Agreed, if you want to work for large businesses. Processes are important as small start-ups learn to deal with enterprise class problems. You might also take your experience and see about contributing your skills to an Open Source project. Not everyone is or should be a code monkey. What you will get, if you persevere, is an understanding of the challenges very small high energy teams face. You may have that now, in which case you're likely to really help the project!
If you like your skillset, take it outside the office. Contribute to projects and get known in the communities. Have fun! You'll age slower and be the envy of the Wall Street mega rich.
Evolution theory is shoddy pseudo-science; a mass of changing assumptions based on data that is not clearly understood. If you think the odds are that in evolution are good, you're probably expecting a MegaMillion lottery win every day for the rest of your life. I have yet to see how intelligent people can look at the assumptions made, see how often they change, see how slim the "facts" really are, and still believe in evolution.
Spend some time with Ken Ham and the Creation Museum. Feel free to not believe, but be willing to have your "science" challenged. Go in with a scientific mind and let me know how good your science is afterwards.
I get the "your position has been reorganized away" talk from my boss. After dealing with the frustration for a bit I start sending out e-mails handing off project tasks and making sure my documentation is useful. By the end of the day I had an informal interview with another team and started with them the day after my severance package ended.
Well, philosophy is good. However, a company often wants enterprise level experience. My suggestion, in that it worked for me, is to find small jobs with linux and work your way up. If you are in the US, Red Hat has the linux market share and their certifications are looked at favorably by many. This does not make them the best, but if you want a job with a company you need to have all the advantages you can get.
So find a place that needs linux and work for them. Even it it means for real cheap, or free. You've been with linux for 3 years and that's good. I've been with it for 10 and I still know a very small percentage.
Can you put a guess time on "in the future". This interests me but putting things together might get expensive quickly. Being new to the idea I'm not sure where the inexpensive routes are.
Many US grad schools offer night time and weekend classes. You need to find a job here and then go to school in your off time. That's how I got my Masters, though not in CompSci.
Having a job will give you money to fund your own small research projects, buy books/hardware, and contacts that can help you answer questions when you're stumped. It's also a much better way to have a job after graduation.
To an extent I agree, but small-businesses already struggle to build profitability. 3-5 years from start to profit is what I remember the average being, though my memory may be way off. In that time you have to pay your workers and your bills, build your client base, and develop your customer support reputation. Every business knows computer hardware fails. If your client knows you'll show up at 2 AM and work until it's fixed then they're more likely to put the onus on the hardware.
Server grade hardware *is* better from a technology and reliability viewpoint. But if you've got a good recovery process and a stock of spare parts you're as ready as the big boys when it comes to service.
Do your research up front and get good hardware. Test the configurations you want to sell. Stick with a limited variety of components/vendors, stock extra, and test everything!
Actually, I doubt they can even claim things that are similar to your day job. If you go home and create something, it's your's. If you work on it while at work, it's theirs. If you partly work on it at work I'd say it's theirs. If you use their data, it's probably theirs.
Some places want to claim inventions, or books you write. If you don't do any of it on company time, it's not theirs.
One thing you really want to make sure you do is never work on your thing on their time. It's tough sometimes, when an idea springs to mind. Jot it down on your own paper and think about it at lunch. Or even better, on the trip home.
"Style" may mean doing your best for two weeks at your old company. Spend time handing off your tasks and talk to the people who are getting the extra work load. If you're smart you've figured out ways to make the task easier/faster/better, let them in on it. They will appreciate it and remember you longer than they would have laughed at whatever stunt you might pull.
Spend time documenting your thoughts on how things work and provide a "run book". Help train your replacement(s). I did this at a company when I was a contractor. A year later I'm in a room and the Help Desk supervisor burst in exclaiming how glad she was that I was back with the company. She didn't realize it was my interview. And yes, I got the job and a good salary after she mentioned they were *still* using the documentation I had written.;)
If you want to feel important, do something to someone else. If you want to *be* important, do something *for* someone else.
Re:The first 15 posts on this are things you cant
on
What You Can't Say
·
· Score: 1
My favorite thing you can't say is that "Right and wrong exist". The article bashes polite society--who cares if you *can* say something, maybe there are reasons why you should *not* say it. But for us in the US it's considered impolite, especially in front of children. And not because we want to stifle the kids, but we ocasionally hope they grow up better than we are.
The article seems to hint at religious organizations as being at the forefront of rebuking people's behavior. Using terms like "heresy", "Zealot", and references to the Inquisition scores points with the people who dislike faith; it is pandering to the "anti-faith" fashion.
