HYPERAXE

I’ve been receiving a lot of job offerings in the past few months, which are mostly consultancy jobs or senior positions. Just this morning, I received a call for another consultancy job for a foreign company, but I turned down the offer since I’ll start working for a new company next week. I really don’t have the interest for now to get an 8AM-5PM office job and besides, I just couldn’t back out from my new company.

But then a very interesting offer came this afternoon during a meeting I attended for some consultancy work for a friend. The owners of the company offered me a position as some sort of an intellectual/technology partner, or the way I understood things a board member as it seems. It was really a surprise for me, since this is really something big. This time around, I would not only be a simple consultant but more of one of the higher ups of the company. I’m still not sure of the details of the offer since we are all in a hurry to attend to some other engagements we have for the day. Nevertheless, a lot of things started running in my mind regarding what happened. I started thinking of how in the world would such offer come into someone like me. I must admit that I’ve come a long way with my career but to have the chance to engage in something like this is really something I’ve never expected to happen any time soon.

Good thing though if this position would push through is that aside from my current work at home job that would be starting next week, I’ll get another job that would be very flexible with regards to my time. As far as our discussion went, they are willing to adopt to whatever time I have and they are taking into consideration my work at home job. Moreover, earlier in the discussion, I mentioned to them that if an instance came wherein they want me to work on something really hard-core with a tight deadline, I would only need 3 things, an internet connection, coffee, and a pack of cigarettes. It was then that after they had offered me the position, someone commented that I shouldn’t worry about the office they’ll be giving me, since they’ll make sure that I can smoke in the room and coffee all you want would be available. Well, this is really cool! I’m not really concerned about the chance to smoke while working, since I’m really planning to quit really soon, but knowing that they are willing to do things just to please me, is really a good start for a business relationship.

We’ll see, if this would materialize in the next days or so, but if things would go on well with our discussions, then I plan to take the offer.

When I started using the GMail service of Google Apps for my domain, I started experiencing this problem wherein if I already downloaded my emails to one POP Client (e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.), I am not able to download those messages again to another POP client. This is the case even if I enable the options to “Leave Messages On Server” for my POP clients.

Well, while trying to find a solution, I temporarily enabled mail forwarding on my GMail account to an account I created in one of my mail servers. This way, I could just use my POP mail server to download my emails from different clients and then use GMail’s SMTP server for sending out emails. This is really not an ideal solution, but it’s better than having to enable POP for all mails each time I want to download my mails from another client and then delete duplicate mails.

It was during the weekend wherein I tried to check-out GMail’s Help pages (which I should have done in the first place) since I think that it would really be unlikely for GMail not to have a solution for multiple POP clients access. There it was, I found a solution here.

Basically, you just have to change your username from:

username@domain (e.g. webmaster@somedomain.com)

to

recent:username@domain (e.g. webmaster@somedomain.com)

This change would then allow you to download mails to any POP client, even if it was recently downloaded from other POP clients. Moreover, only mails that are in your Inbox for the last 30 days would be downloaded. This was really a relief for me since I won’t need another mail server just to support multiple POP clients.

See! I’m right to think that Google wouldn’t really ignore or forget about this kind of feature.

[tags]GMail, POP, POP Mail, POP Clients, Email Forwarding, GMail Help, Mail Servers[/tags]

Just last week, I finally decided to make use of Google Apps for one of my personal domains. I’ve been hosting the said domain in my own VPS, which includes the email services and web services. It has been working pretty well, and I have no problems of some sort. It’s just that since I’m planning to use my VPS for lots of development stuffs some time next month, I’m afraid that the services on the said domain might be affected just in case I would need to re-configure my server or decide to re-install everything. This is not really acceptable for now since most of my personal stuffs, especially important emails goes into this domain, and this goes the same with other people making use of my personal domain.

So there it is, my personal domain is now configured for Google Apps. It’s pretty cool actually, since a lot of services are packaged in the standard edition, namely:

I have no plans of subscribing to the premium edition since I don’t really think it’s worth it if I’m just going to use Google Apps for my personal interests. I’m very much contented with the standard edition offerings.

