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16 <h1 class="centered">Computers</h1>
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22 <h2>Career (brief history)</h2>
24 <p>I have been involved with computers for as long as I can
25 remember. Way back in high school, when computers were just
26 starting to be widely used in business, my interests in math lead me
27 to explore the field of computes. Starting in a class using punched
28 cards and paper tape I was lucky that my high school was one of the
29 few schools that had a class in data processing and access to real
30 computers, though they were miles away we had access via a teletype.</p>
32 <p>I went to college to be a "computer scientist" but is was really
33 just business programming. Still I learned standard COBOL, FORTRAN
34 and Assembler on an old, card munching IBM 360 mainframe. From there
35 I got a job as a computer operator for a small market research firm
36 on an HP/3000 machine. Even though I was an operator I used my
37 programming skills to write a few applications in FORTRAN and
38 learned SPL (System Programming Language) on my own. I did not know
39 it but my involvement in HP equipment and HP itself would continue
42 <p>From there I moved to various business programming positions and
43 started consulting, writing COBOL, View (screen forms package) and
44 Image (database) applications for business on HP systems for some 8
47 <p>In 1987 I moved to California when I got a contract at HP
48 Cupertino itself performing testing. After a while I joined HP as a
49 permenant employee and was soon reorganized into the Language Labs
50 at HP. I was trained and took to HP-UX and within a short time I
51 became the Clearcase and Unix administrator for the entire lab of
52 some 80-120 engineers. I left HP in 1998 after 10 years.</p>
54 <p>Since leaving HP I had contracts as such noname companies in
55 Silicon Valley like Sun and Cisco and then back into HP itself.</p>
57 <p>Then, as everybody knows, the Internet bubble burst and I eventually
58 hooked up with a start up company, Salira Optical Network System, where I
61 <p>Next on tap, with Salira on the verge of bankruptcy I took a
62 contract down in Orange County at Ameriquest Mortgage. LA was nice
63 but my family is up here. After a while at Ameriquest I get a job at
64 LynuxWorks in San Jose. Ah, working on Linux was nice. But soon it
65 was back to contracting for me, now at Broadcom.</p>
67 <p>Please refer to my <a href="/resume">resume</a> for a detailed
68 listing of my work history.</p>
70 <h2><a name="gear"></a>Gear</h2>
72 <p>My site is hosted at my home through an always on
73 DSL connection. It used to run on my <a
74 href="http://microsoft.com/windowsxp">Windows XP</a> box, a 5 year
75 old 450 Mhz machine that's still kicking and provided a lot of
76 service. Being brought up on <span class="standout">Unix</span> I am
77 more comfortable at programming in a <i>Unix mode</i>. As such I
78 have discovered and utilize <a href="http://cygwin.com">Cygwin</a>
79 which is essentially <span class="standout">Linux</span> running
80 under Windows. With it I was able to run my web server (<a
81 href="http://apache.org">Apache</a> running under <a
82 href="http://cygwin.com">Cygwin</a>), mail server (<a
83 href="http://exim.org">Exim</a>), <a
84 href="http://www.proftpd.org">FTP</a> server, provide <a
85 href="http://www.openssh.com">SSH</a> services as well as a very
86 functional development environment using <a
87 href="http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html">Bash</a>, <a
88 href="http://perl.com">Perl</a>, <a
89 href="http://xemacs.org">XEmacs</a>, <a
90 href="http://www.vim.org">vi</a>, etc. That, plus running my XP
91 Desktop, browsing the web (I use <a href="http://netscape.com">Netscape</a>
93 href="http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox">Firefox</a> and <a
94 href="http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird">Thunderbird</a>),
95 image processing, music production (<a
96 href="http://www.steinberg.net/en/index.php">Cubase</a>, <a
97 href="http://www.cakewalk.com/">Cakewalk</a>, Media players and the
98 like), providing my answering machine in a 24/7 environment really
99 has been taxing my poor old 450 Mhz machine!
