From ann at usenix.org Mon Feb 4 10:14:53 2002 From: ann at usenix.org (Ann Tsai) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 10:14:53 -0800 Subject: Take a USENIX TUTORIAL ONLINE! Message-ID: Staying current and getting trained by the experts has just been made easier! Take a USENIX TUTORIAL ONLINE! *Advanced Solaris System Administration - Peter Baer Galvin *Network Security Profiles - Brad Johnson *System and Network Performance Tuning - Marc Stavely *Syslogs and Network Security -Tina Bird For over 20 years, USENIX, The Advanced Computing Association, has trained thousands of advanced computing professionals, earning a reputation for high-quality, practical technical education that is unparalleled in the industry. Now you can take our popular and highly regarded tutorials LIVE from your work or home AND at 60% less than taking the same tutorial at a conference! 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To register, please visit: http://www.usenix.org/elearning/ -- From aub at coldstone.com Mon Feb 4 15:14:28 2002 From: aub at coldstone.com (Alberto Begliomini) Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2002 15:14:28 -0800 Subject: Redhat install question Message-ID: <3C5F15D4.7070606@coldstone.com> I have a laptop that it is already running Redhat 7.0, and on which I want to install 7.2 via the PCMCIA this time, instead of using the CDROM. I downloaded the pcmcia.img and pcmciadd.img for the Redhat web site and copied on two diskettes. This laptop is using a 3COM 3CCFEM556B PCMCIA card. The laptop boots fine from the diskette containing the pcmcia.img; then when it asks to insert the second diskette containing the PCMCIA drivers, it freezes with the message "Initialiazing PC Card Devices". I have browsed Google left and right, checked a dozen or so mailing lists,asked people on IRC. Nothing. I found very few messages on Google of people experiencing the same problem, but with no resolution. And yes, I recreated those diskettes at least a couple of times on different diskettes, and I also took the images from the 7.2 CDROM instead of the Redhat web site the second time... just in case. Any idea folks? -- Alberto Begliomini Email: aub at coldstone.com Coldstone Consulting, LLC Phone: 650-654-5938 Security, Systems and Networks Administration Fax: 650-631-8722 From star at betelgeuse.starshine.org Tue Feb 5 10:47:15 2002 From: star at betelgeuse.starshine.org (Heather) Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 10:47:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: Redhat install question In-Reply-To: <3C5F15D4.7070606@coldstone.com> from Alberto Begliomini at "Feb 4, 2002 03:14:28 pm" Message-ID: <200202051847.g15IlGV03999@betelgeuse.starshine.org> > I have a laptop that it is already running Redhat 7.0, and on which I > want to install 7.2 via the PCMCIA this time, instead of using the > CDROM. I downloaded the pcmcia.img and pcmciadd.img for the Redhat web > site and copied on two diskettes. This laptop is using a 3COM > 3CCFEM556B PCMCIA card. > > The laptop boots fine from the diskette containing the pcmcia.img; then > when it asks to insert the second diskette containing the PCMCIA > drivers, it freezes with the message "Initialiazing PC Card Devices". Hmm. Perhaps it is trying to initialize a different PCMCIA bridge than the tupe you have. The most common are the Intel i82365 (numbers jumble?) a later revision of the same which Linus calls the "yenta", and the TCIC chip (whose number I don't pretend to recall). Not sure if that's a 2.2.x or a 2.4.x kernel there, and if it is, then pcmcia services have two ways of being built, too. In short it's a bit messy. > I have browsed Google left and right, checked a dozen or so mailing > lists,asked people on IRC. Nothing. I found very few messages on Google > of people experiencing the same problem, but with no resolution. 1) http://www.google.com/linux well, you're right, I didn't find much either. Other than a reference to a comment that CERN had to replace the network setup with some parts from the normal David Hinds kit, it's mostly mirrors of redhat itself (yawn) and clear descriptions about making RH 5.0 happy (oh my, that's ancient) 2) SuSE supports spawning the installer after you've booted by some other method 3) My own experiences with Debian via PCMCIA (after the first 3 diskettes) have been good, but I usually cheat and drop in a much bigger 'base' these days. Libranet's current edition has support for pcmcia, but I didn't need to try it so I can't say. I have some experience with other brands but not their recent editions. > And yes, I recreated those diskettes at least a couple of times on > different diskettes, and I also took the images from the 7.2 CDROM > instead of the Redhat web site the second time... just in case. > > Any idea folks? Well, you've followed what passes for RH' next crack at things. Lemme see if there's anything good on Mobilix or KHarker's pages... (www.mobilix.org) (www.linux-laptop.net -- make sure not to use the plural) {grodgel grodgel} The laptop HOWTO is useless, it's too vague. I dunno which models don't bear a CD-ROM so it's hard to dig among the brands for that - and they probably didn't use Redhat, or it would have been likely to come up on my searches. Hmm, somebody gave up on the hassle and found a way to download the CD contents into spare space on his hard disk, then do the HD based install. Of course he was going to be a dual boot anyway so this wasn't a big deal for him. And someone suggested that the RH 6.x pcmcia floppies worked better. I'm afraid this really isn't much to go on. My normal backoff plan for touchy hardware is that I'm unafraid to take the device apart, mount its hard disk on another system, load it up, and put it back. (Between IDE to ??? adapter bays, and the fact that I own a couple of laptop-desktop pinout adapters, it's fairly possible.) With the modern distros willing to leave your local drive alone (to support dual and triple booting) all you have to do is make sure it doesn't accidentally "improve" the boot loader on the friendly host, and that you do properly install a boot loader on the guest disk. The hard part is keeping track of all the itty bitty screws. . | . Heather Stern | star at starshine.org --->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org ' | ` Sysadmin Support and Training | (800) 938-4078 From qkstart at ix.netcom.com Thu Feb 7 15:40:09 2002 From: qkstart at ix.netcom.com (David Dull) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 15:40:09 -0800 Subject: Fw: Epicentric Opportunities Message-ID: <005401c1b030$c86d2740$6bc3efd1@qkstart> Epicentric OpportunitiesThis company is at One Market Street in San Francisco. If you are interested, please contact Erik directly. --David R. Dull ddull at ieee.org http://home.netcom.com/~qkstart ----- Original Message ----- From: Erik Vesneski To: 'qkstart at ix.netcom.com' Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 2:57 PM Subject: Epicentric Opportunities David: Here are the employment opportunities: --------------------------------- Senior Unix Administrator: Responsibilities: Maintain the high availability services of Epicentric's Unix Department. Work with all IT staff to maintain and advance Solaris and Oracle environment onsite as well as at a SF collocation facility. Design, implement, and maintain scripts to automate and monitor services in both locations to provide 24x7 uptime. Install, configure, & maintain Oracle Databases. Configure and administer DNS, Sendmail, and web servers. Set backup and restore procedures for all services. The ideal candidate would meet the following skill set: 7-8 years of technical experience with Solaris 2.6 - 7, Linux, HP Openview, Sparc Hardware, Storage Arrays, & Veritas (Volume Manager, File System, Net Back-up, Cluster Server) products. 3+ years of technical proficiency with Oracle, Apache, MS IIS, Perl, shell scripting, C, C++, CGI, Java, and application servers. 4+ years of technical experience and proficiency with Checkpoint, Cisco, and Foundry products. 2+ years as a Senior Unix Administrator. HPUX and AIX experience a plus. BS in Computer science, Electrical Engineering or equivalent. Advanced degree preferred. --------------------------------- Unix Systems Administrator: Responsibilities: Assist in maintaining the high availability Unix IT services of Epicentric, Inc. Work cross departmentally with Engineering and IT staff to advance and maintain the Solaris and Oracle environment onsite as well as at a local collocation facility. Design, implement, and maintain scripts to automate and monitor services in both locations to provide 24x7 uptime. Install, configure, & maintain Oracle Databases. Configure and administer DNS, Sendmail, web servers, and application servers. Set backup and restore procedures for all services. The ideal candidate would have the following skill set: 4-5 years of technical experience with Solaris 2.6 - 8, Linux, HP Openview, Sparc Hardware, Storage Arrays, Veritas (Volume Manager, File System, Net Back-up, Cluster Server) products, and HTTP Load Balancing Hardware. 3 years of technical proficiency and experience with Oracle, Apache, MS IIS, Perl, shell scripting, C, C++, CGI, Java, and J2EE Application Servers. 3 years of technical experience and proficiency with Checkpoint, Cisco, and Foundry products. HPUX and AIX experience a plus. BS degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or equivalent. Experience with BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, and Apache Tomcat a strong plus. --------------------------------- Thank you, Erik L. Vesneski www.epicentric.com 1-415-995-7220 Epicentric, Inc. From qkstart at ix.netcom.com Thu Feb 7 15:43:15 2002 From: qkstart at ix.netcom.com (David Dull) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 15:43:15 -0800 Subject: Epicentric Opportunities Message-ID: <006e01c1b031$370bf0a0$6bc3efd1@qkstart> Erik's email address is erik at epicentric.com --David R. Dull ddull at ieee.org http://home.netcom.com/~qkstart From joe at jjk3.com Thu Feb 7 11:49:11 2002 From: joe at jjk3.com (Joe Keegan) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 11:49:11 -0800 Subject: SecurID Message-ID: <000001c1b010$964d53e0$6b01a8c0@hermes> I am currently working on SANS GIAC Firewall certification and as part of the practical assignment I need to design a security architecture for a fictitious e-commerce company. I would like to include RSA security SecurID in my architecture, but have little exposure to the product or technology. I have looked on RSA's site and contacted the product manager for docs on the product, but have had no luck. Does anyone on this list have access to the docs for RSA Security SecureID, in pdf format, they can send me. Thanks Joe ******************************************************************* Joe Keegan joe at jjk3.com Security Engineer CCSA, SCSA Phone: 408-242-4588 ******************************************************************* From david at catwhisker.org Fri Feb 8 08:29:48 2002 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 08:29:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Ken Mayer says "Hi!" Message-ID: <200202081629.g18GTmO74083@bunrab.catwhisker.org> In the process of asking to be removed from the baylisa list for a while, and by way of explanation, Ken sent along: >From: Ken Mayer >Subject: Re: Get me off this cinqua list >Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 10:58:00 -0000 (GMT) >.... I'm in Zihuatanejo, >now. I'm on my sailboat, so I move around a bit. I spent most of last year in >the Sea of Cortez. We'll stay in here in Zihua for a few more weeks before we >start heading North along the mainland coast. We'll spend another >spring-summer-fall in the Sea of Cortez before coming back down South again. >It's a migration cycle for us, except that we don't breed ;-) After next year, >it'll be time to head back to the states so we can earn some more dollars. >I hope things are going well up there. Say "Hi" to everyone. >Ken >P.S. "cinqua" is a pejorative -- but a good slang word to know in case you >need it ;-) I never thought about it as a list name ... almost appropriate Cheers, david (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org I believe it would be irresponsible (and thus, unethical) for me to advise, recommend, or support the use of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product for any purpose other than personal amusement. From nouveaux at lightconsulting.com Sat Feb 9 22:36:09 2002 From: nouveaux at lightconsulting.com (Dean Kao) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 22:36:09 -0800 Subject: Sys admin tasks Message-ID: <20020209223609.A54610@shaitan.lightconsulting.com> Hey guys I'm looking for a place online where I can get a list of the tasks that a sys admin may do. I remember the talk a few months back on this. Where can I get more information? tia Dean From elle at CSUA.Berkeley.EDU Sun Feb 10 04:59:13 2002 From: elle at CSUA.Berkeley.EDU (elle) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 04:59:13 -0800 Subject: Sys admin tasks In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 09 Feb 2002 22:36:09 -0800." Message-ID: <200202101259.g1ACxDc07437@soda.csua.berkeley.edu> > I'm looking for a place online where I can get a list of the tasks > that a sys admin may do. I remember the talk a few months back on this. > Where can I get more information? don't know about the talk, but the sage website is always a good resource: http://www.sage.org -elle From extasia at mindspring.com Sun Feb 10 16:41:23 2002 From: extasia at mindspring.com (David Alban) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 16:41:23 -0800 Subject: Sys admin tasks In-Reply-To: <20020209223609.A54610@shaitan.lightconsulting.com>; from nouveaux@lightconsulting.com on Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:36:09PM -0800 References: <20020209223609.A54610@shaitan.lightconsulting.com> Message-ID: <20020210164123.A11566@new.gerasimov.net> Dean, At 2002/02/09/22:36 -0800 Dean Kao wrote: > I'm looking for a place online where I can get a list of the tasks > that a sys admin may do. I remember the talk a few months back on this. > Where can I get more information? You might be referring to Rob Kolstad's talk. In which case, you'll want to go to: http://ace.delos.com/taxongate David -- Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 232 bytes Desc: not available URL: From dcurry at cariocas.com Tue Feb 12 11:06:52 2002 From: dcurry at cariocas.com (Daniel Curry) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 11:06:52 -0800 Subject: Linux/Unix/Win2K domian in the small enterprise Message-ID: <731E36372B5FD248AF790189519A32C180DDA6@mailhub.cgtime.com> Hello all! I have a small problem that is growing into an extremely large difficulty. I have a Windows 2000 network running Active Directory for Domain management. I also have a series of Solaris 8 boxes and will soon have the entire development staff migrating their development workstations to Linux. I am needing input on how to integrate the Sun, Linux, and Windows boxes to all use the same (or integrated) authentications system. Management has determined that we will continue to use MS Exchange 2000, and all of the