Fred's Random Thoughts Frederic Jean's Weblog

Chad Fowler's "My Job Went To India"

The Pragmatic Programmer is in the process of releasing a new book by Chad Fowler titled "My Job Went To India (And All I Got Was This Lousy Book). I had already read and heard good things through different blogs and at the Just Stuff, No Fluff conference.

I have read the extracts and decided that I needed more, so I got the PDF + Book combo and have been devouring the book so far. The book contains advice to developers and programmers on how to improve their chances of staying employed. The advice would be relevant even outside of the outsourcing/offshoring context.

A key point of the book is that our jobs are changing as a result of the availability of cheap labor globally. When seen through this lense, the advices contained in the book are more about how to increase your value to your employer than how to fight a (loosing) battle against offshoring and outsourcing.

It also provides an insight on what is driving the Indian programmers. What is driving them to get in this field, what is motivating them in terms of career, why so many of them are calling themselves "senior".

So far, it has been an excellent read, and I would recommend this book to any developer who is interested in staying in this field. If anything, listen to Andy Hunt's read of the introduction.

-- Fred
( Sep 01 2005, 11:50:02 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Apple's Mighty Mouse?

Have a look at this! PC users no longer have an excuse to laugh at us Mac users! Apple put out a mouse that looks as slick and smooth as it's one button mouse while having more functionality than most PC mice. One less reason not to switch I guess ;).

I wonder if it will work with my PC?

-- Fred
( Aug 02 2005, 03:54:34 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Neighbor WAP Update

It would appear that my neighbor decided to secure his access point using WPA to encrypt his network. He still uses the default name (NETGEAR), but that is a vast improvement over being an open access point. I didn't even need to be involved.

-- Fred

Update: Thanks to dav who commented on my previous post that the encryption standard is called WPA rather than WAP. I have corrected both posts to reflect the comment.
( Jul 14 2005, 11:35:22 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Goodbye Vonage! Hello MCI Neighborhood Broadband

It sounds strange that after making such a fuss about moving over to Vonage from MCI that I ended up reversing that decision. The intent was to save a lot of money by switching to VoIP.

It didn't quite worked up that way.

After waiting close to 6 months for Vonage to transfer my phone number over to their service, I gave up and resigned myself to stay with my more expensive telecommunication provider: MCI. So I called Vonage to cancel the number transfer and close my account.

I then went to the MCI web site to see what plans were available. I was hoping to find a cheaper plan that I could subscribe to. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found out that they were offering their own VoIP service. I signed up, filed the Letter of Authorization to transfer my phone line to their VoIP service. I now have a transfer date, which is something that Vonage never had.

I guess that I'll see what happens next. I am still waiting to receive the adapter from MCI. I'll know then whether the sound quality is going to be good. I am also looking forward to see if MCI is going to be able to keep their promise and transfer my number when they said they would.

The end result: I'll save as much money as I originally planned when I wanted to switch to Vonage. Good stuff :)

-- Fred
( Jul 14 2005, 11:21:06 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Secure That WAP!

One of my neighbors just bought a brand new wireless access point
(WAP). How do I know? Well, a wireless network called NETGEAR started
showing up on the list of wireless networks at home. I'm guessing that
the neighbor isn't too wireless networking savvy since the WAP appears
to be set to its defaults (default password, default SSID, no WEP, no
WPA, nothing).

I don't think that my neighbor reads this blog, but still, here are some basics of wi-fi security:

2. Change your access point's administrative password!
   Otherwise, anybody with Google access can learn the default user name
   and password and simply hijack the network for their own use.
3. Change your network's name. This will help you differentiate your network from your neighbor's NETGEAR network.
4. Configure your network to use encryption.
   Use WPA if you can. At minimum, use WEP. Create as long a key or
   password as your equipment will allow. It's not fool proof, and both
   encryption methods have been broken. Still, it does make it harder for
   someone to connect to your network. That may be enough to drive a
   wardriver to an easier network to break in.
5. Configure your computer(s) to connect to the new network using encryption. Most wi-fi enabled operating systems do have utilities that make it relatively easy to connect.

