Sep 06

Are you passionate?

Geek, Hiring, Technical, Work 2 Comments »

Reading Eric Schmidt’s quote the other day:

“Life is short, work with people you like”

Got me thinking about passion and how lucky I am to be working with and having worked with what I love and have a passion for, for the past 20 (gulp!) years. Including my current job working on secret project I’m not allowed to talk about yet. I’ve been lucky enough to work with technology that I love with people that I love working with and for. I’ve been using this saying that I most likely stole from somewhere but I don’t recall from whom, that there are three important things about your work.

  • What you do
  • How much you get paid for what you do
  • Who you work with
What you do and how much you get paid for what you do is interchangeable. I.e. I spent a summer while in school sorting dead mink skins in a factory. By length and by color. It was the most boring, brain dead, job ever and I think my mom found me the job to tell me that if I didn’t do good in school, that’s what I be doing for the rest of my life. But I was paid really good money for me at the time so I didn’t mind it so much. If you get paid what you perceive to be a good paycheck to do something you don’t like, it balances itself out. If, on the other hand, you get to work on something that you love and that you’re passionate about, you’ll happily accept less money. For example, I would have loved to have worked at Lucasfilm 15 years ago and would have happily worked for half my salary. That was, of course, before George Lucas decided to ruin our childhoods.
The one factor of the three above that can not be undervalued when looking for a job is who you work with. Who you work with every day is almost as important of a choice as who you decide to marry. You spend as much, if not more, time here in the US at the office as you do at home. If you don’t like who you work with, you’re going to eventually hate going to the office, because who likes hanging out with people you don’t like? Same thing goes for hiring people as a manager. If you don’t like someone, you’re not going to hire them.
Thinking back to the products I’ve worked on throughout my life so far, including  CyberCop Scanner Ballista, PGP.com, ExpectID IQ and my current secret project job, they all have something in common. They are solutions to problems challenges that I’m passionate about solving. Being lucky enough to work on what you’re passionate about (and getting paid to do it!) is something I wish everyone gets the opportunity to do in their lifetime.
So how many of you out there are passionate about what you do? What would you work on if given the choice? Interested in your comments and feedback.
May 13

Touchpad not working

Technical, Work Comments Off

The names in this post have been changed to protect the innocent.

One of the fun things about working in a medium size company is that you get thrown all kinds of different problems to solve. This one got escalated to me from a remote user.

My internal mouse has given out on me. I’ve not spilled anything on it and nothing other than run of the mill finger dirt has come in contact with it. Any diagnosis ability on your end?

External plug in mouse works fine.

After checking what laptop he had (HP G60 125NR Notebook PC), I sighed, knowing that I had the exact same issue with an HP laptop a few years back.

Spent a good 30 minutes researching the different causes and solutions and sent 3 to the user:

Solution 1: At the top of the touchpad, or at the top of the keyboard, there’s a button / switch that turns on/off the touchpad. Make sure this is on. Test.

Solution 2:  Verify that Synaptics TouchPad software is installed

Follow the steps below to open the Mouse Properties settings window and determine if Synaptics TouchPad software is installed on your notebook:

  1. Right-click on the desktop and select Personalize > Mouse Pointers . The Mouse Properties settings window will open.

Alternately, click Start and type Mouse in the Search field, and select Mouse when it becomes available in the program list. The Mouse Properties settings window will open.

  1. Verify that the Device Settings tab is present in the Mouse Properties window.
  2. If this tab is not present, you will need to obtain the Synaptics TouchPad software.(let me know and I’ll point you to it)

Solution 3:  This worked on mine once. Turn off your laptop – take out the battery, wait 30 seconds, put the battery back in. Start it up. Test.

—————————- 

1 minute later I got the response:

You know the remarkable thing about a computer is that it gives you the ability to simultaneously be embarrassed and pleased with yourself. Step 1 worked. 

Lesson learned: Always try the low-tech solutions first and don’t assume the problem is more complicated than it is. I could’ve solved this with a 2 minute phone call but instead wasted 30 minutes thinking it was a complicated problem.

Apr 17

Looking for a Java Developer

Hiring, Work Comments Off

Looking for a Java Developer for my company, IDology. We have a great team, we work hard and have lots of fun. Position is based at our HQ in Atlanta, GA.

Responsibilities:

Developer will be a member of a team focused on developing and deploying commercial Web services. Projects will involve enhancing existing products and developing new products built on the Java/JEE platform. Our applications are developed using Apache, Tomcat, MySQL, Spring, and Hibernate. Position is based in Atlanta, GA. 

Requirements:

• Minimum two years experience working on Java/JEE applications.
• Experience with XML.
• Experience with a version control system like Subversion, CVS, or Perforce.
• Experience writing and deploying Web services.
• Experience with PHP.
• Ability to write build scripts with Ant.
• Excellent written communication skills.
• Experience working with an MVC framework like Spring, Struts, Tapestry, or Webwork. Spring is preferred.
• Experience with a persistence framework, preferably Hibernate.
• Experience writing unit tests using Junit.