Saturday evening I was cruising around the streets of Fleet in a little Japanese car thing (I don't think it was a Suzuki or a Hyundai... something like that though). It was the first time I've been behind the wheel of a car in well over three years. I was surprised just how odd it did feel. It didn't help that this crazy car had the indicator stick on the right hand side of the wheel... this resulted in me signalling the opposite way to my intended direction.
I was quite happy with it... considering it's been so long 90% of my gear changes were super-smooth and the whole experience was fairly good. Not perfect by a long way, but with some work I hope I can get up to scratch fairly quickly. It all depends on how many lessons I can get in, I guess.
I have another lesson tomorrow evening after work, this time with a different instructor. It ended up this way largely because I was ringing around a number of different instructors in an attempt to find somebody that I could arrange a lesson with fairly quickly. I'll see how it goes tomorrow evening and then decide which of the two I'll continue with.
Monday, 31 July 2006
Friday, 28 July 2006
Bicycle and other generalness
As a bit of a follow-up from my last post about buying a bike I spoke to the people at Evans and it turns out that they don't have any extra large bikes in the model I want, but there are two in large (at different shops). I'm torn between asking them to get one of the large bikes in at the local store (deposit required) and finding another. Problem is: I was really looking forward to this exact bike. I think I'll give them a call tomorrow, explain the situation and ask if they can recommend a bike that is a similar size to the large model that I can try for size. If it all works out I'll get the large in and go from there. Maybe they'll even be able to get that model in without charging me, who knows?
Originally there were four new interns at the PTS (not sure what that stands for) lab at Sun but early this week we were joined by Liam. Liam was supposed to be jetting off to a lab in California, but it all got cancelled at the last minute (two weeks before he was due to catch his flight) and he's ended up with us in sunny (this isn't a joke -- it's toasting down here ;) Blackwater instead. On the plus side he'll learn far more here than in the small Sun office he was due to work at in the States: Sun's Guillemont Park in Blackwater/Camberley is the central Sun office for the whole of Europe and we have two large labs full of serious equipment. Our boss, Paul Humphreys, is also most definitely one of the best guys you could ever hope to have managing you. Liam's from Scotland and as such has some funny little sayings and quirks. We're letting him get away with it. For now.
The past week has been spent on an Intermediate System Administration course for Solaris 10. I found in dreadfully boring and dull. There were a few handy little bits of information that I've not come across before (but in honesty I don't think it would have taken me long to pick them up on my own), but a one-day course would have been plenty for me. At the end of this week we were all presented with a "thanks for coming" certificate. That said, we do have vouchers that allow us to go and sit the proper exam for free. I'll hold of the Intermediate course and go for the Advanced one instead. Next week should be good though: we're going on a Serengeti training course. The Serengeti range is the Sun Fire X4600-type stuff: mid-range server hardware, which I know very little about. After that course, we have a week of work, followed by the Advanced admin course. At a later date we get an opportunity to take another course (or two?) of our choice. So far I'm tempted by the performance analysis and tuning course (as far as I can tell this is a 400 or top-level course) and possible a SAN course. The Solaris Network Admin course would be handy on paper, but I've already done more-or-less everything they cover on CompSoc production machines.
I bought the new Nina Simone Greatest Hits CD just before I started at Sun and I'm glad to say it's amazing. Without doubt it is one of the best CDs in my collection. Yesterday I ordered Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor. I'll probably buy Soviet Kitsch at a later date, too. I really need to start trying to find a few more bands or singers that I like. My CD collection has become a little stagnant over the last year or two (where I've not had access to anywhere worth playing CDs).
On Monday I'm going to apply for a NatWest graduate overdraft loan, or something. It's an interest free loan to pay off my overdraft. Not really necessary, but it just restores my account to being positive and forces me into paying it off bit by bit.
With any luck I'll sort myself some driving lessons out tomorrow. It's definitely handy to be able to drive here, unlike Manchester, where it's more of a hinderance than a help. Annoyingly I'll have to sit the theory test again -- no problem, other than the requirement to know a bit about how to service cars, something I know nothing about.
