Learn to program control systems. The language is simple, the problems are not. I do mostly building automation in refineries and hospitals. Have you ever walked around a hospital? Typical day is 18 miles. And when something doesn't work, it usually requires a hammer or a wrench. How many times have you wanted one of those at work?
I am a pro. Use 3/4 inch conduit to all data/phone jacks. I like to put one next to every electrical outlet. Electrical outlets are almost always 1/2 inch conduit. Three twelve gauge wires fit easily into a 1/2 pipe and 12 guage will carry twenty amps. It's pretty rare to find an outlet that feeds more than twenty amps. You 'utility room' will have your hot water heater, electric load center and a wall mount rack for networking/AV gear. I like wall mounted because it keeps it out of the water. If you home run all your conduit then you're going to have one heck of a junction box. I like to mount it right above the server rack. Usually at least 12"x12"x6". In a traditional built dwelling I like a 1.5 - 2 inch conduit into both the attic and the crawl space. In a straw bail construction the south wall is usually the corridor/window wall for passive solar heating. I would run the big conduit pipe to there so it's easy to pull in stuff that got forgotten earlier. Try to design a drop ceiling for that front corridor, you can hide quite the cabling nightmare in that.:)
I've got a Zire 71 (cheap), I use Mobipocket and read it sideways. I keep a few books on an SD card so I've got something to read while waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.
Battery life is very good IMO. I read for about 3 hours today. Misc phone lookups, filled in todays calender for later billing. Played MP3s off that same SD card (while reading I might add). Probably on for about 3-4 hours straight today and I had 76% battery life left when I plugged it in at the end of the day. Sometimes I read all evening, in addition to such a day of use and rarely drop below 50% on the battery meter. All charged up by morning and ready for another round.
Depends on the money. I was finishing my Junior year in college when I realized that I was taking 3 and 4 hundred level courses that I could teach. I wasn't learning anything, the schooling wasn't worth the money I was paying. I could have switched schools, probably would have set me back a year. Or I could move into a full time position at my current employer doing the (very stressful) stuff I love. That was my choice. I never even bothered to get my grades from that semester. Anyway, I'm not making as much money as I probably would be if I'd finished college, moved to a bigger city, and worked for a big company. But I make more than enough to support me, the wife, two point five kids (last one). In relative comfort. I've never been happier. That doesn't make it the right decision for you, I'm just sharing my experience.
All this stuff is way in the past, but the machines had been in service for less than six months. The only time I know that they really worked was the day that I finished building them in the shop and transported them to the client site. The RAID cards in question were replaced as soon as possible.
That's a nifty theory, but kind of off base. I've had several Dell servers using Adaptec RAID cards that ended up with big downtime issues. The RAID card used a button battery for drive info backup. The battery failed, the very first time that the UPS wasn't able to keep with a long power outage, the server shut down, and never came back, restore from tape after building the array again. This was about 3 years back so I'm hoping that somebody made a design change. Anyway, it happened to three of my servers on the same day (three different clients, same power outage). That was a really crappy week. RAID controllers are complicated beasts. They fail, maybe FLASH memory would be a better choice for drive array info.
So, we already have a lead based paint cleanup problem in this country. Maybe we should add other toxic chemicals to our walls so that our children can try to figure out how to dispose of it?
Install current sensors on your mains, major appliances, HVAC system, and computer outlets. Work on reducing your energy load so you can buy more toys. While your at it, get the HVAC and hot water systems on a web site so you can monitor and control them remotely.
I'll vouch for the 4MP. Great printer, cost me $10 at a garage sale. I didn't even care if it worked for that price. It's been a year and a half and I haven't replaced the printer cartridge yet. Screaming deal of the century.
I work in a high noise enviroment. Poke a hole in standard ear plugs and add the Plugs. 25+ db of noise reduction and music. Best of all they look like regular ear plugs on a cord. People that think that earphones are somehow more dangerous than operating a modern car with all the sound insulation and huge stereo are just lying to themselves.
Is there such a thing as a TiVo with a built in channel decoder for Bresnan Digital Cable? I'd buy just about anything to be able to watch one channel and record another on my digital cable.
Or, the State Department. Travel to cubicles all over the world. The first few years tend to be really crappy posts (African Embassies). But at least if you are working at the Embassy, there is a good chance you can get out by helicopter when the local despot starts killing people.
