Everyone is an architect

Sadly or happily my work title has word “architect” included now.

Its a great new for some, but in honest feeling, I am puzzled to see if I can have such.

I know how real architect (building/design) works years as one and also study to be one for 3-4 yrs. Their goal is to be an architect and train to be one. In IT, there is no such goal or training, I’ve started as IT analyst and moved to be a system engineer and learn to design/implement alone the way. No formal training, no formal qualification.

Should IT engineer (even term ENGINEER, would anger few real ENGINEERS today) name themselves IT architect after 5-10 yrs of the professional life?

Well who am i kidding, I just want more pay, dont we all, and title = higher grade = more pay =(

 

rain rain another rain

I’ve Found out heavy rain will cause another water leak under my roof. =(

Jan 2011 heavy rain had caused grief, (needed to call for the insurance to get water damage repair) and now this.

I’ve set my excess to $1000, and I dont think this damage would be that much. I guess I’ll find out eh?

 

 

 

you dont know your own software?

Its strange world indeed, my company uses a software that’s written by VB6 and runs within Citrix environment.

This software vendor decided to call me up asking for help integrating their software on OTHER customer’s Citrix environment.
Well, as a friendly Citrix dude, I did give him a few pointer but isnt it rather strange for the vendor to call the customer to seek help for other customer’s issue?

Its YOUR own software ppl, if you dont think it runs on Citrix or dont know how to troubleshoot software integration LEARN how to do it, seriously.

I really get frustrated when a developer calls an infrastructure engineer (usually me) saying, “I dont know anything about OS, Network, blah blah, can you fix it ?”
I have spent enough time learning C#, App debugging, network (switch/routing) so I can help myself integrating/debugging the issues I face.

Why is it always someone else’s problem when the problem is escalated to the developer ????

This is like a trend, dev who doesnt know SMTP, IIS, DBMS, firewall, TCP/IP.

or it must be just me working with horrible developers..

Solutions for Virtualizing Internet Explorer

I received some news letter email that there is a white paper release from MS for virtualizing IE.

Wow… one from MS?

Assumption for me was that ‘it has to be how to use App-V’ their flag ship application virtualization suit.

who am i kidding here, the white paper (here) is about using VIRTUAL PC and Terminal Server.

Did they really have to write up a fancy WHITE PAPER for this ?

Wow.. end of LZH

Author of the LZH got sick of getting no attention from major anti-virus vendor and has  announce the stop to its development.

I understand it is critical these days to have a filter at a border level, and they have been neglecting the support for LZH/ARJ. (Surprising ly 7z are now widely supported)

well I also moved away from these and have been using 7zip, its sad to see some format to go.

Python and Ruby on Windows

I find it pretty DAMN annoying to start some dev environment on Windows. (BTW, I run Win7 x64)
There are numerous binary gems and  python eggs that simply fails to run on x64.

I was going to develop my hobby project to run LDAP read/report tool and its damn painful to set these up on Windows.

Yes, I can run *nix and have Fedora 13 setup but if I am targeting Active Directory, I thought developing on Windows was a natural choice ?

well activeldap and openldap all seems to be abandoned or not well supported on Windows.
who am i kidding, I should be running C# on Windows not ruby or python. =(

Quit?!

PM of Japan has resigned again. Leaving a numerous problems behind due to the peer pressure from his own political party.

Not sure its was a good idea or bad, but I see absolutely no need for him to quit. Resignation was not a solution to his problem nor people of Okinawa was facing.

His gotta be kidding, if he just quit and all problem will go away.

You cant even answer that ?

Not that I’m proud or anything but when I interview people to make hiring decision, I give a candidate general “fundamental” questions.

At least, I try not to give YES/NO questions or TEXT BOOK question like what is the term XYZ used for?

By the time the candidate reaches the technical interview with me they have a potential…. or at least I hope they do. We have faith in them and we really do hope they pass.

However… reality is most of them dont even pass the first written questions (5 short q)

For example Active Directory. (we’re wintel house)

But.. people work with Active Directory for yrs by now, yet simple question like

what do you do if security (group membership) change does not get applied for a user at a remote office?
what fo you do if GPO is not getting applied to the certain OU ?

I had an answer that just says wait for replication… (yes I know.. but do you just wait? how would you force replication? what if user never logged out and obtained new token from AD??)
for the next Q, we just want, things like check the scope of the GPO, check its linked to correct OU or not, use GPMC/RSPO to find conflict if there is any. Many cant even get these points.

BTW, these candidates had like 10 yrs exp and going for “senior” engineer role.

YOU CANT EVEN ANSWER THAT? But you want a senior role?

Got Tivo?

Just got Tivo this week and started to configure… I thought it should be easy and simple.

(obviously not)

1 ICMP required
Took me an hr to realize why the initial setup screen was keep telling to check the internet connection.
I can ping the box (static IP), DNS is up and router has no outbound reject/drop filter other than SMTP.
Turns out box tries ICMP/PING and if it fails, it thinks you got no Internet. (HELLO? MANUAL ? where does it say you need ICMP?!?!?!?)

2 initial patching and registration
box applies the update by itself and reboots at night. (fair enough), but initial patch requires several download and reboot reboot ? (HELLO ? MANUAL?)

3 lack of technical details in the manual or the web.
come one, how difficult to have FAQ/SUPPORT page explaining what the TECH details are needed? (like ICMP out, what port OUT, what PORT in)

I have to create FAILURE (block all connections out) condition to bring the screen that contains the required port #.
(HELLO? MANUAL?)

I understand BOX is not for geek head but more towards ordinary dad/mum but there has to be a better written docs.

also port # just mentions you need to have these xyz port open. Ok WHICH WAY? Inbound or Outbound ?

do they know the FW is configured in/out ?????

lastly, why am I seeing port test failure when it is not even HITTING the router? (ACL logs every activity of the tivo and when I hit port test page I see no traffic)

otherwise, recording is easy and fun. all good.

Law school day1.

The first official day 1 has passed.
It was interesting as well as impressive to learn some formal “law” techniques as well as terminologies.

So far more questions are raised than answered and there is already an assigiment published on the web page.

Yay? or Nay ?

Not that I have much social life these days but from what senior students are saying I need to kiss my social life good bye.

“Welcome to the legal insitituions, be repepare to drop all your common knowledge and learn the real technical law terms.”