Time to go listen to Nina.
Originally there were four new interns at the PTS (not sure what that stands for) lab at Sun but early this week we were joined by Liam. Liam was supposed to be jetting off to a lab in California, but it all got cancelled at the last minute (two weeks before he was due to catch his flight) and he's ended up with us in sunny (this isn't a joke -- it's toasting down here ;) Blackwater instead. On the plus side he'll learn far more here than in the small Sun office he was due to work at in the States: Sun's Guillemont Park in Blackwater/Camberley is the central Sun office for the whole of Europe and we have two large labs full of serious equipment. Our boss, Paul Humphreys, is also most definitely one of the best guys you could ever hope to have managing you. Liam's from Scotland and as such has some funny little sayings and quirks. We're letting him get away with it. For now.
The past week has been spent on an Intermediate System Administration course for Solaris 10. I found in dreadfully boring and dull. There were a few handy little bits of information that I've not come across before (but in honesty I don't think it would have taken me long to pick them up on my own), but a one-day course would have been plenty for me. At the end of this week we were all presented with a "thanks for coming" certificate. That said, we do have vouchers that allow us to go and sit the proper exam for free. I'll hold of the Intermediate course and go for the Advanced one instead. Next week should be good though: we're going on a Serengeti training course. The Serengeti range is the Sun Fire X4600-type stuff: mid-range server hardware, which I know very little about. After that course, we have a week of work, followed by the Advanced admin course. At a later date we get an opportunity to take another course (or two?) of our choice. So far I'm tempted by the performance analysis and tuning course (as far as I can tell this is a 400 or top-level course) and possible a SAN course. The Solaris Network Admin course would be handy on paper, but I've already done more-or-less everything they cover on CompSoc production machines.
I bought the new Nina Simone Greatest Hits CD just before I started at Sun and I'm glad to say it's amazing. Without doubt it is one of the best CDs in my collection. Yesterday I ordered Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor. I'll probably buy Soviet Kitsch at a later date, too. I really need to start trying to find a few more bands or singers that I like. My CD collection has become a little stagnant over the last year or two (where I've not had access to anywhere worth playing CDs).
On Monday I'm going to apply for a NatWest graduate overdraft loan, or something. It's an interest free loan to pay off my overdraft. Not really necessary, but it just restores my account to being positive and forces me into paying it off bit by bit.
With any luck I'll sort myself some driving lessons out tomorrow. It's definitely handy to be able to drive here, unlike Manchester, where it's more of a hinderance than a help. Annoyingly I'll have to sit the theory test again -- no problem, other than the requirement to know a bit about how to service cars, something I know nothing about.
Time to go listen to Nina.
My rooms... and furniture
Today was pay-day and that means two things: 1) I have some money; and 2) I've been working for Sun for a whole month. By implication this also means that I've been living in my current house for a whole month.
The house is a nice place, as are the housemates I'm living with. The first three weeks were spent on the sofa bed but now I'm happy to have a super-comfy traditional futon. Before the futon turned up a trip to IKEA with James and Xiao yielded a mattress sheet, two bendy chairs with footstools (one for James and one for me), along with a pile of glasses, door mats and other bits and pieces. I got a good deal on bed sheets from Argos (two double bed covers with pillowcases for £25) and just yesterday we picked up an armchair from Joel and Mick (previous Sun interns that are now heading back home), as well as a small coffee table that happens to be from the same range as our current coffee table.
I live downstairs and my room opens out onto the lounge. This is good and bad -- it's easy to hang around in my room but still be involved in the general goings on, but if everybody comes back late one night I might get woken up if I'm already asleep. Fortunately I have two rooms -- one for my computer and one for my bed -- so there are actually two doors between the lounge and me. I've had no problems so far and I'm guessing that I won't really have any.
