I remember working for DavidM on this web project awhile and Edward Tast and I built these Sun boxes. We got the boxes racked and stacked and DavidM asked whether we had installed the memory and disk drive upgrades he had ordered. Of course, we found tiny little boxes all packed separately and had to go unrack and unstack. It was probably funny after and maybe even during :).

Another memory I have was first building the lab at Linuxcare. We had a weekend to build it and the next Monday HP was coming from France. We spent the weekend assembling it, making it look like a lab. Ned then said it looked too neat. We decided to let Duncan Mackinnon loose on it. Soon it looked much like any other corner of the big room. Funnily enough though, when we powered up all the servers, the lights dimmed in the building.

People will also remember that Linuxcare gave away cars, bug stickers, strange doodads, and a really mighty little CD that could rescue, create, move, copy, ssh. It was one of the more wondrous of little tools that I still use to this day.

I did my duty there in Professional Services too; so I managed to support a number of enterprise clients like IBM, Dell, HP, Sun. We did pretty nice consulting gigs with most of them and for almost 1.5 years I managed the technical relationship with Dell Computers. To this day, I still have Linkedin links to people that I once worked with. The Dell thing was the most fun though.

Then there came the hard times. Layoffs, ruined mergers, more layoffs. In December 2001 I left under a severance package. Then I came back in 2006. It was like I never really learned the lesson that “you can never go back again”. But I also met some amazing people. People like Phil, Simon, DaveR, Kurt, Jeremy, and others. But I think Levanta was star-crossed in its own right. It never knew what it wanted to be and its failure was etched in the stars. You simply cannot live that long without a compelling vision. So I left again in December 2006. It was 5 years later almost to the day of the first severance. I was able to tell Dan Lee there that he should feel honored. He got to sever me twice from the same company in the same month with 5 years inbetween.

So, why all this memory and happenstance? Because Levanta is gone dear reader. I will miss it and what it might have been; but I’ll never miss a whole subset of the cast of characters who thought they were above the laws of space and time. No you were not as it turns out. You made the failure as much as if you drove the car. You simply cannot run the company like its your personal kingdom. Sorry. So, it will be gone and people will wonder whether it was good or bad.

It was neither. Like most cultural and social entities it was a bit of both. Its been almost 9 years of the company either known as Levanta or Linuxcare. I’ll miss one and hardly notice the passing of the other.

Faretheewell.

One other word… Count it as no surprise that I’m so glad to be working where i work these days. I’ve been handed significant new responsibilities and talk is that there will be staff augmentation to full-time roles coming up. My boss has handed me work which will take me into next year by the looks of things. Major new infrastructure and platform projects. Have I said recently that Visa simply rules? Consider it said.

But here’s the real thing for a small workgroup NAS device. You can do it without this stuff. Consider what it is you want. Backups, file sharing, rsync, samba, web? Document and music sharing? How about media sharing using an iTunes server and using web? Firefly media server will do it for the iTunes easily or pretty easily. The following are the tools that went into mikesnas:

• Samba - glue and stuffing for the modern warrior. This thing just rocks and makes things into integrating pieces.
• Rsync - set it up, write a script, find something. Use the force.
• Network aware backups - how about a nice rsync or other backup program? I found backup-manager but I’ve used others that are rsync based too.
• NFS - this is handy and makes sharing files easy.
• Lightweight web - how about lighttpd?
• Firefly Media Server - cool geeky suiteness. it will appear as if by magic in iTunes shares and let my family play with my gigs of mp3 coolness.
• Then there are the under the covers tools like ssh, screen.

But I can hear you saying, “but this all takes time and effort and work. I want a thing that’s all pulled together and integrated”. True. I started with Ubuntu Server 7.10 and selected the LAMP, Mail, and SSH server tasks. Then I did an apt-get like this:

apt-get install samba, nfs-kernel-server backup-manager mt-daapd portmap postfix

but I’m left with all the pieces but they’re not talking well. Its the curse of the self-built NAS appliance maker folks. You have to edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and the others. Most of all you have to “know” what you want and what it takes to get there. I added in almost 2tb of space that I mapped out as XFS drives including a RAID array and 1 tb usb drive which is very well behaved on Linux.

IF you don’t want to learn because learning means reading and it means lost time; try FreeNAS. It will get you close and close is better than being far away. I would say that building a NAS like server is not so easy and not so hard. You get the thrill of doing it yourself; or perhaps the frustration. The downside of finding a ready made is that you will always say, “if I could have done this part, it woulda, could shoulda…”

I foretell you will graduate from the all-in-one solution and build your own.

