Posted by Doug
Fri, 27 Jan 2006 14:34:37 GMT
I work from home now pretty much full time. Tuesday night my Time Warner cable service failed. There was a significant outage in Cincinnati at that time (according to their recorded message) and so I assumed I was part of that. Wednesday morning, I was still without service. I called and they said there were no active outages at that time. When could they get someone out to fix it? Friday morning between 11:00am and 3:00pm!
So on my second week of telecommuting to my new job I had to call up my boss and say, “Sorry, I’m out.” I felt kind of stupid when he asked if I had a backup plan. My cable service (and Road Runner in particular) had been so rock solid for several years I hadn’t actually thought about a backup Internet connection.
So, per his request I’m getting Sprint’s DSL service on 2/6. Yes, Sprint is my local telco. No, I’m not very excited about that. However, ordering this DSL service has been a positive experience. They actually had earlier times for my activation, but I’m out of town next week. Their prices are pretty good: $19.95 for 1.5M down and 256K up. If that was my primary connection, I wouldn’t be happy with those speeds, but this is strictly backup.
The other positive thing. The customer service rep asked me what operating system I ran on my computer. I told her Linux because my firewall and fileserver runs Linux even though all my desktops are Macs. The exciting part is she didn’t freak out when I said Linux! In fact, Linux is officially a supported Operating System.
Oh, and before I give Time Warner a bad name, they were able to get my service back up that same day. I called several times on Wednesday and finally got someone who told me a technician would try to squeeze me in during his appointed rounds. Turns out he was there at 2 and fixed my service in a few minutes. I wasn’t there, so I don’t actually know what was wrong though.
Posted in Internet | Tags DSL, RoadRunner, Sprint, TimeWarner | 1 comment
Posted by Doug
Thu, 19 Jan 2006 20:06:15 GMT
I’m working from home a lot requiring a VPN connection to my work. The default VPN setup for the Mac is a little less than ideal; it routes all traffic through the VPN. As our VPN is a little sluggish, I’d like for only work related traffic to route through the VPN. Here’s what I had to do.
I started with this Mac OSX Hint to Set no default route for VPN Client via PPTP/L2TP. The hint says to set nodefaltrouter in /etc/ppp/vpn-name and then do my routing in /etc/ppp/ip-up. The good news is that in Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, there’s a configuration option for Internet Connect to toggle setting of the default route. Progress: all my traffic is no longer going over VPN.
Problem: my local DNS can’t do lookups for the company’s LAN. So, I go into Network Preferences for the VPN and statically assign the DNS Servers.
Hmmm, that should work but host name lookup still doesn’t work. Ah, I still don’t have a route defined for the corporate LAN to use the VPN. So, I create /etc/ppp/ip-up to include this simple command:
#!/bin/sh
route add 10.1.0.0/16 -interface ppp0
Unfortunately, this doesn’t automatically set the route when I establish the VPN connection. So, that’s where I stand. I’ve got /etc/ppp/ip-up chmod +x and manually run it when I initiate my VPN connection. Also, I think this whole setup will affect my other VPN configuration for which I do want all traffic to use. Ah, well… nothing’s perfect.
Posted in Security, Internet | Tags Apple, Tiger, VPN | no comments
Posted by Doug
Tue, 03 Jan 2006 16:56:01 GMT
I am so excited about this New Year! I was diligent about learning Ruby on Rails in 2005 and getting some practical experience. In 2006 I’m ditching my current gig as a Unix Systems programmer and taking a new job as a full-time Ruby on Rails Web developer!
As of this week I’ve gotten two production sites running with Ruby on Rails. One is a significant effort of more than 3000 lines of code. It took me most of the year working part-time hash out all the requirements and deliver the finished product. I know there’s more to come on this site, but I’m glad to finally have something in production.
The other one I cheated on. A client wanted a new feature added to an old site. I was loath to go back into that code because it was so messy. So, I re-wrote the whole site in RoR and added her new feature. Time “lost”? About 25 hours and 350 Lines of Code. That is exactly what Ruby on Rails is all about!
Now for my big news. Let’s talk about my ideal working conditions:
- Company that uses agile methodologies.
- Company that sanctions and uses Ruby on Rails.
- Mostly telecommute that doesn’t require me to relocate my family.
- I get to use a Mac with no questions asked.
- I get to work on a project that closely aligns with my hobbies and passions.
Check, check, check, check, and check. I’m not going to divulge all the details right now. The company hiring me hasn’t really made a public announcement about their use of Ruby on Rails. What I can say is I’ve always wanted a job like this but felt like it was beyond my reach. When you’re young and just out of college it’s much easier to make sacrifices to take the “dream job”. The further out of college you get, the more responsibility you have and the harder to just Do It.
This job allows me to follow the dream without sacrificing my family. I truly feel this is a gift from God. I realize many of my readers don’t believe in God and just got a sour taste by my saying that. However, I feel strongly that I need to give Him public credit for this job.
I have tried for years to find a job like this without success. Honestly, it’s been quite discouraging. Since early Fall I have been actively pursuing some way to work with Ruby on Rails full time without success. In fact, my best prospect was a job about 30 miles away doing Perl application development. Two years ago I would have loved full-time Perl. Now I was feeling “resigned” to taking it. Then out of the blue came this position. Two weeks later and I have an offer.
I’m not going to try and explain how or why God orchestrated this. I do want to give Him thanks though. All good things come from God. I’m very excited about this job. I know I can do a good job. One of my top goals for 2006 is to “go above and beyond” to demonstrate why I’m exactly the guy they wanted.
Posted in Internet, Christianity, Ruby on Rails | Tags jobs, Rails, Ruby | 10 comments