How many orphanages have you seen built by an atheist organization? Hospitals? Soup kitchens? Religious organizations have done a lot to make life better for people and yet it's highly accepted to mock the very people who are having the positive effect your article isn't!
You may think religious organizations have done some wrong things. I agree. I see dumb stuff that was done historically and I see smart people doing dumb stuff on a weekly basis. Whether or not the organization is infallible does not remove the fact that right and wrong exist and good and evil are real.
Okay, so stupidity is real too. You, me, and everyone else are liable to jump into it at any time. Just leave me to my heresy that some good does come out of faith.
I certainly respect your right to feel my question was less than the best. However, I stand by my belief that for sysadmin jobs you should know some commands well. Although knowing *every* option may be a bit much. In my day to day work "ps -ef" is a routine tool. *I* know that it won't work on a general BSD system and I don't consider myself overly bright. Certainly the interviewees who did not list BSD as a skill weren't asked.
Also to clarify, I *have* asked questions about bogus commands, and then asked how the person would find the answer. Of course and ask what do they do when the man pages are installed but the man page doesn't show up.
So feel free to disagree with me, I don't mind. I'm not trying to be fair to the interviewees, I'm trying to find the ones who are mentally agile and honest. It is those people I need when the chips are down; not someone who has gotten through life because everything is "fair". I want the person who can hit the wall, bounce off. and find another way around.
Ty, I'd suggest some changes. Keep in mind I'm a sysadmin, but you'll probably see what I'm thinking. If you have 10 years of experience you've probably done quite a few projects. So, in the top of your resume list the languages you're familier with, that will start the hit counter and give interviewers a synopsis of skills and ideas on where to question you.
In the body, under each job section, list specifics: "10 years of experience programming enterprise applications like XYZ, a Java based server system and RSTUV--the C++ middleware app. My roles have included the full software development cycle from initial design using industry standard object oriented analysis techniques, through base C/C++ and Java code writing; up to design reviews for re-factoring non-object aware C code into multi-platform (Solaris/AIX/HP-UX/Linux/Windows) capable Java."
You probably get the idea. Your resume should be looked at every few months just for a word review. Pull out things you don't like doing and express the things you enjoy. Give the interviewers hooks to ask you questions in areas you are good at. If you're at the table with me I'll ask you questions about what you say you know and let you admit "I don't know" if I ask you something you've already indicated you're not strong in.
I have real work to get done: it is much easier to spend a few minutes helping you understand something than hours rebuilding a machine you trashed because you didn't admit your limits.
Durin, I have no hesitation about giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Had the interviewee said anything about "some systems have different options" or indicated they knew it *could* have different results I would have been quite satisfied.
In the last few rounds of contractor finding my mananger and I will interview and one of the other team members may join us if the interviewee indicates strong technical skills in applications I don't know. Our general mode is that I supervise the contractors because the others are busy and working in specialized areas of the applications; I'm the generalist that picks up the OS and hardware bits. I *have* to try to weed out people because there is so much misinformation on resumes that truth is hard to find. Like the others have mentioned--people put things on there that they don't really know. I have a production environment to protect, I can't allow someone in that won't admit what they don't know.
That said, one time my manager asked me why I didn't seem to like a different interviewee.
"Oh, I like him; I'm just wondering how he's going to take working for someone who knows less than he does...."
The interviewee took it well and we're great cube neighbors.
SysAdmin interviewee lists both Solaris and BSD skills.
"Which system, Solaris or BSD, would give you more information if you ran 'ps -ef'?"
Didn't know. Didn't get the job.
They also count hits on the same words, so if you used C++ or whatever for different projects, list it repeatedly. Also, use specific terms--"Java" instead of "Object Oriented Program Languages".
Might want to verify, but BB probably wouldn't cost for a Uni. My understanding is that even a commercial entity can use it for free if the servers being monitored are non-commerce; i.e. your QA and development servers.
A "bulk build" is a fairly automated thing where NetBSD builds *all* packages in a sane order. For example, if package X needs package Y, it knows to go build Y before X. Pretty cool stuff, better than some dependency checking things I've seen.
It isn't "automated" in that it starts itself, but once you manually start it it does all the work for you.
Boss didn't like me. Of course, I started mid-year as junior of three. By November I was senior of one. One thursday night we were fixing a problem, we being me, a vendor engineer on site and another vendor engineer on the phone. (Read ~45 years experience total between the three of us)
So we fix the problem and I get chewed out for giving the vendors permission to actually test for what the problem is. I know that night I'm looking for a job by my own choice. Monday it's by their choice.
