Someone's already suggested tools, and I heartily agree. Think of the projects you likely did: hanging pictures and shelves, building bookcases and lofts, and imagine the tools that will help.
I don't know how much you're planning to spend, but, here's a list of tools I used all the time during my college years:
NB: Don't bother buying cheap tools! remember: The bitterness of poor quality will be remembered long after the sweetness of low price has been forgotten. The results of using a poor-quality tool vary from a frustrating experience when a hand tool almost does what it's supposed to, to a permanently-disfiguring accident when an under-powered saw jams, kicks back, and slices digits. If money is tight, it is better to buy good tools used than lousy tools new.
Makita 9.6V cordless drill w/drill bits and driver bits - a total workhorse - I bought mine in 1987, used it all through school, then professionally for ten years. The only thing I've ever replaced are the NiCd batteries. This thing can drill holes and drive screws all day long. The entire entertainment industry runs on this tool.
Saw - electric circular if you're going high $$$; high quality hand saw otherwise
Hand Tools -
Good 20oz. forged hammer - Estwing is nice
4-Way screwdriver - one double-ended shank, each end holding one double-ended bit
30 ft. steel-bladed tape measure
Utility knife - I like the Stanley one that swings open butterfly-style, so you can change the blade without using a screwdriver
Vise-Grip brand locking pliers - accept no substitutes - there's Vise-Grip, and not exactly.
Miscellaneous
Permacel Gaffer's Tape - available from theatrical/film supply houses - as useful as duct tape, but stronger, doesn't smell like dead horses, and leaves much less residue on removal
Assortment of screws, nails, bolts, nuts, plastic drywall anchors, etc.
Small tub of spackle and a flexible putty knife for filling holes made by above
I'm not going to venture into tools for electrical work - the freshman dorms probably won't afford much opportunity for adding ceiling fixtures, but if she's headed for an apartment, a pair of wire cutters, strippers, and a neon "is it hot?" tester get you pretty far.
I work for a west-coast U.S. company. Three years ago, we aquired a company in the Netherlands. All of the employees there are fluent in English, and the developers are mature and skilled. They had an existing product which motivated the sale, and the developers there were very familiar with it.
The Dutch product is supposed to integrate with the product I work on, but in more of an inter-process-communication way than a codebase-integration way. That is to say we collaborate on interface, but implementation is generally determined locally.
Even so, the geographic separation has been a nightmare! At the very least, the nine-hour separation makes the round-trip turnaround for an email Q&A one full day: (I ask a question at 9AM PST - which is after quittin' time in Holland - so they don't see it until 8AM their time (11PM here) - and I don't get an answer until I come in the next morning.) And these are locally-managed developers with an execellent existing infrastructure. The problems would increase exponentially with the required granularity of long-distance management.
A recent assesment of the problem by an outside consultant suggested that the only cure for this problem is a large increase in spending on plane tickets. Our developers will have to fly there, and vice-versa, for face2face communication far more often than the semi-annual visits we currently do. If we had hired the Dutch developers just because of their lower cost/hour, we would have seen the savings completely blown in the additional travel costs (not to mention the lost productivity from jet-lag - you're not going to get anything useful done when you hit the tarmac at Schipol at 8AM local time, but your body is telling you it's bedtime.) This problem would only be worse if the remote office were in India, with a 12-hour separation.
Summary: The overhead of long-distance management will far outweigh the savings realized in hiring cheaper developers. Don't do it.
I do exactly the same thing - one shell script has to install my company's product on Linux, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX. I develop the scripts on Linux, and I've been bitten in the ass by accidentally using a Bash-only extension. I have found this book to be very helpful:
Blinn, Bruce, _Portable Shell Programming_
ISBN 0-13-451494-7
FINISH THE DEGREE, THEN DO SOMETHING ELSE
Slug through it and get the sheepskin. Then stick it in a drawer, and go do something else.
If you want to work with your hands, contact all your local trade unions (electricians, plumbers, stagehands) and find out how to sign up. Almost all of them have apprentice programs where you can learn as you work (albeit for a lower wage than a journeyman earns).
If you're an early riser, contact every commercial and artisinal bakery in your city, and get a job as an apprentice baker. You'll start early and have plenty of daylight left after work for playing fetch with the dog.
If you are outdoorsey, get a job at REI and exploit your employee discount to buy cheap gear. Bike, hike, kayak, and climb.
