Dave's Blog

Sunday, 29 July, 2001 10:57:19 PM

Let your imagination guide you, and guide your imagination.  When I 
was a student at USF, I took a class in entrepreneurship.  At that 
time, I was invited to fulfill my vision of becoming a consultant.  
It took a year for the groundwork I had laid to come to fruition, and 
in the meanwhile I pursued avenues other than my primary path.  
I took employment where I found it, but I maintained a focus on 
improving my computer-related skills and consulting skills.  There 
were years when my "job-shopping" tended to reduce my self image from 
consultant to temporary employee.  Now I teach, and the tax codes 
indicate I am once again not a consultant.  Through all the potential 
confusion, the vision of consulting has shaped my career.  
Consequently, I have had a career, not just a string of jobs.  

This year several students seemed afraid that they would not be 
able to launch their new careers in the face of the dot-com 
shakeout and the economic downturn.  Some of them imagined returning 
to their previous careers; others thought of taking jobs at 
below-market wages.  Market wages are determined "after the fact" by 
surveys of past behavior, and are subject to negotiation.  I 
encouraged the students to think the best of themselves and their 
newly acquired skill sets, and to negotiate for the best they could 
imagine.  As one student wrote on a card, "You made us believe we 
could do it."  Subsequently, two of the students who at first 
expressed the most doubt have reported that they were hired in their 
new field.  I know it was not my belief, but theirs, that earned them 
their job offers.  

Your imagination can work for you or against you.  Imagine the best, 
and you will achieve the best.  


Tuesday, July 24, 2001 3:18:00 AM

Why are none of the jobs in which you are interested ever published 
in the want ads?  On July 1st I found several articles that described 
a hidden job market, one that never gets to the daily newspapers.  
Now I have found that even the job market that we have expected to 
appear in the newspapers is being pre-empted by advertsing in the 
very medium we are dedicated to develop and maintain.  Jennifer Gill 
explains it in "Now Hiring, Apply Online," in the July 18 Business 
Week.  It appears that companies who benefit from computerized 
business are turning to computerized hiring and screening as well.  
She cites a recent poll by the Recruiters Network, which found that 
78% of recruiters and HR types found the internet to be their most 
effective search medium.  

Patricia Lindsey, at the San Francisco State University downtown 
center, has identified a number of on-line sources that have grown 
into enough technical savvy to fill this role.  Her picks of the day 
are:  

	techies.com
	ugu.com
	BrassRing.com
	Hire.com
	headhunter.net
	BayLISA.org
	monster.com
	hotjobs.com 


Monday, July 23, 2001 8:28:13 PM

The expert is the person who's interested in the subject.  Think for 
a moment about the successful people you've known.  One friend of 
mine, Nick Jourin, was a railroad engineer before he came to 
California.  He was a UNIX hobbyist, built his own UNIX systems at 
home, and took an on-line quiz just to see how well he would do.  
The next thing he knew, a consulting company was calling him to see 
whether they could attract him into UNIX contracting.  His first 
contract in California was in technical support for a major 
manufacturer, and he's still doing well as a consultant.  

Another friend, William Watson, is a concert pianist.  Recently he 
was asked, on no notice, to play at a church service.  Rather than 
balking, he happily bounced up to the piano and began playing 
without a rehearsal, from the sheet music, with professional 
flourish.  I could tell just by listening to his light-hearted style 
and by looking at the smile on his face, that he loved to play!  

Two other friends, both boys, have told me all the details of the 
games they play.  Dodson has told me every detail of every character 
in Pokemon, and Tesla has told me every detail of a very complex 
computer/video game.  To me the games are so much trivia, but to 
them the games are absorbing interests, in which they know every 
rule and strategy.  

In which subjects did you excel in school?  I'll bet they were the 
subjects in which you took an interest.  Take another look, this time 
at the subjects in which you had no interest.  Did you do well?  
Probably not.  So if you are interested in a topic, then it doesn't 
matter whether you expect a high financial reward.  You'll just learn 
it because you like it.  If you aren't interested in the topic, then 
no amount of reward can make you interested.  If you're interested 
in UNIX programming or system administration, then you will naturally 
become an expert at it, and the rewards will come to you effortlessly.  