Right now the main problem with my living area is the lack of storage... beyond my desk and a few flat-pack crates, I just don't have any. All of my clothes are in piles on my bedroom floor and I've got bags and boxes in my computer room. I've been trying for ages to sort out somewhere to put my clothes and other bedroom things and in all my searching there is one universal truth: all of the stuff in shops is more or less cheap, tacky plastic-fantastic crap. I have a sort-of idea of what I want my bedroom to be like, but I just can't find any furniture that fits the look -- it doesn't help that I couldn't really describe what I want, either.
However, today I decided to check out the bedroom furniture on eBay and I came across a pine Ottoman box. It wasn't quite ideal, but the concept was right. A little more searching and I came across a Scandinavia Ottoman Storage Unit for £49.99.
The price seems a little steep by comparison to other "more expensive wood" offerings. Only problem is: I don't quite like the design as much. They tend to be a bit more fancy, and I want something really simple. I'm tempted to just go ahead and buy this one, despite its expected shortcomings. After all: if I don't get something soon, I'll end up living out of a plastic bag for the next eleven months. I've worked out I could get two stacks of clothes in quite comfortably: one for jeans and one for t-shirts... I guess there'll be space in between for pants and socks.
So, here's the question: can you think of anything else suitable for my (small) room? In terms of size it can't be any longer than 1m and definitely no deeper than 0.5m (0.4m is more suitable).
The house is a nice place, as are the housemates I'm living with. The first three weeks were spent on the sofa bed but now I'm happy to have a super-comfy traditional futon. Before the futon turned up a trip to IKEA with James and Xiao yielded a mattress sheet, two bendy chairs with footstools (one for James and one for me), along with a pile of glasses, door mats and other bits and pieces. I got a good deal on bed sheets from Argos (two double bed covers with pillowcases for £25) and just yesterday we picked up an armchair from Joel and Mick (previous Sun interns that are now heading back home), as well as a small coffee table that happens to be from the same range as our current coffee table.
I live downstairs and my room opens out onto the lounge. This is good and bad -- it's easy to hang around in my room but still be involved in the general goings on, but if everybody comes back late one night I might get woken up if I'm already asleep. Fortunately I have two rooms -- one for my computer and one for my bed -- so there are actually two doors between the lounge and me. I've had no problems so far and I'm guessing that I won't really have any.
Right now the main problem with my living area is the lack of storage... beyond my desk and a few flat-pack crates, I just don't have any. All of my clothes are in piles on my bedroom floor and I've got bags and boxes in my computer room. I've been trying for ages to sort out somewhere to put my clothes and other bedroom things and in all my searching there is one universal truth: all of the stuff in shops is more or less cheap, tacky plastic-fantastic crap. I have a sort-of idea of what I want my bedroom to be like, but I just can't find any furniture that fits the look -- it doesn't help that I couldn't really describe what I want, either.
However, today I decided to check out the bedroom furniture on eBay and I came across a pine Ottoman box. It wasn't quite ideal, but the concept was right. A little more searching and I came across a Scandinavia Ottoman Storage Unit for £49.99.
The price seems a little steep by comparison to other "more expensive wood" offerings. Only problem is: I don't quite like the design as much. They tend to be a bit more fancy, and I want something really simple. I'm tempted to just go ahead and buy this one, despite its expected shortcomings. After all: if I don't get something soon, I'll end up living out of a plastic bag for the next eleven months. I've worked out I could get two stacks of clothes in quite comfortably: one for jeans and one for t-shirts... I guess there'll be space in between for pants and socks.
So, here's the question: can you think of anything else suitable for my (small) room? In terms of size it can't be any longer than 1m and definitely no deeper than 0.5m (0.4m is more suitable).
Tuesday, 25 July 2006
Solars Intermediate System Administration
I'm currently sat in the classroom for the intermediate Solaris sysadmin training course that I'm doing as part of my job with PTS at Sun. There are the other four guys (Liam is now here) plus a few people from tech companies.
