So I’m a good little robot programmed to go out and shop shop shop the day after Thanksgiving to enhance and further corporate influence over America. You could say that, or your could just say I needed a few things and I didn’t want to pay full price for them.

Up at 4:30 am, on the streets at 5:00 am. Hundreds of people already there, standing in long lines, waving the damned newspapers around. It’s muggy and dark, but the excited chatter of fellow shoppers seems to elevate the spirits dampened by the weather.

Here’s a tentative list of things I wanted to buy. All of these things would have been bought anyway some time in the future because I pretty much need them:

• Extra loud alarm clock
• Television set (still don’t have one)
• External enclosure for a SATA hard drive
• SATA hard drive, 500Gb for backups (none of my precious data is backed up right now)
• Wireless-G Router (old one finally died)
• Precise wireless mouse with rechargeable battery

After hanging out at various outlets for six hours, I ends up with the following list:

• nVidia GeForce 7900GS video card
• TWO ViewSonic 19″ monitors
• D-Link Wireless router
• HDD enclosure and 500Gb SATA HDD
• Logitech gaming mouse

Why in the hell did I buy the video card and the monitors? Easy – I could not pass up a good deal. Both ViewSonics were $300 out the door. The nVidia was $60 out the door. That’s like $400 I didn’t need to spend, but spent anyway because of a perceived “good deal”.

Speaking about the nVidia … As I was crawling through the gaming section of the store, I heard a guy talk about how cheap the new graphics boards were. Knowing that “cheap” in the world of 3D gaming may mean $300-400, I was astonished to overhear that the very decent dual monitor-supporting 7900GS was going for a mere $60. I immediately grabbed one “just in case” while one of the guys started a conversation with a salesperson. Turns out, someone placed an orange $60 sign on top of the 7900GS pile, and my guy took a picture of the whole thing with his cell phone. Waving the proof in his hand, he demanded that the pricey ($200-250) video card was sold to him at “advertised price”. I joined in, and so did a friend of mine who came with me. The sad-faced manager asked us to follow him, and after a brief button-punching intermission, we were granted the requested price. So that’s how I upgraded for cheap.

Identical ViewSoncis were bought to replace my mish-mash monitors – the difference in color, tint, sharpness, and refresh rate was starting to piss me off. Brought ViewSonics home, unpacked, plugged in, with disbelief stared at 20 (!) dead pixels, cussed, packed them back up, brought them back to the store, and got the refund.

Bottom line? Should have shopped online. Screw Black Friday. Oh, yeah, and I bought the 42″ Panasonic plasma I wanted. Straight cash.

If you’re like me on this glorious day, you’re hammered by noon. The food is plentiful, the Texas weather is beautiful (73 and sunny), and you get to avoid the “entire family” by just spending time with your girl.

On moments like these you realize life is not as shitty as you previously thought. Enjoy yourselves.

So I have this friend Mike.

About 4 months ago Mike got a job at Hewlett-Packard as a database developer. However, he was not immediately brought in on staff and he is still a contractor through a third-party agency. Mike enjoys himself at HP – the people he works with are nice, the work is challenging, and the work campus is only a couple of miles from his house. The temp agency is paying him $40,000 per year, but realistically he is making more like $60,000 because of the overtime, which bothers some people, but not Mike. He is pretty happy with his job, citing “corporate politics” as the only major downside.

Recently, he’s been corresponding with a small software company allegedly poised for explosive growth because of the owner’s previous experiences, an avalanche of new clients, and the high skill level of the programmers on staff. Because Mike is proficient in PHP, SQL, PERL, MySQL, and other open source software packages, he was asked to take an aptitude test, which he passed with a 95-percentile score. Mike also did really well on the interview, and got an offer letter.

Mike negotiated a stable salary of $60,000 per year plus 10% commission from existing projects (if completed on time) divided up between a few members of his team. Historically, an average bonus is around $1,000 a month. The projects range from Google Maps API-driven real estate sites to media projects with national exposure to manufacturing processes automation. Mike was told that because the company and the people working for it are young, they are in the process of hiring not just coders, but future company leadership.

Mike did some checking, and the company has enough retainer payments and recurring clientele billings that it’s not “going under” any time soon. The future projects look a lot more interesting than those in HP, the staff is fun (they play Halo and have paintball tournaments in spare time), and the opportunity for professional growth is there. The mentality and atmosphere reminded Mike about what he heard about companies like Google – very personal, laid-back, easy-going. Pet projects are encouraged and given immediate resources if approved by the rest of the team.

