IT Administrators

Linux has come a long way.  I am sitting here writing this on a netbook tricked out with the Alpha Release of Ubuntu Karmic Koala.  It’s amazing.  Ubuntu One is included by default, giving users an immediate opportunity to backup and sync all of their computers without batting an eye.  Empathy has finally replaced Pidgin as the default IM client, reducing the memory load drastically.  The interface has been tweaked and is much cleaner than previous versions.  And like little kids in the back seat of the family station wagon, we can finally start asking “Are we there yet?” and get the response “Almost”.

What still needs to happen?  How do we get this thing off the ground?  In my opinion, the answer is a lot simpler than most believe: Start using it, in public, with the lights on, in front of our families, without wincing when we explain it to people.  I am going to share some of my ideas of how to attain the mainstream below.

1. Ditch the cost discussion.  Let this be a bonus for using Linux, not the determining factor.  Linux users have diverse political views and this is not about rainbows and flowers from a technical perspective.  This is about techs no longer having vague errors, spyware, and viruses to deal with.
2. Do not explain that the cd-rom for their printer/scanner/toaster with all the fancy software that lets them burn designs in their toast isn’t necessary in a way that makes them feel stupid for buying the multifunction device.  Tell them in a way that explains the advantages and disadvantages of said device.
3. Treat them like a business partner, not a student.  Show them that we aren’t going to loom over them, keep them from playing with scissors or running in the hall.  They now have the freedom to explore the computer without messing things up.
4. Don’t talk trash about the competition unless they start it.  It was hard to believe how many applications and OS’s I bought over the years.  Some people are going to exhibit grief over the money they have wasted prior to this development model.  Empathize with them, sharing your own frustrations as you see fit, but don’t over do it.
5. The “Try it for a month and you’ll never go back.” method does work, especially if the colleague is frustrated with their current computer situation.  Give them options, offer to help with the backup and install.

Linux needs ambassadors more than ever.  Long-winded speeches about freedom and TCO are not going to push as hard as a grassroots, tech savy group of people sharing the joys of being an everyday Linux user.

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With so many people out there looking for a job right now, I thought it would be nice to compile some tips on writing resumes in the technical field.  Individual results may vary, but these are a few things I have learned:

1.  Always include a Skills section if you are going to post your resume to a form.  The reason why you are doing this is to provide a list of searchable skills.  If your resume is vague, it will never show up in any queries the company may conduct in the future.

2.  Do not under any circumstances whatsoever use a template for your cover letter.  Take the time to specifically type out how you qualify for the position, what skills you consider critical to the company’s success, address any gaps between the desired skills and what you know, and make sure it feels like a letter addressed to the company.  This brief effort, as simple as writing an email, will get you the attention you deserve.  If you apply at the same company twice, using a template twice may make the potential employer question your sincerity.

3.  Take notes while on the phone discussing your resume.  This will expose any areas you can improve and shore up potential problems.  Recruiters and hiring managers are scrutinizing every detail now.  If more than one interviewer expresses concern regarding information or you find yourself discussing skills not on your resume often, it is probably time for some editing.

4.  Keep multiple file formats on hand.  I have a Word, PDF, and text version at all times.  There is no data standard for on line job board systems and formatting can take away your dream job in a heartbeat.  I upload the Word version, print the PDF version, and copy and paste the Text file.  This system seems to fit 99% of the time.

5. Pay very close attention to the job details.  The days of blasting out your resume to 200 employers until someone gives you a chance are long gone.  There are specific hardware, software, and years of experience requirements that will disqualify you immediately.  It is better to assume a quality over quantity position in a finicky job market.  You will get more responses and interviewers will be less stressed with everyone.  They have very difficult decisions to make and their performance is also being scrutinized.

This is just a brief transfer of my own personal experiences.  If you have any others, please feel free to comment.

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I really wish there was something we could do about Conficker as a Technology community.    There’s a spread of between 3 million and 12 million computers in the world according to CNN.  Seems insignificant given the size of the entire Internet.  I’d like to pose a question to the community.  What tools would we need in order to mitigate the risks of Conficker or any worm for that matter?

