Tag: Personal

I’m sure my loyal readers will think that this article is about computer security as I write a lot about computers and technology, but this article is about physical home security.

With a complete house remodel planned, I’ve been thinking a lot about securing our house. I’ve been reading everything I can, watching videos, and even testing security first hand. There are articles and videos about locks, bumping, picking, and using tools to break locks. There is also information about reinforcing door jams and security systems. With all this information, I really have to ask “what is the purpose of securing a house?”. That question may sound simplistic, but it is relevant. Unless we build our house like Fort Knox with armed guards and basically no windows, there will always be ways to get in.

Let’s start with locks. There are locks in every shape, size, and strength. Does a lock really matter? Well, I’ve seen videos of people kicking in doors and, of course, we’ve all seen TV shows with police using a battering ram to go right through the lock. So, someone determined to get in through the front door will definitely do it. A reasonable quality lock is a decent deterrent. Next let’s look at a security screen door. What is the purpose of it? I managed to break the lock on our security screen door (not on purpose) and with my father’s help, we broke the door in about a minute using a tire iron. So, the security screen door isn’t going to keep someone out, but will keep a solicitor from entering the house while we’re getting a breeze through it.

If we move on to securing the door jam, it seems like a reasonable thing to do as I’ve seen videos of the door being kicked in and it is something to consider; however, as I mentioned above, a determined person will get in. No matter what you do to the front door, there are easier ways to get into a house. Windows (unless they are bullet resistant or very reinforced), are pretty easy to break or cut, so there is another way to get in. Locks on windows aren’t of much use.

Looking at security systems, they only work after the fact when someone has already entered or attempted to enter your house.

So, what is the answer to security? I think it is quite simple, you need to deter anyone from attempting to get into your house and make your house not look like an easy target. If you keep people away from touching your house, none of the physical security above actually matters. There are a number of ways to make your house look less attractive for a criminal, none of these is revolutionary and hasn’t been said before:

• Use motion sensing lights. This is pretty obvious, but a lot of people don’t have this and sometimes they are a nuisance, so they’re turned off.
• Install cameras that are visible as well as post signs indicating that the property is being video taped. The recordings, themselves, may not actually help to catch an intruder, but the presence may get someone to think twice about approaching. Also, depending on the type of system, you could trigger alerts of someone approaching.
• Watch your routines. In our last house, we always parked our cars in the garage, so if someone looked at our house, he wouldn’t know if we were home or not. In our rental, we can’t get our cars in the garage, so the presence of our cars means we’re home and the lack of one or both means we’re not home. When I travel, I take a cab to the airport or get a ride to make it less obvious that I’m not home. In our new house, we’re definitely going to get both cars in the garage.
• Don’t broadcast your whereabouts on social networks. This is pretty obvious, but have you ever looked at the number of people that checkin somewhere and post on a social network?
• Lock your back gate.
• Don’t give people a place to hide around your house; trim back bushes and trees directly adjacent to your house.

I’m going to use a combination of things to secure my house, but am under no illusion that my house will be completely secure, because that just isn’t possible.

Am I an expert on this? No, I’m just a regular home owner that has done some thinking about this problem.

Sometime last year, my wife and I went to Road Runner Sports to get new shoes. They’ve always had a decent selection and with their VIP club, we can wear the shoes for awhile and return them if they don’t work out. This is extremely important to me as I run a bit and if the shoes aren’t comfortable, I need to find a replacement. When we went, they were advertising an extra 10% off (VIP members get 10% off already). After we left the store, I realized that their advertised 20% off (10% off for VIP + 10% off for the sale) was not actually 20%. They took the 10% off first and then from the new price, took another 10% off. So for a $100 purchase, 20% off makes the cost $80. However, they were charging $81 (10% off $100 = $90 and the 10% off that make $81). This is not a huge deal taken in isolation, but irked me enough that I sent a letter to the company CEO.

I got a call from the CEO and he refunded me a few bucks and said that he’d look into it. I figured he was just trying to placate me as they’d have to fix their computer systems to correctly apply the discount across the board. Today we were in the store to purchase new shoes and they were advertising 20% off (10% VIP + 10%) and I was expecting to put up a fight for the correct 20% off. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they took 20% off the original price with no funny business.

This was an excellent move by Road Runner Sports to correct something that most people would not have noticed. I’m not sure if originally they intended to incorrectly advertise the 20% off or it was just a mistake that no one caught. However, I am happy that they did the right thing.

Now I just hope my new shoes are comfortable as I don’t want to have to find different ones!