Yesterday must have been a bit of a warm-up because we had more tea breaks than I had last week, not to mention the fact that we started late and had the long personal introductions to get through. Today is a little bit more interesting, but I wouldn't say I've learned anything startlingly new... yet.
So far it's been basic stuff like using the format command (sort of like fdisk for Windows/Linux), symlinks and so on, but things should heat up later on today (at least in terms of Solaris-specific things or other bits and pieces I've not seen).
I had a quick flick through the other courses that Sun offer but I didn't see anything in particular that I felt it was essential I do. I think I'll end up doing one of the SAN storage courses because (a) I've been wanting to know a bit more about a shared storage filesystem, and; (b) I need to fix CompSoc's T3+. Actually, fixing the T3 would probably be pretty easy if I could be bothered to sit down and do it.
Next week is the Serengeti (E10k) course, which should definitely prove interesting. I've not messed with any of the Serengeti stuff at work yet, but some of the higher range stuff is not what I'd call cheap ;)
Yesterday must have been a bit of a warm-up because we had more tea breaks than I had last week, not to mention the fact that we started late and had the long personal introductions to get through. Today is a little bit more interesting, but I wouldn't say I've learned anything startlingly new... yet.
So far it's been basic stuff like using the format command (sort of like fdisk for Windows/Linux), symlinks and so on, but things should heat up later on today (at least in terms of Solaris-specific things or other bits and pieces I've not seen).
I had a quick flick through the other courses that Sun offer but I didn't see anything in particular that I felt it was essential I do. I think I'll end up doing one of the SAN storage courses because (a) I've been wanting to know a bit more about a shared storage filesystem, and; (b) I need to fix CompSoc's T3+. Actually, fixing the T3 would probably be pretty easy if I could be bothered to sit down and do it.
Next week is the Serengeti (E10k) course, which should definitely prove interesting. I've not messed with any of the Serengeti stuff at work yet, but some of the higher range stuff is not what I'd call cheap ;)
Sunday, 23 July 2006
New bike
This weekend has been dedicated to finding myself a decent bike to get to/from work on. Camberley has a fairly limited selection of bikes, but I did see the Scott Sportspter P3, which I quite liked. Today I went with James and Xiao to Evans Cycles in Wokingham where I eyed up the expensive Specialized hybrids (£999.99 :).
Now that I'm back and I've had a little time to think I've decided that the Scott was close to what I wanted, but I've decided I'll probably spend a little more money and go for the model up -- the P2.
The Sportster P2 seems a great bike to me -- it's a hybrid bike with front suspension. The standard tyres seem well-suited to road cycling and easier off-road stuff. From what I've read the rims are strong and with some deeper tread tyres should be up to some more demanding off-road stuff, but definitely not the stuff that modern mountain bikes are capable off. The front suspension can be "locked out" for road cycling (a big plus), but it does mean that I've got to cycle around with all of the extra weight. That said -- the route to Sun is part on-road, part off-road, so it works out fairly well.
As part of the Government-sponsored ride2work scheme I can buy the bike without paying tax and NI contributions on top of it. The bike (£579.99) along with about £125 of accessories (front and rear mudguards, lights and speedo (good ones for just £30) and a secure lock) will cost me £394.56, which saves me £297.40 off the full retail price. This money comes out of my monthly salary and is spread over the full 12 months (probably 11 months as I'll likely have received my first pay packet by the time I buy the bike).
All in all it should work out pretty well. I just need to see if Evans can get the extra large model in stock for me :)
Now that I'm back and I've had a little time to think I've decided that the Scott was close to what I wanted, but I've decided I'll probably spend a little more money and go for the model up -- the P2.
The Sportster P2 seems a great bike to me -- it's a hybrid bike with front suspension. The standard tyres seem well-suited to road cycling and easier off-road stuff. From what I've read the rims are strong and with some deeper tread tyres should be up to some more demanding off-road stuff, but definitely not the stuff that modern mountain bikes are capable off. The front suspension can be "locked out" for road cycling (a big plus), but it does mean that I've got to cycle around with all of the extra weight. That said -- the route to Sun is part on-road, part off-road, so it works out fairly well.