non-engineering staff will remain on Windows systems with Outlook. Currently all of the Unix systems are local logon only, with no centralized authenticator. Other elements needed are that anyone can take their notebook home, logon locally, and continue to work. Once home or where ever they have internet access, same user can connect to VPN, re-authenticate, and access network resources. So far, I have been told to use NIS(+), LDAP, or Kerberos. I am asking here for suggestions with arguments of why or why not a certain solution. Any suggestions outside of these listed would be welcomed, as well. I would prefer a system with a single login and password per user. Single point of user management would be nice, but is not mandatory. I am considering using Samba for File and Print services. Exchange is the required e-mail server. VPN is PPTP and is currently a Win2K system. Will move off to a dedicated router/VPN server, with its own userid/Login, then user will have to authenticate into the network, after that tunnel has been established. Daniel Curry IT Manager Cariocas 625 Second Street Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94107 ph: 415-348-6516 fx: 415-348-6505 cell: 510-579-6680 From chuck+baylisa at snew.com Tue Feb 12 16:30:17 2002 From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:30:17 -0800 Subject: Linux/Unix/Win2K domian in the small enterprise In-Reply-To: <731E36372B5FD248AF790189519A32C180DDA6@mailhub.cgtime.com>; from dcurry@cariocas.com on Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 11:06:52AM -0800 References: <731E36372B5FD248AF790189519A32C180DDA6@mailhub.cgtime.com> Message-ID: <20020212163017.D6996@snew.com> Quoting Daniel Curry (dcurry at cariocas.com): > I have a small problem that is growing into an extremely large > difficulty. Not so small, you just are seeing iceberg tips. > I have a Windows 2000 network running Active Directory for Domain > management. That is a problem. > I also have a series of Solaris 8 boxes and will soon have the entire > development staff migrating their development workstations to Linux. > I am needing input on how to integrate the Sun, Linux, and Windows boxes > to all use the same (or integrated) authentications system. Management > has determined that we will continue to use MS Exchange 2000, and all of > the non-engineering staff will remain on Windows systems with Outlook. > Currently all of the Unix systems are local logon only, with no > centralized authenticator. Active Directory has some scaling issues. So far, OpenLDAP hasn't had those. Active Directory also uses some schemae in ways that are explicitely wrong per LDAP RFCs. That's just data within the Directory Server and can often be dealt with. > Other elements needed are that anyone can take their notebook home, > logon locally, and continue to work. Once home or where ever they have > internet access, same user can connect to VPN, re-authenticate, and > access network resources. > So far, I have been told to use NIS(+), LDAP, or Kerberos. I am asking > here for suggestions with arguments of why or why not a certain > solution. Any suggestions outside of these listed would be welcomed, as > well. Kerberos certainly might be worth looking at. It's a bitch to learn (there are very few beginning resources), but once known is pretty powerful. It works with Windows, Unix (all) and Mac. It's just hell to learn. LDAP is fine for AUTH as long as you ALWAYS AUTH OVER A SECURE CONNECTION. That can mean over an SSL connection, a private network (e.g the imap server has a pocket network connection to an LDAP replica) or over IPSEC. Cleartext AUTH is generally a Bad Thing. NIS/NIS+ are pretty much useless at this stage. NIS is too unsecure for my liking (esp for home workers), NIS+ is a scaling nightmare. > I would prefer a system with a single login and password per user. > Single point of user management would be nice, but is not mandatory. I > am considering using Samba for File and Print services. Understandable. > Exchange is the required e-mail server. God why? It ends up costing something like $25/user/month to run an Exchange Server. There are so many decent IMAP servers and calendaring products that are secure, scale and are cheaper in both the short and the long run. Frankly, I'd rather ssh to my IMAP server and fix something using tools that have evolved for system admins (magic things like "grep") than kick up some Windows Anywhere type of thing. I can take a dual CPU Intel box and run 800 Exchange users on it, or perhaps 35,000 IMAP users. It will have time to run SETI if it's doing IMAP. > VPN is PPTP and is currently a Win2K system. > Will move off to a dedicated router/VPN server, with its own > userid/Login, then user will have to authenticate into the network, > after that tunnel has been established. PPTP is not a secure VPN, unless they've fixed some things. It's cute, but unsecure. Other options are to use smartcards and public/private keys (certs). IPSEC will certainly play nice with CERTS. VPN is NOT user authentication. It secures the network layer. An attacker who can access the remote users' machine can then route into your network. Just cause it's coming from the CEO's laptop doesn't mean its the CEO. VPN + per service auth is the Right Answer. (If that means, for example, that web based tools require a sign-on, fine). You're coming into a very long standing area that system administrators have been trying to address well for a LONG time - heterogenous, location independant authentication and user management. We've done pretty well with mixed-Unixes. MS has a different agenda and deliberately messes things up. Chuck From hal at deer-run.com Tue Feb 12 16:49:39 2002 From: hal at deer-run.com (Hal Pomeranz) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:49:39 -0800 Subject: Massive SNMP vulnerability reports Message-ID: <20020212164939.C15844@deer-run.com> Many of you have already seen this, but I think it needs the widest dissemination possible. CERT Advisory 2002-03 (http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2002-03.html) describes a suite of buffer overflow and denial-of-service attacks against the SNMP implementations used by essentially every vendor of network-capable devices. Disable SNMP, block the SNMP ports at your firewall (most critical are 161 and 162, tcp and udp-- the CERT Advisory lists other less commonly used ports), and obtain patches from your vendor. Do it now. -- Hal Pomeranz, Founder/CEO Deer Run Associates hal at deer-run.com Network Connectivity and Security, Systems Management, Training From extasia at mindspring.com Thu Feb 14 10:15:21 2002 From: extasia at mindspring.com (David Alban) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 10:15:21 -0800 Subject: SIG-beer-west on Saturday, February 16th Message-ID: <20020214101521.A9350@new.gerasimov.net> Greetings! dc-sage is the Washington, D.C. based chapter of SAGE. I've been on their tech discussion and chat lists for years, having lived in the Baltimore area before coming to the Bay area a couple years ago. Besides having a monthly technical meeting, dc-sage meets one Saturday evening a month for the purpose of Consuming Beer or Beer Alternatives, and Chewing the Fat. They call it SIG-BEER. (I like the pun on unix signals.) This isn't a technical meeting. It's purely social, although if folks want to talk shop over suds, they're certainly welcome to do so. The thought arose about having a "sig-beer-west" here in the Bay area. So Fiid has organized a sig-beer-west for this Saturday at Toronado's in San Francisco. Please RSVP to Fiid so he knows what size table (or how many tables) to reserve. Hope to see you there! David ----- Forwarded message from "Fiid (David Williams)" ----- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 12:36:15 -0800 From: "Fiid (David Williams)" To: dc-sage at dc-sage.org Subject: [dc-sage] SIG-beer-west on Saturday, February 16th Reply-To: "Fiid (David Williams)" Washington DC's premier social event for computer sysadmins and their ilk, dc.sage's SIG-beer, is finally coming to the west coast. The first SIG-beer-west ever will happen this Saturday, Feburary 16th at Toronado's ( http://www.toronado.com ) in San Francisco. Festivities start at 6 PM and continue until everyone leaves. Details, directions are available on the web page at: http://www.fiid.net/sf_sig_beer.html This event is not limited to dc.sage members. Please feel free to forward this message and/or to invite friends, co-workers, and others who might enjoy lifting a glass with the local systems admins of D.C. and San Francisco. RSVP's, even tentative ones, are always good, so that a sufficiently large table can be set up in advance. However, if you find yourself suddenly free on Saturday night, please don't hesitate to simply "show up." To RSVP, please just mail me back with [sig-beer-west-rsvp] in the subject line. I will attempt to ensure that a table is booked. I apologise for the short notice on this. It's just about time that it got done. So I figured I might as well do it :-). Next month will be better organized. --Fiid. ====================================================================== + This message was forwarded by the dc-sage at dc-sage.org mailing list + ====================================================================== -- Live in a world of your own, but always welcome visitors. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 232 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jxh at jxh.com Thu Feb 14 11:33:51 2002 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 11:33:51 -0800 Subject: SIG-beer-west on Saturday, February 16th In-Reply-To: <20020214101521.A9350@new.gerasimov.net> References: <20020214101521.A9350@new.gerasimov.net> Message-ID: <18660000.1013715231@jxh.mirapoint.com> > Alternatives, and Chewing the Fat. They call it SIG-BEER. (I like > the pun on unix signals.) That may not be the explanation. Years ago, the ACM had official Special Interest Groups (SIG), and there was an unofficial one in Minneapolis that the participants called SIGBAP (for Beer And Pizza). I think it still meets occasionally. From mkonety at musambi.com Thu Feb 14 11:39:10 2002 From: mkonety at musambi.com (Madhu Konety) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 11:39:10 -0800 Subject: Service Management Product Beta Program: Need your help Message-ID: Hi all, We are a startup building software products to address your application level service management needs. Our product, the App.Tuate, is for system administrators and IT operations managers to manage application infrastructure (web servers, load balancers, application servers) from the user service perspective. Yep there are a lot of management tools out there and App.Tuate is different in that we are not a monitoring and reporting tool but provide dynamic system resource management. The product provides automation to improve operational productive, ensure consistent service levels for users and optimizes infrastructure capacity. I would like to invite a you all to beta test our product and give us your valuable feedback. As part of the beta program, we might send in a engineer for your deployment and request your feedback from time to time. We also have a choice of exciting thank you gifts, you can choose from, to appreciate your efforts and support. The ideal test environment is Apache on Linux with mySQL or postgres and Java 1.2 or higher. We also support IIS and iPlanet both on NT and Solaris, with MS Access, sql Server or Oracle. So please hurry in, reply to this email and sign up for beta testing this exciting new product. Madhu Konety Musambi Corp. Email: mkonety at musambi.com From mrallen1 at yahoo.com Sat Feb 16 16:22:52 2002 From: mrallen1 at yahoo.com (Mark Allen) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 16:22:52 -0800 (PST) Subject: Urgently looking for semi-ancient SCSI controller Message-ID: <20020217002252.67586.qmail@web10105.mail.yahoo.com> My main email, DNS, web, ssh and you-name-the-service server died today because the SCSI controller kicked it. I'd just go out and buy a new one, but the twist is that this system is an 21164 Alpha powered LX164 motherboard. So this is what I'm trying to find: A Symbios or NCR 53C875 PCI SCSI controller that *is* bootable and has a 50 pin and 68 pin internal connector on it. The ex-controller that I'm staring at is circa 1998-1999. If you have one of these beasties moldering in your closet, attic, garage, etc, I'd be willing to pay up to $30 for one. I'd also be happy to drive over and extract same from a chassis if you live near/around the Bay Area. This card will eventually be in service to a Red Hat Linux 7.1 server under the Alpha SRM console. For the record, I have already been to Disk Drive Depot, HSC, and Action Computer and Surplus today to find a used one and struck out. There's not even any bootable Symbios cards which I know for certain will work on ebay much to my chagrin. Thanks. Mark __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com From claw at kanga.nu Sat Feb 16 18:56:50 2002 From: claw at kanga.nu (J C Lawrence) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 18:56:50 -0800 Subject: Urgently looking for semi-ancient SCSI controller In-Reply-To: Message from Mark Allen of "Sat, 16 Feb 2002 16:22:52 PST." <20020217002252.67586.qmail@web10105.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20020217002252.67586.qmail@web10105.