Do the normal rules of engagement apply here?  When I was in the telecommunications industry, we tackled problems like this systematically:

1. Identify the risk.
2. Identify the number of infections.
3. Allocate all parties and resources necessary to resolve.
4. Run hourly checks to ensure every compromised system is attended to.
5. “Lessons Learned” with all parties involved once 100% resolution is attained.

Seems like documentation and tracking are the key.  At my former company, we used massive spreadsheets and sent updates to those assigned to verify resolution and remove the record.  What would scale on the Internet, considering it is between 3 million and 12 million records?

Another question:  Should this all be centralized is a consortium?  I have mixed feelings with this.  In a corporate office it certainly was convenient to have strict policies and standards.  Consistent problems bring consistent solutions, as the saying goes.  I also consider myself a free market and free Internet kind of technologist.

Perhaps just a crowd-sourced site (I know, I know) focused on the resolution of all the Confickers of the world, providing information, links, etc. would be on the right course.  Make it a condition that all the information is Creative Commons and low and behold, maybe we’d have a winner.

Here is CNN’s information regarding recent activity on Conficker.  What troubles me about it is the apparent loss of hope in a resolution.  Kind of makes me sad to think that Sunday breakfast table conversation might end up starting with Dad opening a newspaper and asking  “I wonder what Conficker is up to today?”  Very disturbing.

Conficker wakes up, updates via P2P, drops payload – CNN.com.

We need to do something about this before it starts to reflect badly on the tech community.

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I’ve recently been drawn to technology security and just wanted to share this video. Bruce Schneier has a very clairvoyant view on the big picture of security.

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Pidgin is arguably the de facto open source instant messaging client.  The biggest advantage you have using it is the multi-protocol support which allows you to connect to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, Jabber, IRC and a few others I’ve never even heard of by default.  Plugins add additional services and features.  Here is a look at the services I currently connect to all at once:

Pidgin is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac here.

The Twitter plugin can be found here.

The Facebook one is available at this site.

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I have been in need of a new GPS receiver for a while.  While I love my Garmin eTrex and it has been a lifesaver on several occasions, the netbook lacks serial ports.  Carrying a serial to USB adapter is out of the question.  I wanted ultra-portability for my kit, especially on vacations and while traveling. Whatever solution I came up with, I knew from previous experience what package would need to be installed first:

sudo apt-get install gpsd

Enter this device:

No brand name, no fancy package.  I plugged it in and it functioned beautifully.  Ubuntu detects it as a Prolific PL2303 USB to Serial Bridge Controller as revealed by dmesg:

[  950.076139] usb 2-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[  950.242660] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  950.246324] pl2303 2-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[  950.271393] usb 2-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

That last line is important.  I needed it to issue the next command:

gpsd /dev/ttyUSB0

As this device lacks a screen to indicate satellite fix, my next step was to install xgps:

sudo apt-get install gpsd-clients

I mostly use xgps for testing connectivity.  It is a very basic interface with limited information.  Pretty useless for navigation unless you work with satellites all day and know where they are supposed to be in the sky.

Eight years ago when I started experimenting with laptops and gps, I quickly found GPSdrive.  It was really the only map-based GPS software available.  Recently, using a netbook’s small 16:9 screen became a major problem when I realized the application wasn’t written for the Gnome toolkit.  I was unable to maximize to my screen resolution of 1024×600, making any buttons at the bottom of the app hidden. TangoGPS has most of the functionallity necessary to track where you are on a map. Like GPSDrive, it is compatible with the Open Street Map project,  works with gpsd, and even allows for friend updates.

For now, I have a system that tells me where I am, how fast I’m driving, and allows me to contribute to open street map.  I will be eperimenting with another program called viking shortly and will discuss it here when I know more about it.

