I think it has been ten years since I’ve been to Alice Springs (excepting the brief flight stop-overs on the way to and from Darwin). The last time I was here may have been when I worked on the Alice Springs Multicultural Festival in 1995 — I’m not sure about this date (especially as that festival was a disaster, and one that I’d rather forget about).
Upgraded my Ubuntu Hoary system at work to Breezy Badger recently (13 September, I think).
First, updated the /etc/apt/sources.list so that the system updates to Breezy (with Hoary backports). Used the source from here but edited so that it points to au sites rather than US sites.
As Breezy is still in Beta, I was bound to run into some problems upgrading, and I did. See notes on these problems.
After resolving the video card issue, I installed vmware and lots of stuff on the box. The one day, my network stopped working. It was the Marvel built-in NIC acting up — Dan at work saw postings about this issue and warned me about it but as Ubuntu saw the Marvel and it seemed to work, I went ahead and used it.
First I thought vmware was messing up the networking, or that something got corrupted on my Ubuntu system so I reinstalled (silly me), this time with Fedora. Had the same problem! Tried putting in a replacement NIC and that solved the problem.
When we first got these Gigabyte boards, the Marvel/onboard NIC port was covered; James and I removed the tabs to use the Marvels, now much to my regret. Maybe that’s why the ports were covered in the first place.
Anyway, with the NIC problem sorted, I tried installing vmware again, and it would not under Fedora (Core 4). So went back to Ubuntu as I knew vmware worked there, and also I found Ubuntu easier to maintain and extend with apt-get.
Anyway, reinstalled Ubuntu and vmware and its all stable so far.
I installed Ubuntu Linux 5.04 (Hoary Hedgehog) on one of the machines (desktop) I use at work, replacing the Gentoo Linux that was on it. I was using the Gentoo lately and was getting impatient with emerges. I had tried Ubuntu at the previous workplace and was impressed with it so I decided to do away with Gentoo. No regrets. I like apt-get, having used it for a while on the Red Hat/Fedora systems I;ve been using these past years. apt-get does not disappoint on this Ubuntu box. Its an old Duron (with a 750Mhz cpu) but it doesn’t feel slouchy with Ubuntu. Well, it wasn’t slouchy either with Gentoo but I was tiring of waiting for emerge.
I’ll be working elsewhere by Tuesday, 7th June. I’ll be working for Felino again, as his offsider/assistant developer for Multibet (http://www.multibet.com). Not much I can say about the work (very confidential stuff), except that its “real geek stuff,” according to Felino. Loking forward to working there, as I’m sure I’ll pick up more knowledge and skills with Felino and others. I know most of the people who work there too, and they’re nice people. So, another try at geekhood (at a happier place, however).
After having worked for almost three months as a geek at my new workplace, I am somewhat regretting my pursuit of geekhood, as well as developing a strong dislike for certain types of geeks.
Had some tension the first few weeks at my new job, being mainly with boys (and boy geeks at that) — sometimes felt like a lot of macho things going on, and a lot of challenging about what you can really do, man. Maybe its just the way boy geeks adjust to each other.
The Boss Geek wants to sack me; he didn’t want me hired in the first place as he wanted the firm to hire someone else (with a PhD in computer science or something) — the Boss Geek is not my employer (he and his firm are contracted by our company) but is the “Technical Lead” for the project so he has clout. From the start, he’s dismissed my suggestions, consistently nitpicked or fault-found my work, and has sent me insulting emails.
While tensions with the boys at work were resolved reasonably quickly, attacks on me from the Boss Geek continue. I’m getting really angry and stressed with this stupidity. He’s decided that my skills are not “aligned” with project needs, and he’s asked the big boss (managing director of the firm) to sack me. I’ve had bosses like the Boss Geek before; they’re a pain, getting off on giving their workers a hard time. I think they’re disturbed (emotionally, psychologically), or maladjusted, or just plain mean.
