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What should you consider before changing your IT focus?

Written on August 31, 2010 by billspaced in Career

I received an email from a TechRepublic member who is seeking advice about switching focuses in his IT career:

I have been working in Telecom as a software developer for six years now. At the beginning of my career I did work in embedded for about two years. Now I find my self wanting to switch back to embedded/device drivers. Is it advisable to make such a switch after quite a few years of experience in the IT industry? Would it in any way hamper my career with such a move?

In order to answer this question, I began by asking Justin James, who writes for our Programming and Development blog, his opinion.

He said, “Would I call it ‘advisable’? Not really. Unless your current specialty is on the decline, there is no need to make the switch. Unless you see otherwise, the pay rates are probably going to be the same. Up front y0u might have to take a pay cut due to lack of experience in the new field. In the long run, it may pay off to have a broader scope of experience, but that’s long-term thinking and it’s too hard to predict these things more than a year or two out. At the same time, other than having to start in a new industry and learn some new things, it may be worth a bit of a pay cut just to do something new and different. There should not be a substantial negative affect on his career other than the short term pay cut and the loss of seniority in your current job.”

Here’s my opinion: Six years may seem like a lot of time but in the grand scheme of things, it’s really not. Some people make complete career changes to other fields entirely with more time than that under their belts. My advice would be to go where your heart is. If you really think that working with embedded/device drivers is something that would be more fulfilling or that you would find more interesting, then that’s the way I would suggest you go. No one would deny the pleasure of a good salary, but if you earn it doing something you aren’t really invested in, then, believe me, it won’t make you happy.

The good news is that you have already had a taste of the specialty you want to move into. If you find it beckoning you again, then something tells me that’s where your heart and interests lie.

By Toni Bowers

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10 things you should know about Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server

Written on August 31, 2010 by billspaced in Uncategorized

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Mac OS X Server has come a long way — and the power and flexibility of Snow Leopard might surprise you. Erik Eckel details the benefits and capabilities of this platform.

Technology professionals, particularly those earning stripes battling Windows tours of duty, aren’t fully aware of the strides made in Mac OS X Server. Snow Leopard extends functionality and performance even further. From a single Mac Mini powering the platform to an Xgrid Distributed Computing initiative, Snow Leopard packs serious potential. Here are 10 things enterprise administrators should know about Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

1: Serious scalability

From a simple chassis, such as Apple’s $999 specially designed Mac Mini, to near state-of-the-art Xserve rack-mount servers, Snow Leopard Server is capable of scaling to most any organization’s needs. Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server can manage the load, whether it’s a small workgroup requiring shared calendaring, email, and file services or large enterprises requiring instant, simultaneous access to terabytes of data in multiple locations.

2: Simplified administration

Apple’s hallmark has long been approachability and the ease with which its systems can be deployed, maintained, and operated. The same is true with Mac Snow Leopard Server. Users and groups are easily managed, thanks to the clean but powerful Workgroup Manager interface. The Server Status Dashboard makes short work of monitoring the server’s health. System Image Utility simplifies the process of creating and deploying system images, while NetBoot permits enterprise Mac administrators to boot multiple systems using a disk-based image hosted on a single server. Snow Leopard also adds iPhone deployment and remote system restore (NetStore) tools, too.

3: No CALs required

Mac server administrators lose the headache that is client access license management. Mac OS X Server licensing does not use client access licenses. Mac OS X Snow Leopard ships for $499, with unlimited clients. So does Apple’s enterprise Xserve servers. Organizations benefit in two ways: lower costs and time saved having to chase down, purchase, and record server, email ,and database CALs.

4: High availability design

Apple engineers have designed Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server for high availability. Organizations can leverage the platform’s automatic recovery, file system journaling, RAID, and clustering capabilities to ensure uptime (including clustering support for email services). Business continuity is further enhanced by Snow Leopard Server’s support for image capturing and deployment, rsync, ditto, tar and asr backups, and even basic Time Machine backup and recovery.

5: Directory services support

Directory services, which track information about users, groups, and their requisite permissions, have become critical infrastructure within organizations small and large alike. Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server includes a broad range of support for existing directory services and authentication technologies, including Open Directory (OpenLDAP, Kerberos, and SASL included), Windows NT Domain Services (using Samba 3), Backup Domain Controller (BDC), and RADIUS, among others.

