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November 27, 2005

"Brian, Dennis: sorry, you're not qualified enough"

EMC has a long history of skill in technology fields, specializing in enterprise-class storage, and now it's clear why they've been such a leader: they have unbelievably high hiring standards.

A programmer in the Westchester NY area was searching Monster.com, and ran across this entry (mirror here) for a senior software engineer. Most of the requirements are what you'd expect for this kind of position, except one:

36 years experience in C/C++ and or Java familiarity with scripting languages such as Perl, Shell.

The C language was invented in 1972, which means that no human has more than 33 years of experience with it, and this 36-year requirement would rule out even Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie ("K&R"). I've been a C programmer for almost 25 years, and I'd not even come close.

But if that posting seems like it's reaching the rarified air of C wizards, then this posting (mirror here), with a 68-year experience requirement, might be a bit more difficult.

(Thanks, Goose, for the pointers)

Posted by steve at 05:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 23, 2005

Secure Linux/UNIX access with PuTTY and OpenSSH

While assessing a new customer's network, one of my first recommendations was to eliminate passworded access to their main systems via secure shell, and in the process of writing up the instructions for configuring PuTTY and OpenSSH, I realized that this would be of wider interest.

So I created a Tech Tip that details how to install the wonderful and free PuTTY secure shell client and to configure it to use public key encryption without passwords on an OpenSSH server. This has a lot of screen shots and detail, and it should be enough to get anybody started on the road of secure server access.

Unixwiz.net Tech Tip: Secure Linux/UNIX access with PuTTY and OpenSSH

This really does look like a lot of work to set up, and in some respects it is, but it's largely a one-time cost which is immensely rewarded in short order. I use public-key, agented access to my servers, and I type a secret word (the pass phrase to my private key) about once a day: after that, all access "just happens".

It's really, really worth the time to learn, and I hope that this Tech Tip makes it a bit easier.

Posted by steve at 09:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

November 05, 2005

Steve in the news: Election 2005

The other day, I got a call from a producer at Power 106 radio asking about my ballot analysis. After a bit of conversation and checking out my California Ballot Measure Analysis, she invited me to appear on their Knowledge is Power show this Sunday from 7-8. It's a show talking about the upcoming election, and it seems that they wanted an independent voice. I'm not entirely sure how this will develop, but I do know that it's early (and an hour away), and I don't have to dress up for it :-)

A year ago I was mentioned by the Los Angeles Times, but this will be my first radio appearance on the elections. Should be fun!

Posted by steve at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 04, 2005

Resynchronizing uptime counters

Also known as "power failure".

Some idiot plowed into a major utility pole at 11:30 last night, and it's taken down power completely. I heard the crash, saw the flash, but oddly the power came back on (and my UPS did its job). I went back to bed and awoke to no power, so my three-years-of-uptime server is no more (it had wrapped the 497-day uptime counter twice).

This was a major pole located *at* an SBC telco central office, so it's likely carrying plenty of phone traffic too. They say it will be out until tonight, which means that I'll have tons of email waiting for me while I throw away all the food in my refrigerator.

If you've sent me an email today, I haven't seen it yet.

Sorry :-(

Posted by steve at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack