Tag Archives: linux

A New Toy @wnka

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I have a new toy, thanks in part to Wnka, creator of Gawker.

Over the weekend it snowed and I had the idea of taking a video of the event and then compressing it down by speeding it up 50,000 times. Fortunately other ideas happened too, in the form of Gawker.

Gawker is an app for Mac OS X (with no evidence of any form of Windows or Linux compatibility) which uses compatible webcams and creates time lapse videos in what seems to be Quicktime format.

Now I am stuck with a few problems. The first is that the videos being put out are seemingly incompatible with Quicktime on Windows, as well as with iMovie ’08 and iMovie HD (’06). Quicktime on Windows gave no video output (useless since there is no audio), iMovie 08 is taking the files and not importing them, and iMovie HD is complaining that they are invalid. I also have the problem that I’d like to view the stream (if I share it) from a non-mac, since I only own the macbook and it is often sitting in a window where I don’t want to move it. That leaves accessing via VNC, not the ideal option. I’d also like to be able to share into Gawker from a Windows PC, but that isn’t quite so important. It’d be cool if there was a configurable web-client (Java, Flash?) that could view the feed – I could put up a page on my site that shows what the feed is showing.

The other problem I have is that now I want to make a whole bunch of time lapsed movies, but I have nothing to make them with – I need ideas!

In summary, it seems that perhaps what I have learned this weekend is that time lapse is fun and interesting, but maybe I need to find a different way of doing it for my windows-attached cameras, and some way of editing the videos that Gawker makes on the mac.

This is one of the videos I caught over the weekend, mostly of snow cleanup.

Update on the Job Front

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To those of you who have been praying for Kelly and I with my job search, thank you! I have an update and an addition to this request, but it requires a little background so bear with me!

I live near Harrisonburg in Virginia, about 100 miles from DC via Interstates. In November I interviewed for a job near Dulles in the DC Metro Area and was offered it but I turned it down because a) at the time I had a part time job, b) it was working 5pm-1am and c) it was paying $36k/yr maximum. C wasn’t so bad, but B was the big killer, as I’m married and my wife works 9:30-6 and we would never see each other except on weekends.

On Friday I got signed up with a staffing agency and did a days work (one day assignment) yesterday, but future assignments aren’t incredibly hopeful based on the number of people they need to assign work to and the amount of work their clients have.

Today I talked with a lady who goes to my church who tipped me off about 2 positions with an insurance company and was also going to make calls to the Sheriffs office and the Courts (she’s worked for them before and knows people) to see if they have a need for an IT worker.

I also got an email from the company in Northern Virginia to say they had another opening from 7am-3pm, this time offering a $36k base salary with up to $6k in bonuses.

This seems, on the surface, like a no-brainer, except that for it to work several things need to fall into place, and this is what I’m asking for prayer for.

If this is what I am meant to do and where I am supposed to be, I am going to need to either get a car loan and find a car (not likely to happen because I have $0 for deposit and fairly bad credit), or find someone willing to lend me a car for a month until the first pay check comes in and my wife and I can sort our financial life out. I’m also going to need to find a room in Northern Virginia within 15 minutes or so of Dulles for when I am on call around one week a month, and again we have $0.

It is a rather bleak outlook at this point, but I believe that if this is the door that God is opening then the means to pass through it will also be shown to us shortly, and that if this is not the way then the door will be closed and I’ll continue down the hallway of life looking for the next door that is wide open (or slightly ajar..)

Chromium

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I did some reading up on Google’s Chromium, or ChromeOS over the weekend, and I have to admit I am intrigued. There are a number of things I’d like to see before I actually used it, and I have my suspicions that it may be the beginning of other things while still being “the one that didn’t make it,” but still, I’m interested in where this will go.

I’d like to use something like ChromeOS (though not necessarily ChromeOS) to run an internet cafe, for example. It could be ideal in the right corporate environment as a compromise between thin clients and fat clients, using web-apps either in-house or remote services such as Google Docs or Microsoft’s equivalent. If this were the case it would need to be able to authenticate using LDAP/Active Directory or other authentication protocols.

Also, the right users would have no problem using a basic PC using only Chrome (or something like it) to access web-applications if it were well-configured and well-presented. A flamer on Youtube suggested it wouldn’t last long if Apple produced iPhone OS-based tablets, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an upcoming Microsoft release followed a similar idea. And as is almost usual, it wouldn’t surprise me if a Linux OS or two use this as an opportunity to do similar things.