As part of the Government-sponsored ride2work scheme I can buy the bike without paying tax and NI contributions on top of it. The bike (£579.99) along with about £125 of accessories (front and rear mudguards, lights and speedo (good ones for just £30) and a secure lock) will cost me £394.56, which saves me £297.40 off the full retail price. This money comes out of my monthly salary and is spread over the full 12 months (probably 11 months as I'll likely have received my first pay packet by the time I buy the bike).
All in all it should work out pretty well. I just need to see if Evans can get the extra large model in stock for me :)
Saturday, 22 July 2006
Nikon D?0 tba in 18 days
There's a teaser ad over at the Nikon website, suggesting a replacement for the D70s will be announced in mid-August.
It'll be a 10.2MP body, which is similar to the D200. I'd been giving some good thought to getting a D200 but now that this has appeared it will be a good idea to hang back and see what all of the fuss is about.
With any luck it'll be what the D70 was to the D100 -- more or less the same camera in a cheaper (lighter) shell. I've read some people suggesting that a few corners will be cut, and I doubt that the AF will be upgraded as Nikon did with the D70. It should make an interesting camera and will no doubt make a few D200 owners a little annoyed ;)
See the ad for yourself at http://www.nikonusa.com/
It'll be a 10.2MP body, which is similar to the D200. I'd been giving some good thought to getting a D200 but now that this has appeared it will be a good idea to hang back and see what all of the fuss is about.
With any luck it'll be what the D70 was to the D100 -- more or less the same camera in a cheaper (lighter) shell. I've read some people suggesting that a few corners will be cut, and I doubt that the AF will be upgraded as Nikon did with the D70. It should make an interesting camera and will no doubt make a few D200 owners a little annoyed ;)
See the ad for yourself at http://www.nikonusa.com/
Saturday, 15 July 2006
Wireless coverage
We've just hooked up my Linksys WRT54g (running the latest Freeman firmware) to the cable modem and found that the coverage wasn't that great. I get a useful signal in my room but Kim, who was furthest from the router didn't have a decent enough signal.
James has just enabled WDS on a second WRT54g (same firmware) and now we have really good house-wide coverage. WDS allows two wireless access points to talk to each other and broadcast at the same time. This means that Kim's Internet traffic goes to the upstairs router first, which passes the message on to the one downstairs, which shoves it out of the Internet interface.
It's pretty cool stuff, if you ask me ;)
James has just enabled WDS on a second WRT54g (same firmware) and now we have really good house-wide coverage. WDS allows two wireless access points to talk to each other and broadcast at the same time. This means that Kim's Internet traffic goes to the upstairs router first, which passes the message on to the one downstairs, which shoves it out of the Internet interface.
It's pretty cool stuff, if you ask me ;)
Cable t'Interweb!
Good news, everyone!
The NTL cable guy came today and installed our cable Internet connection. Cable is better than ADSL because you get an Ethernet model by default. Cable is worse than ADSL because the upstream is pretty low by comparison. Cable is better than ADSL because you can get a 4Mbps connection for a total of twenty-five pounds per month (no telephone line required). Cable is better than ADSL because almost all areas can get 10Mbps, if they want.
I think for the amount of time we'll be here 4Mbps will be just fine... after a few false starts I'm happy that it actually is pretty quick, which is great.
Let the good times roll... :)
The NTL cable guy came today and installed our cable Internet connection. Cable is better than ADSL because you get an Ethernet model by default. Cable is worse than ADSL because the upstream is pretty low by comparison. Cable is better than ADSL because you can get a 4Mbps connection for a total of twenty-five pounds per month (no telephone line required). Cable is better than ADSL because almost all areas can get 10Mbps, if they want.
I think for the amount of time we'll be here 4Mbps will be just fine... after a few false starts I'm happy that it actually is pretty quick, which is great.