Diday , my wife, told me tonight: “welcome to the real geek world.” I was sheltered working at Octa4/ICA because Felino Molina, my boss there, is an exceptional leader and mentor. He is a geek himself (programmer, engineer, physics whiz, etc.) but a really happy and generous one. Maybe I expected other geeks to be the same. Wrong.
I’ve been telling my friends in the arts these past weeks that I might as well return to working in the arts because the stuff I grew tired of in the arts — intrigue, back-stabbing, etc. — was there too in the geek world (as highlighted by my recent experience).
I also sometimes wonder why I want to learn all this geek sh*t, for what purpose? I thought I’d go for geekhood to gain knowledge and skills that I can someday use for more socially useful projects. The project I’m involved with at the moment is somewhat interesting technically (especially as it involves technologies I’m not familiar with) but I’m not learning a great deal of new technical stuff anyway (as the Boss Geek has relegated me to things he thinks are all I know about, like making web pages) so I’m not getting much personal and professional development, just a lot of negative vibes and personal/professional attacks.
I still have a geek job but I don’t know for how long. If I lose this job I don’t know if I can get another geek job or if I would want one anyway. I’ve learned a lot these past years of trying for geekhood; a lot of the stuff I’ve learned can be useful in any other area of work I join, I think.
Might be time for another sea change.
Saturday morning, having a good latte at the Roma Bar on Cavenagh Street, Darwin, blogging using a Dell PDA over wifi. Just finished upgrading and troubleshooting ICA Solution’s Hotspot here. Seems to be running well; I’ll check up on it in the coming days. The Roma Bar Hotspot is one of three we run in Darwin; it was the first one we set up as a trial system, and we have another at Cullen Bay Marina, and another at Darwin International Airport. The Cullen Bay Marina Hotrspot is a user-pays system like the Roma Bar Hotspot, while the one at the Airport is free until May 2005 as part of a trial we’re running with Optus-SingTel, NEC, and the Airport. Hotspots are good; we hope to have more of them around Darwin in future.
I got offered a geek job yesterday. I will be “Software Technician” with Controlability, a Darwin-based company that is developing home automation systems (among other things). Its a good job that’s come at the right time for me. I’ll be up to my ears in Open Source system admin and programming, I’ll be working with a good team of fellow geeks.
This job also confirms that I am now really a geek because other geeks recognise me (and want to hire me) as one. While I am sad to leave ICA Solution, I need to move on because of economic realities. Said goodbye to Felino Molina, my boss, yesterday and thanked him for the opportunities he’s given me. I’ll be available still, however, to do some work on ICA’s WiFi and other projects; I requested this of Controlability and they had no problem with that.
I was contemplating returning to the arts or multicultural affairs again as I was looking for work these past days. While I enjoy my current incarnation as geek, I feel that there is (so far, anyway) less purpose in what I’m doing than in working in community or multicultural arts (which I did before). Ideally I should be working to get communities to benefit from IT but there are no jobs like that here that I can find; maybe I’ll find one someday but for now I’m okay with doing commercial/technical stuff if only because of the intense training and experience this will bring. This sort of job also pays decently (better than in the arts anyway) so I’m lucky I can find work in this industry.
Well, onward to more geek things then.
P.S. It has been twelve weeks since I stopped smoking.
Got my redundancy notice today. The company — ICA Solution — is downsizing and may lie low for a while from June 2005 as we didn’t get the contract to provide Internet access to the Northern Territory Government. While the redundancy payment/package is okay, I’d prefer to keep working for the company. There are a few more weeks till we shut down so we may still find a way to keep the company viable. Not much work out there for ageing ex-artsworker/geek types like me. But you never know.
Last Friday, 11 February 2005, the Northern Territory Government (NTG)announced that Telstra instead of Optus will provide phone and Internet services to the NTG for the next five years. I work for a company that’s part of the Optus-led consortium that used to provide these services; by June 2005, our contract with NTG will be done. Our company’s not sure if we can continue to be viable after June. I’d like to continue working for the company, or in the same field. But I may need to prepare for another change as there are not many jobs in this field at the moment, and not many companies as flexible and as dynamic as the one I work for now.