I've migrated away from using windows since last year as a result of the poor reviews of Vista and it's high associated cost. Considering that you need a rather beefy system and the OS is quite a hog, I decided to jump boat and go with Linux as my main OS.
The translation has been largely painless and I am, for the most part happy with the OS. There are, however some draw backs for the specific version I am using. The 64 bit version of Ubuntu still has some significant bugs compared to the 32 bit version.
Though word on the net is that the 64 bit version is as stable as the 32 bit version there are some kinks with the system that does annoy me. One of them is the slow file transfers. I am currently relocating many of my media files to a dedicated media HD. For large file transfers (42 GB) I have found that transfer rates are quite slow, running at 5.6 MB/sec. The system I use has 2x SATA 500 GB hard drives, each should be able to sustain about 60 MB/sec of read and write operations. Getting only 1/12 of the transfer performance is quite painful, especially when it comes to having to wait 2 hours for the transfer to complete.
The other problem with the 64 bit version is that Java support isn't as solid compared to the 32 bit OS. The problem often leads me to restart my browser from time to time when the web applications I use stop working.
The advantage of having a 64 bit operating system is being able to address significantly more memory than a 32 bit operating system, which is limited to only 4 GB of ram. I am currently running at 4 GB of ram and have no plans in the near future to increase my memory pool. I don't even break 2 GB of used memory quite often.
Though I have to say that Ubuntu is quite solid when it comes to performance and user experience, I would go contrarty to what people are saying on the net that the 64 bit version is OK and stick with the 32 bit version. For the most part, you won't run into problems, but there will be times when you will want to back up your data and some of these bugs will irritate you.
With the prices of 1 TB hard drives dropping incredibly fast in Japan, I am seriously looking to pick up another drive and have the computer automatically back up important files on a regular basis.
Should the price of hard drives drop further, I would consider setting up a dedicated raid array for the OS (Raid 0) to improve OS performance and setup a secondary raid array for data redundancy.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Revolutionary ideas never come from managers
Be forewarned that my quality of writing and my ability to summarize ideas has gone to the shitter as of late. I haven't been doing much writing of late, nor have I had much time to really think my thoughts through as of recent. The other thing is that there aren't a whole lot of people in my current surroundings that I can have a in depth conversation which is usually a great way for me to really hash out my ideas... but anyways... with my excuses aside. I'll just try my best to hobble through this...
Managers lacking ideas
Revolutionary ideas or products never come from the management level. Think of every revolutionary product or service that was brought into existence. The company that was formed around those ideas generally consists of 2 kids working in a garage working together to realize a dream. Something beautiful, something they would love... and in turn something that everyone would also love.
It's as simple as that.
Managers don't have ideas... they're actually disparate for them
Being so far removed from the real work and managing people, managers are the least likely people to understand the fine details when it comes to something like, say, hardware. They don't touch the stuff anymore, nor do they see the stuff in action.
I've known managers really do is set lofty project goals. For instance, say, let's double the memory density of some chips within the next year... but how we are going to do it? Well that's everyone else's job.
This is how I've seen our project managed so far. Let's make bigger, or smaller, or brighter or faster. We want this done by next year, now get to work.
We have no idea if this is realistic and the grunts like myself are often flung of into some wild goose chase to put something together to appease the managers. It's pretty much as simple as that... it also sort of appalling. Is this honestly the best that they can do!? That is the wrong way of running a project, especially if you want to make something new.
Knowing what you want to build and knowing how to do it
With enough knowledge and skill you'll know the limitations of what you're doing and what you need to do to get the desired outcome. The most successful projects I've seen are run by people with the right kinds of technical ability to pull things off with the right group of people. They know what they want to put together and how they're going to do it and they don't need damn long meetings to report to "higher ups".
Anyways... I am going to give up for today with the writing.. it's frankly shit and I can't summarize anything well. There is actually, a lot of things that I want to say and there are a lot of connections that I want to make.. but I just can't seem to organize my thoughts or have the flow down right.
Practice, practice, practice... I guess...
Critical thinking skills do go dull if you stop using them. I've put my brain on hiatus for too long. Gotta resharpen my mind...
Managers lacking ideas
Revolutionary ideas or products never come from the management level. Think of every revolutionary product or service that was brought into existence. The company that was formed around those ideas generally consists of 2 kids working in a garage working together to realize a dream. Something beautiful, something they would love... and in turn something that everyone would also love.
It's as simple as that.
Managers don't have ideas... they're actually disparate for them
Being so far removed from the real work and managing people, managers are the least likely people to understand the fine details when it comes to something like, say, hardware. They don't touch the stuff anymore, nor do they see the stuff in action.
I've known managers really do is set lofty project goals. For instance, say, let's double the memory density of some chips within the next year... but how we are going to do it? Well that's everyone else's job.
This is how I've seen our project managed so far. Let's make bigger, or smaller, or brighter or faster. We want this done by next year, now get to work.
We have no idea if this is realistic and the grunts like myself are often flung of into some wild goose chase to put something together to appease the managers. It's pretty much as simple as that... it also sort of appalling. Is this honestly the best that they can do!? That is the wrong way of running a project, especially if you want to make something new.
