Life of a Technologist

It has been over a decade since I started working professionally (since 15 if you're counting) and it has been one experience after another. Recently, I had to crunch in a few last minute self-created projects of sort, and an year end work accompliment portfolio of sort. I felt a need to share my experiences with those who are entering their first year of professional work. Even amats can learn a thing or two from this, and most of all, these serve as the very reason that I still feel humble at learning and accepting my screw-ups. In these 10 or so years, I have had just one extremely bad performance review, mainly due to my punctuality (now now, I know some of you might be doing an RTFM, a ROFL or even a LMAO). That hasn't changed much, but I have constantly churned out result after another; perhaps, a reason why I have earned the trust of my upper management in being a dependable employee.
Anyways, so here goes the 6 tenets that I live by, or at least came to a conclusion over the years:

1. No, your co-workers don't give a rats a$$ which college (or University for the lack of a better term) you went to, nor do they care which degree you graduated with: This might raise some initial ooooo's and aaah's, but when it boils down to getting work done, if you don't know your Ruby, Java, Php, .NET hello worlds, then you better be humble and ask for help.
2. Again, I don't care if you graduated from the Oompa loompa School of l33tness: Forget what you learned in college, yes, I do mean its useless; in the real world, its all about re-learning to drive.
3. Choose your text editor wisely: Some love their emacs, others go for vi, gedit, etc. Whatever it maybe, choose it wisely and learn it inside out.
   
4. Having trouble in making acquaintance with your team mates? Silence goes a long way, smile, nod and think before you speak. Oh yes, keep a full bowl of candy, it'll take you a long way and you'll be surprised just how crowded the cube gets because of it.
5. Office Politics is messy, learn to snuggle your way around or look for a small IT shop: Regardless of where you work, office politics is everywhere, the more dependable you are, the more will you get sucked into it. Don't fight it, join it. Thats the only way to rise in ranks.
6. Gaining respect is difficult, but being liked is easy (remember the candy trick?): You'll gain respect, but it will likely take time. New to the job? Don't worry, people don't normally despise you if you're getting the "cold shoulder" from time to time, you just need to prove to them that you're dependable, and willing and able to prove that you're serious about getting the job done right.

You're all probably aware how big a Voip proponent I am. Ever since being an enthusiast of the Dialpad and Net2Phone days (mid-late 96-97), I have been fascinated with Voip in general and learned a lot over the years. For about the past 3-4 years I have using a variety of voip services with mixed experiences from all. Only recently (24 months) have I had some consistency in using voip as my primary phone service - aka went with Vonage and Skype. However, Vonage, like many other commercial Voip services has its shortcomings.

- No SIP solution
- Expensive (yes, I thought this was affordable 2 years back but no longer the case)
- Customer Service is a bunch of clueless Indian brothers (the sisters are a little more knowledgeable) and this is coming from someone who takes pride in our offshore support.
- Call quality not as great as Gtalk (yes, I'm big on XMPP's Jingle libs) , but comparable to Skype and Microsoft Live Messenger.
- Variable and fluctuating costs: I don't think anyone likes to pay more for something.

But the one reason I stuck with Vonage:

- Excellent support for SimulRing(TM) : I flip flop between many of my numbers back and forth almost daily, and being an unlimited free calling plan for North America, Vonage is the best solution in that sense.However, that last feature alone is worth the $40/mo I've been paying. Lately though, I have been having a hard time justifying the cost with other comparable products in the market.

So yesterday, off I went on a searching spree. I already had a $19.99/year (unlimited US/Canada calling) with Skype, but no SkypeIN number. So in order to replace my Vonage, I needed a free or comparable service which wouldn't charge me more than $10/mo. SkypeIN with a new SkpyePro deal ($3/mo) would still cost me about $40 for the number (setup fee) and still doesn't offer the flexibility of Vonage.
Enter, GrandCentral....