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <27548.1013914610@kanga.nu> On Sat, 16 Feb 2002 16:22:52 -0800 (PST) Mark Allen wrote: > A Symbios or NCR 53C875 PCI SCSI controller that *is* bootable and > has a 50 pin and 68 pin internal connector on it. The > ex-controller that I'm staring at is circa 1998-1999. If you have > one of these beasties moldering in your closet, attic, garage, > etc, I'd be willing to pay up to $30 for one. I'd also be happy > to drive over and extract same from a chassis if you live > near/around the Bay Area. If you continue to run dry, give me a shout. I know I have some NCR cards (which are SymBIOS under the covers) with narrow and wide SCSI on them. I can't promise the exact chip rev/model. They're kinda buried tho (recent house move), so I'd rather not have to go digging if I don't have to. -- J C Lawrence ---------(*) Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. claw at kanga.nu He lived as a devil, eh? http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/ Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live. From mkonety at musambi.com Tue Feb 19 23:18:22 2002 From: mkonety at musambi.com (Madhu Konety) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 23:18:22 -0800 Subject: Need Help: Service Level Management Product Beta Message-ID: Hi all, We are a startup building software products to address your application level service management needs. Our product, the App.Tuate, is for system administrators and IT operations managers to manage application infrastructure (web servers, load balancers, application servers) from the user service perspective. Yep there are a lot of management tools out there and App.Tuate is different in that we are not a monitoring and reporting tool but provide dynamic system resource management. The product provides automation to improve operational productive, ensure consistent service levels for users and optimizes infrastructure capacity. I would like to invite a you all to beta test our product and give us your valuable feedback. As part of the beta program, we might send in a engineer for your deployment and request your feedback from time to time. We also have a choice of exciting thank you gifts, you can choose from, to appreciate your efforts and support. The ideal test environment is Apache on Linux with mySQL or postgres and Java 1.2 or higher. So please hurry in, reply to this email and sign up for beta testing this exciting new product. Madhu Konety Musambi Corp. Email: mkonety at musambi.com From star at betelgeuse.starshine.org Wed Feb 20 13:05:37 2002 From: star at betelgeuse.starshine.org (Heather) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:05:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: BayLISA tomorrow (2/21) 7:30 pm Message-ID: <200202202105.g1KL5bN21769@betelgeuse.starshine.org> If you're an interrupt-driven soul like me then you might enjoy this reminder that BayLISA is meeting tomorrow.... ...the third Thursday of the month, so if you're reading this on Thursday that'd be tonight :D Topic - WebVan: Lessons from the Trenches Speaker - Paul Evans, Icarian When - 7:30 pm until oh, 9:30 or so... expect to get out around 10. Where - Incyte Genomics HQ 3160 Porter Drive Palo Alto Porter Drive is between Foothill Expressway and El Camino, along Page Mill Rd. Travelling: south (From Foothill/280) -- turn right north (from El Camino) -- turn left It's the third driveway on the right: 1. Wall Street Journal 2. right next to 3 3. silver monolith with Lockheed Martin and Incyte Genomics logos on it - shiny enough that they're both hard to see. Incyte is the building in the back. We'll see you there if you can make it :) A bunch of us like to go out afterwards for pizza, sandwiches, snacks, drinks, and more conversation. -* Heather Stern * Arch (secretary) BayLISA Board * http://www.baylisa.org/ *- From qkstart at ix.netcom.com Fri Feb 22 09:29:46 2002 From: qkstart at ix.netcom.com (David Dull) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 09:29:46 -0800 Subject: Management Perception of System Administration Message-ID: <001c01c1bbc6$869adfa0$f3caefd1@qkstart> Last night Paul Evans spoke at the Bay LISA meeting on lessons learned at Webvan during the period of 1999-2000. Actually, he presented a few insights and then opened the floor for public discussion. In his well-thought-out presentation he drew parallels between the public political and business climate and that of the individual companies participating in the dot-com bubble, and then he got down to the specifics of incidents at Webvan itself. Although some of the observations were contradictory, anyone who was reading business magazines at the time would remember that the times themselves were contradictory. What came out for me was the disconnect between what Paul called the "operational management," or the managers who were responsible for the day-to-day business, and the "strategic management," or the president and the board of directors. It appeared that the operational management was unable to communicate to the strategic management the common business sense that they had acquired through their prior experience. Is this true, or is it simplification? I tend to think that the missteps along the way were shared by all, that the miscommunication occurred on both sides of the arbitrary fence. We heard an example of non-redundant production equipment in a mission-critical application failing, without spares on hand. Many of the system administrators in the audience saw this as a red flag, while Paul seemed to think that this was a necessary evil due to the budgetary constraints of the earlier, less extravagant, incarnation of Webvan. Paul also seemed to blame new, more ambitious management for ignoring this warning and deciding to roll out its services in numerous markets before the concept was proven in the first market. However, a contractor in the audience indicated that Paul's team had done exactly the same thing by ignoring the implications of an earlier failure on the same mission-critical application. I don't think there's a disconnect between operational management and strategic management. I've seen the scramble for safety and the fear of being blamed in the rank-and-file, as well as in the boardroom. I have observed how managers, both of operations and of research and development, have side-stepped critical issues because they did not want their names associated with an obvious problem. I have seen how corporate politics works at all levels to subvert corporate profitability. I once thought this was a phenomenon reserved for old companies, but the Webvan presentation showed me that it can happen anywhere, that it is more a phenomenon of society than of one company or another. Paul made a very strong point that the only real way for system administrators to apply their personal experience to board-level decisions is to climb into the board and participate. He mentioned the suit phenomenon, where employees can be promoted into management because of their appearance. I'd like to keep in mind that I have only one chance to make a first impression, and that the suit, or at least a business-casual appearance, must be maintained continuously. I would like to point out, however, that it is often corporate expectations that provide the social pressure for technicians and engineers to "dress down." Managers don't want to be confused into thinking that their line employees are also managers. That doesn't fit into their mindset. Yes, in their minds there is a class distinction between "management" and "labor," and while engineers, programmers, and system administrators are not typically unionized, managers tend to think of them as labor. System administrators will not find changing management perception an overnight project. Engineers have been trying to change this perception for a hundred years, and as far as I can tell they have made no progress at all. --David R. Dull ddull at ieee.org http://home.netcom.com/~qkstart From bigmac at tellme.com Fri Feb 22 11:38:53 2002 From: bigmac at tellme.com (Bryan McDonald) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 11:38:53 -0800 Subject: Management Perception of System Administration In-Reply-To: <001c01c1bbc6$869adfa0$f3caefd1@qkstart> Message-ID: Interesting...I did not attend last night, but Paul and I have known each other for, hmm...pushing 10 years. We have worked together at a couple of different companies. Sounds like maybe I should have attended. Anyways, there were a couple of points made below that I thought were worth addressing. First, contradiction between operational management and strategic corporate management is not a function of the dot.com bubble, but simply the state of being for many companies, and in fact a constant tension at even the best of companies. IT managers are contantly asked to provide the best service for the least money, just as retail companies or manufacturers are asked to provide the best sales services or highest quality products for the least amount of money. In this game, IT managers are asked to perform continuous risk analysis, trading risk of software or hardware failure for reducing capital and expenses. In the early life of many companies, this really tends towards high risk, low capital decisions. As the company grows, you would think that the trend would be to shift that equation towards lowering risk, but in disfunctional management teams, that is not the decision made, and you end up with all sorts of problems. Note that disfunctional managment is not a problem that can be easily quantified and analyzed. Sometimes the IT management does not do the job of pushing information up, sometimes strategic managment does not do a good job of asking for/requiring/listening to the new data. Many dot.com's could in many ways just be described as overly aggressive. In market's like WebVan's, market share is king, and rapid expansion is one way to get it fast to keep it from others. Of course, if you cannot deliver on the promise, you loose the market share just as fast, if not faster. I can easily see how a company bent on rapid expansion would ignore the warnings of IT and other departments that the infrastructure is not reliable enough, in favor of spending the requested capital on new marketing campaigns, regional launches, etc. I have in fact seen it on multiple occasions in the past 10 years. Note that one problem we in IT face is that strategic managment does not understand ourworld as well as they understand others. Paul has always advocated that people moving from our world into the that strategic management world is one of the best ways to fix that problem, and I have to say that I agree. The issue you mention of people sidestepping issues to avoid blame is a problem as well, but that is a product of bad management, and only addresses one set of problems that any corporation faces these days. Get rid of the managers who foster a culture of blame and punishment, and replace them with managers who foster a culture of responsibility and reward, and you can turn that around. On your last point, your right. Engineers, systems administrators are all labor. The ways management planning is done these days is you figure out the amount of work, and the amount of resources to the work, and make sure they match up. Resources (manpower, equipment, services) cost money, so you try to minimize them. Work, in theory, produces profit, so you try to maximize it. Managers who don't know what they are doing will tend to view their staff as strictly manhours, which can be effective in some situations, but generally produces unhappy staff members. Good ones understand that their staff is more then just the sum of the hours they worked that week, and their employees tend to be much happier (and as a result, are better workers). This too is endemic of all companies, not just ours. The dot.com's are interesting in that they accelerate everything...fast growth, fast profits, fast management...and sometimes fast failures. It is a rollwer coaster ride. Find a seat with a seat belt. bigmac > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-baylisa at baylisa.org [mailto:owner-baylisa at baylisa.org]On > Behalf Of David Dull > Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 9:30 AM > To: baylisa at baylisa.org > Subject: Management Perception of System Administration > > > Last night Paul Evans spoke at the Bay LISA meeting on lessons > learned at Webvan during the period of 1999-2000. Actually, he > presented a few insights and then opened the floor for public > discussion. In his well-thought-out presentation he drew parallels > between the public political and business climate and that of the > individual companies participating in the dot-com bubble, and then > he got down to the specifics of incidents at Webvan itself. Although > some of the observations were contradictory, anyone who was reading > business magazines at the time would remember that the times > themselves were contradictory. > > What came out for me was the disconnect between what Paul called the > "operational management," or the managers who were responsible for > the day-to-day business, and the "strategic management," or the > president and the board of directors. It appeared that the > operational management was unable to communicate to the strategic > management the common business sense that they had acquired through > their prior experience. Is this true, or is it simplification? > > I tend to think that the missteps along the way were shared by all, > that the miscommunication occurred on both sides of the arbitrary > fence. We heard an example of non-redundant production equipment in > a mission-critical application failing, without spares on hand. > Many of the system administrators in the audience saw this as a red > flag, while Paul seemed to think that this was a necessary evil due > to the budgetary constraints of the earlier, less extravagant, > incarnation of Webvan. Paul also seemed to blame new, more ambitious > management for ignoring this warning and deciding to roll out its > services in numerous markets before the concept was proven in the > first market. However, a contractor in the audience indicated that > Paul's team had done exactly the same thing by ignoring the > implications of an earlier failure on the same mission-critical > application. > > I don't think there's a disconnect between operational management and > strategic management. I've seen the scramble for safety and the > fear of being blamed in the rank-and-file, as well as in the > boardroom. I have observed how managers, both of operations and of > research and development, have side-stepped critical issues because > they did not want their names associated with an obvious problem. I > have seen how corporate politics works at all levels to subvert > corporate profitability. I once thought this was a phenomenon > reserved for old companies, but the Webvan presentation showed me > that it can happen anywhere, that it is more a phenomenon of society > than of one company or another. > > Paul made a very strong point that the only real way for system > administrators to apply their personal experience to board-level > decisions is to climb into the board and participate. He mentioned > the suit phenomenon, where employees can be promoted into management > because of their appearance. I'd like to keep in mind that I have > only one chance to make a first impression, and that the suit, or at > least a business-casual appearance, must be maintained continuously. > > I would like to point out, however, that it is often corporate > expectations that provide the social pressure for technicians and > engineers to "dress down." Managers don't want to be confused into > thinking that their line employees are also managers. That doesn't > fit into their mindset. Yes, in their minds there is a class > distinction between "management" and "labor," and while engineers, > programmers, and system administrators are not typically unionized, > managers tend to think of them as labor. System administrators will > not find changing management perception an overnight project. > Engineers have been trying to change this perception for a hundred > years, and as far as I can tell they have made no progress at all. > > --David R. Dull > ddull at ieee.org > http://home.netcom.com/~qkstart > From jxh at jxh.com Fri Feb 22 13:13:19 2002 From: jxh at jxh.com (Jim Hickstein) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 13:13:19 -0800 Subject: Management Perception of System Administration In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1052986.1014383599@[0.0.0.0]> One thing struck me about the technology risks: Someone says "we want 5 nines", but then they set up a business that cannot tolerate any service interruption above that point. 