Of course, there's a lot more that you could do. You could choose not
to broadcast your network SSID (or name), and you could restrict access
by MAC address. Any decent access point will allow you to secure it
through a web based administrative interface.

Wi-fi is by no means absolutely secured. Even with all these
precautions taken, a determined attacker can still break into your
network through different means. The idea here is to make it just
difficult enough to drive a would be attacker to go to an easier target.

I still have to figure out what I want to do with my neighbor's
network. Maybe I should just let it be, but I would feel bad to leave
someone wide open to attacks like that. Any suggestions?

-- Fred

Update: Corrected the encryption method. Thanks to dav for his comment below.

( Jul 12 2005, 05:40:14 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [4]

Mounting CIFS/SMB Shares on Tiger

I haven't been able to mount my home directory since I upgraded to Tiger. I used to be able to do so in the past using the Samba servers setup to provide home directory access to Windows users.

I finally found a workaround. It is posted at Apple's web site at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301580 . Once implemented, I was able to authenticate to the Samba server and do what I needed to do without having to resort to scp'ing content between my workstation and my laptop.

-- Fred
( Jul 11 2005, 02:41:23 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Still Time to Play With Sun Update Connection

If you haven't had a chance to download and install the Sun Update Connection, now would be a good time to do so. We are still in our Preview Release, which means that for a limited time you get to install the Sun Update Connection and receive full updates (free patches + security patches + patches requiring entitlement) just for trying it out.

Why would you want to try it out? It simplifies patching. The analysis engine makes a best effort attempt to identify what patches are relevant to your environment and offer them to you through both the Update Manager or the Update Connection Portal. This alone reduces the normal tedious work related to keeping patches current on a system.

Contrary to Microsoft's update center, we will not force an update on your systems. We will not download a patch without you requesting it, we will not reboot your systems without your permission. You even have the chance to inspect the data sent back to Sun.

A little tie in with JavaOne. The majority of Sun Update Connection is implemented in Java. This goes for the Update Manager GUI, the analysis engine, the Sun Update Connection Portal as well as the patch delivery infrastructure. All of the server side components are running on Sun Java Enterprise System components, and is running on top of Solaris.

So give it a try.

-- Fred
( Jun 30 2005, 09:28:53 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

How to Run Netbeans 4.1 using Tiger on Mac OS X 10.4

Finally, Apple released Tiger on Tiger. This means that Java developers who use Mac OS X as their development platform are now able to benefit from all the Java 5.0 changes.

Here's a step-by-step in getting NetBeans 4.1 to use the latest JDK:

1. Download J2SE 5.0 Release 1 from Apple's web site. Be sure to read the article and attached instructions.
2. You can configure your Mac to use the new JDK by default. All you need to do is change /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/Current symlink to point to the 1.5.0 directory:
   # rm Current
   # ln -s 1.5.0 Current
3. Edit /Applications/NetBeans4.1.app/Contents/Resources/NetBeans/etc/netbeans.conf . Change the netbeans_jdkhome line to read:
   netbeans_jdkhome="/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Home"
4. Launch Netbeans by  double clicking on the icon.

At  this point, Netbeans should be running under Java 5.0. You can verify this by going to Help -> About and clicking on the Detail tab. Here's mine:



-- Fred

( Jun 02 2005, 10:13:31 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Spotlight on NeoOffice/J

NeoOffice/J is an Openoffice.org implementation that runs on the Mac. It's main goal is to run on the Mac platform without requiring the use of X11. It is very succesful so far in this goal, and it is nearing the official release of it's 1.1 version.

A very pleasant surprise on the 1.1RC patch 4 is support for Apple's Spotlight technology. As a result, you can now search for NeoOffice/OpenOffice/StarOffice documents stored on your hard drive and locate them like you would any other Mac document. This is really, really cool :)

Much thanks to Patrick Luby, Edward Peterlin and the other developers involved in this project.

