Recently in Personal Category
Network Administration with FreeBSD 7 is the book that I have been working on for past year. And now it is published by Packt and is available for purchase from various bookstores.
This book is something that I have been looking for since I started with FreeBSD back in 1997. I needed a practical book with working examples of how to optimize my FreeBSD installations for various types of applications. And I never found that book, until I recently decided to write one.
"Network Administration with FreeBSD 7" is unique in several ways:
- I tried to cover the exciting new features and improvements introduced in FreeBSD 7
- It is full of tips and tricks on how to optimize your installation from optimizing disk I/O, network, virtual memory, etc.
- It covers IPv4 and IPv6 configuration as well and bridging and routing in FreeBSD
- It has working examples of different IPSec, GRE, PPP and GIF scenarios
- I tried to cover Jail virtualization in working real world examples
- Keeping your system up to date and customizing system for specific applications is thoroughly covered
I tried to stop telling stories in the book and give more real world examples instead, so reading this book would not make you smile ;-)
An article named Tunneling with FreeBSD (taken from book) is also available on PACKT website.
After 26 month, Its time to post this again.
The "Resume" section is up to date now, and this only happens when I start looking for a job. Please see this page for more information. A brief resume is also available for your review.
I prefer contract/part time jobs in Telecommunication and IP Networking areas. I am also ready to offer consulting services in mentioned areas. My contact details is available in downloadble resume.
Definition of the problem
You are most likely familiar with those annoying interrupts. Remember when you are concentrating on a project and your phone starts ringing. Or when you are reading something important and an instant message window pops up. Or you are searching for somethine when an incoming email catchs your attention. This is more or less the way we used to live.
Now answer to these questions for yourself:
1- How many flagged-to-follow-up emails do you have in your inbox?
2- How many overdue tasks do you have in your to-do list?
3- How many un-seen movies do you have in your digital library?
4- How many open tasks do you have at the same time?
5- How many whitepapers and documents you have downloaded and never read?
Using the most enhanced technologies of our era, we are still too much inefficient.
How this happens?
Your friend does not know that you are busy or concentrating before calling or messaging you. Your computer doesn't know you are thinking or working before popping up a pop-up window. That is because of lack of information about your current status. (No, changing your status to "Busy" in your instant messenger doesn't even help).
The solution
This solution worked almost fine for me, but the right solution for you would vary depending on your job type, position and attitude. I simply suggest removing all time-killers from your work computer. I have removed all instant messengers, games, video clips, ... from my laptop. However I have all sort of entertaining stuff on my home computer. I also do not open my Microsoft Outlook unless it is necessary. I removed or reduced the phone ring tones and silented my cell phone at work.
The alternative solution would be different logins on the same computer for different sort of things. For example a 'work' login and a 'personal' login. And you should limit your work desktop.
Another suggestion is avoiding web surfing unless it is really necessary. Because web surfing (especially with tabbed browsers) will take you to the sky. Just open up your browser, do your job, and close it immediately. If you keep it open, you will end up browsing news and weather and download and other websites.
Just convince yourself to leave this sort of stuff for home.
Other suggestions:
1- Use a computer with only limited set of vital application for your work. I personally like minimal Unix based workstations.
2- Do not open houndreds of tabs in your browser. It just eats your memory and it is so inefficient with more than 5 tabs at the same time.
3- Do not stare at the monitor watching progress bars when transferring big files or burning CDs. Its a real time killer. Just leave your desk or turn of your monitor when you have nothing to do with your computer.
Does it work?
I wouldn't even bother writing this if it doesn't have worked for me. I have to tool to measure my efficiency, but I can feel how much it worked for me. A 20% to 30% of increased efficiency would be expected.
Recommended reading:
- Lifehacker
- 43 Folders
- Meet the Life Hackers
- Technorati Tag: Life hacks
- Del.icio.us Tag: lifehacks
I've moved to a new server. Guess what? Another FreeBSD.
Now you may have experience faster access to this website from everywhere around the world.