Well, when my personal bat belt got to heavy, I got a job that required a laptop bag and a tool box. As a bonus, Carhartts are perfectly acceptable, so lots of extra pockets.
I use a lot of External USR modems in my business (embedded systems). It pisses me off every time I have to buy one. They haven't changed in years and they still cost a fortune. Nobody needs them any more for PC sales so overall sales are low but why are them more expensive than say a TI-81? It's about the same level of complication.
My guess is that the answer to the latter question is 'not much', and that we'll start hearing the same complaints about the Dept. of Homeland Security soon...
I don't want to sound parinoid, but if you complain about homeland security, or bypass their system. What makes you think you'll be around to complain about them for very long?
Well, I think it's time for a new amendment to the constitution. The right to personal privacy is extremely important. Maybe even more important than the right to bear arms (don't rip my head off here, I bear arms all the time and would hate to see that right go away).
I can't see anything less getting the job done. Morals don't seem to exist in DC and I think the country really needs a compass on how to use all this new spy technology.
Use command line tools if possible. Something that records to WAV would work, you could call it from AT. Then call your mp3 ripper to translate it, then delete the file. I'd use a digital stereo reciever (Radio Snatch Optimus) so I didn't get any drift in the FM tuner, plug it into the Line In port on your sound card.
Sure, the digital signals are very close in frequency to microwaves. So what? Microwaves are usually about 1000 watts. And we all know that watts is the actual measure of power. So, what is the 'power' rating of your cell phone?
Look here to find out:
http://www.cnet.com/wireless/0-5939521.html
I'll bet it's a lot less than your microwave. In addition, a microwave is a specially designed metal box that does it's best to make sure all that power gets into the food, your cell phone has at least a 180 degrees that isn't pointed at your head.
Digital signals are better, it helps to relieve congestion on the airways, it reduces the power of signals needed and increases battery life. Plus it's a hell of a lot easier to get IP working over it. (IP does dropped packets a lot better than garbled packets).
If radiation is really your concern. Get a head set. Bluetooth might not be the best idea.:)
Perhaps, but when (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away) I ran an end user ISP. I got hammered once by a customer. His box was rooted and used in a denial of service attack.
Anyway, my bandwidth was paid for. I had a full T1, Sprint didn't care how much traffic I sent across it, they were set to cover it.
He was very sorry about it. It cost me about 2 hours of downtime for the rest of my customers. It took me about an hour to respond once I found out there was a problem and pulled the plug on his box. I issued refunds to customers that were affected.
I charged him the cost of those refunds, plus $35 for an hour of my time.
Note that this probably didn't cover all of my costs. I wasted most of a day adjusting bills of those affected, which I didn't charge for. The agreement I had with this customer was special. He was allowed to use all extra bandwidth for his peering box, but was not allowed to infringe upon the rest of the customer's requests. This was before QOS packet stuff so it was kind of a manual 'keep on eye on the MRTG graphs and make sure were aren't maxed out' kind of arrangement.
My situation is a bit different. About a year ago I was hired as a programmer for an energy control company.
We specialize in building automation systems that give the building accopants what they want (perfect office temperature control, humidity, etc) with the least amount of energy. We often have to justify our work by a measurable reduction in the customers energy bills.
Of course, I'm a complete geek, I had no experience in how these systems worked, or how tight you need to control an enviroment.
My solution was to not really listen to my mentor (a HVAC tech) when it came to the actual coding. But to make sure I worked right along side of him on every part of the installation and maintainence of the machinery.
This has had several results. First, I am picking metal slivers out of my fingers this morning after a really nasty fan rebuild yesterday.:) Second, I've become a halfway decent HVAC tech, with the corrisponding increase in systems knowledge. Third, I can now pick up a book on energy management and actually understand it. But most importantly, the systems that I have been writing code for keep tighter control and cost less to run.
In short, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty when you're finding out what the customer wants. Take the time to talk to a sampling of the people that are going to interact with your product. It'll save you LOTS of time on the back end.
It's not just AT&T. I've got the dubious job of taking care of 'tech' things around the office. Like making sure the cell phones work, the internet connection works, etc.
Anyway, I had one phone account who's charges were way out of line, a couple of hundred dollars worth of charges for about 200 minutes of use on a 300 minute a month account.
The Provider (Verizon) bounced me around for a while then agreed that the charges were probably eronious but the account computers were down and did I mind calling back tomorrow? I stated that I did mind calling back tomorrow! Put a note on the account and fix it when the computers come back up! They stated that they couldn't do that. I had other stuff to do so I just said fine.