6: Cross-platform compatible

Snow Leopard Server’s support for numerous directory services technologies enables integration with other network operating systems. Organizations still requiring legacy or Windows platforms to run specific components of their business need not start from scratch when deploying Mac OS X as their NOS or abandon past IT infrastructure or investments. With the server’s support for common standards and protocols (including but not limited to SMTP, POP, SSL, AFP, SMB, CIFS, IPP, DNS, DHCP, NAT, VPN, SSL, WebDAV, and MySQL), Apple’s server platform is compatible with Windows, Linux, and other platforms.

7: Collaboration-friendly

Email is already a critical tool today. Increasingly, organizations are embracing team sites, instant messaging, mobile communications, and shared calendaring functionality. Snow Leopard Server natively supports all these technologies out of the box, with no additional software packages or licensing required. iCal Server 2 powers shared calendaring and meeting and event coordination. Wiki Server 2 provides a customizable wiki-powered Web site for empowering team communication and collaboration. Mobile Access Server securely connects remote users to centralized corporate resources, while iChat Server supports instant messaging.

8: Clustering-capable

Organizations requiring leading edge distributed computing capability can power their networks using Snow Leopard Server. Apple’s Xgrid technology, included within Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, enables connecting a wide-ranging collection of Mac desktops, workstations, and servers into a supercomputer. Systems need not even be in the same location to join an Xgrid cluster. The Xgrid Admin interface provides administrators with a simplified console for configuring the resulting incredibly powerful clusters. In fact, one of the world’s largest Xgrids is working to cure cancer in TechRepublic’s home state of Kentucky.

9: Superior Web infrastructure

Whether an organization needs to build and maintain a team collaboration Web site (Wiki Server 2), host Web pages or Web applications (integrated Apache), or produce and distribute audio and video programming on the Web (Podcast Producer 2), Snow Leopard Server is a step ahead of competing network operating systems. While many network operating systems simply host content, Mac OS X Server includes features that aid production, workflow, and publication as one streamlined process.

10: Reasonable system requirements

Despite having supercomputer potential, Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server can be installed on a Mac desktop, if need be. Smaller organizations will find they can run the platform on a Mac with a single Intel processor, 10GB of free hard disk space, and just 2GB of RAM. While 8-core Xeon Xserv systems with 48GB of RAM and three 2TB drives are available off the shelf, the platform can be run confidently on a Mac Mini within some environments.

By Erik Eckel

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Tags: 10 things, Tech Republic

A Special Offer From Our Sponsor

Written on August 30, 2010 by billspaced in Career

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Micromanagers: Let your employees make mistakes

Written on August 30, 2010 by billspaced in Career

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When I was learning to drive, the duty of teaching me fell to my dad because, I suppose, he had actually been through a World War and was less likely to crumble under the stress.

For some reason, during one lesson, my older brother tagged along. At one point my dad told me to stop, and by stop he meant press gradually on the brake until the vehicle came to a standstill. But of course, I instead pushed abruptly on the brake which nearly sent us all spiraling through the windshield. In fact, it did cause my brother to slide forward dramatically until his lower legs were temporarily wedged under the seat in front of him. As he yelped dramatically, my dad told him to be quiet and leave me alone.

There were a couple of dynamics going on here. First, my brother was obviously not seriously injured, and my dad was thinking that mangled shins was scant payback for all the little sister noogies my brother had inflicted on me over the years.

Second, my dad knew that if I got upset or nervous at such a pivotal point in the learning process I might lose what little confidence I had and never get my driver’s license. I learned on that day how to brake properly but not because of all the exaggerated drama coming out of my brother but because my dad was calm and let me figure out what I did wrong on my own.

While I recognize that modern workplaces can be too hectic to take this kind of approach to employee training, I really think it is the best way to go. For an employee to truly develop professionally, she has to learn by her own mistakes. And a manager’s hysterical reaction to those mistakes isn’t going to do any good. All that does is make an employee avoid repeating a mistake because she wants to avoid her manager’s wrath. Isn’t it better for an employee to understand a mistake in terms of procedural problems it caused? Through mistakes people learn the answer to the questions “why?” and “why not?” If the answers to those questions are more meaningful than “because your manager wants it that way,” then the learning is internalized and sticks better.

Of course, you can’t afford to let employees make costly mistakes as part of the training process, but if you micromanage them every step of the way they won’t have the knowledge or the confidence to form opinions on their own or the confidence to carry through on them.