-- Fred

PS: Another Neooffice & Spotlight related tool is Neolight, available through Apple Downloads.
( May 19 2005, 08:30:58 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Kudos to Apple

I had difficulties with my PowerBook a couple weekends ago. The hard drive S.M.A.R.T. subsystem was reporting that a failure was eminent.

After backing up the hard drive, I called Apple where I talked with a polite and competent technician who walked me through the troubleshooting process and arranged for my Mac to get repaired.

So I waited for the box, packed the Mac up and shipped it back to Apple's repair and services facility. It only took a day for the system to be repaired and shipped back to me.

As impressive as this is, the most impressive part is that they didn't just replaced the hard drive. They also replaced the LCD which had a small white spot on it without having to ask for this as well as other parts that apparently needed to get replaced.

I must say that I am quite pleased with this service, the technician and the whole experience.

-- Fred
( May 11 2005, 11:09:54 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Netbeans 4.1 Released

It appears that Netbeans 4.1 was released. I have used the beta and release candidates of Netbeans 4.1 for a while now, and I am quite pleased with it. It runs on both of my development platforms (a Sun Blade 2500 workstation and my trusty PowerBook) and is a definite improvement over what Netbeans and Java Studio used to be.

You can go get it at http://www.netbeans.org.

-- Fred
( May 11 2005, 11:06:28 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Get Connected

Finally! The Sun Update Connection service was announced! It is the first service delivered under the Sun Connection umbrella of services and products.

Think of it as a way to make it easier to update servers and workstations. You can manage them through the Update Manager, which is a rich client application residing on the Solaris 10 system. Or you can use the Sun Update Connection portal to manage more than one system at a time. This works for both Sparc based systems as well as x86 and x64 systems. A big emphasis was put in making sure that the x86 and x64 systems were fully supported.

If you watched the NC05Q2 keynote, you had the chance to watch the demo of the Sun Update Connection. You wouldn't believe how much work and preparation went into a 90 seconds demo. I do think that it is all worthwhile though.

I must admit that it is a Big Deal[tm] to have this product introduced by people such as Jonathan Schwartz and Johnny Loicano (EVP of Software). it shows how much excitement and energy was created by this product in the upper management teams.

There's still a lot of work to be done before we go live for full general access. But it is looking good so far, and there is some light at the end of the tunnel :)

-- Fred
( May 03 2005, 03:42:54 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Got Tiger?

I received and installed Tiger. I foolishly did an upgrade as soon as I got my hands on it. Foolishly since I learned after the fact that it wasn't the best approach to do so.

So I'm backing up my data to a firewire disk. Once Apple replaces my HD (it is sending warnings of its pending failure), I'll be able to do a clean install and copy the data and software that is relevant.

-- Fred
( May 01 2005, 11:12:51 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

Envy. Pure Envy

Here's a lucky guy... I sure hope I'll get mine soon.

Fred
( Apr 23 2005, 08:15:41 PM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Remote App Profiling In Netbeans 4.1

There is a lot of focus right now on performance and load testing on the project that I'm working on right now. As a result, there are a lot of discussions on how best run tests, which tools to use, whether to instrument the code manually or use profilers to analyze the code. Since I needed to get results right away, I decided not to wait and try the Netbeans Profiler.

The profiler originated from a Sun Labs project called JFluid. It's a very interesting, relatively low impact profiling tool, and I encourage people to go have a look at it.

The most interesting feature for me is the ability to profile an application running on a remote web server. In this case, I have my web application running in on my development server, and I am running the GUI within the Netbeans 4.1 Beta IDE.

The docs have a lot of details on how to get this running. There is a twist that gave me some difficulties though. The documentation tells you to run this calibrate.sh script on the machine hosting the application to be profiled. What they do not tell you is that you need to run this script as the user that will be running the application that will be profiled. If you are running the Sun Java System Web Server 6.1 (which is part of the Sun Java Enterprise System) that would be webservd by default.

-- Fred
( Apr 19 2005, 09:54:30 AM MDT ) Permalink Comments [0]