Let the good times roll... :)
Tuesday, 11 July 2006
Work, Sleep, Life
Here it is. The very first blog post in absolutely ages... it had to happen at some point and since I've just managed to get an Internet connection in the new house, now's the time.
I'm living in a great house (105 Rosemary Gardens) along with James, Charlotte and Kim, who I met on the Sun interns mailing list. I met James once before we agreed to find a house together ("compatibility-testing" :) and then once more as we (read: he) drove down to London to check a few places out along with the other two girls (who are working in the finance department at Sun) who we'd never met before. We didn't get the house we'd hoped for, but got our second choice, something I'm pretty happy about now that we've moved in and the landlord has had certain improvements made (new carpet in all the bedrooms and the two downstairs "offices" (my bedroom and computer room), new floor in the lounge, a fridge and a few improvements in the downstairs toilet/shower and upstairs bathroom). The place is officially a five-bed detached house, but since there are only four of us and there are two small-ish rooms downstairs, three of us have two rooms each. As I've already mentioned, I have the two downstairs rooms, which are attached directly to the lounge. One of my rooms (the computer room) has a nice window view of the garden, while the other (attached) room has one window that faces the fence of the house next door... some people might be annoyed by this, but it's fine by me as it just cuts down sun shining into my bedroom and making it hot (as well as early morning light). The downstairs rooms are also a little cooler than upstairs, which is a big plus for me. James has two rooms upstairs, as does Kim. Charlotte has the largest bedroom and might share one of James' rooms with him for a bit. It all worked out pretty well for rooms.
The kitchen had everything except a washing machine, which meant that James and I had to cart down an old washing machine my Uncle Quentin had lying around in his shed. After a few false starts, new inflow pipes and some washing machine pump hackery... we got the thing going, and it seems to be working quite reliably now. The rest of the place is unfurnished, which is a little annoying as I don't own a bed. Fortunately we brought the two-seater white sofabed down with us (along with two desks, a double bed, my 'speakers (43KG each!), James' 'speakers, a 30" TV, numerous computers, hi-fis and other general bits and pieces... all in a single small van!), which has been my home for the last week and a bit. I'm very glad to say that sometime next week I have a traditional Japanese futon arriving... something I've wanted for a while. I should point out that traditional futons don't involve any crappy wood or metal bits... they're just bedding, a cover, a special duvet (I'll do with a standard one for now) and usually a beaded pillow for airflow. The one I slept in when in Japan was incredibly comfortable and I've been looking forward to one ever since. Back to the furniture though... right now that's about it: we've got a small coffee table and a two-seater sofa to go between four people. At some point we're going to pick up a table and chairs from Argos, as well as a new sofa (and I think James is going to head to IKEA for a chair). I didn't have a chair to go with my desk, so I'm glad that Sun will be reimbursing me for the one I bought (very cheaply) from Homebase.
Out back we've got some great wood decking, which is going to be just perfect for the many BBQs we will hopefully soon be host to. The biggest problem we've all got is finding enough friends to invite over... this place is so big that unless we got forty or more people the place will just look and feel empty. At some point Kim and Charlotte are hoping to buy a big paddling pool...
The other big area is the lounge, which is really nice. As I've already mentioned it has either a brand new hardwood floor, or the guys that came in did an amazing job with the tat that it previously was. The landlord used to live here and there is already low profile 'speaker cable installed in the skirting boards for a quad 'speaker set-up. Right now we've got my Yamahas hooked up to the Quad 33/303 and a CD player, and James' Tannoys connected to the TV. When we've got some more furniture and a definite location for the TV, we'll probably rearrange this a little. The photo I've included is a little dated... since then we've hung a few nice photos on the wall but obviously we're holding out for a giant 50" plasma screen for the chimney breast wall :)
I've been working at Sun for one week and two days now (although yesterday (Monday) was official time off (one of a whopping (hmm) 20 days I get in total... I guess this isn't too bad as it works out as near as damn it a month when non-work days are taken into account) as I had to head up home with Xiaoxiao and her parents for an enthralling meal (an entirely different story... but one I probably won't go into in detail: it basically went very well, despite the obvious language barrier). I've honestly still got no idea what department I work in... it might be PTS, but I think the name recently changed, which doesn't help. My role is to provide support to the Sun engineers by configuring Sun hardware (and limited software) to meet the customer's set-up when they have a problem. I'm actually pretty much at the top of the support escalation hierarchy and most of the problems that the engineers deal with are hardware faults, rather than software problems (although of course bugs in Solaris and other software are dealt with, too). The other guys working here are all great, very supportive and friendly. The boss (Paul Humphreys) is a great guy, which obviously helps a lot.