Or if you ski, get a job as a dishwasher or waiter at a bar or restautant at a ski area (so you'll be working in the evenings and get an employee discount on lift tickets) and ski all day. (Don't be a lift operator - then you get to spend all day watching the paying customers ski.)
Or something else. The point is, as long as you have the degree, you will have the option to return to a desk job if and when you get sick of a lower-wage working-class job. That day may never come, but if it does, you'll be glad the sheepskin is safe it it's drawer.
--
Ghengis
1986 - 1990 University
1990 - 1999 Stagehand
1999 - pres Software Developer
I think it will be much easier to sell a partial telecommute to a total one. If you are predictably available for face time, your boss will be more comfortable.
Try to compromise. Ask the boss if you can come in only three times a week, perhaps for 10 hour days. That way you're in the office 75% as much of the time as your co-workers. If two of those days are consecutive, consider staying at a local motel once a week to save 4 hours of driving.
If this works out, ask the boss if you can shift the balance of home/office time towards home.
As other posters have said, make sure it works before you buy a house two hours away.
My sister is a hand surgeon in Berkeley; she fixes lots of.com'ers with RST, CTS, etc. She claims that the injuries resultant from too much computer time are almost entirely preventable with the correct equipment.
Specific recommendations:
Chair: The Zack Back chair, avaliable from www.zackback.com. It is one of the only chairs that offers _NO_ lumbar support, which apparently pushes your spine in exactly the wrong direction.
Keyboard:
A split keyboard, so your hands point straight forward, with no radial/ulnar deviation of your wrists, and are spaced as close to shoulder width as possible. I use a GoldTouch keyboard, which has two halves connected by a ball joint. Used as designed, it can tilt and swivel in all sorts of ways that will make my sister rich, but with minor surgery (remove the ball joint), it turns into a nice two-part keyboard with about 6" of slack in the wire that connects the halves.
Monitor:
Position your monitor correctly: When sitting up straight in your chair, with your head not tilted up or down, your eyes should be looking about 2/3 of the way up your screen. The cheapest, and most readily availble adjustment device for your monitor is printer paper. Place reams and partial reams under your monitor base to get it to the right height. Also - 2 monitors may be cool for getting 6 emacs buffers full of code showing at the same time, but it's hell on your neck. Unless you're willing to swivel your entire chair each time you switch your focus from one to the other (rather than swinging your head from side-to-side), get rid of the second monitor, place one where it's centered in your work area, and get used to having the computer switching contexts for you.
Mouse
Get a low-profile track ball (I use a Kensington Orbit), so you can manipulate the cursor with your fingers, and not your whole arm. If you're right-handed, consider switching your mouse to the left side to reduce the workload for your busiest hand. It takes a few days to get used to, but it's worth it.
Final disclaimer:
Neither me nor my sister have any interest in ZackBack, GoldTouch, or Kensington (or Hamerhill, Weyerhauser, or any other paper company, either.)
My sister is a hand surgeon in Berkeley; she fixes lots of.com'ers with RST, CTS, etc. She claims that the injuries resultant from too much computer time are almost entirely preventable with the correct equipment.
Specific recommendations:
Chair: The Zack Back chair, avaliable from www.zackback.com. It is one of the only chairs that offers _NO_ lumbar support, which apparently pushes your spine in exactly the wrong direction.
Keyboard:
A split keyboard, so your hands point straight forward, with no radial/ulnar deviation of your wrists, and are spaced as close to shoulder width as possible. I use a GoldTouch keyboard, which has two halves connected by a ball joint. Used as designed, it can tilt and swivel in all sorts of ways that will make my sister rich, but with minor surgery (remove the ball joint), it turns into a nice two-part keyboard with about 6" of slack in the wire that connects the halves.
Position your monitor correctly: When sitting up straight in your chair, with your head not tilted up or down, your eyes should be looking about 2/3 of the way up your screen. The cheapest, and most readily availble adjustment device for your monitor is printer paper. Place reams and partial reams under your monitor base to get it to the right height. Also - 2 monitors may be cool for getting 6 emacs buffers full of code showing at the same time, but it's hell on your neck. Unless you're willing to swivel your entire chair each time you switch your focus from one to the other (rather than swinging your head from side-to-side), get rid of the second monitor, place one where it's centered in your work area, and get used to having the computer switching contexts for you.
