Sunday, March 7, 2010

Use OSS to Prove Experience

After some years of working in different positions and lots of projects, you will realize that you tend to specialisation and that is difficult to get new projects.

For example, when I joint my current company, my profile was very sysadm oriented, and it was kind of hard to prove I’m not a bad programmer (IMHO, I started programming when I was 13).

When you do that thing you’re known to do well, you’ll be more focused to do it again and again. Call it ultra-specialisation or just “you’ve been typecasted”.

Just in case you want to change your role a little bit, you’ll see that it’s very difficult, because your CV shows you as hardcore sysadm. Then it’s when open source software can help you in your career.

About two months ago I realized that I’ve never been a significant contributor for any open source project. I’ve submitted small patches every now and then, but nothing noticeable that I could highlight in my CV. Although I’ve been programming for almost 20 years of my life, to different degrees of programming, I don’t have enough stuff to prove that I can program professionally in some areas (OK, may be bogom; but it’s small and with little interest right now).

So I started to look for a interesting project to be involved in, for at least 4 hours a week, and contribute as much as I can so I can fix that gap in my CV.

Finally, my target is Cherokee, and I’ve started to work hard in reading the code, and I’ve been successful fixing two small bugs that required deep code reading (aka 1 hour of code reading though the tree to write a two line fix).

I think I’ll be comfortable with the code in a pair of weeks, so I will need less that 4 hours week to be productive (but I like it, so I wouldn’t mind spending more time hacking on it heh).

What do you think? Is this a good idea to improve your CV?

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Nautilus Flickr Uploader 0.05 Released

Seems that things are going back to normal, after I was finally settled in Exeter.

Last week I was hacking a little bit in Cherokee web server, what resulted in a relatively useful validator plugin.

The other thing I’ve been meaning to do was fix my review request to include Nautilus Flickr Uploader in Fedora, but that needed some more time because I found a couple of bugs that were worth fixing before (you can check the changes).

OK, it weren’t big changes, but I’ve found them quite annoying while uploading some photos from Exeter (specially the ‘spaces in path’ problem while dragging photos into the preview list).

So, you can grab the new release of Nautilus Flickr Uploader in the usual place.

Friday, February 26, 2010
Always keep rawhide moving forward, never stopping the train. At branch point, publish the release to be in a different path to allow rawhide to race forward toward the next release.

From No Frozen Rawhide Proposal. Check the No Frozen Rawhide Implementation too.

Seems that great things have happened when I was busy moving to Exeter. Good move Fedora!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The ASF’s [Apache Software Foundation] first project became the world’s most popular Web server software within the first six months of its inception. The Apache HTTP Server today powers nearly 112 million Websites world-wide.

From The Apache Software Foundation Announces the 15th Anniversary of the Apache HTTP Web Server.

I’ve been using personally Apache (a patchy) server for almost 7 years, and recently I moved to another product, just to learn new things and because the Apache support of my outdated distro was over. The best part of this is it wasn’t Apache’s fault, and I know I can go back to use it anytime because it keeps rocking!

Happy birthday Apache!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Here Documents Magic

Check this two examples of here document in BASH.

First one, classic:

$ cat >file-sh<<EOF
string="hello world"
echo $string
EOF

Second one, new magic I learnt today:

$ cat >file2-sh<<"EOF"
string="hello world"
echo $string
EOF

There’s a big difference:

$ diff file-sh file2-sh 
2c2
< echo 
---
> echo $string

First notice, and it saved my day!

Update: if you’re reading this post through your feed reader, the examples may look weird. Blame Tumblr: the way they generate the RSS it’s broken.

Getting in Touch With Local Linux Users

I’ve been doing some research to know how’s the situation of LUGs and distro-communities in Exeter and surrondings. I believe in the importance of going local (the results in Valencia were amazing, with two Barcamp Valencia in 6 months).

My results are not bad so far:

Moreover I know there’s at least another fedorian in Exeter, and I would bet there’s a Gentoo guy too (there’s always a Gentoo guy! hehe).

That makes about 5 or 6 guys in the town that like Linux and actively use and kinda promote it. That’s great!

The DCGLUG has meetings in Paignton at regular basis. Although that’s not far away from Exeter, I wonder if it would be interesting to hang out for a beer and geek chatting with the local people.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Unpacked

Catedral de Exeter

Things are going more and more stable each day, and one of them arrived today: the Internet connection.

We have chosen Virgin broadband, and we have suffered the self-install kit that needs IE or Safari in order to activate the connection. Shame on you Virgin.

After some WTFs we got to activate the connection and everything seems OK, I’m pretty satisfied with the service (if you don’t take into account the non-sense of the activation process).

Tomorrow I’ll be back at work (remotely), and I hope I can resume all the halted stuff since I started moving to Exeter.

Thursday, February 11, 2010
Packed
I&#8217;ve seen a photo like this, but I don&#8217;t remember where.
I no longer have a place in Valencia.

Packed

I’ve seen a photo like this, but I don’t remember where.

I no longer have a place in Valencia.

Saturday, February 6, 2010
Start spreading the news, I am leaving today.

Not really, I’m leaving tomorrow, but officially today’s gonna be my last day on the Earth^W city of Valencia (and surroundings).

It’s been a good season. Valencia it’s not the best place I’ve lived ever, but it’s OK. I’m leaving a lot of friends here, what it’s sad… but awesome at the same time.

You may know I’m moving to Exeter, and I’m planning to retake my Fedora ambassador activities there.

The first step will be checking the usual suspects: Fedora UK and the UK Fedora ambassadors. It’s gonna be fun :)

Thursday, February 4, 2010
Nautilus Flickr Uploader Reached 100 Authenticated Users
Yay! I just wanted to share the good news with you.
I&#8217;m planning some new stuff to add to the already full working features in Nautilus Flickr Uploader, but not now. Now it&#8217;s time to party!
Photo CC (by-nc-nd) by Nicole Hanusek.

Nautilus Flickr Uploader Reached 100 Authenticated Users

Yay! I just wanted to share the good news with you.

I’m planning some new stuff to add to the already full working features in Nautilus Flickr Uploader, but not now. Now it’s time to party!

Photo CC (by-nc-nd) by Nicole Hanusek.