0.99999 is a _probability_, not a certainty, and an average one at that. Some days will be below average. I was thinking of systems where this would seem to matter more, and seem to achieve better certainty: airline reservation systems, and better yet, air-traffic control systems. Yet, in the latter case anyway, they _do_ have major system failures, and they _do_ have major service interruptions. But they also have manual procedures. When the radar goes black, you talk in the radio; when the radio falls silent, you look at your pieces of paper and start talking on the telephone (to other radio operators). The airplanes have procedures for clearing the airspace around such an emergency, and they don't all fall out of the sky. This happens _routinely_. (P.S. Don't tell the passengers.) I didn't see a failsafe system when Paul was describing the totes going round the distribution center. Partly this may because they didn't set out to design one. But that, IMO, is a business failure, not a technological one. Some service interruptions, at some level, are _inevitable_, period. (And the harder you try -- and succeed -- to reduce the small disasters, the larger the average disaster becomes.) If you set up a business that won't survive one, and don't have the humility to admit that Plan B should exist, that's not the technology's fault. You can buy a certain number of nines these days. But so can your competitors. The next couple of nines are harder, and they consist of putting systems in place to help people avoid making mistakes. I've achieved some modest success at this in my operations career. It's the most interesting part, to me. From bigmac at tellme.com Fri Feb 22 14:37:41 2002 From: bigmac at tellme.com (Bryan McDonald) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 14:37:41 -0800 Subject: Management Perception of System Administration In-Reply-To: <1052986.1014383599@[0.0.0.0]> Message-ID: 5 9's always amuses me. People always ask for it, and most don't understand what they are asking for. And your right, trying for it is interesting. One of the problems I saw a lot when I was at GNAC doing team consulting work was that many customers did not understand what their real core requirements were when it came to relibility and recovery. Each contract started not on the design board, but talking to the customer management team and deciphering what their true requirements were of their IT systems. Given that we were almost always called in to do something that had been attempted already, the fact that the requirements were not already clearly defined is the reason the project failed in the first place. This is clearly tied into the discussion of strategic management versus IT management. IT managers and staff usually can tell you what the technology requirements are for solving particular kinds of problems, but they are disconnected from what strategic managers think the real problems to solve are. Many sr managers and executives I have known have a clear idea of the business problem they are trying to solve, but are not effective at translating it into the technology requirements needed, nor at expressing the business issues to the technology managers for them to translate. As more executives progress from computing ranks, this is changing, but this just demonstrates that IT department integration into corporations is maturing...and they will be just as broken as other departments in corporations, but only just, and not more so. ;-) bigmac > -----Original Message----- > From: Jim Hickstein [mailto:jxh at jxh.com] > Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 1:13 PM > To: Bryan McDonald > Cc: David Dull; baylisa at baylisa.org > Subject: RE: Management Perception of System Administration > > > One thing struck me about the technology risks: Someone says "we want 5 > nines", but then they set up a business that cannot tolerate any service > interruption above that point. 0.99999 is a _probability_, not a > certainty, and an average one at that. Some days will be below average. > > I was thinking of systems where this would seem to matter more, > and seem to > achieve better certainty: airline reservation systems, and better yet, > air-traffic control systems. Yet, in the latter case anyway, they _do_ > have major system failures, and they _do_ have major service > interruptions. > But they also have manual procedures. When the radar goes black, > you talk > in the radio; when the radio falls silent, you look at your > pieces of paper > and start talking on the telephone (to other radio operators). The > airplanes have procedures for clearing the airspace around such an > emergency, and they don't all fall out of the sky. This happens > _routinely_. (P.S. Don't tell the passengers.) > > I didn't see a failsafe system when Paul was describing the totes going > round the distribution center. Partly this may because they > didn't set out > to design one. But that, IMO, is a business failure, not a technological > one. Some service interruptions, at some level, are > _inevitable_, period. > (And the harder you try -- and succeed -- to reduce the small disasters, > the larger the average disaster becomes.) If you set up a business that > won't survive one, and don't have the humility to admit that Plan > B should > exist, that's not the technology's fault. > > You can buy a certain number of nines these days. But so can your > competitors. The next couple of nines are harder, and they consist of > putting systems in place to help people avoid making mistakes. I've > achieved some modest success at this in my operations career. It's the > most interesting part, to me. From chuck+baylisa at snew.com Fri Feb 22 17:03:04 2002 From: chuck+baylisa at snew.com (Chuck Yerkes) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 17:03:04 -0800 Subject: 0.99999% In-Reply-To: ; from bigmac@tellme.com on Fri, Feb 22, 2002 at 02:37:41PM -0800 References: <1052986.1014383599@[0.0.0.0]> Message-ID: <20020222170304.A30374@snew.com> Quoting Bryan McDonald (bigmac at tellme.com): > 5 9's always amuses me. People always ask for it, and most don't understand > what they are asking for. And your right, trying for it is interesting. Allow me to riff off of this: I used to work as a system admin at a place that developed an HA (high availability/failover management) program. Development was motivated and, in a large part, funded by some Wall St companies down the street a bit. I sort of kibitzed on interface (when developers choose ways that an SA should work with a product, an SA should be involved in restraining them). The software worked but, frankly, meant that you were no long on Unix (SunOS or Solaris at the time), but on "Unix + HA" and non-HA experienced SA's couldn't touch it. Most of the tech support came from people who'd blithely edit /etc/inetd.conf or services on one machine and, when failover happened, have a problem. The first part of the install was usually "teaching HA" - all systems had do have some redundancy - dual paths to disks so that a cable or SCSI card failure was minor. The LAST thing we wanted to do was an actual machine -> machine failover. The goal was (a marketing) "4 9's of uptime" (barring planned downtime). Since the target was trading systems, they were generally in heavy use for 10 hours/day, during which failure could cost 10's of thousands per minute (and nobody ever was stopped from making a bad deal during a failure - they always "just lost $50,000"). Then we had people who grumped that having a spare 4-way machine doing NOTHING BUT WAITING for the other to die was a waist of money. It came down to this: In 1995 terms, you spent $100k on hardware and it could be maintained only by your SENIOR system admins ($150k/year) and you would have failure/reboots that took less than 1-2 minutes to recover from. When management demands 5 9s (< 1 second of downtime/day or 5 minutes/YEAR), that will cost a lot of money. 0.9999% sounds lovely. Tandem made a lot of money on that. Most of the time, it's entirely moot. You can have a system be down for 20 minute. You can also work around bumps for a short time. You can also find high resilience in a lot of customer side systems. Local Directors (and equiv.) fronting web servers that talk to an SQL database with apps that can fail gracefully when the SQL server goes down. EBay and Amazon REQUIRE HA for that, it's their business. Many businesses will have annoyances if their web server apps goes down, but a 30 minute outage will not affect much - getting "online banking is temporarily unavailable, please check back soon" won't drive Wells Fargo out of business on the rare occasion. 5 9's usually costs several hundred thousand dollars and is not often actually needed or wanted. If anyone thinks they can have 4+ 9s and do it on the cheap, then they are lying to themselves and awaiting budget overruns. So management: Let's assume that "5 9's" is non-mathematical and that they mean "spend a reasonable amount to keep our stuff working." That might mean a couple web servers containing the external static data. A backup MX box to catch mail if (when?) your T1 goes down. A spare server box to use when one of your servers goes down. Hell, standardizing on a couple server types so that you can HAVE spares. Spending money on monitoring and alerting can be slid into this budget item. Educating management. Presenting to management in acceptable ways. Not "No we can't do that" but "Sure we can do that, let me put together a budget for that project and you take a look at if we want to do it." "Strategic management" needs to plan money and other resources. We need to help them do that. Middle managements' stereotypical job is to stand between our reality and the reality that the board needs to hear (the PHB factor). Learning how to communicate with and have the trust of the top folks is one of the most valuable skills a Sr. SA can have. chuck From joebsd1 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 25 23:13:46 2002 From: joebsd1 at yahoo.com (joe bsd) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 23:13:46 -0800 (PST) Subject: Save our jobs. Message-ID: <20020226071346.29723.qmail@web20105.mail.yahoo.com> Save our high tech jobs I?m writing this letter to the American engineers and IT workers who might be adversely affected by the H1-B visa laws. If you don?t know what I?m talking about, look here: http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/FAQs.htm#WhatisH-1B? Our jobs have been put on the world auction block. The H1-B visa has facilitated this. If you read the H1-B visa laws, you will see that these were written with absolutely no regard for the American IT worker or engineer. It?s as if they were written by corporate lawyers for corporations ?not ?by the people for the people?. http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/Title_20/Part_655/Subpart_H.htm If I were an employer whose only interest was to maximize my profit, I would love to have an endless supply of skilled foreign workers. This way, if my current employees were costing me too much, I could just get some new ones. Then I?ll lay off my costly employees. It doesn?t matter that they are American Citizens. It?s not my concern if they can?t feed their families. I don?t care if they paid taxes to the US Government all their lives. I don?t care if they put they put their lives on the line to defend our nation. All I know, is I got this new guy from some far away nation who will work for $10,000 less. That?s the bottom line. So to my American worker I say: ?Your job has been eliminated?. You can collect $230 a week in unemployment. It?s really not my concern if your rent is $1300. Maybe you can live in South Dakota with $230 a week. And one more thing? I?ll give you some money if you sign this release waiver. It basically says, ?I?ll sell my Civil Rights for cash?. Would you please sign it before you go? We don?t want you to sue us if you finally realize how badly we screwed you?. Unfortunately I?m not the employer in this scenario. I?m the guy trying to feed his family in the Silicon Valley with $230 a week. I hope by now you are asking yourself, ?Can they really do that to an American worker?? Is that really legal? You bet it is. I?ve talked to people in the US Department of Labor and they assured me, ?Yes, you are screwed?. (Not in those exact words) There is very little in the H1-B visa laws that prevents an employer from replacing you with a foreign worker. In some rare cases the law might protect your job. But, I?ve never heard of this happening. People at the DOL can only enforce the laws that we have. The H1-B visa issue will no appear on a California ballot referendum. It?s up to us to make sure the folks in DC pass laws to protect OUR interests. How could they pass laws that hurt us like that? I thought they only passed laws that protect us. Well, who do you think has more influence in Washington? ?Corporations like Sun Microsystems or a group of American workers without a union. Do you now see why there is no protection for American workers built in to the H1-B laws? We let it happen. Remember, this is a nation of immigrants. We can?t blame people for wanting to come to this country. I?m sure countless millions more would come if they had the chance. If the laws allowed, I bet we could replace all American workers with foreign workers. Issue the visas and they will come. They can?t pass laws to replace all of us. But, they can pass laws that will displace hundreds of thousands of high tech workers who don?t complain. The problem is in the laws, not with the people taking the jobs. It is not my intent to start a flame war on this mailing list. I have neither the time nor desire for a debate. I am only concerned with the welfare of American workers. My intent is to gather others who wish to protect the jobs of Americans. I know there are others who agree with me. If you are one of them, send me an email. I?ll contact you to discuss what we can do to defend our jobs. Please don't respond to the list, as this topic might not be appropriate. Sincerely, Joe Recommended reading: http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games http://sports.yahoo.com From dannyman at toldme.com Tue Feb 26 08:54:11 2002 From: dannyman at toldme.com (Danny Howard) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 08:54:11 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020226071346.29723.qmail@web20105.mail.yahoo.com>; from joebsd1@yahoo.com on Mon, Feb 25, 2002 at 11:13:46PM -0800 References: <20020226071346.29723.qmail@web20105.