It gives me exactly what I want:

- Single Number w/Simulring: One single number with Simulringish technology and Free Voicemail (Visual VM in fact - boooyaaa! iPhoners :P). You can setup the number to forward to any number in US/Canada.
For Canadians: Give your US friend/family a local US number which forwards to your Canadian number. Sorry, but at this time only U.S numbers are supported and not the other way around :(

Note:For those with T-mobile, they will welcome the possibility of having one number (your GC number) in your myFaves list and pretty much save a ton on incoming/outgoing calls.

- Call Screening: Love this free - keep private numbers at bay.

- Live Call Switch: Cell phone's battery down and still want to talk, no problem, just hit "*" while talking and it will ring other numbers in your GC list, simply pickup - your callers won't even notice the switch (sweet!)

- Gizmo Setup: Gizmo is not the Skype replacement quite yet, but its getting there and its the only SIP client that I know offers the number of skypish features we all need. This will certainly come in handy say when you're out of the country and don't want to incur that ridiculous international roaming charge, simply setup your Gizmo SIP number in Grand Central and you're good to go.


- Web Calling: Free incoming web calling directly from your Blog/Website. Allow your customers, friends and family to call you directly. (Check my embedded GC calling applet in the bottom). P.S: Embed it in your Myspace/Facebook profile without sharing your number. The user inputs their number and name (if its something bogus then it won't work ;), and then Grand Central places the call for them; it first calls the user's number then it will call your GC number. Neat, eh :)

- Choose who you want to talk to: Say you're in a meeting and only want to receive important calls. A random numero calls your cell and it goes on a buzzing blunder (be careful not to set your T-mobile phone to the default ring at work - err Qwest Employees :P), you really want to know who it is but don't want to talk. Pickup the call by pressing the "*" and "3" key, and you'll be able to listen the person on the other line leaving a message, if you want to talk to them, then just hang up and they won't notice a thing, if you want to talk, press "*" again and you're talking to the person.

One downside though, Grand Central doesn't offer any free Canadian DID (Direct Inward Dialing) numbers. So while you can forward your GC number to a Canadian number, the reverse can't be done. So for now, I'm just going to live with it until I can get a Canadian DID setup with Grand Central or a similar SIP service (http://www.didww.com does it but its a Gizmo-only integration :( )

Saving the best for last, did I mention, it's FREE !!

There you have it, I promised my last commenters I'd so easy on the long posts :P. At this point in time, GrandCentral is in invite-only state. If anyone wants an invite, email me: salah[at]ahmeds.name and I'll send one your way :)
One more week of testing time and Vonage is going - bye bye!

P.S: I have my asterisk box setup at home, and with a bit of work, Gizmo can be setup to use this number with multiple DID channels (multiple lines in laymens terms) AKA setup your very own home PBX :) For a big family, this really cuts down on the cost. Throw in a Skype Gateway adapter (VOSky/Dlink) and you’ve got a phone bill of $10/mo for the entire household with Unlimited US/Canada calling.

While talking to a dear friend of mine, I was bought on the idea of upgrading my Macbook to Leopard, so lo and behold, I dived into leopard world per his word. While Apple has touted it as the biggest Mac upgrade ever, after reviewing most of the inch and corner of this brand new OS, I can tell you that Tiger still stands as the biggest upgrade. While those 300 some features that Apple mentions were something in my previous OS (yes you can hate me for it, but it was Vista).

My Dell 1505 still ran competitively quieter than my Macbook throughout the experiments.
Let me tell you, I dived into Leopard with the idea of becoming a convert - aka, switching to OSX full time. Mind you, my experience wasn't of the ad-featured "wow!!" of a brand new switcher. Reason being that I use OS'es for their features and a pretty face without a sound reasonable mind, is what we call a dumb blonde - although the leopard is anything but a dumb blonde, there are a couple smaller things which really annoyed me. Collectively, those minuscule things do pack a heavy punch. While I loved VMWare Fusion with its nice Unity feature, I had already setup my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop with a similar feature for using seamless rdesktop (seamless rdp) in a VMWare Player session. The whole setup was pretty much one-click setup using Nautilus scripts which is featured in Gnome, similar to the fancy robotic Automater scripts in Mac.
(Disclaimer: I will review both the hardware and software package since you can't buy one without the other anyways.)
In any case, here goes:

