Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Karsten Wade shares five reasons for which he loves working at Red Hat.  Not a reason on its own, but a part of one is this excellent quote:

At this company, the technical people have a serious influence on adjusting the mindset of the very smart people we bring in who haven’t yet fully absorbed the open source way.

Just brilliant!

I’ve heard an excellent phrase today – “corporate slavery“.  The moment I read, it made all the sense in the world.  A brief and clear description of something, straight to the point.  Here is how I heard it on Twitter:

Corporate slavery begins Thursday

But aparently the term is in use for a few years.  Here is an excellent photo set on Flickr.  And here is a gaping void back of a business card.

Perfect.

Being so much at work during the last few month, I’ve noticed that many IT guys enjoy working with a two monitor setup.  I never paid much attention to that fact and thought that those really need a second monitor are a few and that its mostly the show off for the rest.

Last week, in a very spontaneous move, I decided to try it out.  We had a few of those 19-inch AOC monitors around, so I wasn’t exactly robbing anyone or anything like that.  Within minutes I had unwrapped, connected, and configured in my Gnome, and I have to say that that is one of the best technology experiences I had in the last few years!  It’s totally awesome!

Now, having two monitors configured as one huge desktop, I can either keep my browser separated from my consoles, or more code than every before in front of my eyes without switching virtual desktops, or have all my instant messaging at hand without polluting my main workspace.  That’s brilliant, I tell you.

Downsides?  Yes, sure.  I haven’t yet learned to handle the setup properly, so I have to logout of my graphical interface and log back in every time I take my laptop home.  It would have been so much easier if just plugging the monitor in would work.  I hear that a docking station might improve the situation, but that remains to be seen.

And what I want now?  More monitors.  I’d love to have another monitor at work, and I’d really want to have at least one more at home.  But there is no place to put it at home (I’m working on a dining table), and I’m not sure there is a way to connect two additional monitors to a laptop at work.  But overall, multi-monitor setups is definitely an area I need to investigate more.

I don’t know if this was posted by someone else somewhere else before (probably it was), but that’s what I came up with yesterday, while explaining our password policy to one of the (male) colleagues.

Passwords are like women:

• you should have as many of them as you can
• you should change them as often as you can
• you should never share them with another man

Judging by reaction, I got the point across.

The other day we ordered a large whiteboard for our office.  The board arrived some time later, complete with a bunch of whiteboard markers and whiteboard eraser.  Gladly we put it up and started writing our plan for the world domination.

A few moments later, when we tried to do some corrections, we realized that we can’t really eraze much from the whiteboard. Hmmm.

Marker theory check.  Are all of them marked as “whiteboard markers”?  Yes.

Marker practice check.  We tried to write something with each one of them and then tried to delete it.  Only greek could have been erased easily.  Turned out that four markers (black, blue, red, and green) were from a total of three different brands.  Red and blue were from the same maker.

Because we were rather pressed on time, we covered the whole whiteboard with green text and diagrams.  Then we called the bookshop and asked to bring us more markers of the same brand with green.  People in the bookshop were rather puzzled by the request, but confirmed that we will receive more markers the next day.

The guy that brought the markers tested them on the board and saw that they could have been easily erased.  Then he tried the other ones and saw that it was almost impossible to eraze them.  Then he asked for a knife.

It was our turn to feel puzzled and confused, but we found a knife for him.

… five seconds later, it was our turn to feel really stupid.  Apparently, the whiteboard was covered with transparent plastic film to protect its surface.  It was absolutely invisible and looked and felt exactly like the whiteboard surface itself.  Once the film was peeled off, the new shiny surface of the whiteboard was revealed.   And, of course, all whiteboard markers – old and new – could be used normally.  We tested them all and we could eraze everything easily.  The magic moment!

I would like to take this opportunity and thank the guy from the bookshop, who solved a big problem of ours, and … didn’t laugh in our face, like many would do in a similar situation (tech support stories anyone?).  As a matter of fact, he didn’t even smile.  I bet he had a blast once he left our offices, but that doesn’t matter, because it was, indeed, funny.

As some of you already know, I’ve changed my job. For the last year or so I used to be the Senior Developer, System Administrator, Project Manager, and so on and so forth at mmVirtual Ltd, which is one of the top web design and development companies in Cyprus.

