the bits

here’s the day 1 notes. I was going to make omnigraffle diagrams of the diagrams I drew by hand, but that would just be too time consuming; instead I’ll just scan them in when I return.

the day 1 notes!

Just finished chapter 1; we’re on a lunch break. The class is pretty fast paced, as there’s a ton of material to cover in just 5 10 hour days. We’ve got a really good instructor named Muhamed Ali (no relation ;) who is quite prone to making sure that people are paying attention to pick up the important bits… the thing is, it’s almost all important bits :)

Already today I’ve done more handwriting than I have in the past several years… 12 pages of legal sized paper filled with notes and diagrams. I think I’ll probably end up scanning them in for reference of the curious. They provided us with a Cisco book called Interconnecting Cisco Network Devices, which is pretty much exactly the material of the exam. The training director made a cameo appearance this morning to tell us that the CCNA exam has been recently changed; now it is mostly simulation based, as opposed to a more traditional standardized test style. The passing threshold also got raised from 70% to 85%, and the training director said that the CCNA is now considered the most difficult exam in any of the Cisco certification tracks (I’m sure he means that in a relative fashion; obviously each level builds upon the previous).

The shuttle from the hotel to the training center supposedly left at 7:30 instead of 8:30; thus myself and three others who are staying at the hotel arrived about 10 minutes late. Clearly the hotel people are mistaken on the drop off / pickup times.

I’m also feeling quite rested; nothing like a full night’s sleep + a very narrow focus. That’s what makes this bootcamp thing such an attractive idea; you’re in a hotel away from everything, doing nothing but this stuff all day – no distractions, no work… very easy to handle this correctly.

Chapter 1 covered mostly the OSI model, which is pretty important conceptually. Much of it was review for me (Please Do Not Throw Sausage Pizza Away :) Hopefully we’ll get into some of the hands-on stuff soon. There’s two full racks of Cisco gear in the corner of the training lab; switches, routers, etc, so I’m sure we’ll be tinkering on it before long.

—

Back to the hotel after the first day of class… right after lunch we started to get into actual router practice; each student has his own 2500. We did all the basic stuff as far as setup / config. The instructor had us broken into groups of three, and we set up connections between the routers in each pod. Fun stuff :) Even though this exam is supposedly harder now, I feel very confident now after the first day that I will pass without a problem. The guy sitting next to me is pretty quick; we were the first pod to get our links to each other up and start hax0ring each other’s routers… heh.

Now I shall start reviewing today’s stuff… lots of information :)

So, I lasted about 4 hours without internet access. Fortunately, the Woodfin hotel has complimentary net surfing from a pc in their “business center” (a small room with a desk, a printer that’s not hooked up, and a computer with dsl – hey, I’m not dissing ;). Signed myself up for an earthlink dialup accnt that I’ll use this week, and again when I’m down this way in a couple weeks for the Apple training.

This is my first time in CA, and though I haven’t seen much of it at all yet, I like it so far. I’m picking up subtle indications that this is a pretty tech. savvy part of the world… lots of internet ads in the san jose airport, sizable internet section in the phone book, etc. I guess that whole silicone valley thing really *is* about computers, as opposed to, say, the land of bountiful breast augmentation.

Class starts tomorrow morning at 9; complimentary breakfast here at the woodfin, then a complimentary shuttle bus to the training location… I guess there are a bunch of people from the UniTek Cisco bootcamp thing that are staying here. All in all, this woodfin place is pretty swank… there’s a jacuzi, a pool, a decent selection of free VHS movies (VCR + tv + fair channel selection including HBO in my room), free local calls, and free shuttle service to / from the training location and also to / from the airport. The kicker is I’m not even paying for the hotel stay… the UniTek rep quoted me a price that supposedly included the hotel stay, but which actually was the price without the hotel… when he tried to hit me up for the extra whatever it was (hundreds of dollars) for the hotel stay, I was having none of it, but that’s only because I was immediately suspicious of the ol’ bait and switch bamboozelment scheme. In retrospect, I think it’s more likely just an honest mistake on his part – but I still held him to the price quote he gave me.

