These past few days, I’ve been having this feeling that I’m hitting the wall on my technical skills and knowledge. It seems like for quite some time now, I haven’t moved that much. 
I guess I have to re-evaluate myself and somehow break the plateau I’m into. Just like in bodybuilding I have to exert a lot of effort for the following days to satisfy my craving for knowledge. 
Java
This is a programming language that I had been working on for the last 6 years. The latest addition to my Java skillset would be J2ME or MIDP development since my project for the last couple of months involves developing an IMPS client. Sad to say, I oftentimes feel quite frustrated with J2ME. Yes, it’s quite cool considering that applications you could do with your phone, but then again it’s actually just a small picture of what Java can do. In the past I had been working a lot with server-side codes and it proves to be more challenging and mind stimulating than J2ME. With all the technologies at hand for creating JSPs, Servlets and XML based apps, as well as networking apps using different protocols, J2ME is more or less just a speck of dust in the Java world. No offense meant for the J2ME developers out there. I must admit that J2ME offers a lot of possibilities and cools stuffs, but then if you just concentrate on it, you’ll be missing a big picture of Java development. A more ideal scenario would be to create a J2ME client that connects to the server-side codes you also wrote. That way, you are able to cover more grounds with your programming skills.
Right now, I’m planning to work on some mini-projects during my free time and the technology that really caught my attention is AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML). I find it really amazing and may prove to be useful for creating dynamic websites. Another cool thing I want to do would be to develop Java based blogging tools such as a Java version of Postie, a blog by email plugin for WordPress. Another project I’m thinking of is creating an interface or Java API for publicly available IM servers. This may sound quite ambitious, but what the hell, it’s better than being contented with what you currently know and your brains not working as it is expected. 
UNIX/Linux
This is something that I had seem to gain more knowledge these past few weeks when I decided to subscribe again to a VPS. A good example would be to learn more about Sendmail. I haven’t used Sendmail that much before since I had been a great fan of Qmail-LDAP. Moreover, since my first attempt for Sendmail lead me to be a hacking victim, I lost great interest with this mail server. For me, Qmail-LDAP provides a more secure and flexible mail server environment. Moreover, it is simpler to manage when your users grow to a large extent. My previous project involving Qmail-LDAP is handling more than a million users right now and it is still working fine except for hardware issues on speed and peformance on the Solaris server where it is hosted. Another mail server which I tried on is Postfix and it’s more or less just like Sendmail but some say is more secure than the latter. Some other aspects of UNIX/Linux administration such as Apache web servers, Bind DNS Servers, clustering, LDAP, Samba, network security, etc. are nothing more than a daily routine for me.
Currently, I’m trying my hands on different flavors of Linux. It wasn’t until last year that I got bored of RedHat Linux (now called Fedora) which lead me on trying out other UNIX/Linux distros such as Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, FreeBSD, and CentOS. For me Debian and CentOS are the best distros I used so far and right now I prefer them more than Fedora.
I have this long pending project on porting our office servers to use a single SSL enabled LDAP based authentication server . I already have the box beside me, but with all these deadlines at work and tons of workload I can’t seem to find time to work on it. Anyway, I’m planning to plug the box in our network and then configure it with a public IP that I can access from my house so I can configure it over the weekend.
Another thing that I want to learn more on UNIX/Linux would be to learn more on manipulating the kernel. I have long dreamt of customizing a Linux box for my needs by modifying the kernel and also creating low-level programs that would be useful for me. Let’s see what I can do with this since this would require a great amount of backtraking with my C/C++ skills which I haven’t really used for quite some time.
Programming Languages
The last language I learned is C/C++ because of a Symbian based project I was assigned to for a very short period of time. Since I was removed from the project I haven’t really used it and seemed to have forgotten a lot of stuffs related to it. I had experience with Perl before but I usually used it for writing server admin tools such as log parsers, and notification programs for server monitoring tools. PHP had also been in my arsenal for quite some time now because almost all of the web sites I host are PHP based and oftentimes I need to customize the existing PHP pages to give me the user interface I desire.
I would be going on C/C++ direction from now on. I think this would be very useful if I want to get to know UNIX/Linux kernels that well.
Databases
I’ve been working with Oracle and Sybase with my office work and MySQL with my websites. I do admit that there’s a lot of things that I need to learn about the said database servers, especially in the field of stored procedures and corporate solutions. I may be well versed with SQL queries and stuffs like that, but database administration is not all about SQL queries. There’s more into it for someone who is serious enough to work on serious use of the database.
Well, as I move on with my programming skills improvement or let’s say leveling up, I’m sure I’ll learn a lot about databases along the way since it’s not really good to store application data using text files. You would just get a lot of “Why didn’ you use a database?” questions from fellow IT geeks. 
Windows
Hmm..what can I say about windows??? Well, it’s very expensive, buggy, have a lot of security holes, and makes you dumb by not giving you much control on the OS level, but then again it’s used by a great percentage of PC users.
Oh well, I’ve been playing around with Windows 2003 and I must admit that it really bores me. Almost all your tasks are automated and it provides you with all the user interface you need to get the work done. This is the server OS for server/network administrators who are fond of using UI rather than being hardcore with their jobs, who by the way works for a very rich company that can afford the cost of Windows licences.
Oh well, I may not really be a fan of Windows, but I’m still thinking of learning and trying out the Internet services it offers (Exchange Server, DNS servers, etc.) and maybe compare it with my UNIX/Linux boxes. 
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There are still a lot of things I want to learn.. I want to know.. I want to be the best of… but for now.. I’m starting to get sleepy with all the hard days work .. so I’ll go get some rest and think more about all these stuffs and hopefully put them into action on the days to come.. Ciao!
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