Basically, Mike has to make a decision about how to better his career: stay at HP and grind it out, or take a chance and see what happens. He realizes there’s upsides and downsides to everything:

STAY AT HP:

+ Close to home
+ Established himself well already
+ Possible moderate pay increase
+ Possible permanent offer within several months
+ Projects are semi-fun
- Corporate politics suck ass
- Having 5 bosses to report
- Being a contractor (uncertain future)

LEAVE HP:

+ Fun projects
+ Informal atmosphere (no politics – get in, get out)
+ Stability
+ Reliable paychecks
+ Performance-based, immediate advancement potential
- 40 minute drive through stop-n-go
- Long-time girlfriend will need a car
- Severing established ties with friends at HP and temp agency

It all comes down to having balls and taking the plunge, or grinding it out safely. When he asked me about this dilemma, I didn’t know what do say. Mike’s next move is to waive the offer letter in front of his temp agency manager in an attempt to beat a raise out of him.

What would you do?

So I haven’t been using Microsoft Windows for about a week.  I’m using an Ubuntu Linux flavor called Kubuntu (coo-bun-too).  Ubuntu is a South African ethic or ideology focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other [wikipedia].  Linux people, being a bunch of hippies, adopted the word for this free and pretty distro of Linux.

For the purpose of this blog, we’ll examine the ‘free’ part, although it is also very pretty.  And fast.  IF you can get it to work.

If you were to buy a copy of MS Windows, you’d probably shell out $50-150 for a copy of Windoze 2000/XP.  Of course, you could still just “borrow it from a friend” or about a million “friends” on the Internet, but if you want to be legit, you’d buy it.  You would then proceed to install it, along with a third party firewall, anti-virus, Ad-Aware, System Mechanic, MS Office, and a dozen other apps everyone uses.  You’d be just another Windows user not caring about what an “operation system” even is.  You’d just be a hundred bucks lighter, even though you probably don’t even use Windows-specific programs all the time.

There’s another way to keep Microsoft from getting its grubby hands onto your hundred bucks.  Install a Linux distro.  Along with security, scalability, speed, and power, you’ll also get some of the more recent developments, like appeal, sleekness, and prettiness.  I’m serious, as a long-time Windows user, I can’t take my eyes off the custom gradients and translucencies I’ve set up for my desktop.  I’m not posting any pictures because you’ll have to see for yourself.

If you just surf the web, use MS Office, pay bills online, and do other generic tasks, you must try Linux.  If you own a slow(ish) machine, you must try Linux.  If you are worried about security, you must try Linux.  After all, the author of Linux, Linus Torvalds is an official hero now.

Not all is rosy, though.  Linux is not a neat little “Plug-n-Play” package yet.  Thus, there’s a catch 22 – if you are not very techy, you’ll get all excited, burn a CD, reboot, try to boot into Linux, then try to get online, and QUIT after the system asks you about a DNS server … and never try Linux again … and if you’re a geek, you already know about Linux and possibly run it yourself.

That’s the problem, in my opinion – you still need to be somewhat of a geek to properly install and configure your distro to use it daily.  However, with a little willing and a little learning, you can be excited about your computer again!

I run Firefox, use OpenOffice, play online games … hell, I even managed to install Citrix to get into my work account just like I would with a Windows machine.  This very post is being typed from a Firefox for Linux window.

So what are tangible benefits of Linux?  Get ‘em all here.

Get yer learn on up in here.

I’ve been rocking my nice corporate gig for a few months now. As a military brat, I’m used to constant change of scene, so this transition from a small town company to a big IT firm went pretty smoothly.

However, I’m starting to notice that if people would just leave me alone for about 80% of the workday, I’d accomplish miraculous feats. Ask any developer – there is nothing more annoying in the middle of working through a long stored procedure than a user asking about why his/her VLOOKUP doesn’t work.

So I made this pie chart of a typical work day.

If I had to hire a bunch of IT people and force them to work on a variety of tasks, I’d give them little carpeted roofless rooms with stereos, TVs, soft slippers, mini-fridges, huge bean bags, and other objects of their choice that would make their 7-to-6 workday a little more enjoyable.

I’m hearing working for Google is exactly like that …