Raible Designs

A Good Job vs. Good Pay

I did the interview with the University of Miami this morning. I was interviewed by a roundtable of folks and the questions weren't too bad - there were some fun ones and some technical ones (i.e. the classic, "what's the difference b/w an interface and an abstract class"). The people sounded very cool and it'd probably be a great team to work on. The pay, however, is not very good at all. However, they said they'd try to work on that. The itneresting thing I've learned is that the best paying jobs are usually the worst jobs. At least that's how it's been for me. I don't know if people just expect more from you, and portray this in the form of micro-management or what, but it sucks to have a job you don't like.

My current job? I love it. Not only because we're using all the cool technologies I like (Ant, Struts, Hibernate, XDoclet, etc.), but also because the people are very cool. Our 8:30 a.m. meetings are actually fun to attend. We poke fun at each other and there's lots of laughter in the room. Today has been an especially good day - I got club level seats to the Rockies Game (baseball) tonight, and also got invited to a pre-release viewing of Matrix Reloaded. Now those are what I call benefits! And, unfortunately, I'm also making the same rate I made six months after I graduated from college. Back then, I couldn't believe how much I was making, and now it's enough to support Julie, Abbie and I (and I'm the only one who works), so it's not too bad.

The problem is the gig at U of M pays around 1/2 of what I'm making now. It'd be an awesome job though. It sounds like they have great people and I'm sure the perks are good (maybe free tuition for my masters?). Look at me talking like I already got the job - I probably just jinxed myself - especially since I gave them the URL to this site. Oh well, if you guys are reading - it sounds like an awesome position, but I don't know if I can support my family on that salary. In fact, I've had such little luck finding a decent paying job in Florida, Julie has started considering a non-move. That is, we might stay in Denver. Jobs here seem to be picking up, and my current contract doesn't seem to have any end in site. They're even talking about putting us on a project developing mobile apps in Java.

Miami is calling though, especially on this cold April afternoon. Now I'm off to freeze my ass off at the Rockies' game. Good thing they're club level seats so we can just sit inside if it's too cold.

[T68i] Connecting to the Internet

I got a response for how to connect to the internet via my phone.

Yes it is possible, just download the modem driver from www.sonyericsson.com and you should be all set. As for the speed, the connection from your laptop to the phone (modem) is always reported as 115Kilobit/sec however the real speed is 33K if you are lucky! I have tested on many different location and I can never get the effective speed more than 28Kilobits/sec. Over a wireless link, this is very good.

Cool - I can't wait to try it!

On TMobile's Network Again

I'm on TMobile's Wireless Network again, only this time, rather than being in Starbuck's, I'm at the bagel place next door. Very cool! Julie's giving me a ride to work today so I can ride my bike home, and we decided to stop for breakfast. I needed to upload a customized release of the CV, so stopping here to do it seemed like a good idea. Why didn't I do it at home? I'm still on dial-up and the upload failed while I was sleeping. Our ISP is supposed to come out today, but I'm not expecting much.

Windows 2003 Server for $45

I won't be going, because frankly I'm not that interested in the next Windows Server. I've evolved as a computer professional - a year ago, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the latest Windows betas, and I always had them installed. It helped that the company I worked for had a MSDN subscription and I was always pursuing the next Windows certification. Now, I don't care so much about operating systems. Actually, I probably do care, just not this week. I never use my Red Hat box, because I don't have to - it just runs - I never have to tinker with it. Same goes for my Windows XP box. My OS X laptop is a different story - iPhoto is screwed up and Mail doesn't work. The lack of broadband keeps me from attempting to fix it. My ISP is sending folks out tomorrow, so hopefully it will be fixed. Anyway, back to the reason for this post. I got the following e-mail today - if you want Windows 2003 Server, it's quite a deal.

The RMWTUG (Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group) has permission from Microsoft to offer a special deal on Windows 2003 software. Anyone can get a 5 user nfr copy of the released Windows 2003 Server Enterprise Edition (about $2,500 street price) if they attend the 2003 launch, join the RMWTUG ($45) and attend our May meeting. If this sounds like a deal (and it is unless you are wearing a penguin suit), check www.rmwtug.org for details.

Cool Customer Service from AT&T

I have AT&T Wireless for my cell phone service. I was surprised tonight when I dialed 411. I asked the lady for the number to Brook's Steak House, which is a privately owned (non-corporate) steak house in Denver. We've always seen it advertised in airline's magazine, so we thought it'd be fun for our 3rd anniversary. The lady said to me, "would you like me to make a reservation for you?" "Sure!" I said. She took down my name and the time I'd like for my reservation and said she'd call me back in a half hour. It took an hour, but she called me back and we're booked for Saturday night. I even asked and it's part of my plan - no charge. Swwweeeeetttt!