With the recent announcement/leak that Yahoo! is requiring all its employees to work from an office, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own experience working from home. I’ve been working from home for over 13 years; my first experience working from home was forced upon me with the closure of my office, but this second stint was my own choice. For my work style and ethic, I could never work in an office again. I do put in a full workday every day as well as work extra hours when needed. However, I’m also not chained to a desk and can get things done during the day, if needed. While I’m not alone in never wanting to work in an office again, working from home isn’t for everyone. In fact, I’d argue that most people should never work from home.

Working from home takes a certain dedication, motivation, and work ethic. In most cases, I believe that this should be reserved for the cream of the crop employees and be decided on a case by case basis. I’ve seen working from home abused by many employees and what Yahoo! is doing may make sense for it. However, they have the possibility of losing their best employees over the new policy.

Several years ago when my business was down significantly, I interviewed for a position with a local company. Like Yahoo!, their policy was that all employees had to be in the office. As someone who had worked from home for many years prior to this, I was quite torn about the position. In the end, I determined that my quality of life would suffer if I had to work in an office and commute up to an hour and a half round trip each day. Not everyone has this luxury, but a policy that is supposed to foster collaboration could backfire if it reduces overall employee satisfaction.

Even though I work in a large company, my entire team (except for one project manager) works from home (we’re all in different cities). We’ve actually never worked in an office for this company, but were hired as remote employees because great employees are hard to find and dictating where someone must live and come into an office drastically reduces the potential talent pool. If my company were to enact a blanket policy where no one could work from home with no exceptions on a case by case basis, I’m almost sure we’d all leave. My team is extremely talented and forcing us into the mold of an average employee is fraught with disaster.

Hopefully Yahoo! doesn’t lose too many good people (if you’re a mobile developer at Yahoo! and are looking to leave, please drop me a note) with this move. In addition, maybe the policy can be revisited on a case by case basis so that the top people have a lot more flexibility. In our highly mobile workforce, lumping everyone together is a recipe for losing people.

Almost 20 years ago, I became an Eagle Scout. This took a lot of work and taught me leadership and many skills that help me all the time. I am extremely proud of my accomplishment and it is pretty apparent in my office where I have my Eagle Scout award hanging on the wall.

As most people are aware, the Boy Scouts of America has some facets to it that are extremely conservative especially when it comes to its views of gays and religion. The recent case of an Eagle Scout candidate being denied the award is deep rooted in religious views that seems to dominate some policies of the organization. Nowhere is it stated that gays can’t be leaders and/or earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Some claim that being gay is not part of “to do my duty to god” or being “reverent”. This brings religion into an organization that doesn’t teach religion and should keep religious debate to adults and not bring Scouts into it.

This is discrimination and hatred pure and simple. It doesn’t make the candidate any less deserving because of his views and really makes the organization look bad. While it will be too late for some Eagle Scout candidates, Randall L. Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T has vowed to end this discrimination when he heads the BSA in 2014; it can’t come soon enough.

It is my belief that the concept of religion should be completely removed from Scouting as the only thing that religion seems to do is create controversy and hatred. However, as the organization doesn’t specifically say what “god” is, it can be interpreted in many ways. I don’t recall if the handbook talks about organized religion, but I also don’t think that atheists should be excluded. Maybe their “god” is Mother Earth. Maybe it is family. Who knows, but to exclude people based on beliefs is teaching the wrong message.

The Boy Scouts should be ashamed of its practices; I, however, will not give up my Eagle Scout award and will continue to say that I am an Eagle Scout. I hope that things can change in the organization with the change in leadership.

Three years ago this May, I quit my job and started being an independent software developer doing contract work. I decided that I was tired of my IT job and wanted to go back to writing code all the time (which was a change from a year and a half before that where I was tired of writing code). Working for my last company made me realize that I no longer wanted to work for anyone else and I wasn’t going to work for a large company again (I worked for Qualcomm at the beginning of my career. I wanted to be in charge of my work and control my own destiny; I believed that I could only accomplish this being self employed.

About six months after that, I was offered a full time position with eBay and took the job. This, of course, went against me not working for someone else and not working for a large company. Many factors went into the decision, one being getting to work with a lot of really good people; something I hadn’t done in years (I had worked with good people, but only a handful).

One of the keys to job happiness, I believe, is good management. Management has to balance overseeing employees with giving them the freedom to do their jobs. I’ve been quite lucky to have a manager that does this well. I’ve also been giving the opportunity to work on a number of projects and put my finely tuned skills to work. While I’ve had some difficulties on some projects, my manager has helped me through them and put me in a position that some say is enviable. At the moment, I control a lot of what I do; based on high level goals, I get to decide what to do on a day to day basis. This is what I believe I wanted when I told myself I wouldn’t work for anyone else again.

As for the large company, I work in a group that is fairly small and almost acts like a small company so I don’t feel like the big company is constraining me.