Of all the applications, I really find the Calendar functionalities cool. Aside from the cool interface and being able to share my schedules with other members of my personal domain, I get to be notified with important events through SMS for FREE. This is really very useful especially if I want to be reminded of birthdays, meetings, TV schedules, etc. The GMail app is also useful, since I won’t need to worry about maintaing my own email server and setting up all those anti-spam and anti-virus software on it, and as I’ve said earlier even if I mess up my VPS, my personal emails won’t be affected.

Aphilo, really likes being able to import her contacts from her Yahoo Mail into her Google Apps GMail account. Moreover, the Docs and Spreadsheets and Calendar applications would be very useful for her since she oftentimes needs her office work and schedules even while on the go. At least this time she’ll have an online storage of her documents and also a way to share the documents or schedules online with her colleagues or even allow them to collaborate with them.

Well, I think Google really made a good online offering here, and I’m really looking forward for more useful applications that would be bundled with Google Apps.

[tags]Google Apps, Online Calendar, GMail, Domain, SMS notifications, Yahoo Mail, Import Online Contacts, Email Services, Web Services, Google[/tags]

I stumbled upon this blog and was stunned by this line:

“I found myself working with ‘day coders’, people with no passion, people that knew how to program and had learned how to do so simply because the money looked good.”

For several years of my career, this had been very true to me. I just couldn’t see the same passion I have for programming and computers in most of the people I’ve worked with. It’s just so likely that they are more concerned of how much they are earning (and maybe how to spend it as well) rather than how much they really know. I think I’ve seen it all, programmers that are like puppets of the company that only does what they are asked to do as long as they are getting their paycheck, server administrators who call themselves “administrators” when in fact all they know is setting up a linux/windows box or basic knowledge of networking or server commands, but doesn’t have the slightest idea of how an email server or DNS server works, and team leads who are more concerned of how to impress management or meeting deadlines to the point of forgetting that like their team, they too have a lot to learn and the greater responsibility upon them is not for themselves but for their team.

Seldom do I encounter someone I can truly call a “hard core programmer”. Yup that’s the term I use for a programmer that continuously improves on his skills and knowledge (I guess that term is influenced by my background as a heavy metal lead guitarist for a couple of bands during my younger years). When I meet this kind of programmer, I get excited knowing that I can finally have an intellectual conversation with someone, and also another challenge for me to level myself with his expertise. It’s not that I’m trying to compete, but I just want to know what he knows and also try to learn what we both don’t know. It’s as simple as that.

What I usually hear from ‘day coders’ is that they are too busy with work to learn new things or create mini-projects, or there’s really no point on learning new technologies right now since it’s not being used by the company, or better yet they already think they are already good enough, when in fact they haven’t even touched the core surface of the programming language they have been working for in years. I even know programmers working for more than 3 years, and still doesn’t understand thread behaviors or even how to create one, or doesn’t thoroughly understand DB connectivity. I must admit though that living in a 3rd world country would somehow make you prioritize your financial over anything else. I can understand this, but it’s still not an excuse for you not to spend some time to improve yourself. Besides, if you have a lot of competence to back up your application for a new job, your price becomes higher as well. Trust me on this, I have personal experience on how impressed companies are when you know more than their expectations.

This is not to start a discussion or debate of some sort. I am just one of those that believes in what real programmers should be. We are not here to solely earn money, or to be controlled by the companies we work for. Programming is supposed to be fun, and in having fun we get to be more creative, our drive to learn new technologies would be more enjoyable, and our love for what we do is never lost. Companies should understand this but most of the companies I know are more concerned of making money than helping their programmers improve. For me it’s not really trying to master everything, but trying to learn something new each day or even every week makes a big difference. In my case, I usually spend 2-3 hours a day trying to learn new stuffs because I’m having fun with what I do and in its sole simplicity..”I want to learn more!”.

I think it’s just a matter of reality check. Let me leave you with this question, “For the n years that I’ve been working, how much do I really know?”. You can then see if you are a “day coder” or a “hard core programmer”.

I was just a few days short to 6 months with my current employer, when I decided to resign.