University of Miami Interview

Remember the dream job I found at the University of Miami? They actually called yesterday and I have a phone interview on Friday! Sweet - my first nibble on my Florida-job-hunting fishing pole. With any luck, Julie and I may be living in Florida in the next couple of months. I don't want to get too excited just yet, but it is encouraging that I got a call.

What's up Raible?

Paul Rivers wrote a comment about yesterday's post; guessing as to why I haven't been posting much lately. There are two reasons. The first is that I firmly believe that blogging is motivated by broadband and I don't have it. Secondly, I'm on vacation. The worst part is that I'm on vacation and I've been working the whole fricken time! My parents are in town and no one has to work but me. Do I really have to work? Probably not, but one of my clients wants a re-design done by Monday - and I've known about it for a month. So I put it off and put it off, and now the deadline is here - and it's not going nearly as fast or smooth as I though it would. The major motivation for the re-design is to make the webapp work in older browsers, namely Opera 6/Linux and IE 5.5/Windows. So just as I get it working in one, it breaks in the next. I'm learning way more about Opera than I ever wanted to know. It's no fun, I want to give up and quit - but something inside me still drives me to work away and neglect my vacation. This sucks...

America's obsession with Productivity

My family and I had a great time last night. I picked my Dad up from the airport and we hit a local microbrewery on the way home so I could school him at a couple of games of pool. He's usually pretty good, but the more beer I drank, the better I got, while it was the opposite for him. He'll blame it on his age.

One of the hot topics of the night was American's obsession with Productivity. We've talked about this topic many times; we used to call it American males are defined by their jobs. It's sad really, but if you're an American, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever been out of work, chances are you felt less of yourself for it. The problem my Dad and I were discussing was what happens when you retire? And how do you enjoy your life now when you're so obessesed with productivity?

Russ is experiencing it. He's killing himself being so productive. I do the same thing, staying up late working on an open source project. Where my productivity does nothing more than get my name out there so someone can hire me to be more productive. Why can't we be satisfied with being un-productive? I need to find a middle-ground; a way to be satisfied with spending the entire night away from the computer. I've found that a good hard bike ride or basketball game after work will motivate me to NOT work on the computer - and that's what I'm looking for. I want to be unproductive and satisfied with it. Can you do that - or is it to un-American for you? ;-)

New Job, New Computers

Have you see what Chris is getting at his new job? Holy shit - I was lucky to even get a machine at my current contract!

• Pentium 4 3GHz with 1GB RAM, 120GB disk, etc, and a 20" flat panel display
• New G4 Tower (maybe dual proc? not sure yet), 1GB RAM, 20" flat panel display
• 15" Ti Powerbook

Sounds like either 1) a great company to work for, or 2) a company that won't be around very long. But it sounds like a good company...

The new job will be way more stable (think big company, but not evil company ;) pay a lot more, have stock that's actually worth something, and rockin' benefits.

Man am I jealous!

Home Sick

I figured riding to work yesterday would get me in better shape, but rather, it has crippled me. After my hour n' 45 minute ride to work, I started to feel sick in the afternoon. Sick like a sore throat and headache. Around 5 o'clock (time to go home), I still felt like crap, but thought some more exercise would do me good. It took me an hour and 35 minutes to get home, and I was wiped out when I got here - in bed at 8:30. I didn't feel too bad last night, just tired. This morning I woke up to tonsils the size of golf balls (yep, I still have my tonsils), a headache and that "I-have-a-cold, man-I'm-tired" feeling. So I e-mailed in sick today, and slept in until 11. I've discovered that my lack of internet connection might be my router, as my LAN does not work anymore. It did work when this first happened, but now it doesn't. I guess I'll drag myself down to Circuit City and try to get a replacement before the repair guys show up and charge me $75/hour.

One thing I've learned using dial-up this week. It isn't that bad. In fact, this site seems to perform just as well on dial-up as it does on broadband. Aaaah, the beauty of server-side code. As for the fact that FreeRoller has been up since Monday, I think it's due to the newest version of Tomcat more than anything.

Update: Well, my ISP sent someone out today to fix my internet connection. It was wierd, my router (a Linksys) would restart itself every few seconds while it was plugged into their wireless receiver. The solution turned out to be replacing the ethernet cable between their router and mine. However, my internet access has been pretty spotty ever since, and I even upgraded the firmware on my router. The guy mentioned that Linksys where probably the poorest quality routers, but awful easy to configure. So I think I'm still going to head down to Circuit City and buy a new one. In order to post this, I ended up using dial-up.