I bought some mediocre chinese food (with which I managed to lightly scald my tongue… gar!) and some gin and tonic from the “72 liquers” which is just directly across the street. Hopefully we’ll have a distinct lack of drunkards crashing large trucks on this stretch of road, else I might get an abrupt and very short-lived awakening.

I really like traveling. It just feels good to be moving around and doing different stuff. Hopefully I’ll be able to establish a comfortable / reliable routine in Seattle while still managing to get out and kick around the ‘states every now and again.

I’ll probably report back in again later this week with notes on the cisco training. I’ll try to capture the gist of the sessions for any of you who might be interested. That is all :)

Going to CA for a CCNA bootcamp. It’s in Fremont. Should be fun / exausting / educational :)

latez

so, things are going well. today was a fun and relaxing day :)

since I’ve posted last, I finally built my wintendo, ball, after years of wanting / needing one. then today I just got an upgrade from the gforce2 mx to a gforce 4 mx 440, and quake3 is just straight butter. being a mac user I always missed out on great game performance on my hardware… well no longer.

the job is going pretty well… still learning some of the ins / outs, etc… luckily, the bulk of my technical knowledge and experience is useful here, so I’m fairly comfortable with the whole sales process…. all I gotta do now is start memorizing product stats and whatnot.

more later :)

The job search is over.

A couple weeks ago, Damon sent some email to a VP at The Computer Store. After several days, I received a call from him and we set up an interview which occured last Friday. It went really well, as my interviews usually do, and I thought things looked promising. They had advertised openings in sales, which is perfectly cool with me, but I’m also interested in their training offerings, and so I made sure to hit on my training / curriculum development experience.

Then yesterday, I get a call from the general manager, and we set up another interview with the sales manager. That was about two hours ago. This interview also went quite well, and at the end they offered me the position.

I’ll start out doing just sales… learning the ropes, making some cash, etc. They’re getting ready to put a lot more focus on their training services, and I hope to be a big part of the planning and execution of that whole situation. Training is something that I really enjoy doing, and I’m pretty good, so I’ve been looking for ways to crack back into it – I think this will be perfect. Considering the somewhat high profile of The Computer Store among the mac community around here and among Apple resellers in general, I feel sure that my experience with them will be good stuff. I also look forward to meeting a bunch of people in the process :)

I start next Wednesday. I was also invited to some staff training that’s happening tonight; some guys from The Omni Group are coming out – should be fun :)

In other news, spud is back :)

So, my stuff has arrived, at long last and with much fanfare! I’ve been living off bish for about a month and a half or so… not exactly easy to travel with a tower and a large CRT, after all. Finally I’m back on mah g4. It’s only marginally faster than the ibook, but the key factors are the much more ample music collection / storage space, the dual monitars, and of course the QUAKEability! :) (hoo ray for pci radeon… for an old-ass g4, this thing’s fairly decked).

Been tinkering with this and that lately. I think I might be getting the production bug again… it could mean overhauled websites, increased amounts of writing, learning new stuff (like reading that C book I bought…), finishing my project with AppleScript Studio (hereafter affectionately referred to as ASS – just you wait ;), making music (damon’s got a usb midi controller that I can make use of… not as easy as with a controller / synth, but I think I can still make stuff happen), mixing music (that’s relatively easy, tool wise), or maybe even finally coming up with a truly workable and efficient organizational / syncronizable scheme for my data across my two macs. Hmm.

The lab’s looking pretty dope what with all this l33t apple hardware and seductive techno-lighting… good times :)

inflammatio brought me Towelie back with her from Texas!!!