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20020226085411.S3896@pianosa.catch22.org> On Mon, Feb 25, 2002 at 11:13:46PM -0800, joe bsd wrote: [...] > So to my American worker I say: ?Your job has been eliminated?. You > can collect $230 a week in unemployment. It?s really not my concern > if your rent is $1300. Maybe you can live in South Dakota with $230 a > week. And one more thing I?ll give you some money if you sign > this release waiver. It basically says, ?I?ll sell my Civil Rights > for cash?. Would you please sign it before you go? We don?t want > you to sue us if you finally realize how badly we screwed you . [...] My job was eliminated in July, 2001. I collected the $230 for a while until I got tired of looking for work, and took a job waiting tables at a modest salary, waiting to weather out the recession. If I have any concern with H1B workers, it is that they don't get that $230 / week opportunity, and they can't even settle for waiting tables. They have to go back home. H1B is a pain in the rear for employers, too. Many of the job postings I've seen declare flat-out, up-front, that they will not sponser Visas. If you're worried about corporations looking for maximum profits, then go ahead and get rid of the H1B. They'll set up shop overseas, paying these foreign workers far less, returning NO tax revenue to our economy, and offering less diversity to our culture. America was built on successive generations of "can-do" immigrant labor. Here in California, we are ALL immigrants. If I can't make it out here, I can always go back to the midwest. I've got a far better deal as a citizen than those coming over here on H1Bs, and the last thing I want to do is turn on those even less fortunate than myself. One last tip is that you ought to send e-mails in the ASCII character set, especially when your audience is Systems Administrators. Also, you're welcome to follow-up to me privately. I wanted to offer BayLisa a counterpoint, but I don't want to bring us a flame war. ;) Oh, and if anyone's hiring: http://dannyman.toldme.com/resume/ Thanks, -danny -- http://dannyman.toldme.com/ From keves at bluefeet.com Tue Feb 26 11:12:09 2002 From: keves at bluefeet.com (Brian Keves) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 11:12:09 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. References: <20020226071346.29723.qmail@web20105.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3C7BDE09.DFD2AE9E@bluefeet.com> This is a totally inappropriate posting for this mail list and the person who posted this and didn't have the courage of his convictions to even properly identify himself should know better. I am offended by this typical prejudice reaction to a program which has been essential to the growth of the American high tech economy and which probably helped provide the anonymous Joe BSD with his job in the first place. Brian Keves (American Worker who can stand on his own feet.) keves at bluefeet.com -- joe bsd wrote: > Save our high tech jobs > > I?m writing this letter to the American engineers and IT workers who > might be adversely affected by the H1-B visa laws. If you don?t know > what I?m talking about, look here: > > http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/FAQs.htm#WhatisH-1B? > > Our jobs have been put on the world auction block. The H1-B visa has > facilitated this. If you read the H1-B visa laws, you will see that > these were written with absolutely no regard for the American IT > worker or engineer. It?s as if they were written by corporate > lawyers for corporations ?not ?by the people for the people?. > > http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/Title_20/Part_655/Subpart_H.htm > > If I were an employer whose only interest was to maximize my profit, > I would love to have an endless supply of skilled foreign workers. > This way, if my current employees were costing me too much, I could > just get some new ones. Then I?ll lay off my costly employees. It > doesn?t matter that they are American Citizens. It?s not my concern > if they can?t feed their families. I don?t care if they paid taxes > to the US Government all their lives. I don?t care if they put they > put their lives on the line to defend our nation. All I know, is I > got this new guy from some far away nation who will work for $10,000 > less. That?s the bottom line. > > So to my American worker I say: ?Your job has been eliminated?. You > can collect $230 a week in unemployment. It?s really not my concern > if your rent is $1300. Maybe you can live in South Dakota with $230 > a week. And one more thing I?ll give you some money if you sign > this release waiver. It basically says, ?I?ll sell my Civil Rights > for cash?. Would you please sign it before you go? We don?t want > you to sue us if you finally realize how badly we screwed you . > > Unfortunately I?m not the employer in this scenario. I?m the guy > trying to feed his family in the Silicon Valley with $230 a week. I > hope by now you are asking yourself, ?Can they really do that to an > American worker?? Is that really legal? > > You bet it is. I?ve talked to people in the US Department of Labor > and they assured me, ?Yes, you are screwed?. (Not in those exact > words) There is very little in the H1-B visa laws that prevents an > employer from replacing you with a foreign worker. In some rare > cases the law might protect your job. But, I?ve never heard of this > happening. People at the DOL can only enforce the laws that we have. > The H1-B visa issue will no appear on a California ballot > referendum. It?s up to us to make sure the folks in DC pass laws to > protect OUR interests. > > How could they pass laws that hurt us like that? I thought they only > passed laws that protect us. Well, who do you think has more > influence in Washington? ?Corporations like Sun Microsystems or a > group of American workers without a union. Do you now see why there > is no protection for American workers built in to the H1-B laws? We > let it happen. > > Remember, this is a nation of immigrants. We can?t blame people for > wanting to come to this country. I?m sure countless millions more > would come if they had the chance. If the laws allowed, I bet we > could replace all American workers with foreign workers. Issue the > visas and they will come. They can?t pass laws to replace all of us. > But, they can pass laws that will displace hundreds of thousands of > high tech workers who don?t complain. The problem is in the laws, > not with the people taking the jobs. > > It is not my intent to start a flame war on this mailing list. I > have neither the time nor desire for a debate. I am only concerned > with the welfare of American workers. My intent is to gather others > who wish to protect the jobs of Americans. I know there are others > who agree with me. If you are one of them, send me an email. I?ll > contact you to discuss what we can do to defend our jobs. Please > don't respond to the list, as this topic might not be appropriate. > > Sincerely, > > Joe > > > Recommended reading: > > http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/ > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games > http://sports.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: keves.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 327 bytes Desc: Card for Brian Keves URL: From ldevlin at cnet.com Tue Feb 26 11:38:50 2002 From: ldevlin at cnet.com (Leslie Devlin) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 11:38:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020226085411.S3896@pianosa.catch22.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Danny Howard wrote: > Here in California, we are ALL immigrants. If I can't make it out here, > I can always go back to the midwest. I've got a far better deal as a > citizen than those coming over here on H1Bs, and the last thing I want > to do is turn on those even less fortunate than myself. Though I mostly agree with you, California's not *all* first-generation immigrants -- there really are some of us whose family, friends and roots are all here, and in hard times we don't have a cheap farmhouse in Iowa to retreat to. I'm just sayin'. From dk at farm.org Tue Feb 26 12:39:04 2002 From: dk at farm.org (=?koi8-r?B?RG1pdHJ5IEtvaG1hbnl1ayDkzcnU0snKIOvPyM3BzsDL?=) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 12:39:04 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: ; from ldevlin@cnet.com on Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 11:38:50AM -0800 References: <20020226085411.S3896@pianosa.catch22.org> Message-ID: <20020226123904.A3553@farm.org> On Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 11:38:50AM -0800, Leslie Devlin wrote: > On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Danny Howard wrote: > > Here in California, we are ALL immigrants. If I can't make it out here, > > I can always go back to the midwest. I've got a far better deal as a > > citizen than those coming over here on H1Bs, and the last thing I want > > to do is turn on those even less fortunate than myself. > > Though I mostly agree with you, California's not *all* first-generation > immigrants -- there really are some of us whose family, friends and roots > are all here, and in hard times we don't have a cheap farmhouse in Iowa to > retreat to. I'm just sayin'. I think his point here was that, originally, all of California's residents were immigrants - the gold rush was just a bit over 150 years ago. So nobody's roots here are very deep, anyway. (If you don't count those lucky Indians which weren't killed.) I started working in California on H1-B visa myself, and I know probably 50 people who did the same. Being paid below-market wage, paying social security tax yet not being eligible for its benefits sure does not add to the sense of self-respect. Now, `just' 5 years down the road, with a green card (only it's pink), I can say that this country would not survive without good immigration policy. And `good' does not mean `present'. But I'd leave that to my fellow U.S. citizens to decide - of course permanent residents do not have right to vote, even in county elections. Just one hint: portable work visas with employment authorization for spouses.s (Not all of them think of housewive's career as a good idea.) Now, back to regularly-scheduled Perl/BSD/Apache hacking... From joebsd1 at yahoo.com Tue Feb 26 17:26:40 2002 From: joebsd1 at yahoo.com (joe bsd) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 17:26:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020226123904.A3553@farm.org> Message-ID: <20020227012640.64687.qmail@web20102.mail.yahoo.com> I think this is an apropriate topic, because we all need jobs and like to put food on our tables. My name is Guy Santiglia. I think the law intended that American Citizens are to be considered first for employment in their own country. In practice it doesn't protect our jobs at all. While thousands of Americans were losing there jobs in 2001, Sun Microsystems was applying for more H1-B visas. About 1,000 by my estimate. Go figure. If you don't believe me, go to 8000 Central Ave, Newark and request to see Sun's 2001 LCA file( Labor Condition Aplication). This is public access information. It's your right to see them. When a company has to lay people off, Citizenship or permanent resident status is not even considered in making the decision. I think this is just plain wrong. The INS is authorized to issue at least 195,000 H1-B visas in 2002. How much do you think you have to pay somebody from India to make it worth there while to come to America. I just had an idea to save our economy: Issue 1,000,000 H1-B visas let them work for less than the market rate and all the companies can survive. If Americans want the jobs they'll have to take the same pay as the H1-B's. This is what is happening already. Take a step back and look at it. And Dimitry, If they were paying you less than market value, then they were in violation of the law. The law is supposed to protect American wages from falling as a result of the H1-B visas. Would you care to mention the company that paid you less than market wage? Guy Santiglia __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! http://greetings.yahoo.com From gwen at reptiles.org Wed Feb 27 00:37:56 2002 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 03:37:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020227012640.64687.qmail@web20102.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20020227032250.Y381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, joe bsd wrote: > I think this is an apropriate topic, because we all need jobs and > like to put food on our tables. An appropriate topic in my books would have been "I've noticed that it's much harder to find jobs in this economic climate - what sort of tactics have people been using to find/retain jobs?" > When a company has to lay people off, Citizenship or permanent > resident status is not even considered in making the decision. > I think this is just plain wrong. I don't think this is wrong. I think that the bottom line of most corporations is to make money efficiently - and hiring/retaining the best people possible is a part of that process. It's extremely expensive to train new people (it mean that you have at least two non-productive people during the training period), and very inefficient to lose existing knowledge. Personally, I'd rather see people laid off on the basis of needed skill and knowledge, and finanicial situation than citizenship. Something which I've found interesting about "bad times" is that they seem to bring out the best in some, and the worst in others. To some people, it's an opportunity to try and help the less fortunate, and pull together as a community to attempt to better everyones lot. cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From dredd at megacity.org Wed Feb 27 06:50:20 2002 From: dredd at megacity.org (Derek J. Balling) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 09:50:20 -0500 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020227032250.Y381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> References: <20020227032250.Y381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> Message-ID: > > When a company has to lay people off, Citizenship or permanent >> resident status is not even considered in making the decision. >> I think this is just plain wrong. > >I don't think this is wrong. I think that the bottom line of most >corporations is to make money efficiently - and hiring/retaining the >best people possible is a part of that process. But the "condition" on a company being granted permission to get an H1 employee is "I can't find US employees to do this job, so I have to go outside the country to do it". If there's two employees, one doing job A who is a US citizen, and one doing job B who is on an H1, and job A is being eliminated, then - if the US citizen CAN DO job B, he should be moved to Job B, and the H1 holder should be the one laid off. I was recently laid off and (luckily given the market) had a "probable new job" lined up inside of 12 hours and confirmed within 72, so I didn't really think too much about it at the time, but in hindsight, I could definitely see where a US citizen who was laid off, while an equally qualified H1-holder was kept could make a good argument that the company isn't following the spirit OR the letter of the H1 Visa process... D -- +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | dredd at megacity.org | "Thou art the ruins of the noblest man | | Derek J. Balling | That ever lived in the tide of times. | | | Woe to the hand that shed this costly | | | blood" - Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1 | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ From david at catwhisker.org Wed Feb 27 08:14:25 2002 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 08:14:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200202271614.g1RGEPB99246@bunrab.catwhisker.org> >Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 09:50:20 -0500 >From: "Derek J. Balling" >> > When a company has to lay people off, Citizenship or permanent >>> resident status is not