Crazy Or Genius?: Category Work

Moving On

Sean — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:19:00 +0100

So, I recently left my job at v1Labs. There are a number or reasons for my decision to move on, but in the end it boiled down to a feeling. I just didn’t feel that I was where I wanted/was supposed to be at this point in time. While the money WAS good, I am currently debt free and so decided to take a risk and go elsewhere.

‘Elsewhere’, in this circumstance, ended up being Sampling Technologies, Inc., a position I was referred to by my old boss at Satlantic. They are a local startup that does marketing and data presentation for pharmaceutical companies. I think the work they are doing is fairly interesting, and the people here feel… passionate is how I would put it. People are here because they believe in what the company was doing, rather than just putting in the 9-5 and picking up their paycheck.

Right now, I am doing more general IT and the automation of backend tasks, along with some DB work (biggest DB I have worked with by far). The plan is for me to eventually move into more actual development (Java) as more and more background tasks become automated. Sure, I might be starting out at the bottom, but I am fairly confident that I will be able to work my way up.

A month and a half in, and I am not regretting it (though I do miss some of my coworkers from v1 at times). There is a lot of stuff to learn and do, and more importantly, a lot of DIFFERENT things to learn and do. I interact with more than just developers on a regular basis. I actually get to interact with customers. I love interacting with both of them, and at the end of the day I feel like I have solved problems for real people.

The Start Of A New Term

Sean — Mon, 15 May 2006 23:29:31 +0200

So I have been busy lately. That period of time between the end of one term and the start of the next always seems to be the busiest. Finishing up leftover items from the previous term, whether they be papers, projects, or just exams. The learning curve of any new things you have taken on. Any extra curves life throws your way…..

So yeah, I have a new job. Right now I consider myself somewhat ‘freelance’. Not on a strict contract. Not on a LONG contract. Doing some work for a small company downtown doing some work in….... Visual Studio. Geoff Johnston has already said it best with his comment of “I never would have expected to see Sean Smith working in a Microsoft shop”. I can’t even say I am working in .NET, as the code we inherited from another development team (who were fired when we were hired) is written mostly in VB6.

I am learning a lot, while paying the bills, which is a plus at least. Some quick lessons:

VB6 doesn’t really like circular references of objects
Software written without specifications means a lot of things get done, but are either done poorly, or not completed
The Windows APIs are varied in their complexity and in what they can do. For example, I switched several major code blocks to WMI calls already…... except for a few functions which require older calls that were NOT updated to WMI for some reason….... (I never stated I liked writing in VB)
VB6 to .NET does not painlessly migrate (and in fact I haven’t really had a chance to try beyond see 50 critical errors in one module…...). I don’t consider this a bad thing, with some of the VB6 code I have seen so far.

It might not be the best job I have ever had at the moment, but it is somewhat interesting and we shall see how she goes.

Because All Good Things Come To An End......

Sean — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 23:30:43 +0100

Today, I finally worked my last shift at Satlantic. Due to various time considerations, I told my boss I couldn’t realistically do any more work for the rest of this term, due to my erratic schedule. This week I spent cleaning up issues that I had experience with, and basically finished it today. Funnily enough, the last few days I have felt more productive than I have normally been as of late, and I was even the last person to leave the office today.

Ah, Satlantic, I will miss thee. You were definatly one of the most fun jobs I have ever had, and you taught me a lot. May we meet again some day (and don’t forget to call me in the spring).

A License To Bitch

Sean — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:16:00 +0200

As already mentioned I have been working on a project called TigerEvents, which powers the my.dsu.ca website.

This project, written entirely in Ruby On Rails, took 4 part time students 2 months to code a working, publicably usable beta. Pretty sweet, since some of us had other, paying, supposedly full time jobs on the go as well, and all of us had other responsibilities.

The my.dsu.ca website has gotten 102430 requests since Aug 25. Not bad I suppose, but I think we can do better than that.

The main problems? I know it, you know, it’s the visual layout. Sure it sucks. A layout like this is when a graphical artist that is supposed to do work totally flakes out and techies are left in charge. Also high up on that list is usability. Some things work well, some things…...... not so well (hey, it’s beta). So how do we fix this? Well…..... I am hoping that you, the public, the intended audience, the actual, non-involved USERS could give me a hand here. Let me know what you like, let me know what you don’t like, let me know what YOU would like to see.

Go ahead, chew me out, rip it to shreds, praise it, stomp it, love it, hate it. Just give me something I can use.

New Jersey Day 2 - RU COOL?

Sean — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 23:21:00 +0200

Actually at the Rutgers University Coastal Observation Oceanographic Lab Station (also known as the RU COOL Station) today . I found out what the old Leo15 station used to run on. A Sparc 5 workstation. Though considering some of the old computers are old DELL machines, I think the Sparc 5 was probably a fine, fine choice at the time.

Apparently this place used to be an old coast guard station. Its a huge building. I can’t understand why there is no one here. Unless, of course, they all took a day trip to Atlantic City. Ah well, from the looks of things, if there are any hardware problems that will require the hardware team needing to take things offline for several hours that I will at least be able to try my hand at fishing.

If I'm Not Working Or Sleeping, I'm Working

Sean — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:30:00 +0200

Reporter: “Sean Smith, you have just finished correcting 12 semi-critical bugs, what are you going to do now?” Sean: “I’m going to ~~Disney World~~ New Jersey!”

So….... I have just finished a large stint of bug testing and fixing. Some last minute testing turned up a crop of bugs that were semi-critical and required resolution. The more frustrating part was that several of them were hardware problems, not software problems, due to someone blugging in an obviously damaged ethernet cable into the communication bus.

Due to my efforts, my relative familiarity with large sections of code, and the fact that most of the programmers are now on vacation (one on Maternity leave until the 4th, one on Vacation until then, and my supervisor just started a one week vacation so he could spend some time with his family), I was asked if I could possibly go to New Jersey with several other members of the team, to help with the deployment at Rutgers University.

Hmmm…..... let’s see….... I haven’t traveled anywhere besides to Ontario and back since my high school years. If I DIDN’T go, I wouldn’t really be doing much except waiting for bug reports and probably finishing up my work term report. I am supposed to move, but thanks to my compliment of truly amazing friends, I am putting my stuff into storage early and then moving into my apartment when I get back.

So yeah, I am heading down to New Jersey from the 27th to the 2nd. It should be an adventure.

Ask A Question, Get A Response

Sean — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 19:34:00 +0200

Today, I had three questions for my boss:

1) I am moving into a new place around the first of September. Do you mind if I come in late a day or two as a result?

Answer: That’s not a problem. Just remind me when so I know where you are.

2) Google Code Jam is coming up. I would like the chance to participate, but the qualification round is on Monday the 22nd…........

Before I was able to finish, the response was: That’s cool, you can take the day off.

I wasn’t even able to ask the third question before my boss asked his own. “I was wondering if you wanted to continue working part time for Satlantic”. I told him that weekdays would be a problem, in between my full time classes, and society work. This is apparently not a concern of his. He is content having me put in whatever time I have and see fit. I think this is quite awesome, and told him that as soon as he clears the financial details with the budget, get back to me and we can work out details.

Question 3? It was supposed to be ‘What are the odds of me working part time for Satlantic in the Winter’.