A recent assignment for technical writing used collaborative writing. The plan was to get in groups of 3-4 and write an essay analysing various forms of visual literacy. As soon as I heard the word collaboration in my writing class, I went to wikipedia. Sure enough, the visual literacy page was a stub.

It took a little bit of convincing, but once the other guys had a chance to play with it, they seemed to like the idea. We could all work on the document, track who did what, and publish our material (this is what intimidated one member the most). As an extra bonus, we did not have to email around a word document.

It worked! Still pretty rough, and not done, but… I present you…. the wikipedia page on Visual literacy.

The Barometer ran an article today about Google’s donation to OSU. This is indeed news worthy… and I am happy for google and Oregon.

However, in the final paragraph they quote me, “We don’t really have education for open source software here on campus,” he said. “I can go to my computer science classes and learn nothing about this software.” This is not true. For example, I have a class that focuses on the Linux operating system.

The intent was for it to read more like:

“We don’t really have education for open source software here on campus,” he said. “I can go to my computer science classes and learn nothing about this process.”

So yeah:

s/software/process/

EECS is being very receptive, and progress is being made. We are already leaders and it seems like we are leveraging that.

Today the Governor announced that Google has donated $350,000 to OSU, PSU, and the OSL. I am so happy to see a company stick its money where its mouth is by supporting open source in education.

If this money is spent well, I have a hunch that it will be the first of many such donations.

Read the press release: http://governor.oregon.gov/Gov/press_102505.shtml

Go beavs!

Chateau geek has an open room!

If you are a geek, and need a place to live, we have an opening for you. Chateau geek is configured to serve people who need extras like a server room, dedicated 24×7 NOC, and LCD projector instead of a TV. Plans are also in the works to bring our network up to IPv6, to prepare for the future onslaught. We also have a huge garden (if you are into that).

The listing is over on beaverchat..

Firefox was launched via balloon satellite:

• Full story: http://lug.oregonstate.edu/index.php/Projects/Firefox/Firefox_Sky
• Photos: http://lug.oregonstate.edu/gallery/firefox-one

No word on where it landed yet..

I am cross posting this from the OSLUG website because it is so darn cool.
–
What: Launching “Firefox One”, an Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium balloon satellite
Where: Memorial Union Quad
When: Saturday, October 22nd at high-noon (12pm, 2 hours before the review-fest)
Why: Last time we took back the sidewalk, this time we are going to 100,000ft
Who: Anyone who wants to celebrate 100,000,000 downloads and help launch the weather balloon

The Oregon State Linux Users Group, Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium, and the OSU Open Source Lab teamed up to launch “Firefox One”, a balloon satellite capable of carrying a 14lb payload to 100,000ft in elevation. Our payload will be a large Firefox banner, CD, and camera to take photos of Firefox at the edge of space.

Tell your classmates, family, and anyone else you can think of to come and help do the launch! The event will be centered at the MU quad, so if you cannot make it physically, you can watch from the MU webcam.

Wooohooooo Firefox, we did it!

Everyone busted out the paper, but I got out the laptop and said, “I am blogging this.”

Where do you see yourself working in 5 years? In 10?

I seem to get this question a lot. The general response is, “I do not even know what I will be doing next week!”. Now, that may sound like I do not have a grand plan or a vision, but this is not the case. I simply trust that opportunities will come up and I will make a good decision which to pursue.

Hopefully where ever I am in 5 or 10 years, I will not be working, I will be playing. I will be able to accomplish this only if my job is so fun it seems like it is not work at all. I used to think that this was an impossible situation, but as I gain more experience in industry I realize that it is a distinct trait of the people that are most successful.

What sorts of technical writing do you see yourself doing? (Be specific) Reports? What kinds?

Ideally I will have some technical knowledge to share with others, in which case I will be writing about that. Maybe I will find the need to write an RFC or help explain the kernel scheduling model. Both of which I have no knowledge about at the moment, but it could happen.

Whoops, times up.

The internship has come to an end. I am back in Corvallis, started school, and am living in the new house.

If it is of interest to you, here are a few of the things I worked on while I was in Mountain View:

Linux Virtual Server clusters

I was responsible for implementing and scripting our linux virtual server clusters. Between the two clusters (one in Santa Clara and Oregon State) we have 15 static httpd servers, 4 dynamic httpd, and 4 mysql servers. With these we power most of the core services. I can happily report I was involved with LVS’ing the following web sites:

• www.mozilla.org
• addons.mozilla.org
• aus2.mozilla.org
• aus.mozilla.org
• feeds.spreadfirefox.com

developer.mozilla.org

Pretty much I was Deb’s dedicated sysadmin monkey. Together we moved from developer-test.mozilla.org to developer.mozilla.org beta. Rumor has it that we are dropping the beta soon too. ;) I even found myself reading the docs… good stuff! This project has gotten me very familiar with CVS and mediawiki. We ended up needing to fork mediawiki and importing it into our own cvs tree…. all of this was a great learning experience.

Various other tasks

• helping move off of cisco pix to a linux firewall
• dealing with the sfx hack
• generating stats
• Putting out fires
• Shwag rangling at OSCON and LinuxWorld
• pretty much just any odd ball sysadmin task that needed to be done and that Dave did not have time for. :)

Outside of work…. well, see this post.

It was a pleasure to be able to work with the folks down in Mountain View. Thank you to everyone who shared time and experience with me. I am excited to continue working remotely from Corvallis and keep making progress towards graduation.