• In the past, I had used a full Qwerty keyboard, so I was used to the 'page up', 'page down', 'home' and 'end', but even the basic Dell M1330 features these keys. Even on my mac mini, I used a Windows keyboard which made me feel right at home. However, on the Macbook there were no pg up, pg dn or home and end keys. So another learning curve on finding out what the real key combo is for that - ok, fine I'll learn something new.
• Next up was the much needed 'print screen' button. To my horror (ok I exaggerated :P), no print screen. So I went about on google trying to find what the single button's equivalent was in the mac world. Its the shift + command + 3 (for full screen) and shift + command + 4 (select region, or press spacebar to select current application screen). These commands save to the desktop. So I gained some and lost some right there. No single button solution, but much like Linux, this saves screenshots on the desktop by default. Although, the screenshot option is fairly configurable in Linux, sadly, Vista doesn't do that. Although, the new snipping tool in Vista is configurable, but nothing right out of the box. I still liked my print screen button.
• Copying/Moving file horror: Ok this has got to be annoying. Let's say you have two folders/directories by the same name, call them "SampleDirectory" . One directory is on your 2nd partition, while the other one is on your 1st partition. Normally, in Vista, you drag and drop one folder on the other and it does a "merge" or better 'Asks you what to do' . In Leopard (or any past mac os), you drop from partition 1 to partition 2, asks do you want to overwrite and sure enough it overwrites! My original files in partition 2 are gone! Like WT^&%^*%&(^&(^& >_< . I certainly do not like this behavior, it is downright stupid and dangerous, no wonder Apple touted Time Machine as a major feature.
  
• Time Machine: I'm sure you have all watched this, well you know what:

1. It isn't turned on by default, unlike Windows Shadow copies which are turned on by default on XP and Vista (shadow copies are used by System Restore and Previous Versions as well), there was no such thing in Leopard. Ok, normally if I'm a newbie, would I actually click on the time machine unless I actually screwed up? When I click open time machine. It displays a nice empty screen.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   ....ok, so I know I'm screwed - let's see if we can setup time machine.
   I flip the switch to on and another mystery (empty screen for location ? 0.o)
   
   
2. Now what Charlie? Off to google! I came to know that backups can not reside on the same partition, well great, I think my grandma will know that for sure. So much for the idea of new user conversion. No, you're wrong Mr.Jobs, this has its flaws and this is a BIG one! Windows actually beats OSX flat out here. Shadow Copies, can be used by Previous version tab or System Restore, granted it doesn't allow individual applications to be restored to the previous versions, but that's what the 'Backup and Restore' application in Windows is for. Ubuntu in fact beats out both Mac and Windows in this backup department (without the fancy timelined windows in Timemachine) with its simple to use Sbackup.
   
3. So I go about using the Disk Utility (let's you resize your disks one the fly), which is similar across Windows Vista, Ubuntu Linux (what I use) and Mac OS X. Once I resized the main partition from a full 232gb down to 170gb, I had ~60gb for Time Machine. Now when I launch Time Machine, flip the switch to "ON" and choose select backup location, sure enough the new partition is listed there.
   .
   
   So that closes the time machine chapter.
   NOT quite. Turns out that the backup utility (Time Machine) actually does an exact mirror of your drive.
   
4. As it stands, there isn't a comparable feature in Mac such as Shadow Copies. I got the 250gb upgrade on my macbook for the sole purpose of being able to utilize time machine as a replacement for Shadow Copies. But for now, I'll live with partitioning the drive in half (although you should use a different physical drive altogether.

• Another neat new keystroke I learnt was the "alt" or "option" key. Select a file/drive and move mouse over text and hold this 'option' key and it lets you rename your file. Not too difficult a learning curve, but nonetheless F2 rename in Windows and Linux is much easily remembered. If someone even so questions that would people even use this feature - yes they do, a full blown OS has to be able to do this and more.
  (Update: Turns out if you highlight the icon and hit Enter, the name is editable)
  
• One button click: I still have to live with the single click. No, CTRL + Click is not the same. If you use a macbook and want to actually be productive, get a 2-button mouse that does not cost you an arm and leg (mighty mouse). I didn't get the mighty mouse because it only comes in white and well I have a black macbook, including all my accessories. Apple needs to show some love for their more expensive macbook, black power cables (instead of while) , black mighty mouse, etc.
  