even considered in making the decision. >>> I think this is just plain wrong. >>I don't think this is wrong. I think that the bottom line of most >>corporations is to make money efficiently - and hiring/retaining the >>best people possible is a part of that process. >But the "condition" on a company being granted permission to get an >H1 employee is "I can't find US employees to do this job, so I have >to go outside the country to do it". >If there's two employees, one doing job A who is a US citizen, and >one doing job B who is on an H1, and job A is being eliminated, then >- if the US citizen CAN DO job B, he should be moved to Job B, and >the H1 holder should be the one laid off. That's more of an issue to bring to your elected representatives than anything else. There's a (local, in case anyone from outside of California is reading this) election in less than a week -- and this is your opportunity (such as it is) to bring these issues before the candidates and make your decisions according to what you believe to be optimal. Note that much of the above-quoted material may be variously interpreted as relating to statements of (intended) fact about the law vs. what is "just" in terms or ethics, morality, or equity. IANAL, so I won't go further in that direction, except to point the ambiguity out, and to note that I have been known to use ambiguity quite deliberately upon occasion. Whether the authors of the above intended the ambiguity in their messages is not for me to determine. Cheers, david (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org I believe it would be irresponsible (and thus, unethical) for me to advise, recommend, or support the use of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product for any purpose other than personal amusement. From gwen at reptiles.org Wed Feb 27 09:56:06 2002 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 12:56:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020227124432.O381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Derek J. Balling wrote: > But the "condition" on a company being granted permission to get an > H1 employee is "I can't find US employees to do this job, so I have > to go outside the country to do it". > > If there's two employees, one doing job A who is a US citizen, and > one doing job B who is on an H1, and job A is being eliminated, then > - if the US citizen CAN DO job B, he should be moved to Job B, and > the H1 holder should be the one laid off. Well - this gets back to my earlier point. IMHO, the company should (and occassionally does) keep the folks who are best able to keep it running. While I certainly CAN DO the job of a medical doctor, I'm not trained to do it - and the process of my learning to be a medical doctor, rather than a systems/security geek is likely to be problematic to all parties involved. > I was recently laid off and (luckily given the market) had a > "probable new job" lined up inside of 12 hours and confirmed within > 72, so I didn't really think too much about it at the time, but in > hindsight, I could definitely see where a US citizen who was laid > off, while an equally qualified H1-holder was kept could make a good > argument that the company isn't following the spirit OR the letter of > the H1 Visa process... [1] IMHO, it's a better use of time to worry about illegal immigrants working in sweat shops, than highly educated, skilled workers, legally present in the country. Mind you, both categories of "foreign" worker have done a great deal towards building the US into the country that it is today. Where would the US be without the influx of immigrants that built the country? cheers! [1] I can also see a moral/ethical arguement to the effect of one is likely to find it easier to get a job than another... ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From dredd at megacity.org Wed Feb 27 10:19:58 2002 From: dredd at megacity.org (Derek J. Balling) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 13:19:58 -0500 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020227124432.O381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> References: <20020227124432.O381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> Message-ID: At 12:56 PM -0500 2/27/02, Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr wrote: >While I certainly CAN DO the job of a medical doctor, I'm not trained >to do it - and the process of my learning to be a medical doctor, rather >than a systems/security geek is likely to be problematic to all parties >involved. Right, but we're not talking about "radical career shifts" here. We're talking about things like "The C jockey (A) who was working on $FOO_PROJECT" who is a US citizen, and "The C jockey (B) working on $BAR_PROJECT" who has an H1. When $FOO_PROJECT is downsized, CJockey(A) should start working on $BAR_PROJECT and give CJockey(B) the layoff notice. Maybe "capability" was a bad choice of verbiage and "qualifications" was a better choice. >IMHO, it's a better use of time to worry about illegal immigrants working >in sweat shops, than highly educated, skilled workers, legally present >in the country. Mind you, both categories of "foreign" worker have done >a great deal towards building the US into the country that it is today. I think you have to worry about both, really. If we're sacrificing citizens' jobs in favor of non-citizens' jobs - ever - then we're doing something wrong. It's bad enough when a company decides it can save money by sending the jobs overseas. It's worse when the company decides it's going to lay YOU off and keep the guy sitting next in the cubicle next to you, ESPECIALLY when the only reason that guy has a job in that cube AT ALL is because the company said to the government "there's not a single US citizen who is qualified to do this job", and as you are shown the pink-slip door, you possess those qualifications. >Where would the US be without the influx of immigrants that built the >country? The immigrants of yesterday - who forced their kids and themselves to learn english, prided themselves on assimilating INTO American culture - are not necessarily the immigrants of today. TODAY, it is quite common to go through entire neighborhoods and not see a single sign written in English. I don't, in this context, have a problem with immigrants who don't assimilate, that's their right, but let's not pretend that the 19th/20th century immigrant population that "built this country" are of the same mindset as those who come here today. Not arguing that one is inherently "better" or "worse", mind you, simply that it's not fair to pull the "look where immigrants got us!" argument when times and people involved have changed. >[1] I can also see a moral/ethical arguement to the effect of one is >likely to find it easier to get a job than another... But when you have a rising unemployment rate in the tech sector, as we HAVE been having, that argument (which I think is specious to begin with) goes out the window completely. D -- +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | dredd at megacity.org | "Thou art the ruins of the noblest man | | Derek J. Balling | That ever lived in the tide of times. | | | Woe to the hand that shed this costly | | | blood" - Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1 | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ From netcommail at rayw.com Wed Feb 27 10:34:33 2002 From: netcommail at rayw.com (Ray Wong) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 18:34:33 +0000 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020226123904.A3553@farm.org>; from dk@farm.org on Tue, Feb 26, 2002 at 12:39:04PM -0800 References: <20020226085411.S3896@pianosa.catch22.org> <20020226123904.A3553@farm.org> Message-ID: <20020227183433.R4069@notfound.rayw.com> Somewhat long, sorry. Danny: > > > Here in California, we are ALL immigrants. If I can't make it out here, > > > I can always go back to the midwest. I've got a far better deal as a > > > citizen than those coming over here on H1Bs, and the last thing I want > > > to do is turn on those even less fortunate than myself. Leslie: > > Though I mostly agree with you, California's not *all* first-generation > > immigrants -- there really are some of us whose family, friends and roots > > are all here, and in hard times we don't have a cheap farmhouse in Iowa to > > retreat to. I'm just sayin'. Dmitry > > I think his point here was that, originally, all of California's residents > were immigrants - the gold rush was just a bit over 150 years ago. > So nobody's roots here are very deep, anyway. > (If you don't count those lucky Indians which weren't killed.) I have an ancestor who migrated here 5 generations ago (yeah, basically gold rush), and married an American Indian to begin our family here. Or, I could say my ancestors were Indians until someone married a foreigner, at which point things became mixed. Either way I've got roots in California. I'm going to conclude my roots here go back deeper than my roots anywhere else, as I can't trace my family anywhere else. The California native members define what I know of my family. I have nowhere else to go. If someone wants to offer me a support network until I'm on my feet elsewhere, I'll consider it. The H1-B program is broken, but not in the way people like Guy seem to want to believe. People on H1-Bs have been consistently paid less than those with citizenship, even at the height of the insanity of 99/2000. If they started off close, you can bet they didn't get the same yearly raises as others. Those getting H1-Bs usually have to sever all ties from their home country. They literally show up at the airport with a few dollars, the shirt on their back, and some vague promise of a better life. If it works out, they spend the next 5 years knowing that if they leave the country to visit family, they might not be allowed back in (some visas allow reentry, some don't). The situation is similar to the old idea of indentured servitude. The problem getting jobs is not because of H1-Bs stealing jobs, or even of companies giving them preferential treatment. Just because there's an obvious target doesn't make the JewsA^H^H^H^HH1-Bs responsible. Most of them are normal people, hardworking, concerned with family, just doing what they can to make it all work. Until people can stop looking for targets to blame and just move on, things aren't going to get any better, either. I don't care if it's people wanting to prove Clinton's economy was a sham, or Bush killed it, or Terrorists, or H1s or VCs or Programmers trying to be executives or 20 year old kids thinking they were smarter than experienced vets or the annoying jerk who cut you off on the freeway. The annoying truth is that people overall are more interested in blaming than moving on with life, and THAT is holding the economy back. There's a lack of faith in the economy thoughout the culture. Until we reach critical mass things will continue to languish. Some people will find excuses to continue holding onto their anger even when things are moving again (things could have moved faster, or they'd be better, etc.). Sound flaky/foolish/whatever yet? Well, the real point is that identifying macro causes and cures, whether valid or not (I happen to believe there's a lot of truth in my mass psychology argument), is off topic. This list needs to focus on what we, within this list, can do. Either on our own, or within the scope of a baylisa gathering. Stop worrying about what's wrong with the world and just look for work. Anything else you should get some cheese to go with that whine. :) Now, do any of those who HAVE found work care to share any tips for what's worked? I think those out of work already know what hasn't. :rolleyes: From gwen at reptiles.org Wed Feb 27 12:09:12 2002 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:09:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Job Search Strategios (was Re: Save our jobs.) In-Reply-To: <20020227183433.R4069@notfound.rayw.com> Message-ID: <20020227150236.T381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Ray Wong wrote: > Now, do any of those who HAVE found work care to share any tips for what's > worked? I think those out of work already know what hasn't. :rolleyes: I'm still sorting out getting a job - but I've gotten the best response rate from (relatively) personal contact. It's been very frustrating to discover that a lot of companies aren't bothering with auto-responders on their 'jobs@' mailboxes. I suspect that it's an aspect of the same thing, but companies seem to be very poor at keeping people up to date and notified _if_ they interview. Of course, some sort of more 'personal' contact seems to improve that condition dramatically ;> As far as job sites go, I've found that DICE is almost entirely head hunter postings, with a great deal of repetition - Monster's not bad, and I'd like to shake someone at Guru, as they're spamming all the other job sites with adverts (non-specific) for themselves. Craigslist is a good source, as usual. It seems very important to have excellent presentation these days - which means a good resume, a good cover letter, and good interview skills - and tailoring your presentation for each company. cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From dcurry at cariocas.com Wed Feb 27 12:49:38 2002 From: dcurry at cariocas.com (Daniel Curry) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 12:49:38 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. Message-ID: <731E36372B5FD248AF790189519A32C1118F75@mailhub.cgtime.com> This list needs to focus on what we, within this list, can do. Either on our own, or within the scope of a baylisa gathering. Stop worrying about what's wrong with the world and just look for work. Anything else you should get some cheese to go with that whine. :) Now, do any of those who HAVE found work care to share any tips for what's worked? I think those out of work already know what hasn't. :rolleyes: I'm sorry to say I was fortunate with the latest job change. I was working for a company (closing it down) had about 30 days before the doors were locked, and I was 'found' by my current employer. This was last April. I missed the worst part of the lay-offs. Over the last 10 months, I have been helping two very good and close friends look for jobs, stretching those networks, actually begging a previous supervisor to at least consider an associate of mine for a position he had open. Two years ago when I moved out here it was an 'employee' market. If you had the skills, and could sell your self, you could almost write your own ticket. Now it is just the opposite. I was called last week as a personal reference for a guy I know. He was applying for a net admin job in a mixed Unix/Linux/Win? Environment. The position is full time for another struggling startup, but is only $44K with no health, parking, or other benefits. Unemployment ran out a long time ago, and he is hungry, not just for work. Flipping burgers at a local burger joint will not help much. There are some jobs out there, not many, but a few. As I asked homeless bum the other day that was harassing people at a bus stop: 'How hungry are you? Are you willing to work for the handout you are asking for?' he walked away grumbling