Anyway, for those who haven’t caught up with ChromeOS, or Chromium as it is now called, here are some links and videos, thanks to Google.

ChromeOS Concept:

ChromeOS Demo:

Silence is Golden

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At least, that’s what they tell me. I haven’t posted for a while, and I don’t really have a whole lot to say.

I’ve been whining recently about trying to find work, I’m still looking for a full-time IT job while I continue to apply for anything I see in a two-hour radius from where I live.

I applied recently for an IT position via fax, because the organization’s mail server wasn’t accepting emails. This amused me. I also forwarded messages I’d printed with the error messages so they could look into fixing it.

Yesterday and today I worked high ropes, yesterday with a church retreat from in/near DC, and today with a bunch of kids from DC’s Public Schools. A few funny things were said, but the one that stood out was a girl yesterday who said the 3 places she wanted to visit before she died were Argentina, Australia and Alabama. On querying her wish to visit Alabama, she explained her desire to visit “The South” and drink “Real” sweet tea. I tried (in vain) to suggest she could get real sweet tea just by visiting this far south in Virginia, but she wouldn’t have any of it. The only place, in her mind, where she could get such a delicacy was if she went to a “Real” southern state like Alabama.

I had a great time, today I got to try out the new gloves I got for doing ropes work with (and they were amazing!), and had a good laugh or two with some really cool people.

The other day I set up a new website on a domain that has been empty for a few weeks, www.awesomechristians.net is now a quote board for amusing or moving quotes from Christian chat rooms all over. Not necessarily UCCN, or even IRC. They can be from Yahoo! or anywhere else for all it matters!

Tonight is a thanksgiving dinner at church, and tomorrow morning Kelly and I leave to house-sit for two weeks! I’m sure many photos will abound.

Would Someone Hire Me Already?

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I’m really not liking living here. It sounds wrong, it mostly is, I love this area and the people that I’m close to, but I hate a series of specific circumstances. I can’t seem to get a job I want to (or can) have long term. Harrisonburg is fairly void of IT opportunities. That is, all the IT jobs are taken, and there didn’t seem to be all that many to begin with. No-one is expanding, so the chances of any opening any time soon are fairly flat. In DC there are hundreds of openings, but of the 10% that I might be qualified for, almost all of them require either a security clearance, a US Citizenship, or both. I have neither.

I’m keeping an open mind about it, so far I’m finding on average 1 job a day to apply for somewhere, and while I’m yet to be contacted by any possible employers, I’m continuing to look – mostly because I can’t stay working part time forever.

I have a small list of places I regularly check (usually every day, or every other day), starting locally and working my way out.

  • Eastern Mennonite Univerity
  • James Madison University
  • Rockingham Memorial Hospital
  • Rockingham County Public Schools
  • Harrisonburg City Schools
  • Rackspace (Locations in Blacksburg and in NoVa)
  • Craigslist (Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Winchester, DC, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Blacksburg)
  • University of Virginia
  • Virginia Tech

I also check several school districts around the area every week or so, checking county and city school systems around as far as Charlottesville, Roanoke, Winchester/DC, etc, and I just added Carillion, the hospital in Roanoke to my list of places to regularly check (thanks Lauren).

If you’re a hiring manager, I can send a resume as required, but I have two years professional IT experience between basic and advanced experience working with PC’s, Servers, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Mac OS X, Windows Server 2000 and 2003, Linux as a desktop and server, web technologies and networking, computer hardware, Active Directory, Novell Netware, have worked on a service desk, and can usually learn things quickly. I also have around 10 years experience in a non-professional environment just playing with stuff and learning things at home or while working on friends/family computers. I’d like to study, but I need to get my family to a point where we are self-sufficient with enough spare cash-flow to fund such an educational venture.

I Want…

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…to change the image of cheap internet hosting. I can’t see it happening. What I would love to do would be to run a small business supplying cheap webhosting for websites and IRC and Shoutcast and Teamspeak and VPSs and Dedicated servers and so on and so forth, meanwhile providing quality 24 hour phone and email support for a low monthly fee. I’d like to do that. I think that is what the internet would like. But it isn’t going to happen any time soon. Why? Because I don’t have the upfront money to pay for the first server, which itself would probably only be able to supply websites for example. And even if I did, I would probably not be able to afford long-term payments if only one or two people bought accounts – not much motivation to have people calling me at 3 in the morning because their website is running slow.