I wandered down to the local Verizon store where I discovered that an old friend worked. She was very helpful and got all the problems fixed post haste.
I suspect that these tactics are employed by CSRs that don't want the extra paperwork/hassle of giving refunds. These are only suspicions. I have no evidence.
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Learn to program control systems. The language is simple, the problems are not. I do mostly building automation in refineries and hospitals. Have you ever walked around a hospital? Typical day is 18 miles. And when something doesn't work, it usually requires a hammer or a wrench. How many times have you wanted one of those at work?
I am a pro. Use 3/4 inch conduit to all data/phone jacks. I like to put one next to every electrical outlet. Electrical outlets are almost always 1/2 inch conduit. Three twelve gauge wires fit easily into a 1/2 pipe and 12 guage will carry twenty amps. It's pretty rare to find an outlet that feeds more than twenty amps. You 'utility room' will have your hot water heater, electric load center and a wall mount rack for networking/AV gear. I like wall mounted because it keeps it out of the water. If you home run all your conduit then you're going to have one heck of a junction box. I like to mount it right above the server rack. Usually at least 12"x12"x6". In a traditional built dwelling I like a 1.5 - 2 inch conduit into both the attic and the crawl space. In a straw bail construction the south wall is usually the corridor/window wall for passive solar heating. I would run the big conduit pipe to there so it's easy to pull in stuff that got forgotten earlier. Try to design a drop ceiling for that front corridor, you can hide quite the cabling nightmare in that. :)
I've got a Zire 71 (cheap), I use Mobipocket and read it sideways. I keep a few books on an SD card so I've got something to read while waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. Battery life is very good IMO. I read for about 3 hours today. Misc phone lookups, filled in todays calender for later billing. Played MP3s off that same SD card (while reading I might add). Probably on for about 3-4 hours straight today and I had 76% battery life left when I plugged it in at the end of the day. Sometimes I read all evening, in addition to such a day of use and rarely drop below 50% on the battery meter. All charged up by morning and ready for another round.
Depends on the money. I was finishing my Junior year in college when I realized that I was taking 3 and 4 hundred level courses that I could teach. I wasn't learning anything, the schooling wasn't worth the money I was paying. I could have switched schools, probably would have set me back a year. Or I could move into a full time position at my current employer doing the (very stressful) stuff I love. That was my choice. I never even bothered to get my grades from that semester. Anyway, I'm not making as much money as I probably would be if I'd finished college, moved to a bigger city, and worked for a big company. But I make more than enough to support me, the wife, two point five kids (last one). In relative comfort. I've never been happier. That doesn't make it the right decision for you, I'm just sharing my experience.
All this stuff is way in the past, but the machines had been in service for less than six months. The only time I know that they really worked was the day that I finished building them in the shop and transported them to the client site. The RAID cards in question were replaced as soon as possible.
That's a nifty theory, but kind of off base. I've had several Dell servers using Adaptec RAID cards that ended up with big downtime issues. The RAID card used a button battery for drive info backup. The battery failed, the very first time that the UPS wasn't able to keep with a long power outage, the server shut down, and never came back, restore from tape after building the array again. This was about 3 years back so I'm hoping that somebody made a design change. Anyway, it happened to three of my servers on the same day (three different clients, same power outage). That was a really crappy week. RAID controllers are complicated beasts. They fail, maybe FLASH memory would be a better choice for drive array info.
So, we already have a lead based paint cleanup problem in this country. Maybe we should add other toxic chemicals to our walls so that our children can try to figure out how to dispose of it?
Install current sensors on your mains, major appliances, HVAC system, and computer outlets. Work on reducing your energy load so you can buy more toys. While your at it, get the HVAC and hot water systems on a web site so you can monitor and control them remotely.
I'll vouch for the 4MP. Great printer, cost me $10 at a garage sale. I didn't even care if it worked for that price. It's been a year and a half and I haven't replaced the printer cartridge yet. Screaming deal of the century.
I work in a high noise enviroment. Poke a hole in standard ear plugs and add the Plugs. 25+ db of noise reduction and music. Best of all they look like regular ear plugs on a cord. People that think that earphones are somehow more dangerous than operating a modern car with all the sound insulation and huge stereo are just lying to themselves.
Unfortunately, that doesn't get me the digital cable channels does it?