101 <p>Next I offloaded most services to my <a
102 href="http://www.mandrakesoft.com/">Mandrake 9.1 Linux</a>
103 system. Not that the <span class="standout">Linux</span> box is any
104 more powered - it's a 333 Mhz machine but doesn't seem that bogged
105 down since it's running <span class="standout">Linux</span>. More
106 things will move to <span class="standout">Linux</span> because it
107 just a lot easier to program and much more stable. Still the <span
108 class="standout">Linux</span> box is quite responsive. I'm also
109 starting to use <a href="http://mysql.com">MySQL</a> and am playing
110 with some weblog software from <a
111 href="http://movabletype.org">MovableType</a>.</p>
113 <p>I've also set up <a
114 href="http://gallery.sourceforge.net/">Gallery</a> which is a <a
115 href="http://php.net">PHP</a> web application for managing a <a
116 href="/gallery">photo gallery</a> and, of course, requires that your
117 web server understands <a href="http://php.net">PHP</a>. I've been
118 getting into <a href="http://php.net">PHP</a> lately and have been
119 changing <a href="http://defaria.com/maps">MAPS</a> <a
120 href="http://perl.com">Perl</a> based web pages with <a
121 href="http://php.net">PHP</a> based web pages. For one, since the
122 PHP intepreter is embedded in the <a
123 href="http://httpd.apache.org">Apache web server</a> it's faster -
124 I'd bet that mod_perl would make the <a
125 href="http://perl.com">Perl</a> versions as quick but <a
126 href="http://php.net">PHP</a> is more "web oriented" than <a
127 href="http://perl.com">Perl</a> anyway.</p>
129 <p>Finally I've installed <a
130 href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/authoring/">WebDAV</a> so I can
131 host Mozilla's <i>Remote Calendars</i> from my web site. The goal is
132 to centralize my data, my life, from my house, under my control and
133 be able to provide me with all of my stuff from wherever I am. Also,
135 href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~ejw/authoring/">WebDAV</a> I will be
136 able to use things like Netscape's <i>publish</i> option so that I
137 can even edit my web pages from anywhere.<p>
139 <h2><a name="Dell"></a>New Desktop - Dell Dimension 3000</h2>
141 <p>After suffering for years with my 1998 450 Mhz PC I finally
142 decided to get a new one. I was due! After getting some money from a
143 side contract I purchased a Dell Dimension 3000. This sucker's a 3
144 Ghz Hyperthreaded CPU with 512 Meg Memory. The video card is a
145 little bit better (64 Meg of video memory whereas my old machine had
148 <p>I got just a DVD player because I figured I could transfer my HP
149 9100i CD Writer into this box. I also wanted to transfer the Sound
150 Blaster Live Drive which is a CD spaced "drive" that connects to the
151 sound card and allows you to plug in many things like michrophones,
152 headphone, MIDI keyboards, Optical ins and outs, additional line ins
153 and outs. This is convenient to be able to plug right into the front
154 of the box. Alas, the Dell only has 2 bays so it was either the Live
155 Drive or the CD Writer but not both! I choose the Live Drive at this
158 <p>I also got a voice grade modem hoping that I could finally get a true
159 hands free speakerphone working but the damn modem that Dell uses isn't
160 even TAPI compliant! I tried to move my USB voice modem from the old
161 machine to the new one but was unable to plug it in. So I put this and
162 the CD Writer back into the old machine.</p>
164 <p>I also wanted to go to 24-bit 192 Khz sampling for a sound card.
165 I decided to upgrade to a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. This card also
166 features 5.1/6.1 and 7.1 outputs. I figured I could then play a
167 little bit with making my own surround sound recordings. I also get
168 a new surround sound set of speakers for this card. I hope to
169 eventually meld my PC sound with my Bose Home Theater that I have. I
170 now effectively have 2 home theater systems, one on my PC and one in
171 my living room. Maybe one day the PC will move to the living room
172 and start controlling my entertainment...</p>
174 <p>All in all I'm quite happy with its performance. It is much
175 faster than the old system and it supports standby. My old system
176 supposedly also supported standby but that was on W98. Besides my
177 old PC used to be my whole domain so it couldn't standby. Since
178 services moved to Linux it could standby but on Windows 2000 and
179 later XP it wouldn't standby! Videos play just great, no hesitation,
180 no jerkyness and I can do other things while doing heavy
181 processing. With the DVD drive came WinDVD so now DVDs work. My old
182 system's DVD drive just plain broke.</p>
184 <p>Maybe in the future I will move the Linux box up to the 450 Mhz
185 (i.e. the old XP box) but right now it's still doing just find</p>
187 <h2><a name="Compaq"></a>New server - Compaq Persario 3200+ Althon</h2>
189 <p>Well my poor old server has really be stressing lately. With
190 Gallery and Andromeda as well as handling email and filtering it
191 though MAPS (using Perl and MySQL) the old gal was really starting
192 to drag. But when I went from Andromeda to Jinzora - a much more
193 feature rich web application for maintaining your media collection
194 and streaming it on the net - it was quickly becoming
195 unstable. Often I had to just reboot her because she was swaping so
196 much that she would eventually crash or just go off the net because
197 she was just way to busy - sorta like falling asleep on the job.</p>
199 <p>It's a good thing that system prices have come way down -
200 especially if all you are really looking for is raw speed and don't