The job hunt continues. I won’t lie, I hate it. Maybe I’m way off base, but all too often, it seems like the dumbasses with buzzword resumes make way more money than they should, while honest, knowledgable folk like myself get sloppy seconds. hmm. In any case, I’ve been pouring through classifieds and job sites at a fairly decent rate, sending out as many resumes every day as possible.

Got all signed up for the ccna bootcamp in beautiful Fremont, CA, and got my airline ticket. I’ll be gone from April 28th until May 3rd. Chances are fair that I may have a job before I leave, and will have to work it out with my employer…. which might make you wonder why I’m going to the trouble of getting Cisco certified if I’m not going to use it as grounds for getting myself a networking job. The short answer is: I care less about how my resume looks than I do about my own knowledge, so I’m taking it cause I want to… oh, and it’s being graciously paid for by my most generous grandfather (I would already be cisco certified were it not for the rather steep pricetag of the bootcamps).

Anyway, trying to remain non-frustrated about the job search. I’ve only been at it for a couple weeks, so it’s un-realistic to think that I’d have something by now. I guess the root of my frustration comes from the fact that my resume doesn’t even begin to convey the value I can bring to any organization. At least, that’s the way I feel. Maybe I’m being conceited about it, but I don’t think so. I’m seriously considering just packing up a bunch of resumes and physically going to see employers. All I need is a little bit of face time :) One thing is for sure; I definitely miss my last job, where I was completely responsible for my piece of the pie. I like using my own brain to determine what needs to be done and then doing it, instead of following the instructions of somebody that knows less than I do. Ah well. The struggle continues :)

We were at an art supply store the other day, and as I was milling about, check out what damon did:

That is all :)

So I’m flipping channels, and I see that some local station is carrying Classic Arts Showcase. I was first introduced Classic Arts Showcase programming back in Bradenton, where the local educational access station (metv, which shared studio facilities with the schoolboard office where I worked) used to air it at nights – still do, in fact. They show all sorts of different stuff from opera to balet to small jazz combos to abstract light projections on water fountains, set to classical music.

“Ah, Classic Arts Showcase”, I said, and switched to its channel. I heard the Hungarian Rhapsody #2 by Franz Liszt, and I saw a scrolling bargraph of the music, sorta like a player piano, that was scrolling from left to right as the music played. Pitch is on the vertical axis, and time on the horizontal.

This particular piece is a solo piano performance, so there is a limited number of notes that can be occuring simultaneously. It was fascinating to see music represented visually like this – it even uses color to help denote harmony and disonance (blue is arbitrarily chosen as the tonic, then colors are picked from around a color wheel according to the circle of fifths, which is a central idea of music theory… if you’re not familiar with it, this site does a fair job of explaning it).

This “music animation machine” is really good at demonstrating visually some of the basic charasterics of music… especially interesting was examining really fast chromatic runs or the consistancy of the duration of very short notes in a rapid sequence (since none of the visuals are quanitized in any way, you can definitely see nuance very clearly).

Anyway, interesting stuff… it’s moments like these that I’m most pleased with television. Check out the Music Animation machine, and be sure to give the site a thorough reading, including the various links from the site index page. There is a quicktime movie of the music animation machine in action here.

In other news, everything rocks :) Saw Blade II last night… not sure what tonight will bring just yet :)

So, found this document whilst I was upgrading an application… I guess I’d accidentally saved it in the wrong folder, then forgot about it ;) Originally, this was intended to be distributed to various BVI newspapers and government offices, as a final sort of parting shot; an incapsulation of our frustrations and the road blocks we met while trying to become operational as Islandless Network.

Anyway, here it is in an unfinished state.

Greetings,

This letter is being sent to various people in the BVI in hopes of raising awareness regarding the state of telecommunications deregulation. I represent a small company that has incorporated in the United States and attempted to gain a trade license in the BVI for the purpose of becoming an Internet Service Provider. Our plan includes the construction of a wireless network that could serve all areas of the BVI, including outlying islands – a wireless network that is independant of any currently existing infrastructure. We aim to provide high quality Internet access at prices lower than those of the existing provider. Our intended markets are BVI businesses, as well as residential users, anchorages, charter yachts, and schools (schools would get access at lower cost).