Update: I have also upgraded my MT to 3.2 from 2.6 after ages. And it is so far so good. There was only some minor problems with plug-ins I am using, which is solved now.
core-bb1# *** *** *** Message from tty227 to all terminals: *** Happy New Year! core-bb1# core-bb1#conf te Enter configuration commands, one per line. End with CNTL/Z. core-bb1(config)#n *** *** *** Message from tty227 to all terminals: *** Baba to Eidam ro routeri! core-bb1(config)#^Z
A friend of mine has spotted me logged into a router while everyone else was in hurry to get ready for new year. Kinda cool! It was the best HNY message I've received during Norouz. :-)
Update: If that message looks non-sense to you, its because the message is in persian. It reads "You are in router, even on Norooz holiday!".
The company I am working for ( a broadband service provider in Tehran, IRAN ) is looking for talented people in field of networking and system administration to hire. So if you are (or you know anyone who is) interested, you know how to reach me.
Our current positions to be filled are:
- Network Operations Engineer with good experience in IP networking and prior experinece in service provider environment
- VoIP specialist familiar with current voip protocols and hardwares
- Network Design Specialist with ability to communicate with enterprise customers and prepare technical proposals and network design for their broadband needs
I have prepared job description for above positions, so if you are interested, drop me a line.
I am living on the same planet as you are . Under the same blue sky. More precisely at 35.40 North and 51.26 East. In the middle east.
Sometimes when I am filling up a personal information form on a website, when it comes to the "Country" combo box, I prepare myself to select a false country name. Because my country (with almost 70 million population) is not listed!
I can not have Wired Magazine subscription, and Amazon.com does not ship goods to my country.
Even worth, I can not browse OpenOffice or NetBeans (screenshot) website! I can not download Java from Sun.
I am Restricted. I am Forbidden. My access is denied: I am a proud Persian.
Thanks to Orkut, I have received more than 100 birthday messages in email, sms, phone call, orkut scribble and instant message forms.
This is one of the things that make me love orkut.
And from here, thank you very much to everyone who remembered my birthday and sent me all those kindly messages.
We're hiring. If you are a techie and you think you match following criteria, please email your professional resume to me (before sepember 1st).
- Familiarity with IP networks
- Work experience in service provider environment
- Experience with Unix/Linux/Windows administration is a plus.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Experience and flexibility regarding on-call responsibilities
- Network certifications (or equiv. training/experience) preferred but not required
- Creative problem solving abilities
- Good understanding of network routing protocols.
- Strong Team interaction, support and leadership skills.
- Ability to handle several tasks simultaneously and effectively.
Thank you!
update: The company is an Iranian ISP (consumer and broadband service provider) which is looking for techies in with different levels of experience. Our main office is located in Tehran, but we have different projects all around the country and you should prepare yourself for a lot of short and long trips.
Not too much. I will tell you why.
There is almost 250 posts in this blog since I started it. It took time to choose my way and get into the correct style. Anyway, once in my life I posted something that became heavily popular and that was, as you can guess, "Optimizing Mozilla Firebird" post. Many people linked to it and once I had more than 900 visitors in a single day just for that entry (my regular visitors are less than 300 daily). But that was the one and only popular entry.
I have posted several useful things after that post which didn't attract any attention at all. One of them was "Compression utilities comparison" which I spent a lot of time for it. I don't know what was so special about that firebird/firefox entry that made it so popular. Maybe other posts are not that useful or infomational.
I hope it is not true.
I really loved to become an airliner pilot when I was a teen. Seriously. But my way of my life turned, and now I am far from what I really wanted to be.
Anyway, I said those stuff just to tell you that I love flying, especially commercial airliners. I spend some quality time with flight simulators, and especially hanging out at AIRLINERS.NET that is really "Home of the top Aviation Photographers in the world!". Even if you don't like flying, you will enjoy their excellent photos.
p.s. I swear this will be my last non-geek entry.
I couldn't even imagine that some of my relatives are also blogging.
I learned this from a comment in my photoblog and also referrer logs of my website. Two of my cousins (1, 2) and my uncle maintain their own blog in Persian language.
I was one of those people who do not believe in blogs and think blogs are crap. Hossein (who happens to be a good friend of mine) has asked me a couple of times to make a blog.
And all of a sudden, I installed MT on my webserver and It was how I made my first blog, and it was all a joke to me. But after more than a year now, I have about 1700 page views everyday (around 300 visits to website, and others via RSS feed) and this makes me feel proud of what I am doing.
Thank you for visiting my website!