Mouse
Get a low-profile track ball (I use a Kensington Orbit), so you can manipulate the cursor with your fingers, and not your whole arm. If you're right-handed, consider switching your mouse to the left side to reduce the workload for your busiest hand. It takes a few days to get used to, but it's worth it.
Final disclaimer:
Neither me nor my sister have any interest in ZackBack, GoldTouch, or Kensington.
Ghengis
Slashdot Mirror
NB: Don't bother buying cheap tools! remember: The bitterness of poor quality will be remembered long after the sweetness of low price has been forgotten.
The results of using a poor-quality tool vary from a frustrating experience when a hand tool almost does what it's supposed to, to a permanently-disfiguring accident when an under-powered saw jams, kicks back, and slices digits. If money is tight, it is better to buy good tools used than lousy tools new.
- Makita 9.6V cordless drill w/drill bits and driver bits - a total workhorse - I bought mine in 1987, used it all through school, then professionally for ten years. The only thing I've ever replaced are the NiCd batteries.
- Saw - electric circular if you're going high $$$; high quality hand saw otherwise
- Hand Tools -
- Good 20oz. forged hammer - Estwing is nice
- 4-Way screwdriver - one double-ended shank, each end holding one double-ended bit
- 30 ft. steel-bladed tape measure
- Utility knife - I like the Stanley one that swings open butterfly-style, so you can change the blade without using a screwdriver
- Vise-Grip brand locking pliers - accept no substitutes - there's Vise-Grip, and not exactly.
- Miscellaneous
- Permacel Gaffer's Tape - available from theatrical/film supply houses - as useful as duct tape, but stronger, doesn't smell like dead horses, and leaves much less residue on removal
- Assortment of screws, nails, bolts, nuts, plastic drywall anchors, etc.
- Small tub of spackle and a flexible putty knife for filling holes made by above
I'm not going to venture into tools for electrical work - the freshman dorms probably won't afford much opportunity for adding ceiling fixtures, but if she's headed for an apartment, a pair of wire cutters, strippers, and a neon "is it hot?" tester get you pretty far.This thing can drill holes and drive screws all day long. The entire entertainment industry runs on this tool.
The Dutch product is supposed to integrate with the product I work on, but in more of an inter-process-communication way than a codebase-integration way. That is to say we collaborate on interface, but implementation is generally determined locally.
Even so, the geographic separation has been a nightmare! At the very least, the nine-hour separation makes the round-trip turnaround for an email Q&A one full day: (I ask a question at 9AM PST - which is after quittin' time in Holland - so they don't see it until 8AM their time (11PM here) - and I don't get an answer until I come in the next morning.) And these are locally-managed developers with an execellent existing infrastructure. The problems would increase exponentially with the required granularity of long-distance management.
A recent assesment of the problem by an outside consultant suggested that the only cure for this problem is a large increase in spending on plane tickets. Our developers will have to fly there, and vice-versa, for face2face communication far more often than the semi-annual visits we currently do. If we had hired the Dutch developers just because of their lower cost/hour, we would have seen the savings completely blown in the additional travel costs (not to mention the lost productivity from jet-lag - you're not going to get anything useful done when you hit the tarmac at Schipol at 8AM local time, but your body is telling you it's bedtime.) This problem would only be worse if the remote office were in India, with a 12-hour separation.
Summary: The overhead of long-distance management will far outweigh the savings realized in hiring cheaper developers. Don't do it.
Hi:
I do exactly the same thing - one shell script has to install my company's product on Linux, Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX. I develop the scripts on Linux, and I've been bitten in the ass by accidentally using a Bash-only extension. I have found this book to be very helpful:
Blinn, Bruce, _Portable Shell Programming_
ISBN 0-13-451494-7
-Ghengis
FINISH THE DEGREE, THEN DO SOMETHING ELSE Slug through it and get the sheepskin. Then stick it in a drawer, and go do something else. If you want to work with your hands, contact all your local trade unions (electricians, plumbers, stagehands) and find out how to sign up. Almost all of them have apprentice programs where you can learn as you work (albeit for a lower wage than a journeyman earns). If you're an early riser, contact every commercial and artisinal bakery in your city, and get a job as an apprentice baker. You'll start early and have plenty of daylight left after work for playing fetch with the dog. If you are outdoorsey, get a job at REI and exploit your employee discount to buy cheap gear. Bike, hike, kayak, and climb. Or if you ski, get a job as a dishwasher or waiter at a bar or restautant at a ski area (so you'll be working in the evenings and get an employee discount on lift tickets) and ski all day. (Don't be a lift operator - then you get to spend all day watching the paying customers ski.) Or something else. The point is, as long as you have the degree, you will have the option to return to a desk job if and when you get sick of a lower-wage working-class job. That day may never come, but if it does, you'll be glad the sheepskin is safe it it's drawer. -- Ghengis 1986 - 1990 University 1990 - 1999 Stagehand 1999 - pres Software Developer
I think it will be much easier to sell a partial telecommute to a total one. If you are predictably available for face time, your boss will be more comfortable.