I’ve come to realize my flip flopping on not wanting to write code and then write code has to do with a good mix of work which I haven’t had until now. I was either writing code all the time or not writing code at all; I’m now in a position that I get to write some code, but I also get to do other things such as think about high level application architecture. If I want to write code, I have the flexibility to do that.

So, while I’m not saying that this is the perfect job (there is no perfect job), I’m quite content and plan on sticking around for awhile despite the constant recruiters contacting me from companies whose products you use everyday.

Up until fairly recently, my job was mostly writing code and it was quite easy to measure how I did each day by how much code I wrote. On days that I didn’t write much code, I didn’t think I was all that productive. Work product was simple to define; it was the code that I produced and the applications I wrote.

This past spring, my role at work (and possibly my career route) has changed such that writing code is now only a small part of what I do. I’m now overseeing some projects, designing how things work, and provide guidance to other developers about the projects I oversee. I can no longer measure a successful day on how much code I write as some days I don’t write any code (or even documentation)! This is a huge change for me and is making me come up for a new definition of “work product”. My success is now basically measured on the success of others; if I help other projects succeed, then I can be considered successful as well. However, that still doesn’t help me with my definition. What is my daily “output”?

While code is not tangible, there is at least a clear definition. My “work product” is now thoughts and conversations; that’s a pretty big change that is going to take some time for me to become comfortable with it.

With our modern world where there is so much hustle and bustle, at times it seems like people don’t slow down or take the time to help others. A few weeks ago, a group of people restored my faith in people helping people.

I was driving to Costco early one evening when I came upon the traffic light before Costco where I saw a car turned on its side. I didn’t see any emergency lights, so I knew that the accident happened a few minutes ago (average response time in San Diego is not great, but is still less than 10 minutes). I pulled over, got out of my car and went over to see what I could do to help. Already, there were at least 5 men holding up the car and trying to get the last passenger out (the 3 other occupants from the overturned car were out and the 4 from the other vehicle were also out). I made sure that someone was calling 911 and started to assess the situation (just as a side note, always make sure that someone has called and don’t assume that in a group anyone will do it). A number of other people came over to try to free the last passenger by using a baseball bat to pry open the door; luckily the passenger was able crawl out on her own. At the same time, other people were making sure that the 7 people already out had something to eat, drink and weren’t injured.

Once the woman was out of the car, someone had already setup a folding chair for her and she sat down. I went to my car and got my first aid bag and with the assistance of another good samaritan, I bandaged the wound on the woman. A woman came over and said she was a nurse offering to help and another man was in the intersection (the 2 cars were in the middle of the intersection) starting to direct traffic around the accident.

By the time police and fire arrived, the bystanders had started to disperse. It was almost amazing to see so many bystanders come together and help complete strangers. While I don’t want accidents to happen, I hope that as many caring and selfless people come out and assist.

When people ask me what I do, I say that I’m a software engineer as it is pretty easy to grasp and basically means I write software. However, what I really am is a software architect. How does this differ from an engineer? It means I do a lot of things outside of writing software. (I won’t get into the debate about programmer vs engineer as that is a topic for another day.) A colleague of mine pointed my to a great description of a software architect. The author, Chris Eppstein, kindly let me repost his list.

A Software Architect

A software architect lives to serve the engineering team — not the other way around.

A software architect is a mentor.

A software architect is a student.

A software architect is the code janitor. Happily sweeping up after the big party is over.

A software architect helps bring order where there is chaos, guidance where there is ambiguity, and decisions where there is disagreement.

A software architect codes the parts of the system that are the most precious and understands them through and through.

A software architect creates a vocabulary to enable efficient communication across an entire company.

A software architect reads far more code than he or she writes — catching bugs before they manifest as systems change.

A software architect provides technological and product vision without losing sight of the present needs.

A software architect admits when he or she is wrong and never gloats when right.

A software architect gives credit where it is due and takes pride simply in a job well done.

Our rental house was built in the 1950s and they did things a little different then things are done today. We noticed that the drain in our shower was draining very slow. After a plumber came out and snaked the drain and the vent, things didn’t improve. The plumber said that the drain was a 1.5 inch pipe whereas most drains are 2 inch.

So what were we to do? Every time we took a shower, the water would fill up the basin (it’s a small shower). One day I decided to muck with the shower head and reduce the water flow. Once I did this, I noticed that the shower didn’t fill up as quickly. I mentioned this to my wife and she said that if she turned the handles such that less water was coming out, she saw the same thing. I adjusted the shower head a bit more and now we no longer have to shower with a few inches of water at our feet.

This solution, of course, is pretty obvious. In order to reduce the output, decrease the input. Why I didn’t think of this earlier, I have no idea.