Worked out fine. First Christmas I had actually relaxed in for years, stress level went *way* down, started to play a musical instrument, and after about two months got a new job and a $15k salary increase.
Well, large/established company and i do senior sysadmin. Part of my performance goals include finding open source projects and evaluating/implementing them.
I'm supposed to read/.!
from the "you have my sympathy" department
on
Are You On Time To Work?
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Dude, I feel sorry for you. My boss likes to know if I'm not going to make it in that day or if I need to leave a few hours early. "Late" is defined as near lunch time. FWIW I normally show at 7 am and bail at 3. The boss knows even if I'm not there I'm either doing something work related at home or recovering from a long on-call issue. He also knows if he needs to tap me for early, late, or weekend work I'll support him just like he supports me.
The respect and latitude my boss has given me has earned him a less than 3 minute pager response time and a "yes" every time there is a weekend problem or a 2 am "Can you go in and fix it?" When he needs a long day, I'm there. My record so far is 25 hours straight, on-site.
But is giving theory in a way that sounds authoritative proper? Or is it a way to write a book?
I think game designers are a fairly intelligent lot (exceptions may abound) who are at least aware of many social dynamics. Whether or not they code around them purposfully or by guess is another matter. They may also *not* code around dynamics that may hinder the game either technically or in the user experience.
Perhaps the theory of games could be better studied and the level of game increased. This does link back a bit to the "Games in school" thread a few days ago--a game designer must generlly learn both the topic and the programming needed to write a game. Small game companies need to learn business, marketing, communications, etc.
Sometimes you gotta wonder if people need to go into a game just to learn how to interact with real people.....
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed, if you want to work for large businesses. Processes are important as small start-ups learn to deal with enterprise class problems. You might also take your experience and see about contributing your skills to an Open Source project. Not everyone is or should be a code monkey. What you will get, if you persevere, is an understanding of the challenges very small high energy teams face. You may have that now, in which case you're likely to really help the project! If you like your skillset, take it outside the office. Contribute to projects and get known in the communities. Have fun! You'll age slower and be the envy of the Wall Street mega rich.
Evolution theory is shoddy pseudo-science; a mass of changing assumptions based on data that is not clearly understood. If you think the odds are that in evolution are good, you're probably expecting a MegaMillion lottery win every day for the rest of your life. I have yet to see how intelligent people can look at the assumptions made, see how often they change, see how slim the "facts" really are, and still believe in evolution. Spend some time with Ken Ham and the Creation Museum. Feel free to not believe, but be willing to have your "science" challenged. Go in with a scientific mind and let me know how good your science is afterwards.
I get the "your position has been reorganized away" talk from my boss. After dealing with the frustration for a bit I start sending out e-mails handing off project tasks and making sure my documentation is useful. By the end of the day I had an informal interview with another team and started with them the day after my severance package ended.
So find a place that needs linux and work for them. Even it it means for real cheap, or free. You've been with linux for 3 years and that's good. I've been with it for 10 and I still know a very small percentage.
Can you put a guess time on "in the future". This interests me but putting things together might get expensive quickly. Being new to the idea I'm not sure where the inexpensive routes are.
Many US grad schools offer night time and weekend classes. You need to find a job here and then go to school in your off time. That's how I got my Masters, though not in CompSci.
Having a job will give you money to fund your own small research projects, buy books/hardware, and contacts that can help you answer questions when you're stumped. It's also a much better way to have a job after graduation.
Do your research up front and get good hardware. Test the configurations you want to sell. Stick with a limited variety of components/vendors, stock extra, and test everything!
Actually, I doubt they can even claim things that are similar to your day job. If you go home and create something, it's your's. If you work on it while at work, it's theirs. If you partly work on it at work I'd say it's theirs. If you use their data, it's probably theirs. Some places want to claim inventions, or books you write. If you don't do any of it on company time, it's not theirs. One thing you really want to make sure you do is never work on your thing on their time. It's tough sometimes, when an idea springs to mind. Jot it down on your own paper and think about it at lunch. Or even better, on the trip home.
I use this as a "user" for a site and like it. Makes things easy. My major complaint is that some security things like anon-ftp seem on by default.
Spend time documenting your thoughts on how things work and provide a "run book". Help train your replacement(s). I did this at a company when I was a contractor. A year later I'm in a room and the Help Desk supervisor burst in exclaiming how glad she was that I was back with the company. She didn't realize it was my interview. And yes, I got the job and a good salary after she mentioned they were *still* using the documentation I had written. ;)
If you want to feel important, do something to someone else. If you want to *be* important, do something *for* someone else.