• One feature in Leopard/Mac that bothered me was when I hold down shift and select a bunch of folders, right click (or ctrl + click) and choose more info, it pops opens each and every folder's properties!! I learned it the hard way after open 40 folder properties -_- . As it stands (correct me if I'm wrong) there is no way to find out the collective size of a bunch of folders/directories.
  
• So a single finger wouldn't do for Macs, no you perv, I didn't mean it in that way, I was talking about scrolling. To scroll, you need to use two fingers (arite, thats enough - I know your mind wandered elsewhere, and stop with the giggling), but the best part is, anywhere on the track pad. Use two fingers from top-down/left-right and the gesture is understood as scrolling vertically and horizontally. Although, I have yet to perfect the art of scrolling on the Macbook, I'll learn in time.
  
• Leopard's Smart Folders are nothing new to me, since Vista has featured this since the Longhorn days. But again, I'm glad this feature exists in Leopard as well.
• Ok some wise guy thought this was funny.
  
  ..see the blue screen of death icon, well that's a default Samba (Windows Networked PC) icon in Leopard. Oh well, perhaps I should use the beach volleyball (Dummy 101: Pun on Mac OSX's crashed app/OS) for the Mac AFP pc. But you gotta hand it to Apple, they do cater to their Fans really well :P.
• Media playback is similar to Windows Vista out of the box. Both Microsoft and Apple support their own proprietary formats just fine. To setup flv, mpeg(x), x264, H.264 (open source), FLV, AVI (all major containers) and .ogg's and a lot more, in Mac you can just get the Perian toolkit, whereas for Windows you install CCCP. Both do an excellent job, but CCCP comes with more features (making all those file formats playable through WMP and shell extensions). However, Perian does an excellent job of making all of those files playable from Quicktime.
• I also got the chance to try out Office for Mac 2008 beta (thanks to my MSDN license ;)), and I think I'll likely invest in that app. I personally think it is the single best suite of software on the mac. Yes, I've tried Logic studio and final cut pro, but none of those are a 'necessity' for every user.
  
• The iLife suite is truly wonderful, but iPhoto stands just short of Picasa in usability and features - unfortunately, I will have to live with this for now or choose to use Picasa with VMWare fusion Unity >_<
• Another new feature, Spaces (aka Virtual desktops). The configuration UI is standard Mac cocoa interface, clean, simple and straight forward. But this is not a a major feature. Virtual Desktops have been a freebie Windows Power Toy, and VirtualToy for 2000/XP/ Vista provided a similar to Mac Spaces 4 years back. Heck, Ubuntu Linux, comes with the 'exact' same Virtual desktop feature as Mac spaces. So this is clearly a rip-off from the AiGLX/XGL based desktop effects from Linux. And yes, Linux did it first! (at least the way its seen in Leopard)
  
• Parental Controls : Nothing to see here, again - freebies did this before, Vista Home Premium and Ultimate provide this option out of the box as well. So this is something that was expected. But much appreciated for previous mac users
  
• Quicklook : This honestly is more of a widget than a new feature.
  
• Rounded edges? Ok what is with this rounded-ness in Leopard. Everything practically had a rounder bottom (no, not what you thought) . I personally preferred the Tiger way.
  

This is by far one of the best 'full package' solution for e-book/any news reading out there. I came across this a few days back and was blown away by the feature set on this puppy. Granted the price is a bit hefty ($400), but the iPod wasn't cheap when it launched it. This price will only go down - I see this as a potential for New paper and magazine publishers to give away for an year's worth of subscription.
Just for clarification, I am NOT comparing this with the iPod, rather that..what iPod did for Digital Music, Kindle will do that for Digital Reading (Books, news papers, blogs, magazines, etc). This is the same technology that sony and e-ink showed in CeBiT ~2004/2005 (Link). Although, this is by far the first e-book product, it is certainly the full-package you will ever need.

Here's a quick rundown of what the package has to offer.