Try to compromise. Ask the boss if you can come in only three times a week, perhaps for 10 hour days. That way you're in the office 75% as much of the time as your co-workers. If two of those days are consecutive, consider staying at a local motel once a week to save 4 hours of driving.
If this works out, ask the boss if you can shift the balance of home/office time towards home.
As other posters have said, make sure it works before you buy a house two hours away.
My sister is a hand surgeon in Berkeley; she fixes lots of .com'ers with RST, CTS, etc. She claims that the injuries resultant from too much computer time are almost entirely preventable with the correct equipment.
Specific recommendations:
Chair:
The Zack Back chair, avaliable from www.zackback.com. It is one of the only chairs that offers _NO_ lumbar support, which apparently pushes your spine in exactly the wrong direction.
Keyboard:
A split keyboard, so your hands point straight forward, with no radial/ulnar deviation of your wrists, and are spaced as close to shoulder width as possible. I use a GoldTouch keyboard, which has two halves connected by a ball joint. Used as designed, it can tilt and swivel in all sorts of ways that will make my sister rich, but with minor surgery (remove the ball joint), it turns into a nice two-part keyboard with about 6" of slack in the wire that connects the halves.
Monitor:
Position your monitor correctly: When sitting up straight in your chair, with your head not tilted up or down, your eyes should be looking about 2/3 of the way up your screen. The cheapest, and most readily availble adjustment device for your monitor is printer paper. Place reams and partial reams under your monitor base to get it to the right height. Also - 2 monitors may be cool for getting 6 emacs buffers full of code showing at the same time, but it's hell on your neck. Unless you're willing to swivel your entire chair each time you switch your focus from one to the other (rather than swinging your head from side-to-side), get rid of the second monitor, place one where it's centered in your work area, and get used to having the computer switching contexts for you.
Mouse
Get a low-profile track ball (I use a Kensington Orbit), so you can manipulate the cursor with your fingers, and not your whole arm. If you're right-handed, consider switching your mouse to the left side to reduce the workload for your busiest hand. It takes a few days to get used to, but it's worth it.
Final disclaimer:
Neither me nor my sister have any interest in ZackBack, GoldTouch, or Kensington (or Hamerhill, Weyerhauser, or any other paper company, either.)
Ghengis
Specific recommendations:
Chair:
The Zack Back chair, avaliable from www.zackback.com. It is one of the only chairs that offers _NO_ lumbar support, which apparently pushes your spine in exactly the wrong direction.
Keyboard: A split keyboard, so your hands point straight forward, with no radial/ulnar deviation of your wrists, and are spaced as close to shoulder width as possible. I use a GoldTouch keyboard, which has two halves connected by a ball joint. Used as designed, it can tilt and swivel in all sorts of ways that will make my sister rich, but with minor surgery (remove the ball joint), it turns into a nice two-part keyboard with about 6" of slack in the wire that connects the halves.
Position your monitor correctly: When sitting up straight in your chair, with your head not tilted up or down, your eyes should be looking about 2/3 of the way up your screen. The cheapest, and most readily availble adjustment device for your monitor is printer paper. Place reams and partial reams under your monitor base to get it to the right height. Also - 2 monitors may be cool for getting 6 emacs buffers full of code showing at the same time, but it's hell on your neck. Unless you're willing to swivel your entire chair each time you switch your focus from one to the other (rather than swinging your head from side-to-side), get rid of the second monitor, place one where it's centered in your work area, and get used to having the computer switching contexts for you.
Mouse
Get a low-profile track ball (I use a Kensington Orbit), so you can manipulate the cursor with your fingers, and not your whole arm. If you're right-handed, consider switching your mouse to the left side to reduce the workload for your busiest hand. It takes a few days to get used to, but it's worth it. Final disclaimer: Neither me nor my sister have any interest in ZackBack, GoldTouch, or Kensington. Ghengis