The article seems to hint at religious organizations as being at the forefront of rebuking people's behavior. Using terms like "heresy", "Zealot", and references to the Inquisition scores points with the people who dislike faith; it is pandering to the "anti-faith" fashion.
How many orphanages have you seen built by an atheist organization? Hospitals? Soup kitchens? Religious organizations have done a lot to make life better for people and yet it's highly accepted to mock the very people who are having the positive effect your article isn't!
You may think religious organizations have done some wrong things. I agree. I see dumb stuff that was done historically and I see smart people doing dumb stuff on a weekly basis. Whether or not the organization is infallible does not remove the fact that right and wrong exist and good and evil are real.
Okay, so stupidity is real too. You, me, and everyone else are liable to jump into it at any time. Just leave me to my heresy that some good does come out of faith.
Since they have plans to decommission a few hundred servers in the upcoming year it looks like their decision will grow the Linux footprint there.
I thought it referred to the result of Microsoft's Market share.....
Jo; Not sure what you mean. Are you asking me what I meant or suggesting a possible response for the interviewee?
I certainly respect your right to feel my question was less than the best. However, I stand by my belief that for sysadmin jobs you should know some commands well. Although knowing *every* option may be a bit much. In my day to day work "ps -ef" is a routine tool. *I* know that it won't work on a general BSD system and I don't consider myself overly bright. Certainly the interviewees who did not list BSD as a skill weren't asked.
Also to clarify, I *have* asked questions about bogus commands, and then asked how the person would find the answer. Of course and ask what do they do when the man pages are installed but the man page doesn't show up.
So feel free to disagree with me, I don't mind. I'm not trying to be fair to the interviewees, I'm trying to find the ones who are mentally agile and honest. It is those people I need when the chips are down; not someone who has gotten through life because everything is "fair". I want the person who can hit the wall, bounce off. and find another way around.
In the body, under each job section, list specifics: "10 years of experience programming enterprise applications like XYZ, a Java based server system and RSTUV--the C++ middleware app. My roles have included the full software development cycle from initial design using industry standard object oriented analysis techniques, through base C/C++ and Java code writing; up to design reviews for re-factoring non-object aware C code into multi-platform (Solaris/AIX/HP-UX/Linux/Windows) capable Java."
You probably get the idea. Your resume should be looked at every few months just for a word review. Pull out things you don't like doing and express the things you enjoy. Give the interviewers hooks to ask you questions in areas you are good at. If you're at the table with me I'll ask you questions about what you say you know and let you admit "I don't know" if I ask you something you've already indicated you're not strong in.
I have real work to get done: it is much easier to spend a few minutes helping you understand something than hours rebuilding a machine you trashed because you didn't admit your limits.
In the last few rounds of contractor finding my mananger and I will interview and one of the other team members may join us if the interviewee indicates strong technical skills in applications I don't know. Our general mode is that I supervise the contractors because the others are busy and working in specialized areas of the applications; I'm the generalist that picks up the OS and hardware bits. I *have* to try to weed out people because there is so much misinformation on resumes that truth is hard to find. Like the others have mentioned--people put things on there that they don't really know. I have a production environment to protect, I can't allow someone in that won't admit what they don't know.
That said, one time my manager asked me why I didn't seem to like a different interviewee.
"Oh, I like him; I'm just wondering how he's going to take working for someone who knows less than he does...."
The interviewee took it well and we're great cube neighbors.
SysAdmin interviewee lists both Solaris and BSD skills. "Which system, Solaris or BSD, would give you more information if you ran 'ps -ef'?" Didn't know. Didn't get the job.
They also count hits on the same words, so if you used C++ or whatever for different projects, list it repeatedly. Also, use specific terms--"Java" instead of "Object Oriented Program Languages".
It isn't "automated" in that it starts itself, but once you manually start it it does all the work for you.
So we fix the problem and I get chewed out for giving the vendors permission to actually test for what the problem is. I know that night I'm looking for a job by my own choice. Monday it's by their choice.
Worked out fine. First Christmas I had actually relaxed in for years, stress level went *way* down, started to play a musical instrument, and after about two months got a new job and a $15k salary increase.
Wish they would have fired me sooner.
I'm supposed to read /.!
The respect and latitude my boss has given me has earned him a less than 3 minute pager response time and a "yes" every time there is a weekend problem or a 2 am "Can you go in and fix it?" When he needs a long day, I'm there. My record so far is 25 hours straight, on-site.
Sometimes you gotta wonder if people need to go into a game just to learn how to interact with real people.....