Our company has been in negotiations with all appropriate government departments for well over a year, and we have received nothing but encouragement from almost all policy setters. It is recognized by people to whom we have explained our plan that it would be beneficial to the BVI in a variety of ways. All BVI residents would have an opportunity to purchase cheaper, faster, and better Internet access than is currently available. Perhaps more importantly, our network would be secure and reliable – two characteristics which are simply missing from the current provider’s Internet access. This would allow BVI businesses to use the Internet as a tool for conducting business more efficiently, as most businesses elsewhere have been doing for quite some time. We believe the fact that most BVI business do not use a great deal of technology is due in part to the lack of a secure and reliable Internet connection. Business cannot rely on the Internet as a part of business operation unless it is both secure and reliable.

The major obstacle, of course, is the monopoly granted to Cable and Wireless by a government contract in 1986. This contract grants Cable and Wireless the exclusive rights to

“…any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images and sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems.”

Obviously, this is far too broad and inclusive to actually be enforced. If this contract were to be taken literally, then the following would be absolutely illegal in the BVI, unless permission was first granted by Cable and Wireless: computer networks – even inside a private residence, VHF radio, doorbells, the use of sign language, baby monitors, CB radio, walkie talkies. Therefore, we can only conclude that the agreement is only enforced when it is convienient for Cable and Wireless.

As inclusive as the Cable and Wireless contract is, we believe that our plan falls outside of the influence of the agreement. Specifically, our proposed wireless network operates on radio frequences that have been designated as “unlicensed” by the relevant regulatory organizations (the International Telecommunications Union, for example). This means that use of unlicensed frequences does not require prior approval from *anyone*, as long as the use of the frequencies does not interfere with other existing systems. Additionally, because our network would be used solely for Internet Protocol based communications, it does not fall in the same category as, for example, a telephone line.

We are an American company, and our employees are also Americans. We are outraged at the audacity of Cable and Wireless for staking claim (successfully) to what essentially represents all forms of communication in the BVI. In the United States, telecommunications have been deregulated since the mid 1980s, so consequently, we poses a competitive mindset. It is easy for us to see the opportunites that BVIslanders are missing, because we have been exposed to competitive markets that exist to the benefit of the consumer. For example, in the United States, it is possible to place a telephone call to almost anywhere within about 5000 miles for the same cost as a local call in the BVI. These low prices are the *direct* result of a competitive market. If there is only one provider of communications services, what incentive is there for the provider to have low prices or exceptional service?

Despite all of these factors, we face great resistance from the BVI government. Our attempts to acquire a trade license have failed repeatedly. While individually, those we speak with support our idea, we have received no official support from anyone with respect to a trade license. We find it incredibly frustrating and counter productive that a government composed of individuals that support an initiative cannot support that same initiative as a collective body.

We believe that the real problem is larger than the scope of our operation in the BVI and more important than Internet service. The government contract that gives Cable and Wireless exclusive rights to all telecommunications is absolutely to the detriment of everyone in the BVI. As was previously noted, this agreement is selectively enforced. Cable and Wireless would not go around shutting down computer networks or collecting VHF radios. Though it is within their legal right to do so, it would only make Cable and Wireless look bad. However, this agreement does prevent new competitors in a very important industry – telecommunications. This keeps customers from having competitive prices and service. In short, the continued adherance to the agreement assures that things will stay the same in the BVI with respect to telecommunications. If BVIslanders think that there should be a change, then by all means they should make it happen, as it has happened in almost every other Caribbean nation or overseas territory. It is our belief that the situation strikes to the very core of human rights issues. Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights, a document drafted by the United Nations, states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Naturally, the BVI missed the boat, bigtime. We probably represented the best hope they’ve ever had for decent Internet service, but they were having none of it. Oh well ;)