister in charge of his final affairs, and she scheduled his funeral exactly a week later. As he had been cremated, there was no wake, viewing, calling hours, or whatever it's called these days. Rather, it was a simple funeral service. At the front of the church was an ornate chest which contained his ashes, sitting upon an unadorned table. Nearby was a montage display of various photographs of him that I had arranged. My sister had asked me if I would say a few words (in effect, a eulogy) at the service. I agreed, and through many tears, publicly read the letter that I had written.

My Dad is the first person in my immediate family to have died, so it's not been easy for me. An even year has gone by now since he's been gone, and it's finally getting to where the pain is at a level I can stand without crying or shutting out my emotions. I still miss him, especially when I'm up real late, when everyone else is asleep and the neighbourhood is quiet. It's actually kind of apropos, really. When he was still around, he'd call me during the day while I was at work, and I couldn't spend much time talking with him. And I wouldn't think to call him back at night until it was late, after he'd already gone to sleep, so I'd be up thinking about him and wishing I could talk to him. Here I am a year later, finding myself up thinking about him, still wishing I could talk to him. But tomorrow I can't call him, nor the day after, nor ever. If that sounds sad, it's because it is, still.

In February, my wife went to a teacher's job fair at SUNY (State University of NY) Cortland. Several North Carolina school districts tried to entice her, but she focused on Wake County, and was signed on with an "early contract". The way I understood her explanation of what that means is that she was hired, but had yet to be assigned a position. Although we'd been talking for years about moving down South, at that point, I wasn't ready to bet the farm on the early contract thing.

In May, I wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary with a trip, so when I asked my wife where she wanted to go, she surprised me by asking if we could go to North Carolina. She explained that the Wake County School System was holding a local job fair, and that they had asked her to attend so that she could be assigned to a position. Thus our hope of moving finally became a reality. As soon as we got back to New York, I gave a two-week notice of resignation at work, because we had decided that I would be in charge of the logistics of moving.

June 5th was my last day of work. In the days that followed, I got us a set of cell phones, segregated the services on my home network (separating the web and mail services from all the rest), worked on all the small home repair projects that had been building up, and began looking for a place for us to live near Raleigh, North Carolina. The last item on the list almost turned out to be a show-stopper, as I had a very difficult time finding one via the telephone and the Internet. It wasn't until the middle of the next month that we were actually able to sign a lease on a house.

In July, I finally managed to make arrangements to "bury" my Dad's ashes at the plot reserved for him in the cemetary next to the church in Richland, New York, where his father, a minister, used to preach. To avoid all the extra hassles involved with an actual burial, we decided to simply spread the ashes over his grave. It was a warm, pleasant, summer evening. Later that month, after my wife and son were done with school, we took a trip to Niagra Falls and Marineland. That same weekend, my brother Bob became the proud father of a beautiful baby girl. A week after that, my wife, my son and I drove to Cary, North Carolina and spent our first night in our new home. And the last week of July was spent loading a moving truck, driving it to our new home, and unloading it.

We didn't have enough room in one truck for everything we wanted to bring, so the first week of August was spent going back to New York, loading another moving truck, driving it back to North Carolina, and unloading it. The rest of August was spent getting driver's licenses and vehicle registrations changed, setting up new bank accounts, and finding our way around our new home town. My wife had to attend several meetings to get ready for her new job, and school here started in August, as opposed to September in New York. As well, over the next few months (from August through October), I made several trips back to New York, first to move the last of our belongings into storage, then to work on getting the house ready for sale, and finally to run several errands ancillary to our move.

September brought me the opportunity to attend my first meeting of the local Linux User Group (Trilug). At the end of the month, my brother Don married his fiancée, Carrie, with me as his best man. It was good to be with all my family together in one place again, but the reunion was made bittersweet by the absence of my Dad.

The next month, October, brought the end of all my trips back and forth to New York. I was so fed up with all the endless travelling that I decided that all other work needed on the house would thereafter be contracted out. It was costing me too much time, energy and money driving back and forth. I still hadn't begun looking for a job yet, and money was starting to get tight. My second attendance of the Trilug meetings was this month, and also turned out to be my very first presentation there! At the previous meeting, I had expressed a willingness to give presentations, and it turned out that they had yet to schedule someone for October, so they signed me up. This was also the month that my wife, son, and I spent several weekends exploring our new home state. The first trip was to the beach at Wilmington. We stayed overnight so we could spend the next day on the battleship there that is now a musuem, the U.S.S. North Carolina. The weekend after that, we made a day trip to Pilot Mountain, which is near Mt. Airy, North Carolina. This trip turned out to be a full frontal assault on my fear of heights. I didn't realise until we were driving up the mountain what it would be like. This particular mountain is quite unique in that there are no other mountains for miles around. It's like being on the top of an extremely tall tower with nothing around. Although it's very beautiful, because of my fear of heights, I came very close to becoming a gibbering idiot.