Over the course of the past week I've found it hard to pinpoint exactly what I've learned... there doesn't seem to be any specific thing, but I've certainly learned a lot as a whole, although this is primarily about how the lab itself is run. Over the next few weeks/months I guess we'll all be learning how to actually do our jobs and set the systems up.
All of us are very fortunate to be sharing an office with some of the Solaris kernel developers, who are surely among the most knowledgeable people in Sun. These are the guys that actually write the drivers for the hardware, write the new funky stuff in Solaris, fix bugs and other stuff. Two of the guys have already been kind enough to give us presentations on various things... one guy (whose name I forget) did a seriously interesting talk on Niagara, the new CPU with four cores and eight threads per core. A lot of the stuff here I already knew, or knew the basics of, but his presentation brought the whole lot together and I feel as though I fully understood the whole of what he was talking about and the benefits. Following on from this presentation, a developer called Gered (spelling?) did us a talk on the serial interfaces in Solaris, the STREAMS stack and various other bits and pieces. This was the first of a three part series in which he is discussion everything the system does in order to allow the user to open vi, write the classic K&R "hello, world", compile and execute it. Pretty interesting stuff, to say the least.
I guess that's it for now. I don't want to go into too much detail about work for obvious legal reasons... I'm forever reading stories on Slashdot about techie workers who start to divulge too much detail so I'll wait around a bit until I get a better feel of exactly what is and isn't public. That's it for now :)
I'm living in a great house (105 Rosemary Gardens) along with James, Charlotte and Kim, who I met on the Sun interns mailing list. I met James once before we agreed to find a house together ("compatibility-testing" :) and then once more as we (read: he) drove down to London to check a few places out along with the other two girls (who are working in the finance department at Sun) who we'd never met before. We didn't get the house we'd hoped for, but got our second choice, something I'm pretty happy about now that we've moved in and the landlord has had certain improvements made (new carpet in all the bedrooms and the two downstairs "offices" (my bedroom and computer room), new floor in the lounge, a fridge and a few improvements in the downstairs toilet/shower and upstairs bathroom). The place is officially a five-bed detached house, but since there are only four of us and there are two small-ish rooms downstairs, three of us have two rooms each. As I've already mentioned, I have the two downstairs rooms, which are attached directly to the lounge. One of my rooms (the computer room) has a nice window view of the garden, while the other (attached) room has one window that faces the fence of the house next door... some people might be annoyed by this, but it's fine by me as it just cuts down sun shining into my bedroom and making it hot (as well as early morning light). The downstairs rooms are also a little cooler than upstairs, which is a big plus for me. James has two rooms upstairs, as does Kim. Charlotte has the largest bedroom and might share one of James' rooms with him for a bit. It all worked out pretty well for rooms.