Is there such a thing as a TiVo with a built in channel decoder for Bresnan Digital Cable? I'd buy just about anything to be able to watch one channel and record another on my digital cable.
Or, the State Department. Travel to cubicles all over the world. The first few years tend to be really crappy posts (African Embassies). But at least if you are working at the Embassy, there is a good chance you can get out by helicopter when the local despot starts killing people.
Well, when my personal bat belt got to heavy, I got a job that required a laptop bag and a tool box. As a bonus, Carhartts are perfectly acceptable, so lots of extra pockets.
I use a lot of External USR modems in my business (embedded systems). It pisses me off every time I have to buy one. They haven't changed in years and they still cost a fortune. Nobody needs them any more for PC sales so overall sales are low but why are them more expensive than say a TI-81? It's about the same level of complication.
Ponders while there are not University students pictures in the National Geographic Article on Slavery....
Nothing has changed the world more in computers than the simple TCP/IP stack. BBSes were cool, but TCP/IP brought digital porn to the mainstream.
This is by far the fastest way to destroy an open and accepted standard that I have ever heard.
I can't see anything less getting the job done. Morals don't seem to exist in DC and I think the country really needs a compass on how to use all this new spy technology.
Use command line tools if possible. Something that records to WAV would work, you could call it from AT. Then call your mp3 ripper to translate it, then delete the file. I'd use a digital stereo reciever (Radio Snatch Optimus) so I didn't get any drift in the FM tuner, plug it into the Line In port on your sound card.
Look here to find out: http://www.cnet.com/wireless/0-5939521.html I'll bet it's a lot less than your microwave. In addition, a microwave is a specially designed metal box that does it's best to make sure all that power gets into the food, your cell phone has at least a 180 degrees that isn't pointed at your head.
Digital signals are better, it helps to relieve congestion on the airways, it reduces the power of signals needed and increases battery life. Plus it's a hell of a lot easier to get IP working over it. (IP does dropped packets a lot better than garbled packets).
If radiation is really your concern. Get a head set. Bluetooth might not be the best idea. :)
Anyway, my bandwidth was paid for. I had a full T1, Sprint didn't care how much traffic I sent across it, they were set to cover it.
He was very sorry about it. It cost me about 2 hours of downtime for the rest of my customers. It took me about an hour to respond once I found out there was a problem and pulled the plug on his box. I issued refunds to customers that were affected.
I charged him the cost of those refunds, plus $35 for an hour of my time.
Note that this probably didn't cover all of my costs. I wasted most of a day adjusting bills of those affected, which I didn't charge for. The agreement I had with this customer was special. He was allowed to use all extra bandwidth for his peering box, but was not allowed to infringe upon the rest of the customer's requests. This was before QOS packet stuff so it was kind of a manual 'keep on eye on the MRTG graphs and make sure were aren't maxed out' kind of arrangement.
We specialize in building automation systems that give the building accopants what they want (perfect office temperature control, humidity, etc) with the least amount of energy. We often have to justify our work by a measurable reduction in the customers energy bills.
Of course, I'm a complete geek, I had no experience in how these systems worked, or how tight you need to control an enviroment.
My solution was to not really listen to my mentor (a HVAC tech) when it came to the actual coding. But to make sure I worked right along side of him on every part of the installation and maintainence of the machinery.
This has had several results. First, I am picking metal slivers out of my fingers this morning after a really nasty fan rebuild yesterday. :) Second, I've become a halfway decent HVAC tech, with the corrisponding increase in systems knowledge. Third, I can now pick up a book on energy management and actually understand it. But most importantly, the systems that I have been writing code for keep tighter control and cost less to run.
In short, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty when you're finding out what the customer wants. Take the time to talk to a sampling of the people that are going to interact with your product. It'll save you LOTS of time on the back end.
Anyway, I had one phone account who's charges were way out of line, a couple of hundred dollars worth of charges for about 200 minutes of use on a 300 minute a month account.
The Provider (Verizon) bounced me around for a while then agreed that the charges were probably eronious but the account computers were down and did I mind calling back tomorrow? I stated that I did mind calling back tomorrow! Put a note on the account and fix it when the computers come back up! They stated that they couldn't do that. I had other stuff to do so I just said fine.
I wandered down to the local Verizon store where I discovered that an old friend worked. She was very helpful and got all the problems fixed post haste.
I suspect that these tactics are employed by CSRs that don't want the extra paperwork/hassle of giving refunds. These are only suspicions. I have no evidence.