201 need to buy all of the added junk like sound cards, Windows XP,
202 gaming capable video adapters and the like. Hell I don't care about
203 that! I'm just gonna be installing Linux on it anyway. Don't need no
204 fancy monitors or speaker systems on this machine - hell I don't
205 even have a monitor on my servers! I just stick them in a closet and
206 access them remotely!</p>
208 <p>For example, this system is 2.2Ghz (Athlon 3200+), has 512 Meg of
209 memory, a 160 Gig drive. Oh it also has a DVD/CD writer combo and
210 even an extra CDROM drive as well as things like connections for
211 headphones and USB ports on the front. I won't be using any of those
212 but hey they came with the box. I may use the DVD Writer though... I
213 believe it had XP Home on it but honestly I never booted it up with
214 XP. Just stuck in the Linux boot CD and went from there. Totally
217 <p>It was an opportunity for me, however, to go from Mandrake 9.1 to
218 a more modern and common Linux Distro - Fedora Core 3 (Yeah I know
219 Core 4 is out). This did, however, entail some confiuguration
220 changes. I had to remember all the config changes I did to the old
221 box and replicate them here. Then I had to move data from the old
222 system to the new, move MySQL DBs, reconfigure applications, install
223 Perl modules, set up various system level services and the like.</p>
225 <p>I also took this opportunity to update some of my web
226 apps. Gallery's now at 2.0 and Jinzora is now 2.2. Moveable Type
227 went up to 3.2. Nicer apps now, more speed, etc. What can I say?</p>
229 <h2><a name="projects"></a>Current Projects</h2>
231 <h3><a href="http://quikiwiki.com">QuikiWiki</a></h3>
233 <p>I wanted to get into and understand Wiki's, which are
234 collaborative web sites or CMS (Content Management Systems), and
235 decided to set up a wiki for Quicken. Plus the name <a
236 href="http://quikiwiki.com">QuikiWiki.com</a> was just too cute to
237 pass up! Plus my <a href="/Quicken">Unofficial Quicken Web Page</a>
238 (noticably absent from the menu on the left) was too stale to be of
239 much use anymore. I don't want this to be too much of time drain on
240 me. Wiki's have the potential of solving that problem because every
241 account member has authorship rights for creating and maintaining
242 the pages. The wiki engine I choose was <a
243 href="http://tikiwiki.org">TikiWiki</a> and it has a ton of features
244 like <a href="http://quikiwiki.com/tiki-forums.php">forums</a>, <a
245 href="http://quikiwiki.com/tiki-list_faqs.php">FAQs</a> and much,
246 much more. Check it out!</p>
248 <p>If you use Quicken then <a
249 href="http://quikiwiki.com/tiki-register.php">sign up now</a> and
250 help us to build the best wiki for Quicken!</p>
254 <p>One of my big projects right now is <a href="/maps">MAPS</a>
255 a <i>Mail Authorization and Permission System</i>. In concept it's
256 pretty simple - all email is considered potentially spam until and
257 unless the sender registers for the privilege of emailing the MAPS
258 user. This dramatically cuts down on spam.</p>
260 <p>I am currently working on porting <a href="/maps">MAPS</a> over
261 to use <a href="http://mysql.com">MySQL</a> database back end and to
262 spruce up the front end so this area is definitely in flux right
265 <p>MAPS is now running on my <span class="standout">Linux</span> box
266 using <a href="http://mysql.com">MySQL</a>. It is pretty functional
267 but not yet ready for prime time.
271 <p>While not a technology project as per se, the old <a
272 href="/Band"><i>Cast of Shadows</i></a> band is working on new
273 material. It's interesting because we've all gotten more into
274 computers so now we are writing new material and passing it around
275 our computers using software as our studio.</p>
277 <p>I started putting together some <a href="http://php.net">PHP</a>
278 code to browse my music collection. While this was an interesting
279 exercise, when looking for some <a href="http://php.net">PHP</a>
280 code to get ID3 tags out of Windows Media Audio files (.wma as I use
281 them more than .mp3 format because they are usually much smaller in
282 size) I came across <a
283 href="http://www.turnstyle.com/andromeda">Andromeda</a> which does a
284 much nicer job than I could do unless I spent a lot of my time doing
285 it. <a href="http://defaria.com/Music">My Music Collection</a> is
288 <h3>Photo Gallery</h3>
290 <p>I've also put a bunch of my photos into a photo <a
291 href="/gallery">gallery</a>. <a
292 href="http://gallery.sourceforge.net/">Gallery</a> is open source
293 software that runs on my web server and uses PHP. As it seems to
294 do a fine job on it's own I'll just use it. Maybe I'll tweak it
299 <p>I've also installed weblogging software from <a
300 href="http://www.movabletype.org/">Movable Type</a>. This package is
301 written in <a href="http://perl.com">Perl</a> and also runs on my
302 Linux web server. Blogging is not only a culture but can be
303 tremendous time sync. As such I have not sunk that much time into it
304 but I have sunk some time into it. There are lots of "plugins" and
305 tweaks for Movable Type and being written in <a
306 href="http://perl.com">Perl</a> the community seems to be encouraged
307 to hack it. Maybe sometime when I get more time. Meantime I've
308 basically used it for a part of Danielle's section of the web site
309 and I also use it to keep track of my work status.</p>
311 <h3>Cascading Style Sheets</h3>
313 <p>Partly due to Movable Type and my MAPS project I started getting
314 into Cascading Style Sheets. They're pretty cool and I'm not an
315 expert but I can get around in them a little bit now.</p>
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