My resignation was not due to any negative things about the management or my team but rather it’s because of a very tempting offer from another company. My managers and my team were devastated when I submitted my resignation. Even my friends from other teams and department were saddened by the news. Everyone seems to be surprised due to my sudden decision to leave the company. I also felt sad about leaving, since I’m really having fun with my work. Even the managers are fun to be with and they are really very supportive of the team. They even joke around with us, and the same time does their management job pretty well, that our team are not stressed out and able to bring out our full potential for the project we are working on. Moreover, I’m also giving up my corporate career wherein I am already being groomed for a managerial position. As far as I can tell, it won’t be that long until I get promoted to the management team and my boss and our director had been honest to me about this. My direct manager tried so hard to change my decision of leaving the company and also mentioned that I wold be a big loss to the team and the project. Still, this is a sacrifice I have to make for the people and the things that matters to me the most.

It was not really all about the money that made up my mind to resign from my current job, but it’s more of the work condition. Well, for the salary it’s just a bonus I guess but a great bonus as I may say since I would be receiving my salary in US Dollars and it’s really far more greater than what I am currently receiving. The main reason though of my decision is the fact that I would be able to have more control of my time. My new job is a telecommuting job, or in other words “work at home”, and it would only require me to work 35 hours per week. Moreover, I have total control of my time since I can work at any time I want, as long as I complete the number of hours required of me.

The first thing that came to my mind when I was offered the job, was the quality time I would be able to spend with my family and the flexibility it provides. I started thinking that it would be something new for me since I won’t be tied up with an 8AM-5PM job anymore, and I could work where and when I am most comfortable with. Just thinking that I can work at home, at the mall, or at my favorite coffee shop anytime I want really excites me. I started thinking of the freedom I can get with such condition. I could easily just enjoy the sun, and when everything and everyone’s quite at night, I can start working then. Isn’t that cool!?!

Well, it’s really something new for me and I know there are a lot of risks that this new job entails wherein job security is on top of the list. Then again, I don’t think that I would be at loss when this doesn’t work out since I believe that with my current credentials, it won’t be that hard to find a new job. So I guess, the benefits I can get with my new job would be greater than the risks, and that’s the bottom line.

This is my small story of making Filipinos proud and somehow let others know that we Filipinos are great in our own ways.

There was this little project that a company in the US posted in a website where programmers around the world can work on. I decided to take on this little project, since I just thought maybe it’s about time I start programming java again so as not to get that rusty after around 5 months of not developing anything major in Java. The project concerns web services wherein you should create a library that would be used by any java client (PC or mobile) to connect. SOAP and JAX-RPC should also be used as the communication protocol between the client and the server side. Whew! Sounds quite complicated ei? But it was fairly simple, if you really know what you’re doing.

There were 8 of us who worked on the project, which came from different parts of the world. The team was composed of programmers from China, India, US, and Europe. I never really know at first that it was some sort of a competition on getting a full time job for the company. I just tried it out since I got nothing to lose anyway.

The first round was a bit easy, since it’s more or less just socket programming of some sort. The manager judged the project by how cleanly the code was done and how it conforms to Java coding standards and best practices. Sad to say, I only ended up second place and one person from India got the top place in the first round. It was good though that the top 2 of the first round (which includes yours truly), were asked to move on to the second round. The second round was fairly easy, but a twist was introduced in the middle of the round. The twist was that a certain Java library or API library isn’t available on a certain device so we have to find a way to still make it work. Well to make the long story short, I managed to make it work, and my competitor from India somehow had some problems keeping up with the requirements. So I was victorious on the second round and alone I moved to the third and final round. The third round was on integrating the codes we’ve done so far with an existing system and as much as possible this integration should be hidden from the client side through the use of interfaces and the web services. It wasn’t that hard but the only problem I had was some sort of miscommunication as to how each interface should work with each other since the requirements at the beginning of the round are a bit vague. Nevertheless, I pulled it off and ended up the winner. I was then surprised to be offered the full time position, and looking at the profile of the company they really just do hire top-notch programmers and it felt good that I was considered as one.

I guess this only proves that even though Filipinos are in the 3rd world country, we are still 1st class professionals in the IT world. Mabuhay!!!