Monday, August 27, 2007

Job Opening at Ning

Lately, I've been hyping up Marc Andreessen's new company, Ning, to many of my tech savvy friends. My argument is that everyone of his creations have changed the world (the first web browser) or at least changed (or will change) the IT world (Opsware).

They all think I'm talking out of my ass. So here it is for the record:

Ning (or whatever it evolves into) is my prediction for the next big thing.

And here is an open req they have open that fits my skillset (although I haven't done Sysadmin work in years).

Here it is in its entirety in case they take it down one day:

Unix/Linux System Administrator Profile

* You love the operations of online services and Internet start-ups. You love the thrill of a 24/7 infrastructure that’s always changing.

* You have experience with online services run at scale or would like to.

* You don't mind being on-call. It sort of reminds you of college.

* You've stayed at a few companies for enough time to see an infrastructure evolve over time. You've also had alot of different projects within that environment.

* You are an expert in Solaris and Linux systems. You have experience with DTrace, Zones and Xen.

* You’ve spent a lot of time with storage management, such as SAN and NFS. If you’ve spent time with iSCSI that’s also a plus. ZFS experience? Another big plus.

* You know your way around database and network administration. You consider your time with Oracle, Cisco and Force10 time well spent.

* You love a solid night of system performance tuning, troubleshooting and problem solving.

* You started in operations because you were curious about how you manage a data center with thousands of servers. You’re constantly looking for the most efficient ways to do so. Some might call it lazy. We call it smart.

* Google isn’t your main source of information. You love spending a lot of time online and staying up-to-date on new things in infrastructure via a variety of favorite blogs.

* You are equally comfortable building everything yourself as you are with buying shrink wrapped software. You aren’t religious about either path, but instead look for the right tool for the job.

* You are independent, but not so independent that you don't enjoy working on a great team.

* You graduated from a university, ideally with a technical degree. If you didn’t graduate from a university with a technical degree, your hands on experience will blow our minds and we’ll forget about school.

* You choose simplicity, iteration and continuous improvement over ivory tower, complex architecture projects.

* Before you send in your resume, you create a social network on Ning. In doing so, you want to know how the heck we’re going to scale to millions of social networks. And the thought of which is already getting you pretty jazzed.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Go Bag

Probably influenced by this Lifehacker article, I've been thinking about building the Ultimate Go Bag. It would comfort me knowing I could jump out of bed grab this said bag and diffuse a bomb then pwn some NSA servers at any given time. Here's what I would need. This list will be updated frequently.

1) Quad-function space pen
2) Victorinox Cybertool 41
3) Toothbrush
4) Toothpaste
5) Moleskine
6) Notebook computer
7) USB thumb drive
8) Flask
9) Cliff Bar
10) Ibuprofen
11) Carabiner
12) Keys
13) Wallet
14) Mobile Phone
15) Blackberry
16) Knife
17) tiny first aid kit (antibiotic ointment, bandaid)
18) Kleenex
19) Gum
20) Laptop lock
21) Claritin
22) Ipod
23) earphones
24) maglite mini flashlite
25) cough drops
26) mints
27) hipster PDA
28) lip balm
29) camera with usb cable
30) business cards
31) pictures
32) sharpie markers
33) highlighter
34) vitamins
35) pencil with eraser
36) dental floss
37) spare change in a altoids can
38) All purpose boot CD *
39) Extra phone and blackberry batteries
40) bluetooth headset
41) ethernet cable *
42) sunglasses
43) stamps
44) universal charger
45) extra contacts
46) Verizon PC5740 Wireless adapter card
47) Tiny post-it notes
48) Notebook AC adapter
49) Caffeine mints
50) Lighter
51) Cigs
52) Ogio or Northface bag (light one with more pockets)


Ninja Jump Kit

1) Blank CDs/DVDs
2) OTS cable
3) Tiny Network Hub
4) Crossover ethernet adapter
5) Keycatcher
6) Western Digital passport USB hard drive (2)
7) Ethernet Loopback Adapter
8) Ethernet LinkCheck
9) Flexible Shaft Ratcheting Screwdriver
10) Workstation Repair Kit
11) Analog notebook
12) digital voice recorder
13) soldering iron
14) USB Floppy Drive
15) Torx Screwdrivers
16) Universal wire stripper/crimping tool
17) IDE/SATA to USB Converter
18) Yaesu handheld