about finding good Christians. I know there is a big difference between the members of this list and the homeless. At least there was 18 months ago. But with the economy doing its thing, many people need to look at this as an opportunity to sharpen skills, build a backup skill set, etc. I am. I am picking up some fresh programming skills, and taking MBA classes. There are a lot of new scholarships available for those people wanting to shift careers or update skills. My wife, God bless her sweet and patient heart, is a school teacher and has been very scared, but very understanding. Don't forget to think of, and thank those that are supporting you during this time of trouble. This is just my opinion and point of view. You are welcome to share it or disagree with it. Such is your right for having the responsibility of intelligent thought. Daniel Curry IT Manager Cariocas 625 Second Street Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94107 ph: 415-348-6516 fx: 415-348-6505 cell: 510-579-6680 From joebsd1 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 27 14:58:59 2002 From: joebsd1 at yahoo.com (joe bsd) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 14:58:59 -0800 (PST) Subject: My last plea, In-Reply-To: <20020227183433.R4069@notfound.rayw.com> Message-ID: <20020227225859.40059.qmail@web20107.mail.yahoo.com> Just to clarify. As I already stated before, I'm not blaming the H1-B people for coming here. I really enjoyed working with people from all different countries. I'm blaming laws that don't protect our interests and companies that abuse those laws. You cannot continue to replace American workers by the thousands without damaging our way of life here. Did you know it is your right to see the Labor Condition Application(LCA) form ETA-9035 at the employers premises? Probably not. This is the form stating that the company wants to hire a foreign worker and promising not to displace an American. Did you know that whenever a company wants to hire an H1-B, they have to post a notice at two locations in the workplace of the future H1-B? Did you know the employer has to show you upon request, documentation about what they are paying the H1-B? I bet the answer is "no", for most of you. Public access to those H1-B related documents is one the only job protections that you have and I bet most of you have never requested to see these documents or even were aware of your rights to see them. That's because it the best kept secret of the H1-B policy. I had no idea either until I was forced to ask myself "What the hell is going on?". The deeper I dig into this issue, the more it stinks. I have been to Sun Microystems and looked at box after box full of H1-B visa applications. So many, I couldn't count them all. And that was just for 2001, a recession year. Some of the LCA's were for my exact job and probably yours, too. I looked at all those boxes of LCA's and thought about the thousands of workers that Sun laid off in 2001. I thought about the thousands of qualified American workers looking for work. It made me sick. I'm NOT trying to start a racist movement. I have had responses from people who are themselves recent immigrants and former H1-B's and they agree with me 100%. If it were really true(And it's not) that we can't find enough American workers for some of our best jobs, in a nation of 300,000,000, is the H1-B a real solution? The real solution should be education and training. I've traveled this country extensively, from Indian Reservations to inner city slums. We have quite a few people right here who are waiting for their chance at the American Dream. They are done pulling the wool over my eyes. I'm sorry if some you think this is my worst side. This is one of the few times in my life that I'm standing up for what I think is right. I talked to the San Jose Mercury News. They are doing a story on this H1-B issue. The reporter said she has heard dozens of complaints but nobody with the guts to leave their name. She wants to take my picture for the article. I know I can't convince all of you of the seriousness of this problem, but I know there are some of you who have the sense to understand. Please don't let me stand alone when the Mercury News takes the picture for this story. I'm certainly not doing all this just for myself. Sincerely, Guy Santiglia Call me or email if you want to help with this cause: 408-249-8225 "America can only rise up and live the true level of its creed as a country of freedom and democracy so long as each and every succeeding generation of Americans is willing to stand up and fight for what it believes in, willing to stand up and fight against what is wrong, and willing to stand up and fight for what is right. Because if a man doesn't have a worthy and noble cause that he is willing to fight and die for, then he has no reason to go on living." ---- Martin Luther King, spoken just a few days before he died. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! http://greetings.yahoo.com From gwen at reptiles.org Wed Feb 27 15:22:26 2002 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 18:22:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <731E36372B5FD248AF790189519A32C1118F75@mailhub.cgtime.com> Message-ID: <20020227182001.J381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Daniel Curry wrote: > There are some jobs out there, not many, but a few. This particular economic downturn isn't nearly as bad as what was going on in the early '90s though. It's certainly taking more effort to get a job, but there do seem to be jobs out there. There's definately a lot more competition - and it's certainly harder to stand out, if you don't have something that already stands out about your skillset. I've tossed around the thought of putting together a "resume writing and interview skills for geeks" talk, but have yet to get past the "is this a good idea" stage. Thoughts and comments on that would be welcome ;> cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From bedbug at netcom.com Wed Feb 27 15:53:58 2002 From: bedbug at netcom.com (Dave Liebreich) Date: 27 Feb 2002 15:53:58 -0800 Subject: Job Search Strategios (was Re: Save our jobs.) In-Reply-To: Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr's message of "Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:09:12 -0500 (EST)" References: <20020227150236.T381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> Message-ID: Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr writes: > As far as job sites go, I've found that DICE is almost entirely head > hunter postings, with a great deal of repetition - Monster's not bad, > and I'd like to shake someone at Guru, as they're spamming all the other > job sites with adverts (non-specific) for themselves. > > Craigslist is a good source, as usual. I'm not doing sysadmin stuff anymore, but I am looking for a new job (I'm part of CacheFlow's layoff - know anyone in the East Bay looking for a Sr QA Lead or QA Manager?) Anyway, BrassRing's site appears to list some good jobs, too. I'm planning on attending the East Bay Tech Jobs mixer tomorrow. Does anyone here have experience with the previous mixers? (see http://www.eastbaytechjobs.com/mixer/mixer.cfm) Thanks -Dave From dredd at megacity.org Wed Feb 27 16:12:54 2002 From: dredd at megacity.org (Derek J. Balling) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 19:12:54 -0500 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020227153237.D7006@farm.org> References: <20020227124432.O381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> <20020227153237.D7006@farm.org> Message-ID: >so, you propose that instead of bearing the risk `my project would >be closed, and I can be laid off' our worker B would have a risk `any project >in my department would close, I'll be the one to go first.' This >would boost morale, no doubt. Morale isn't the issue. The issue is the covenant between the company applying for the H1B and the country they applied to - the USofA. >I have seen situations when people with H1 visas were kept and people >with GC or citizenship were laid off exactly because it would be >easier for latter >to find a new job. Call this `fair', if you like. Maybe in an "employee's market" that MIGHT be reasonable, but in a time of rising unemployment, it's not 'fair' at all. >From corporation's point of view, laying off 1 worker is cheaper than >laying off 1 worker _and_ retraining another one to do his job. Possibly, but that's the inherent "risk" in hiring H1B's. You (as a company) accept that you might have to do that in the future. You (as an H1B holder) accept that you might/should-be the first to go, according to the agreement the employer has entered into just to get the H1B holder into the country. > > The immigrants of yesterday - who forced their kids and themselves to >> learn english, prided themselves on assimilating INTO American >> culture - are not necessarily the immigrants of today. TODAY, it is >> quite common to go through entire neighborhoods and not see a single > > sign written in English. > >Aha. Here we go. It's racial/language/national after all. >I just see all those neighborhoods of sysadmins, webmasters, java programmers, >and network engineers covered with cryptic characters from some weird >afro-mongolian alphabet. No, it's not "racial" at all, I'm simply pointing out that it's a strawman argument to use the example of "those immigrants who founded this country" - given that those immigrants came here "as their final destination" - as an argument for allowing non-immigrant resident workers to displace Americans from their jobs. >Try to fight corporations, for once, and not alienate cubicle neighbours. I have no problem with cubicle neighbors, regardless of race/color/belief/nationality/eye-color. I've gotten along great with every one of my co-workers, "native-born" or "H1B" alike. I think anyone who's ever worked with me will tell you that. I don't care if your skin color is blue if you can do the job. It's all about the fact that displacing a citizen to keep an equally qualified non-citizen violates the H1B "pact". Period. D -- +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | dredd at megacity.org | "Thou art the ruins of the noblest man | | Derek J. Balling | That ever lived in the tide of times. | | | Woe to the hand that shed this costly | | | blood" - Julius Caesar Act 3, Scene 1 | +---------------------+-----------------------------------------+ From rsr at inorganic.org Wed Feb 27 16:22:50 2002 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 16:22:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: My last plea, In-Reply-To: <20020227225859.40059.qmail@web20107.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, joe bsd wrote: > protect our interests and companies that abuse those laws. You > cannot continue to replace American workers by the thousands without > damaging our way of life here. My problem with this discussion is that, more and more, it seems that the tack being taken to optimize profits is not hiring H1Bs but rather moving operations oversees. This sort of operations shifting to oversees resources is less likely to harm people like me (Senior IT people) and more likely to harm the lower-level people (e.g. tech support peons), but unfortunately that means that we might be causing some serious damage to the apprenticeship model that, I think, has been responsible for the truly great IT people I've worked with. > Public access to those H1-B related documents is one the only job > protections that you have No. Another job protection you have is to be worth more to your company than an H1B resource they could get elsewhere. Look, you can always be replaced. It's a fact of life. You can look at it as a conflict with the company where you have to find all the legal ways to make sure they keep you around, or you can look at it as a cut-throat environment where the cheapest AND BEST resource will win the job. I'm a rather highly paid IT professional. You should be able to throw a stone at random and find someone who's willing to do my job for less money. I'm betting my salary on the fact you'll have a hard time finding someone to do my job for as money money as I get as well as I do it. -roy From dk at farm.org Wed Feb 27 15:32:37 2002 From: dk at farm.org (=?koi8-r?B?RG1pdHJ5IEtvaG1hbnl1ayDkzcnU0snKIOvPyM3BzsDL?=) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:32:37 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: ; from dredd@megacity.org on Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 01:19:58PM -0500 References: <20020227124432.O381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> Message-ID: <20020227153237.D7006@farm.org> On Wed, Feb 27, 2002 at 01:19:58PM -0500, Derek J. Balling wrote: > Right, but we're not talking about "radical career shifts" here. > We're talking about things like "The C jockey (A) who was working on > $FOO_PROJECT" who is a US citizen, and "The C jockey (B) working on > $BAR_PROJECT" who has an H1. When $FOO_PROJECT is downsized, > CJockey(A) should start working on $BAR_PROJECT and give CJockey(B) > the layoff notice. so, you propose that instead of bearing the risk `my project would be closed, and I can be laid off' our worker B would have a risk `any project in my department would close, I'll be the one to go first.' This would boost morale, no doubt. I have seen situations when people with H1 visas were kept and people with GC or citizenship were laid off exactly because it would be easier for latter to find a new job. Call this `fair', if you like. From corporation's point of view, laying off 1 worker is cheaper than laying off 1 worker _and_ retraining another one to do his job. > I think you have to worry about both, really. If we're sacrificing > citizens' jobs in favor of non-citizens' jobs - ever - then we're > doing something wrong. > > It's bad enough when a company decides it can save money by sending > the jobs overseas. It's worse when the company decides it's going to > lay YOU off and keep the guy sitting next in the cubicle next to you, > ESPECIALLY when the only reason that guy has a job in that cube AT > ALL is because the company said to the government "there's not a > single US citizen who is qualified to do this job", and as you are > shown the pink-slip door, you possess those qualifications. People and jobs are not all the same. Try to look at `made in' labels for all clothing, electronics, furniture, and cookware you have. I have 0 which say `U.S.A.' The companies already made this move in other industries, today they'll start to make it in computer programming / IT (I don't like the term `hi-tech' because I fail to see how webmaster is more hi-tech than a doctor or car mechanic.) Last week, I have placed phone call to Netapp technical support. They warned me that it can be handled by international support center. And sure it was. Took me 3 minutes to get used to accent (the support was good, by the way.) > >Where would the US be without the influx of immigrants that built the > >country? > > The immigrants of yesterday - who forced their kids and themselves to > learn english, prided themselves on assimilating INTO American > culture - are not necessarily the immigrants of today. TODAY, it is > quite common to go through entire neighborhoods and not see a single > sign written in English. Aha. Here we go. It's racial/language/national after all. I just see all those neighborhoods of sysadmins, webmasters, java programmers, and network engineers covered with cryptic characters from some weird afro-mongolian alphabet. Try to fight corporations, for once, and not alienate cubicle neighbours. And remember, Intel CEO Andy Grove had an H1-B, too. Oh, and there are many industries where foreigners cannot apply (government and military come to mind.) From Stewart.Hersey at leland.stanford.edu Wed Feb 27 15:52:28 2002 From: Stewart.Hersey at leland.stanford.edu (Stewart M. Hersey) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:52:28 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <20020227182001.J381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> References: <731E36372B5FD248AF790189519A32C1118F75@mailhub.cgtime.