Starting from today, I am employed as Senior Web Developer at EuroOrient Ltd. This company is in the financial services markets. I will be a part of IT team, working for the first time with my brother. Most of my time will be spent on taking all FxPro web sites to the next level.

In the meantime, I will still be doing IT consulting and occasional development for mmVirtual Ltd., as well as a few other companies that I managed to develop some relationships with over the last couple of years. While I mostly do system administration and technology assessments for them, I see that my career is moving more into web development area. I am a frequent user of web development techniques and technologies, but I feel that my programming skills need a lot of improvements. So if you see a change of focus on this blog, don’t be too surprised – I have a lot of catching up to do (pointers and suggestions are much appreciated, by the way).

Celine Roque of Web Worker Daily makes yet another observation that makes one nod his head in agreement:

There’s a slight irony about being a web worker and staying in your home office most of the time.

The post goes on to suggest a few ways to spice up your life, in case you are a web worker…

There is this fun side to working in the office – you get to listen to all those small talks, little arguments and what not. Here are some quotes from the recent discussions. I’ll remove the names to protect the innocent.

– I don’t like football!
- What do you mean you don’t like football? How is that even possible for you not to like football. You do.
- No I don’t!
- Even you kid loves football. Look at his pictures, he’s always with the ball and in football clothes…
- Dude, the kid is just a couple of years old. He doesn’t know what he likes and what he doesn’t. He’ll play with whatever you throw at him…

- If I remember correctly, you were married and now you are divorced, right?
- Yes. I was married twice.
- Some people… they never learn…

- Are you going to eat with us?
- I’m on a diet.
- Again?!!
- Still…

- What are you planning to do then?
- I will be a teacher in the public school.
- Teaching what?
- Computers.
- Listen, if I will ever know that you are teaching computers in school, I’ll come over and personally kill you.
- Why? You think I am alone like this? Other teachers aren’t much better anyway.
- I don’t care. I warned you. And you know what?
- What?
- I don’t have a limit of killing just one person. If there is more like you, I’ll take care of all of you…

Here is an insightful bit from this comment in this Slashdot discussion:

Someone I know went for a job interview with (I think) Vodafone. Their open-plan office was set out according to the OSI model — physical layer people at the end, application people at the other end, and everyone in order in between!

Talk about integration of technology and corporate culture…

I just got another revelation on how important little things are in our lives.  Take, for example, your office job (if you ever had one).  When I mention your job, you probably think of the office, salary, annoying clients, evil boss, and things like that, right?  Or at least something along those lines.  Well, how about some tiny things which can make or break your day, every day?

• Parking space. Is there a parking place?  Do you have to spend half an hour driving around the building in order to find the hole to squeeze in?  How many traffic rules (running red lights, forbidden U-turn, etc) do you have to break to even drive into your parking space?  Is  your parking space in mud or tarmac?  What happens to it after the rain?  Is there any shade for those extra sunny days?  How often is you car locked by another one when you want to leave for lunch?  Or maybe you had to punch the crowds for two hours in the public transportation to get to your office?
• Water closet (aka WC, bathroom, toilet). Is there one in your office or do you have to take an elevator trip every time you want to wash your hands?  How busy is that place?  Does it have all the essentials like paper, water and door locks?  How clean is it?
• Kitchen (food and drinks).  Can you have a cup of coffee at your desk?  How about a coke?  A sandwich?  Do you have to pay for it?  Can you get any snack at all when you stay late?  How far is your lunch?  How expensive is it? Are there any cups, teaspoons, toothpicks, towels or paper tissues, salt, catchup?
• Stationary. Do you have to bring your own notepads?  How long does it take you to find an empty CD/DVD for that extra backup?  How pens are there in your immediate reach that actually work?  Does it take you more than 5 seconds to find a calendar?  How about a calculator?  Can you get one while still on the phone? Do you even have a phone?  What about an extra network cable?  Printer cartridge? A4 paper?
• Smells.  Does it smell like food in your office?  Do they smoke in there?  How often do they clean their ashtrays? Maybe it’s this guy right next to you?  Maybe it’s a flower, and only in spring?
• Temperature.  Is thre any air condition?  How about a heater?  Can you even close that window behind you?  How sensitive are other people in the room?

I can go on and on an on…  Brings the memories, doesn’t it?