By Toni Bowers

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The 10 worst things about working from home

Written on August 27, 2010 by billspaced in Uncategorized

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There are plenty of good things about working from home — but for every upside, there may be an equal and opposite downside.

Three years after being released from my daily commute, I find myself reflecting on some of the less appealing aspects of working from home. So I decided to stop working for a minute (see #4) and jot down a few of the negative aspects I’ve begun to notice.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

10: You get lazy

If you don’t believe me, get a pedometer and measure the number of steps you take from the time you wake up to when you go to bed. A consultant friend of mine did that for two weeks and to her horror discovered that she averaged 156 steps a day — nothing more than bathroom and fridge trips. In the office, you generally have farther to go to get food, coffee, and water and go to the bathroom. Plus you walk to meetings, go out for a smoke break, go visit a friend.

9: You become unwittingly uncouth

After you’ve spent some time working alone, you start to lose your normal social inhibitions. You no longer remember to suppress certain crude (and sometimes noisy) behaviors, and you may sometimes pick or scratch various areas not normally picked or scratched in polite company. And then on that one day a year when you’re expected to attend the annual staff meeting, you let one fly during a pause between speakers.

8: Your cats wreak havoc

Cats invariably want to sit wherever your attention is directed, which for most of us means on the keyboard or in front of the monitor. Sooner or later, you’ll get up to fetch a cup of coffee or do a set of squats (yeah right) and the cat will stretch… and you’ll be left explaining exactly how you managed to delete that table from the database or why you sent that particular picture to the CEO.

7: Your neighbors don’t get it

Neighbors: Oh, you work at home, how nice for you. In their mind that means you spend the entire day goofing off because (a) you set your own hours; (b) no one is watching you; and (c) that is exactly what they would do. This translates into frequent pop-ins. How you doing? Working. Oh that’s nice, did you see what’s happening in the park? No, I’m working. Right. I don’t think they should do that, those trees have been there since I moved here in 1953. Um, excuse me, but would you mind leaving? I need to work. Oh “work,” ha, ha, that’s right. Mind if I put the TV on?

6: Your boss becomes a stranger

It’s so long since you last saw your boss, you forget what he looks like. There you are, summoned back to the office for the big upgrade. You pull into the parking space nearest the front door because you’re way too early, as you live in a different time zone. A car pulls in beside you and a man gets out and glowers at you. You’re in my parking space. Is he serious? There are no reserved signs. You break a sweat in the already uncomfortable suit you’re not used to wearing. Then he smiles. Whoa — Steve? Hey Steve, I didn’t recognize you. Wow you got fat! Which takes us to:

5: You forget the unwritten rules of polite interaction

Having had no one to talk to except the cats, dog, and occasional neighbor (who doesn’t employ you so he doesn’t count), you haven’t talked to anyone since your last visit to the office and find you’ve unlearned all the normal rules. Out come the curse words, the borderline jokes, and inappropriate comments. You know — all the stuff you’re used to sharing with Rover.

4: You give in to work avoidance

On those odd days we all have, when you don’t feel like working, there is no one to make you do it. So instead of taking a vacation day, or even pretending to be sick, you waste the entire day staring at the computer, getting distracted by what the cat just hacked up in the corner, staring at the computer some more, staring into space, and then spending the entire evening feeling guilty for a wasted day.

3: Sick days are a thing of a past

Because you can lie down in bed sucking down Dayquil all day and still manage to administer the network, you don’t call in sick. To feel justified in calling in sick, you have to be unconscious or in hospital. And even in hospital there is generally free wireless.

2: There are no departmental lunches

Oh wait, that’s a good thing.

1: You’re imprisoned in your workplace

And the number one worst thing about working from home is that you never, ever leave the office. That report you were meant to write wakes you up at 2:34 AM. Normal people make a mental note to take care of it as soon as they get to the office, after a cup of coffee of course, and go back to sleep. Not you. You sigh, set a reminder on your IPhone, and try to sleep. But your computer is right there, just across the room. You didn’t even bother to turn it off. Oh well, might as well write the report now. Can’t sleep anyway. Next thing you know, your stomach is making odd gurgling noises and you have the beginning of a caffeine withdrawal headache. It’s 1:35 in the afternoon and you have yet to leave your seat.