New Uses For Old Hardware
by eanx on Jan.13, 2009, under Open Source
The other day, I was thinking to myself about how nice it would be if I could install a couple of packages onto my WRT54G router running Tomato so that I could have my IM client be perpetually active. Then I thought that it is just a router and that I shouldn’t be concerning myself with running stuff like that on it. I also thought to myself how interesting low-power computing really is. All I really wanted the box to be able to do was to keep a persistent screen session running and to have a few small applications running on it. I have several older computers lieing around that I wouldn’t exactly call “low power” and being that I am a little bit sensitive as to what my electrical bill is and try to trim it wherever possible, I was contemplating the purchase of an Asus EEE PC desktop to use for that. Then I remembered that I had something similar albeit slightly antiquated; a PowerPC-based Mac Mini.
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The Travels of a Badass
by eanx on Dec.22, 2008, under Other
It is that time of the year when I basically disappear into thin air. Essentially, I turn off the Blackberry and my e-mail and book a plane ticket for sunny Mexico to go cave diving. This year is no different except for the fact that I had to make all of my own travel arrangements which really isn’t that difficult to do since anyone can book a plane ticket online. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.
goto and you
by eanx on Dec.15, 2008, under Open Source
Like most people in the open source community, I want to try to give back something to the community; be it in the form of a code refactoring that greatly simplifies or modularizes something to just learning more about how things work. In my quest to learn more about programming and computer science in general, I’ve been intrigued with the use of the goto construct in the Linux kernel and open source software in general.
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Eleven Questions Anyone Should Ask Their Prospective Employer
by eanx on Nov.23, 2008, under Career
One of the philosophies that I am adopting as a result of that talk is to go to a job interview outside of my current employer once a year. What made me think of this is one of the talks that I attended at Ohio Linuxfest 2008; namely the Managing Your Open Source Career talk. One thing that a lot of companies and job candidates seem to miss is that the job interview is not only for the company to determine whether the candidate is the right person for the job, but also whether the company is the right company for the candidate.
Read on for more.
Helpless IT Worker Syndrome
by eanx on Oct.17, 2008, under Career, Work
There is a phenomenon that I have noticed in both my personal and professional experience in the field of information technology. Have you ever been in the situation where someone is breathing down your neck to get an issue resolved that you are utterly powerless to resolve personally? I call this The Helpless IT Worker Syndrome. Read on for a better description of the causes and what can be done to stop it.
