My work life is really fragmented at present, so I’ve decided a split approach in answer to Dave Rosenberg’s How I Work–what I have learned so far .
| What is your role? | Support Developer providing sole support an internal client web based system (Java, Oracle) with 1000+ users producing >$1m daily revenue. | Independent Database Consultant. Specialising in Database Modelling, Large Systems Design and Web Development Technologies. Strong proponent of Agile Development Methodologies (specifically Extreme Programming – XP). |
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| What is your computer setup? |
Dell Optiplex GX280 (P4, 1GB, 17″ CRT) running Redhat FC4. (When I started only 2 months ago I got lumped with a similar speced machine running Windows XP, and upteen windows apps (like 4 different versions of TOAD for example) . This OS was contry to my understanding provided in the interview process. |
Primary – Dell Inspiron 5150 (P4/3.2GHz, 1GB, 120GB, 15″ + 21″ CRT) Secondary – Generic (P3/600MHz, 1GB, lots of HDD ~500GB, 17″ CRT) Both with very impressive Saitek backlit keyboards (one red, one blue) Great at night. See image at bottom. |
| What desktop software applications do you use daily? |
RedHat Fedora Core 4 Eclipse 3.1, FireFox 1.5, Thunderbird 1.5, WebSphere Application Server 5.1, J2DK 1.4.2, Oracle SQL Developer, Open Office 2, XMMS and SSH client (which I use most) Due to legacy internal systems and support I also must run under Wine (Internet Exploder), and First Class (email client). Not to stop there, I also must run under Citrix ICA Client apps (FocalPoint, Heat Call Logging, and Microsoft Word for internal forms that won’t work under OO2.) And before somebody suggests why not try VMWare or other clients, I have tried, but software like Focalpoint can’t install? |
CentOS 4.3 FireFox 1.5, ThunderBird 1.5, Gaim, SSH, Skype, Open Office 2. Maybe not all of these every day, but some combination of each day –> MySQL 4.1, MySQL 5.0, MySQL 5.1, MySQL Workbench, Eclipse 3.1, J2DK 1.4.2, J2DK 5.0, Apache Tomcat 5.0.28, Apache Httpd 2.0.53, JMeter. Presently also configuring a new laptop drive running Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 RC. For the Record, Beta 2, Flight 6 and Flight 7 all failed. |
| What websites do you visit every day? |
Internal Wiki (all day) At Lunch Google Sci-Tech News PlanetMySQL |
Google Sci-Tech News PlanetMySQL (if I haven’t already got to them). |
| What mobile device or cell phone do you use? | N/A | NEC e606 3G phone (which I’ve had for probably 3 years now) operating on a 3G network with video calls, again for 3 years. |
| Do you use IM? | No. All access is blocked other then an internal Jabber server, that I use rarely, never for communication, just a cut/paste of command or syntax. Speaking of blocked, SSH access to my production servers is blocked, and even reading news like Skypes Call Out is blocked by WebSense. |
Extensively, however due to current employement policy, I’m very hamstrung unless before/after hours. I use Gaim as I have AIM, MSN and Google Talk accounts, and Skype. My preference was always AIM, but as clients come and go, I’ve had to accumulate more accounts. |
| Do you use a VoIP phone? | No. |
Not at present, however for many years I worked with US clients and used Packet 8. Still have the hard phone somewhere. I’ve also used Skype talk for one or one or conference calls. Of late in Australia to New Zealand and Singapore. Indeed, the quality to Singapore has been excellent, when living in the US, calls to Singapore on Skype were clearer then my Packet8 phone to US numbers. |
| Do you have a personal organization/time management theory? |
Current contract employees a number of disjointed methods, which in observation just shows so much inefficency, it’s worth documenting just to highlight what not to do. We have daily team meetings (10 mins), each listing your top 2 daily tasks. Weekly we have to also submit weekly goals. Weekly combined meetings with another team where we again give weekly top 2 tasks. We use two seperate systems (with manual double entry) for work identification, one for call centre logging issues, and Bugzilla for software bugs, and enhancements. We also use XPlanner (again duplicating a lot of tasks) for time management. With all this rigid structure, I am daily given either other work to do, or investigate, and in over 3 months, I would rarely end a week anywhere near where it was so described at the start of the week. |
With all the technology possible, I actually do not have any electronic management gadget, never had. I use a combination of notebook, plain paper (usually for daily notes etc, which I discard regularly), a diary, and normally a lot of emails which I normally send to/from home. Given that email is used so much, I basically use Draft Emails for any electronic notes. |
| Anything else? | Perhaps there is merit in How I work now, and How I’d like to work now. | |
Saitek Keyboard