But, as usual I digress. Since I am a habilis and tool user, I rate things on how well they satisfy my needs and whether the tools presented integrate, offer, and let me build. Habilis like to build using the tools. In some ways, the Linux toolkit seems somewhat adverse to this with the classical “tool for every job” mentality. But that’s changing and it has to. To make Linux adoption happen on the desktop; we cannot tell new users that they must learn how to manage 5000 unique tools and they don’t talk to each other - ever. No, dear readers, we must go and further and do more. New users want to learn; but the path cannot be incomprehensible. Operating systems are judged by the user base and not by the complexity of the tools or the pureness of the message. That’s why I kinda left Debian and went to Ubuntu. I simply love Debian and its community; but I am a tool user. I need fresh tools, new tools. I must learn how they work. Simply put if a tool ceases to be a tool, my mantra is to leave it behind. It may mean I go use Windows XP because it has tools I like or tools I need. There are cool and good applications on them all.

Taking it to the streets; we can all learn from what we choose to use whether its a computer, an idea, a plan. An old friend, RWR, once told me “you have to know where you are and what you are doing”. I always remembered that. Its a great chant when I wonder or am unclear. RWR always knew and I admired, respected, and even loved him for it. He had “presence”. Finally put, have you ever met someone with presence? A person who just knew? He could be equally at home in the desert, a fancy bar or a hotel where we tramped in one evening dirty from the field. The hotel attendant believed we were “scum of da earth” and prepared to eject us. Until RWR presented a corporate AMEX card and charged 5 rooms, food, beer. It was a moment of presence.

I have a feeling though that the crop of open source companies I still see do not have presence at any great level. They seem to still believe the press about themselves. They still chant and sing the song egotistical. Its okay. What you have done will soon pass too.

FreeNAS - this is actually pretty cool and its based on BSD. After an install, you add in some storage, set up some services like NFS, rsync, samba and you have a solution suitable for a variety of operating systems and users. I installed it on an older Pentium 4 Celeron Shuttle PC and then added in my Fantom 1tb USB drive.

OpenFiler - I’m looking at this one currently. Have not decided whether I want to or not. Its a big much of a download and I’m still reading up on it a bit.

NASlite - this one comes in three flavors and it seems to be based on a 2.4 Linux kernel. I think that’s where the main problem comes in for me. It simply will not install on newer hardware like one of my Nforce based AMD64 systems. Too much of a system? Don’t know; but I think they should get a kernel in there that supports what could be considered standard hardware these days. The Newegg AMD64 systems are cheapo these days. I cannot evaluate this one at all and I can’t see having to buy anything more. I should be able to take a piece of existing so-called commodity hardware and make it work.

The drawing point I believe on these solutions over taking a Ubuntu CD and installing it is the integration points. Instead of futzing with all the tools, you get a system that hooks into each service with integrating points. For a smallish workgorup or team server that may not have time to do the installs and configurations, it could be a lifesaver. Linux on its own may cause frustration or angst. The philosophical premise of Linux is that its all separately packaged and to make the pieces talk it takes a bit of work. You have to catch the right files to edit, create the right settings, make the pieces work with the glue.

Instead, I think people want something that integrates and perhaps even innovates for them. Give them standard but make it standard+. Make it work as an “out of box” experience perhaps. It will give them the “P” word. That’s productivity folks. If it does not, people may just naturally gravitate to Microsoft’s SBS offering. Microsoft has the integrating tools down right.

So in the end, you could take a Ubuntu CD and make it work. You could figure out how the packages interact and learn a lot about the glue. It could be an enriching and altering experience. Or you could just find something which already is glued and packaged and meets 90% of the criteria you have. Nothing ever meets 100% BTW. It may not be open source and that’s okay too. You have to find the set and suite of tools which will work. If you want play time, create a nice playground. Here is one more thought for you. Give a try to some appliances using VMWare Player and not real hardware. You can try things, see if it works and not have deployed it on real hardware. VMWare is a great leveler.

Then work came along for me. It came down to me stating to my boss, “give me more to do, this work on building out requirements and planning for new datacenter environments and I’ll do it justice”. I found it difficult to then qualify that and say “but not this week”. Perhaps its my own need to make a statement at work that I provided something of value and a service. I still have about 7 months left on my contract there and I want to stay around. Visa is an interesting place to work and the people seem to like me.

Its not a small company; but I did interview at one about a week ago after they requested it. Let me just say that I am not impressed and I won’t link to them because they don’t need that. Here are my rules for the road when interviewing going forward:

1. If you decide to hire me, great! I’ll be a resource and I’ll be there through thick and thin.
2. If you decide not to decide, great! How about calling me and letting me know? Perhaps its just me, but these techno-recruiters and talent people seem to have no real ethics and principles and we are all but meat on the shelf.
3. If you decide I am not your cup of tea, great! How about a call? Its common decency and its part of communication.