Friday, July 20, 2001 10:52:45 AM

Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 07:45:13 -0700
From: An Alumna
Subject: quickie unix ?
To: qkstart@ix.netcom.com

Hi David,
Is there any “program” for Unix or Linux that has graphics programs? 
Something that can make entries in excel type sheets into pie charts, 
or graphs? 

Just curious!


From: "David Dull" 
To: Alumnae and Alumni
Subject: Re: quickie unix ?
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 10:01:14 -0700

Dear Alum, 
I used http://www.freebsd.org/ports/graphics.html as the starting 
point for my research on this. Candidates include gdchart, gnuplot, 
jgraph, opendx, p5-chart, plotutils, ppmcaption, xplot, and others. I 
have only seen people experimenting with gnuplot. It's also available 
for Solaris through http://www.sunfreeware.com as an installable 
package. Since Excel has plotting capabilities, StarOffice does, too; 
see http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/5.2/faq.html for 
hints about that. This project is now OpenOffice. I haven't begun 
to look at commercial applications, which can be found through sites 
such as http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/software_bycat.html and 
http://solutions.sun.com if you're interested. 

Ciao! 
-- David Dull


Monday, July 02, 2001 11:58:53 PM

SCCS is your friend!  OK, RCS if you are working with a Bezerkely 
UNIX system.  SCCS, the Source Code Control System, and RCS, the 
Revision Control System, have long been maligned as inferior and 
incomplete implementations of revision control.  Production-grade 
equivalents include the free CVS and the commercial ClearCase.  But 
why rely only on the version control that is required by company 
policy?  There are controls on that!  Think about it.  You only want 
to make an update to the company version archive when you have code 
that is far enough along to undergo the scrutiny of the QA department.  
Your personal files may (or may not ;-) be faithfully backed up by 
the system administrators, but are you always able to request a file 
restore and get same-day service?  And wasn't the version of the file 
they pulled off the tapes a little older than the one you wanted?  
Losing your personal project code is an unsettling, and sometimes 
unhealthy, surprise.  So take a few minutes to learn how to use the 
stock version control system on your operating system.  Whenever you 
feel that rush of satisfaction, take it as your body reminding you to 
make a backup.  Then, if you need to revert to an earlier version of 
your work, you won't have to justify it to a release manager, and you 
will be able to capture a finer picture of what you actually 
accomplished today.  And with a personal stash of the files you're 
currently editing, accidental wipe-outs can be fixed in under a 
minute!  

The classic tome on the subject is 
Bolinger, Dan, & Tan Bronson.  Applying RCS and SCCS.
Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly, 1995.   


Sunday, July 01, 2001 11:00:13 PM

From: An Alumna
To: qkstart@ix.netcom.com
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2001 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: super

> Hi, David.
>
> Thank you very much for all the useful info.
> I really appreciate it. 
>
> It seems to me that the Silicon Valley job market is only for those who
> have knowledge and experience like yours. So many people around me have been
> laid off, and I haven't heard of any of them finding a job.
> What would you say is the best way to go about surviving this downturn?  Is
> the best way to keep studying?
>

From: "David Dull" 
To:  An Alumna
Subject: Re: super
Date: Sun, 1 Jul 2001 22:58:37 -0700

Dear Alumna, 

I think we are in a period that is no different than the pause in 
business growth that happened ten years ago.  I read an article 
from the June 3rd SF Gate, by Carolyn Said, that indicated the number 
of employed persons in high tech has increased this year, in spite 
of all the layoffs that were covered by the press.  I have heard of 
the formation of new companies, even while the press has been 
complaining about bad business conditions.  Three weeks ago a 
recruiter from RHI told the current class that the high-tech job 
market is growing again in San Francisco, and that it is already 
booming in Santa Clara County.

As long as you are in a position that you call "not having a job," 
you really do have a job:  to find your next one.  That is a skill 
that is useful in every market, whether it is going up or down.

I found some tips for job hunters, disguised as tips for contractors.
Contractors are looking for jobs all the time, so they have an 
interesting perspective on the business climate, but they are tips 
that anyone can follow:


Networking for Techies


Working the System to Your Advantage


Secrets of Successful IT Contractors

Sincerely,
-- David Dull

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