The kitchen had everything except a washing machine, which meant that James and I had to cart down an old washing machine my Uncle Quentin had lying around in his shed. After a few false starts, new inflow pipes and some washing machine pump hackery... we got the thing going, and it seems to be working quite reliably now. The rest of the place is unfurnished, which is a little annoying as I don't own a bed. Fortunately we brought the two-seater white sofabed down with us (along with two desks, a double bed, my 'speakers (43KG each!), James' 'speakers, a 30" TV, numerous computers, hi-fis and other general bits and pieces... all in a single small van!), which has been my home for the last week and a bit. I'm very glad to say that sometime next week I have a traditional Japanese futon arriving... something I've wanted for a while. I should point out that traditional futons don't involve any crappy wood or metal bits... they're just bedding, a cover, a special duvet (I'll do with a standard one for now) and usually a beaded pillow for airflow. The one I slept in when in Japan was incredibly comfortable and I've been looking forward to one ever since. Back to the furniture though... right now that's about it: we've got a small coffee table and a two-seater sofa to go between four people. At some point we're going to pick up a table and chairs from Argos, as well as a new sofa (and I think James is going to head to IKEA for a chair). I didn't have a chair to go with my desk, so I'm glad that Sun will be reimbursing me for the one I bought (very cheaply) from Homebase.
Out back we've got some great wood decking, which is going to be just perfect for the many BBQs we will hopefully soon be host to. The biggest problem we've all got is finding enough friends to invite over... this place is so big that unless we got forty or more people the place will just look and feel empty. At some point Kim and Charlotte are hoping to buy a big paddling pool...
The other big area is the lounge, which is really nice. As I've already mentioned it has either a brand new hardwood floor, or the guys that came in did an amazing job with the tat that it previously was. The landlord used to live here and there is already low profile 'speaker cable installed in the skirting boards for a quad 'speaker set-up. Right now we've got my Yamahas hooked up to the Quad 33/303 and a CD player, and James' Tannoys connected to the TV. When we've got some more furniture and a definite location for the TV, we'll probably rearrange this a little. The photo I've included is a little dated... since then we've hung a few nice photos on the wall but obviously we're holding out for a giant 50" plasma screen for the chimney breast wall :)
I've been working at Sun for one week and two days now (although yesterday (Monday) was official time off (one of a whopping (hmm) 20 days I get in total... I guess this isn't too bad as it works out as near as damn it a month when non-work days are taken into account) as I had to head up home with Xiaoxiao and her parents for an enthralling meal (an entirely different story... but one I probably won't go into in detail: it basically went very well, despite the obvious language barrier). I've honestly still got no idea what department I work in... it might be PTS, but I think the name recently changed, which doesn't help. My role is to provide support to the Sun engineers by configuring Sun hardware (and limited software) to meet the customer's set-up when they have a problem. I'm actually pretty much at the top of the support escalation hierarchy and most of the problems that the engineers deal with are hardware faults, rather than software problems (although of course bugs in Solaris and other software are dealt with, too). The other guys working here are all great, very supportive and friendly. The boss (Paul Humphreys) is a great guy, which obviously helps a lot.
Over the course of the past week I've found it hard to pinpoint exactly what I've learned... there doesn't seem to be any specific thing, but I've certainly learned a lot as a whole, although this is primarily about how the lab itself is run. Over the next few weeks/months I guess we'll all be learning how to actually do our jobs and set the systems up.
All of us are very fortunate to be sharing an office with some of the Solaris kernel developers, who are surely among the most knowledgeable people in Sun. These are the guys that actually write the drivers for the hardware, write the new funky stuff in Solaris, fix bugs and other stuff. Two of the guys have already been kind enough to give us presentations on various things... one guy (whose name I forget) did a seriously interesting talk on Niagara, the new CPU with four cores and eight threads per core. A lot of the stuff here I already knew, or knew the basics of, but his presentation brought the whole lot together and I feel as though I fully understood the whole of what he was talking about and the benefits. Following on from this presentation, a developer called Gered (spelling?) did us a talk on the serial interfaces in Solaris, the STREAMS stack and various other bits and pieces. This was the first of a three part series in which he is discussion everything the system does in order to allow the user to open vi, write the classic K&R "hello, world", compile and execute it. Pretty interesting stuff, to say the least.
I guess that's it for now. I don't want to go into too much detail about work for obvious legal reasons... I'm forever reading stories on Slashdot about techie workers who start to divulge too much detail so I'll wait around a bit until I get a better feel of exactly what is and isn't public. That's it for now :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)