The sad truth is that small internet businesses are not very profitable. In order to make any money, you need a minimum amount of resources and get a large number of customers using them in order to pay for a) the resources being used already, and b) more resources.

I was crunching numbers a few months ago with the prospect of starting a VPS company, but in order to get going, I was needing around $240 a month for the server just to get it up and running, and then I needed 24 people paying $10 a month before it would break even. With that kind of package, I’d only have another 6 packages available on that server before I’d need a second one, and then I’m back to finding $180 a month until that one reaches a break-even point. Once I had 6 servers running, there would be enough profit from 6 full servers to fund a 7th without anything coming out of my own pocket, by which point I would be serving around 180 customers. The seventh server is what would be the turning point in the business. And somewhere in all of this I’d need to have found 180 people that want VPSs with the crappy support that I’d be able to provide on my own, meaning I’d probably need to pay for advertising of some description, and possibly provide some web-designing services of some kind. Keeping in mind also, that none of those numbers were taking taxes or any other mandatory expenses into consideration, so it would probably be the 8th server that was making money. Around the 10th server (Read: 300 customers) I’d be able to afford to visit a mobile communications store and lease unto myself a cell phone and a wireless data-card to provide support anywhere. I’d also be able to lease a VoIP account for the business and accept incoming phone calls for support. I would have undoubtedly branched out by this point, and be providing other services using similar hardware such as website hosting, but hosting more people per-server at a lower cost per-customer. I’d be reselling dedicated servers, probably looking at the viability of buying my own hardware and co-locating it.

And that is where it gets depressing. Maybe I need to just do it? Maybe I need to save the money and put a real plan together, put the time into it and make it work. Maybe I need to find a business partner who I can trust. Maybe I need to give it up already. I know I need to study the business side of it to find out how much that would cost before going further with the viability of the pure technical numbers. I know I need to study further, and make decisions regarding placing multiple service types on the same servers, such as ShoutCast hosting alongside TeamSpeak hosting – probably not a good plan. The same idea applies to mixing VPS plans on the same hardware, as it isn’t entirely fair to cram whatever will fit on a server on whatever is available at the time, at the same time I can’t afford to run 3 servers with 3 plans until they’re paying for themselves.

So I shall return to my silent pondering of greatness that will likely not come. I will continue to come up with ideas that may never see fruition. And I will proceed to consider possibilities to make money as well as a name for myself in the internet community.

Disappointment

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This is partly to test WordPress’s new Blog-by-email. We’ll see how it works.

Yesterday I received a phone call from Rackspace, with a variation of that dreaded message. “We’ve decided to move forward with other candidates.”

I felt kinda like some of the people on Millionaire must feel when they’ve been going for the million dollars, and got the answer wrong and going home with $25,000.

Let me explain. What I had were two options, I could work at Rackspace for ~$45k/yr doing something I would really enjoy or I could work at a camp doing something I would also enjoy for the summer making ~$150/wk. I had 2 really great interviews at Rackspace, even they said the second one went really well, but apparently not good enough.

I’m trying to keep positive, I’m still applying for 2-3 jobs including one at JMU, and working at camp will still pay all our bills (and let us catch up on the ones we’re having to skip this month) along with Kelly’s summer job. I’ll just have to start applying again as summer comes to a close.

I’m particularly looking for IT work within VA, and I don’t mind commuting up to 2 hours each way in order to take a job worth anywhere from $30k up (So from the DC Metro area down to Blacksburgish, and out to Richmond. I’m in the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area right now). I intend to relocate if the job is at the outer reaches of that range along with my wife and puppy. I have reliable transport, and while I have no formal computing qualifications I have professional and personal experience with PHP/MySQL, computer hardware testing, computer software installation and general computer troubleshooting and problem solving. I’ve worked on a service desk (Level 1 and 2) for a 5000 user organization supporting Novell Netware and Active Directory (on the same network) as well as Alcatel based PBX systems. I’ve also been administrating Linux servers for several years. I’m happy to take an entry-level position (Helpdesk, Desktop support, etc), though I’d like a company with good promotion paths that will allow me to progress beyond, as I’d like to move into server administration, and possibly network administration also.

So while I continue to look for work, if you or someone/an organization you know is looking for an IT worker, let me know about them, or let them know about me!