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All of my computers are now on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex).  That’s a Dell D820, a Precision 650, the GQ computer  that I picked up at Fry’s a couple years ago, and even the One.  I’m usually cautious about moving from a LTS edition to a newer version, but for some reason I decided to pull the trigger on upgrading each of my systems instead of performing complete reloads.  All four machines upgraded without catastrophic failures.  I did have to reload the kernel modules for my sound card on the Aspire, but it’s not a big deal.  On the Precision, some lunkhead sysadmin (who is reamining nameless) forgot to move /home to the second drive last time.  All I needed were these instructions and I was back in business: http://ubuntu.wordpress.com/2006/01/29/move-home-to-its-own-partition/

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I now have several machines running Ubuntu and Debian on my home network.  Each one had an inconsistent version of the packages on it, and I finally decided this morning I was done upgrading each machine individually and downloading updates when I got around to it.  Mikey’s got his own repo now and Mikey likes it.

I found some very simple, very focused instructions at this link:

http://mediakey.dk/~cc/howto-create-your-own-debian-or-ubuntu-package-repository/

Next step:  Add a GPG key.

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Okay, so the Acer Aspire One now has a nickname of AA1.  I kind of like it, so we’ll see if it sticks. I received my own Acer netbook for my birthday and am in the process of tweaking it to my satisfaction.  My biggest annoyance so far has been the lack of codec support out of the box.  XVID has been my favorite codec for a couple years now and I am not about to go back to wmv, especially on a Linux machine.  One little tip I can throw everyone’s way though, the Fedora Repositories were intruded upon back in August.  VLC is the package I noticed this with, but if you tell yum to install vlc, you will receive these errors:

Error: Missing Dependency: libpulse.so.0(PULSE_0) is needed by package vlc
Error: Missing Dependency: libopendaap.so.0 is needed by package vlc-core
Error: Missing Dependency: libdvdnav.so.4 is needed by package vlc-core

This is a result of the security breach (looks like file corruption to me).  To fix it, you need to run this command:

sudo yum install fedora-release

Information can be found on the following page:

http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=48759&p=161972

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Acer recently released the Aspire One.  My wife was looking for a laptop to check email and visit her forums while on the road.  The tech details were GMail and phpBB, for those interested.  We met at MicroCenter after work to look at netbooks on her birthday.  I will not criticize Asus.  They have made large strides in creating the market for the cheap ultra mobile pc, and I love them for it.  But there they were, right next to each other, the EEE Surf and the Acer Aspire One.  Comparing the two, spec to spec, the Acer made the Asus loook like a toy.  It has a standard resolution width (1024).    It has a larger keyboard (80% of a standard keyboard).  To be honest, the “triple-E” looked breakable.

So anyway, we picked one up at a store after dinner.  The clerk gave us the question that I often get hit with when trying to purchase items.  “Now, you know, this isn’t exactly what most people expect from a computer…”  I promptly interrupted, “It runs Linux, right?” Then we walked out the door with her new laptop and weren’t concerned about the price we paid.

I am more than impressed with the thing, mostly for it’s flexibility.  The distribution that it runs standard is called Linpus.  It’s essencially Fedora with a Mobile interface.  It’s very easy to get to a terminal and start customizing to your heart’s content.  I have already added Skype and upgraded the browser to Firefox 3 with AdBlock Plus to prevent the annoyances, both easy tasks if you already understand how Fedora.  For the sake of resource management, Linpus uses XFCE and it’s a simple matter of editing an XML file to modify what your default apps are on the screen interface.

Due to it being Fedora based, I was able to successfully get the Citrix Presentation Server client functioning for her work stuff.  The only major hiccup in this was replacing Thawte’s security certificate in the Citrix package.  It wasn’t very difficult, just a minor annoyance of downloading from elsewhere.  I could see this being a problem for someone with less computer experience.  Here’s my suggestion to Citrix:  Make your software update the certs automatically.  This is the only reason the RPM didn’t work properly.

Well, regardless, the Acer Aspire one is very impressive piece of hardware and I am considering getting one myself just to have the convenience of an extra machine with ssh and a web browser.   Acer really thought this one out.

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