The very next weekend, the first one in November, we went to visit my sister and her family in Greenville, South Carolina. While we were there, all of us went to the town's Falls Park. In this park is a U-shaped, suspension footbridge called the Liberty Bridge. Prior to the trip to Pilot Mountain, my fear of heights would have made it impossible to walk across this kind of bridge--you can feel it bounce when you're walking on it, and it's a good 30-50 feet above the ground. However, it seemed almost easy after having lived the nightmare of the previous weekend's experience (although I walked like an old man who'd crapped his pants as I crossed it). To me, it was a milestone event to make it across that bridge and back again too! A weekend later my mettle was tested yet again. My new friend Alan, a new pilot, had invited me to fly with him in a two-seater airplane. When I told him that I was willing to give it a try, but my fear of heights could wind up being a show-stopper, he proposed a plan that would give me an out if it didn't work out: We would take off, then immediately come back around and land. If I then decided it was too much, I could get out and wait out the rest of his flight on the ground at the hangar. I made it through the first take-off and landing, and after a minute of some forced slow-breathing, told him to take us up again. Although the entire trip lasted a couple of hours, I managed to make it, albeit with very white knuckles. And I didn't cry like a baby or scream like a girl! However, it wasn't until the very end of the trip that I got up the nerve to look out my side window for more than a mere glance. But it signified one more battle that I won in the fight to conquer my fear of heights.

November also brought me two job interviews. The one for Red Hat was a day-long affair, meeting with several different folks, but it didn't pan out. The one for Opsware actually involved a face-to-face interview, and two telephone interviews. This is the one that turned into an actual job offer. It was exciting to talk with the folks there, and since starting I've met most of the folks with whom I'll be working. Although it's too early to make definitive pronouncements, I have to admit that it sure seems like a good fit for me, and so far I seem to be getting along well with everyone there. We'll have to see if I still feel so rosy about it after the "honeymoon" is over.

December's Christmas-time brought yet another trip, again by the whole family. My son was overjoyed to discover that we were going to Disney World. The game plan was to spend a day travelling to Florida, a day at Disney's Magic Kingdom, a day at the Epcot Center, a day at my wife's cousin's house, and a day travelling back home. It was fun to watch my son bouncing in his britches as we waited at the Disney monorail station, he was so excited to get inside. And at the end of both days at Disney, even though he was rubbing his eyes to stay awake, he didn't want to leave: the first night we stayed until the place closed at midnight, and the second night we didn't leave until 11:30. And although he didn't want to go to my wife's cousin's house on the last day, he ended up playing with his cousins there (one is his age, the other is a year older) until two in the morning. And although we hadn't seen them for some thirteen years or so (before all our kids were born), it was as if we hadn't missed a beat. As the cliche goes, "A good time was had by all". And on that note I'll now end my review of the year!

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Thu, 07 Dec 2006

Employed!
I'm no longer in the ranks of the unemployed!! This grand experiment called life has me starting off on another adventure, this time with the good folks at Opsware. Although I've enjoyed my "summer of free agency", I'm looking forward to my first day of work on the 11th of December. It'll be good to get back on a more regular schedule. My wife and son are starting to get fed up with my "hacker's hours" :). Additionally, we think we may have found a local church to call home: Hope Chapel. We've only been to a small handful of services, but all of us seem to be pleased with things there so far. My friend Scott (who from past experience is rightfully wary of churches) came to visit during the Thanksgiving holidays, and attended a Sunday service with us, and even he seemed positive about it. I've yet to sit down for a good long talk with the Pastor, but so far it's looking like a "keeper".

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Thu, 02 Nov 2006

First Entry
Having recently moved to North Carolina, I'm meeting many new folks. One of them I met at the local Linux user group, a fellow by the name of Alan Porter. A few days ago we were talking about job-hunting. He commented that he was surprised that my web site had no contact info whatsoever, and that he uses his as a sort of "personal marketing tool".

Shamed into action, I completely re-worked my web site. It used to be a very simple and unadorned text site, a hodge-podge of stuff with no real order. Now, it has a professional look, the chaos has been vanquished, and my contact info and résumé are online. A public thanks to you, Alan, for inspiring the changes herein!

posted at: 09:05 | path: | permanent link to this entry