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20020227154144.02ec9818@hersey.pobox.stanford.edu> That sounds like a great idea, tho...and right afterwards... ...it would be kewl if we could all toss our corporate/academic/govt. connections into a virtual hat, crunch them up into a BayLISA-only database, and configure some cron-job to spew-out focused and concise application letters to their HR Hiring Managers or "jobs@" email addies. Not at all like spamming, but more like an organized effort to promote BayLISA members experience, professionalism and availability via our own technical expertise in these things. Well, maybe we ought not to, but it was inspiring concept, anyway...in my own mind. [Sorry] ;-) SMH At 06:22 PM 2/27/2002 -0500, Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr wrote: >On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Daniel Curry wrote: >> There are some jobs out there, not many, but a few. > >This particular economic downturn isn't nearly as bad as what was going >on in the early '90s though. It's certainly taking more effort to get >a job, but there do seem to be jobs out there. > >There's definately a lot more competition - and it's certainly harder >to stand out, if you don't have something that already stands out about >your skillset. > >I've tossed around the thought of putting together a "resume writing >and interview skills for geeks" talk, but have yet to get past the >"is this a good idea" stage. > >Thoughts and comments on that would be welcome ;> > >cheers! >========================================================================== >"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound >desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to >avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." Stewart Matthew Hersey Technical Writer / Trainer Leland Stanford Junior University R&DE Information Systems http://houdini.stanford.edu/~hersey/ Director, Stanford/Palo Alto Macintosh Users Group (SMUG) P.O. Box 20132 Stanford, CA 94309 Club Phone: 650-286-7539 On the web: http://www.pa-smug.org Stanford University Expert Partner http://www.stanford.edu/group/partners/ ================================================================ "What do we have to look forward to today? There are a lot of things we have to look forward to today." - Johannes "Jos" Dianovich Claerbout 06/14/1974 - 08/20/1999 ================================================================ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From david at catwhisker.org Wed Feb 27 17:03:32 2002 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 17:03:32 -0800 (PST) Subject: Job Search Strategios (was Re: Save our jobs.) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200202280103.g1S13WM01277@bunrab.catwhisker.org> >From: Dave Liebreich >Date: 27 Feb 2002 15:53:58 -0800 >> Craigslist is a good source, as usual. >... >Anyway, BrassRing's site appears to list some good jobs, too. One thing I've noticed in particular about BrassRing is that results of a search tend to be returned by date that a post was most recently updated, with the posts with the more recent "mtime" listed first. (Which I also note is generally a reasonable, and likely good, idea.) Empirical evidence suggests a tendency for organizations that purport to have positions open to update their postings on a daily basis. (Which is less-obviously good, IMO.) I note one position, in particular, about which I inquired on 11 January (and received an auto-response that same day), and which continues to be updated daily so it shows up near the beginning of the search results. The content of the auto-response demonstrated (to my satisfaction, at least) that the process that generated the auto-response could not have passed the Turing Test; I have not heard further from the organization. Cheers, david (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org I believe it would be irresponsible (and thus, unethical) for me to advise, recommend, or support the use of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product for any purpose other than personal amusement. From david at catwhisker.org Wed Feb 27 17:38:36 2002 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 17:38:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: My last plea, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <200202280138.g1S1caP01440@bunrab.catwhisker.org> >Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 16:22:50 -0800 (PST) >From: "Roy S. Rapoport" >Look, you can always be replaced. It's a fact of life.... Actually, I'll go rather further than that: there will come a time, if the employing organization survives sufficiently long, when any given employee *must* be replaced. Sometimes such a transition occurs as a result of careful planning. Sometimes it doesn't. No given employer-employee relationship lasts forever. (And this, in many cases, is something for which to be very thankful, the present distress notwithstanding.) Cheers, david (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org I believe it would be irresponsible (and thus, unethical) for me to advise, recommend, or support the use of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product for any purpose other than personal amusement. From david at catwhisker.org Wed Feb 27 17:53:30 2002 From: david at catwhisker.org (David Wolfskill) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 17:53:30 -0800 (PST) Subject: Save our jobs. In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020227154144.02ec9818@hersey.pobox.stanford.edu> Message-ID: <200202280153.g1S1rUK01585@bunrab.catwhisker.org> >Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:52:28 -0800 >From: "Stewart M. Hersey" [Note Reply-to: -- dhw] >...it would be kewl if we could all toss our corporate/academic/govt. >connections into a virtual hat, crunch them up into a BayLISA-only >database, and configure some cron-job to spew-out focused and concise >application letters to their HR Hiring Managers or "jobs@" email >addies. >Not at all like spamming, but more like an organized effort to >promote BayLISA members experience, professionalism and availability >via our own technical expertise in these things. >Well, maybe we ought not to, but it was inspiring concept, anyway...in >my own mind. I note that SAGE has a "Sysadmins for hire" section of the "Job Center" (a Web site that lists sysadmins who are looking for work). [See http://www.usenix.org/cgi-bin/sage/display-jw.cgi.] Would it be worthwhile to set up something of this nature for BayLISA? If so, would it be maintained? Cheers, david (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david) -- David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org I believe it would be irresponsible (and thus, unethical) for me to advise, recommend, or support the use of any product that is or depends on any Microsoft product for any purpose other than personal amusement. From strata at virtual.net Wed Feb 27 20:27:22 2002 From: strata at virtual.net (Strata Rose Chalup) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 20:27:22 -0800 Subject: Save our jobs. References: <200202280153.g1S1rUK01585@bunrab.catwhisker.org> Message-ID: <3C7DB1A9.520D564F@virtual.net> Let's do that. It would require a per-member authentication for current members to be working on a particular part of the website, probably feeding a CGI script that allows a member to post and/or update a resume page. SRC David Wolfskill wrote: > > >Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 15:52:28 -0800 > >From: "Stewart M. Hersey" > > [Note Reply-to: -- dhw] > > >...it would be kewl if we could all toss our corporate/academic/govt. > >connections into a virtual hat, crunch them up into a BayLISA-only > >database, and configure some cron-job to spew-out focused and concise > >application letters to their HR Hiring Managers or "jobs@" email > >addies. > > >Not at all like spamming, but more like an organized effort to > >promote BayLISA members experience, professionalism and availability > >via our own technical expertise in these things. > > >Well, maybe we ought not to, but it was inspiring concept, anyway...in > >my own mind. > > I note that SAGE has a "Sysadmins for hire" section of the "Job > Center" (a Web site that lists sysadmins who are looking for work). > [See http://www.usenix.org/cgi-bin/sage/display-jw.cgi.] > > Would it be worthwhile to set up something of this nature for BayLISA? > If so, would it be maintained? > > Cheers, > david (links to my resume at http://www.catwhisker.org/~david) > -- > David H. Wolfskill david at catwhisker.org > I believe it would be irresponsible (and thus, unethical) for me to advise, > recommend, or support the use of any product that is or depends on any > Microsoft product for any purpose other than personal amusement. -- ======================================================================== Strata Rose Chalup [KF6NBZ] strata "@" virtual.net VirtualNet Consulting http://www.virtual.net/ ** Project Management & Architecture for ISP/ASP Systems Integration ** ========================================================================= From rsr at inorganic.org Wed Feb 27 20:32:51 2002 From: rsr at inorganic.org (Roy S. Rapoport) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 20:32:51 -0800 (PST) Subject: My last plea, In-Reply-To: <200202280138.g1S1caP01440@bunrab.catwhisker.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, David Wolfskill wrote: > Actually, I'll go rather further than that: there will come a time, if > the employing organization survives sufficiently long, when any given > employee *must* be replaced. I think I may go ahead and disagree with you on this point, David. I'm fond of Accidental Empires' invasion analogy as a description for the maturity stages of companies (SEAL -> Marines -> Army -> Civilian Administration), and certainly agree that you don't want the SEALs that started the company still in the same positions when the company is large and established (e.g.: Scarily enough, I'm the CFO of my company, in addition to being an Account Manager, UNIX Engineer, Network Engineer, Senior Coder, CIO, and Chief Bottle Washer. This works because the responsibilities of the CFO extend to, just about, nothing. If this company takes off the ground, it'd be insane to keep me in this position). On the other hand, this doesn't mean that the people you found valuable before can't be valuable now either by finding a different position for them or by having them change. People can make the SEAL -> Civilian Administration transition (usually by going through the intermediate steps). Speaking as someone who at his last company went from "I can do anything I want on the network because I'm the only engineer" to leading a fairly conservative 18-person organization, I think I know of what I speak. Companies, if they survive long enough, change. People, if they want to stay with these companies, change to fit the new needs of the company, or they find somewhere else to work. The employee/employer relationship, I think, is more like serious dating than a marriage. -roy From gwen at reptiles.org Wed Feb 27 22:15:23 2002 From: gwen at reptiles.org (Gwendolynn ferch Elydyr) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 01:15:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: My last plea, In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020228011044.C381-100000@iguana.reptiles.org> On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Roy S. Rapoport wrote: > Companies, if they survive long enough, change. People, if they want to > stay with these companies, change to fit the new needs of the company, or > they find somewhere else to work. The employee/employer relationship, I > think, is more like serious dating than a marriage. I actually think that you and David agree - it seems to me that David's indicating that as the employer changes, a given employee may/not be as suitable, and the relationship may (often should) change. This seems to echo what you're saying. cheers! ========================================================================== "A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now." From conrad at apple.com Thu Feb 28 12:18:52 2002 From: conrad at apple.com (Conrad Minshall) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 12:18:52 -0800 Subject: My last plea, In-Reply-To: <20020227225859.40059.qmail@web20107.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20020227183433.R4069@notfound.rayw.com> Message-ID: At 2:58 PM -0800 2/27/02, joe bsd wrote: >think this is my worst side. This is one of the few times in my life >that I'm standing up for what I think is right. I talked to the San >Jose Mercury News. They are doing a story on this H1-B issue. The >reporter said she has heard dozens of complaints but nobody with the >guts to leave their name. She wants to take my picture for the >article. I know I can't convince all of you of the seriousness of >this problem, but I know there are some of you who have the sense to >understand. Please don't let me stand alone when the Mercury News >takes the picture for this story. I'm certainly not doing all this >just for myself. Acknowledged. And thank you for having the courage to take this on, even in the face of all the negative feedback. I wish I had as much energy and determination! I'd apply to IT causes I personally support, such as monopoly abatement and privacy issues. Go for it dude! Conrad Minshall (a long-lurking unix kernel engineer :) >Sincerely, > > Guy Santiglia -- Conrad Minshall, conrad at apple.com, 408 974-2749 Apple Computer, Mac OS X Core Operating Systems From joebsd1 at yahoo.com Thu Feb 28 15:27:56 2002 From: joebsd1 at yahoo.com (joe bsd) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 15:27:56 -0800 (PST) Subject: Is humor appropriate? Message-ID: <20020228232756.43791.qmail@web20107.mail.yahoo.com> Hello all, We all need a good laugh. This a really funny flash animation: "Laid Off: A day in the life" http://oddtodd.com/index2.html For you hard core UNIX folks sitting in front of a black and green terminal window, you may have to visit your friend who owns a windows machine with all the bells and whistles(flash and sound) to enjoy this. Guy __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! http://greetings.yahoo.com