Superstition

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I had my interview with Rackspace today, and it went really well. Not too many difficult questions so not too many difficult answers. The drive up was quick and painless, stopping only to pee near our exit (also allowing us to grab our map/directions printed earlier).

The datacenter is easy to get to, and easy to get out of. The people are really nice and friendly, and from what I could tell they really know what they’re doing. I was promised a very good salary (I was given a specific window that I’d likely be offered, but won’t repeat here), and they give bonuses quarterly on top of that. It’s based on an hourly rate, so if I work overtime then I get the reperation for that too. From what I understood, there is a 10% increase on that rate for those working second shift, and a 15% increase for third shift (which would be me, working 11pm-8am).

The drive home was just as uneventful, though we stopped in Front Royal (where we’re thinking about moving to) to get lunch, have a look around, and to get Crash some Puppy Chow. It seems a really cool place, and nice to live in. In other good news, I’d used less than 3/4 of a tank of gas (it’s an 11 gallon tank, I was expecting to be nearly empty), meaning it’d cost us $10-15 a day vs. $20. Doesn’t sound much, but saves us $25-50 a week..

I was gonna blog this part last night, but didn’t get a chance to. We went to the Chinese restaurant for lunch for Mothers day yesterday, and we had our traditional fortune cookies. Kelly’s said “Keep your goals away from the trolls,” and mine said “A cheerful letter or message is on its way to you.” I’m not superstitious, I believe God is telling us something, but perhaps in this case the message will be from God saying “the challenging times are over for now.” I really hope so, at least.

Hopeful

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Yesterday afternoon I had a phone interview with 3 members of Rackspace staff based in Herndon, VA. It went very well, I was pleased with how I answered the questions and they seemed to like me as well. I was invited to an onsite interview, and it has been scheduled for Monday morning at 10am.

Basically the job involves building servers from specified parts, testing and installing operating systems using automated processes, and some diagnostic work on running systems.

We’re planning on going to the DMV tomorrow so I can sit for a full drivers license, and I need to read up and make sure I know what to expect. We’ve been working on a small list of things that we can pay for or start saving for already, including paying off the smaller loans and the well over-limit credit card, as well as cell phones and looking for a second vehicle. As summer begins to come to a close we’ll begin looking at houses, and it would be really nice to look into some additional furniture in the not-too-distant future.

We’ll also be able to save a huge amount (expecting in the vicinity of $5-10,000) to start a savings account to use for moving costs and such. So I’m fairly hopeful that I will get the position, though I haven’t made any purchases or done anything silly as yet..

In other slightly worse news, I had to tell a client this morning that her computer was irreparable. I feel particularly bad for her because it is her primary source of income (she uses it to scan and print her artwork for selling in multiples) and has small income also. I agreed to waive all my fees (I’d quoted $30) and that if she could afford $45 for a new computer I’d install all the software as well as restoring the backup I’d taken of her PC. I found a P4 1.8 for $50 on eBay and have bought it, it’s much faster than her P3 800, and has an XP Pro license (vs. the Millennium license she had, with XP Home installed). Hopefully I can have it to her by the end of next week. I’ll also get to scalp her old PC for useful parts (not much. Hard disk goes to the new PC, as will at least the CD-RW. I’ll get memory, video card, 10/100 ethernet and a sound card, and a PSU..?)

Here’s hoping things get better for her in that respect, and that everything else works out for me!

Small Business Opportunities

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So I sat in church this morning doing calculations in a notebook. Basically I was conducting a basic viability study towards becoming a VPS/VDS provider. Turns out it could actually work out on a 2/3rds full server. The problem is actually getting a server with the specs required, and I’ve found one from one provider. Would be nice to have expansion options outside of that one ISP.

In short, I need a 64-bit server (Dual or Quad core probably) with 8GB RAM and at least a 750GB hard disk, and 64 IP addresses.

This will host 30 VPS’s with 2 IP’s each, 256MB RAM and 20GB Hard disk space with room for some to upgrade.

I also need it to cost around $200-250/mo (the best deal I’ve found so far is $241/mo).

My other option is to build a server and colocate it. This would put my setup costs through the roof, but would possibly be a cheaper monthly cost. The other downside would be that if parts fail, it’s my responsibility unlike a rented dedicated server.

Meantime I will keep looking and continue working on a business plan, also working on various ways to fund the venture.

For more information, see here.