Its funny because I was asked what I thought leadership qualities were for a project manager. I’m used to this question after being asked it a doodlezillion times. We both agreed on the answers. Me and their big guy. But it comes down to communication. And what is communication? Its not one person speaking and the other listening folks. Each person has to have a vested interest in the dialogue. But after agreeing with this, it dawned on me that they have no qualms about violating what they feel is the necessity of a good manager. So, its not me for them. I won’t mention their name or linkage; but here’s a clue. If you get invited to work for an up and coming open source company, run to the hills folks. I’ve been there and done it for years. Its the path of eternal hell and damnation but it sounds so good that you anticipate the trip. Tip to the grand communicator there. Practice what you preach; bub.

I’ll go chew my gum and stick it on another bedpost, ok?

I think everyone can re-invent themselves, their weblogs, etc. The main thing I see with services that track a weblog is that the author is not tied to that one domain, that one service, that one provider. We need universal blogs as well as email and other services. I think that rssHugger may provide that.

I send email to support@ and ask them a thing. They respond with something not even close to what I asked and then they tell me if I send a response it goes to the bottom of the support queue. I say… What? But my ticket was open earlier. I ask to close the account. They send me 5 emails asking for the same information but under different help desk queue items. No wonder they are all screwed up. Advice for LunarPages — Hire someone that understands support! You are judged by the support you give. How do I know? Because that is what I’ve built for a large financial institution.  At the end of it all you are not only judged by the great technical service offering; but people will resonate (or not) on how you treat them. LunarPages simply does not treat people any which way.

Multiple gigs of storage space does not make up for wishy washy service and Site5 was actually better. I don’t have really bad things to say about them.  I think they all over-sell, over-hype, and over-promote.

On to the one I have chosen which is a small piece of citrus fruit. They don’t give you multiple tb’s of disk space; but they also don’t cut any support corners. They offer a service and a delivery. My approach has been now to create two web pages including my primary blog and a fun site here that will be my stopping place. My goal is to centralize email and services at a single place. Email is gmail.  They even rhyme. Web services I got tired of providing for myself. It does not work for me to have things scattered to Yahoo, Hotmail, my mail. Bring it all together. I also chose OSA for their integration offerings. Email, parked domains, forwarding are all bread and butter of hosting companies. But I want one that actually values me and I am not only known as the recipient of numerous different support emails that when I respond go to the very bottom.

LunarPages, my advice for you is to smarten up. Learn something from the legions of people I bet that are leaving. They want more; or perhaps even less. But do some customer service along with your technical service.

Blog Listings

I have about 4 different email accounts. They’re scattered to Yahoo, Hotmail, various domains. I want a email presence like a web presence though. It should be the same but able to deal with change. Ideally, I want a hosted environment where I can add, subtract, and even adopt more. A hosting solution provider would appear to represent the best. You can park domains, add those domains perhaps at register.com or godaddy or wherever. Then write email addresses for the parked domains. Each cPanel allows one to park domains. Think of a parked domain as one that has long-term parking enabled but you can still move the car around, make it turn its lights on. Change its status. I’ve been to a few hosting providers in search of the grail. I’ve found one that I think works and the price is decent and I like their minimal approach. But here is the list of features I think you will want:

• You want a central email address that will be yours no matter what. ISPs can come and go. Their domains may crash and burn. Have a place over and above that still lives. Data centers call this redundancy. Lets call it human redundancy.
• You want to have a central place that will collect email. Pick a place you can reach, that provides rules and filters, multiple identities and allows a measure of freedom. Hint: This is gmail for me. Gmail offers that freedom.
• Analyze how you want to use gmail. Do you want a single point of focus for the many places you have out there? Learn how to write forwarding rules. As an example, on my FreeBSD hosted ISP shell system, I need to learn the glories of procmail if I really want things good. If not, I can use a .forward file. On a cPanel hosted site, I have a set of tools. The tools can create email addresses from the many parked domains. Create forwarding rulesets. Allow me a flexible point of presence on the wild and wooly ‘net.
• Finally, understand the limitations and uses of what you are aiming toward. You want a single identity; but its flexible. It can be added to and subtracted from; but email can always reach you there.

For me, these forces and factors coalesce to gmail. Gmail is grand and glorious and not fully baked.  Google tells me its still beta. Yet it far outshines whatever it is that Yahoo! mail brings to me. It does IMAP. IMAP is the grail also folks. It lets you see and share the mail. The use of the hosting solutions provider is not to provide IMAP but instead to provide a focus point that you can reach independently. The goal is a centralized ‘net identity for work, play, research.

You can get there too. Chart out the many places you use on the internet. Web, mail, webmail. They can be brought together. For me, its gmail. For you, it may be a Linux virtual slice from a slicehost or someone.

Finally, go play. Find the force and let your skywalker revel in it. But be aware that the force is malleable and changeable. Adopt and adapt. Be good habilis.