Knowing what you want to build and knowing how to do it
With enough knowledge and skill you'll know the limitations of what you're doing and what you need to do to get the desired outcome. The most successful projects I've seen are run by people with the right kinds of technical ability to pull things off with the right group of people. They know what they want to put together and how they're going to do it and they don't need damn long meetings to report to "higher ups".
Anyways... I am going to give up for today with the writing.. it's frankly shit and I can't summarize anything well. There is actually, a lot of things that I want to say and there are a lot of connections that I want to make.. but I just can't seem to organize my thoughts or have the flow down right.
Practice, practice, practice... I guess...
Critical thinking skills do go dull if you stop using them. I've put my brain on hiatus for too long. Gotta resharpen my mind...
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Managers and meetings
I don't know what exactly everyone did to become a manager at where I work, some people did some pretty good work and then got noticed, others were just was around long enough to get a decent idea of everything that is going on to eventually get pushed into a managerial position.
But skill and seniority aside, if there is one thing that will make or break a project, it's the managers. I'd have to say that the less involved the managers are, the better the project is off.
I have yet to meet a really good manager; the kind that knows have to motivate a team, that knows how to set realistic goals and then provide the support to help the team achieve those objectives in a timely manner. If I would define the role of a manager, it would be exactly that.
What I have seen so far in terms of management in a large corporations, is that managers are the people that schedule meetings to have everyone report in on exactly what they are doing... so they themselves report to people further up the food chain on what is going on. Middle managers, generally tend to do very little work and don't seem to have the expert skills that the "grunts" have when it comes to getting the work done.
The other thing I have noticed about managers is that they are rather detached from the rest of the team... in the sense that they are not generally spending long periods of time working with the team to have a good sense of what is really going on. If there is one thing for certain, it is that a lot of information gets filtered out in meetings, because of time constraints and the other is to make oneself look good (ie. filter out all the experiments that went wrong and then present the stuff that went well... or even present a few bad things and a few good things and then tell the manager that you need more time to look into things). Attending meetings is more about knowing how to present than getting the work done it self... because it is the only thing that these managers really see.
I should also point out that there is a big difference in a person's ability to present and their ability to get something up and running. Eventually, what you might find for a large comany is that most of the managers are the kinds of people that are good at doing the talk... but when it comes to doing the walk.. it is an entirely different matter.
In essense, people that are just good at talking are *terrible* to be put into a desicion making position.
Managers and meetings
The biggest real-life role I've seen so far with managers is that they are meeting chairmen and I think that's pretty much the only real work that they do... and I would argue against the notion that they do any sort of real work.
For the most part, I've only seen managers setting up agendas and getting people to talk... trying to glean information out of everyone to try and make project level decisions. This is, of course, coming from a person that isn't involved with the project at it's most intimate levels and with visibility limited to what is presented to them.
How is one supposed to make good decisions based on a 2~3 hour discussion involving 5~6 people doing a shit load of work? I would argue that they can't and this is where most projects fail.
But skill and seniority aside, if there is one thing that will make or break a project, it's the managers. I'd have to say that the less involved the managers are, the better the project is off.
I have yet to meet a really good manager; the kind that knows have to motivate a team, that knows how to set realistic goals and then provide the support to help the team achieve those objectives in a timely manner. If I would define the role of a manager, it would be exactly that.
What I have seen so far in terms of management in a large corporations, is that managers are the people that schedule meetings to have everyone report in on exactly what they are doing... so they themselves report to people further up the food chain on what is going on. Middle managers, generally tend to do very little work and don't seem to have the expert skills that the "grunts" have when it comes to getting the work done.
The other thing I have noticed about managers is that they are rather detached from the rest of the team... in the sense that they are not generally spending long periods of time working with the team to have a good sense of what is really going on. If there is one thing for certain, it is that a lot of information gets filtered out in meetings, because of time constraints and the other is to make oneself look good (ie. filter out all the experiments that went wrong and then present the stuff that went well... or even present a few bad things and a few good things and then tell the manager that you need more time to look into things). Attending meetings is more about knowing how to present than getting the work done it self... because it is the only thing that these managers really see.
I should also point out that there is a big difference in a person's ability to present and their ability to get something up and running. Eventually, what you might find for a large comany is that most of the managers are the kinds of people that are good at doing the talk... but when it comes to doing the walk.. it is an entirely different matter.
In essense, people that are just good at talking are *terrible* to be put into a desicion making position.
Managers and meetings
The biggest real-life role I've seen so far with managers is that they are meeting chairmen and I think that's pretty much the only real work that they do... and I would argue against the notion that they do any sort of real work.
For the most part, I've only seen managers setting up agendas and getting people to talk... trying to glean information out of everyone to try and make project level decisions. This is, of course, coming from a person that isn't involved with the project at it's most intimate levels and with visibility limited to what is presented to them.
How is one supposed to make good decisions based on a 2~3 hour discussion involving 5~6 people doing a shit load of work? I would argue that they can't and this is where most projects fail.
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