Me: Live in Princeton, NJ area. Over 10 years experience with UNIX/Linux administration, databases and data modeling, and PHP/Perl. About 3 years experience using Python for back-end scripting and system automation, and less than a year of Django experience. Former Director of Technology for AddThis.com (it was bought out), Infrastructure Architect at cs.princeton.edu, and systems consultant/trainer. Creator of Python Magazine, former Editor in Chief of both php|architect *and* Python Magazine, and co-author of “Linux Server Hacks, volume 2″ (O’Reilly).

You are one of these:

• Web graphic designer who has worked on several web-based projects for clients in various industries, understands current best practices and standards, has the tools and experience necessary to create custom graphics, and has some familiarity (secondarily) with PHP and/or Python, Javascript and Ajax. If you regularly make use of table-based web designs or ActiveX controls, this isn’t you.
• Hardcore web developer with at least 6 years experience doing nothing but web-based projects using Javascript and (at some point) *both* PHP and Python, and has worked with or has an interest in Django, Cake, and other frameworks, and understands that client needs often don’t coincide with the religion of fanboyism. Knowledge of Javascript, Ajax, web standards and security is essential here. If your last “big project” was volunteer work to build a website for your kid’s soccer team, this isn’t you.
• A generalist webmaster (sysadmin/db admin/scripter) with at least 6 years experience working in production *nix environments with good familiarity in the areas of high availability, web servers (specifically Apache), proxy servers and monitoring, and has worked with/supported users like the ones mentioned above on web-based projects. If you have to look at the documentation to figure out how to implement a 301 redirect, this probably isn’t you.

Experience working on a team in larger projects with multiple people would be good. Note that I’m looking for people to partner with on projects, I’m not hiring full time employees. Future partnership in a proper business is certainly a possibility, but… baby steps! I do have a couple of domains that would be great for use with this kind of project if it ever progresses that far

I know that other people are out there looking for people to partner with on projects, but there doesn’t appear to be a common place for them to interact. Maybe that can be a project we undertake together   — if there *is* a place where people meet up for this kind of thing, let me know!

Let’s have fun, and take over the world! Shoot me an email at “bkjones” @ Google’s mail domain.

Panera Bread

Yes, the wireless access is free, but it kicks you off for TWO HOURS during the lunch rush. What makes this truly horrible is that there isn’t (as far as I know) an option to *pay* for your wireless access and bypass this limitation. The odd thing is that it seems to backfire on them: if I were able to browse my RSS feeds while I ate a nice Panera lunch, I’d probably stick around. As it stands, if I go there at all, I leave at lunch time and either go home or somewhere else. I’ll eat breakfast there because they don’t turn off wireless at that time.

Turning off wireless is just not acceptable for someone who needs it to be on pretty much all the time. Clearly, Panera isn’t catering to people who are going to hang around there all day, but maybe they should: if they didn’t turn off wifi, I’d spend more than double what I spend there in a given day. I get a coffee and maybe a pastry in the morning, but if wifi stayed on, or I had the option of paying for it, I’d add to that a Frontega Chicken sandwich, maybe a bread bowl of soup in the winter, and at least two lemonades.

But now… I go somewhere else.

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble recently announced that they now have free wifi. The problems with going to BN for this are many. First, going free increases demand for free wifi, which of course increases the demand for power outlets. There are surprisingly few at the location near me. The cafe area in particular hasn’t got even one single power outlet.

But power availability isn’t the worst of it. The worst part is that AT&T runs the wifi access, and as soon as I saw that, I knew something was going to be completely wrong, and I was right: AT&T drops your DHCP lease every 2 hours. EVERY TWO HOURS. There’s no warning dialog either that pops up to say “hey, we’re gonna drop you in 10 minutes”. Things just disappear. Then you have to visit the registration page again and click a checkbox and a button to be reconnected.

Probably ok for a casual email checker, but not for anyone looking to hang out for a while and do “real work”.

Starbucks

Ugh. Forget it. AT&T runs this one as well, and when I asked at my local store how to get on, they asked about my Starbucks card. I have one of those black cards that they call a “Gold Card”. Whatever. The numbers are worn off of it, and I only use it as a discount card — it’s not registered. So it needs to be registered, and then I have to WAIT 48 HOURS, and then I’m entitled to 2 hours free wifi per day. But to register, I have to go through some procedure, and they had to find a way to retrieve the last 4 numbers on my card, because they put the numbers in the area that gets swiped (bright), and they’d rubbed off.

I considered getting one of the new mini cards, which has numbers embedded underneath the plastic, but it was recommended that I stick with only one card or the other. There was seemingly no valid reason for this. I didn’t understand the recommendation, but whatever.

The alternative is to pay for it on the spot, which I might’ve done, but the wifi was down when I tried to connect.

Anyway, this all seems rather messy, doesn’t it? Between my iPhone, Barnes & Noble, and Starbucks, AT&T is making nothing so clear as the fact that they don’t want my money.

Borders

I’m actually writing this post from a Border’s bookstore. The wi-fi here IS NOT free. Know what that means? Well, it means I have to pay for it of course, but it also means there’s almost nobody here. In a cafe area that probably seats 60 or more, at 10:15AM, there are 4 people here, and I’m the only one with a laptop.

Wi-fi here is $8 for a day pass, which isn’t horrifically bad. What *is* pretty bad is that almost all of the chairs here are made of 100% hard wood with no padding of any kind. What is HORRIBLY HORRIBLY bad here is the food. If it’s advertised as edible, DON’T EAT IT. I mean bad. There aren’t English words to describe the badness. It’s No Bueno™. The selection of lunch-worthy food is super small, too. And bad. Did I say the food is bad? It is.

So I pay $8, I get access for 24 hours, and I can leave and walk across the parking lot for lunch, come back, and sign right back in. Not bad. If I had my lap desk with me, I could even sit in one of the well-padded armchairs. I feel a little guilty spending almost no money here, but I’ve *tried* to spend money on food and drinks, and I’ve really just been horribly disappointed. The only thing I’ll ingest here is the coffee. The saving grace for my conscience is that I’m paying for the wi-fi, so I don’t feel the need to spend money on stuff I might not otherwise be interested in.

The Locals Win It

Two local businesses stand out in terms of their free wifi offering. A local person that it turns out I actually know opened up a Camille’s Cafe, and there’s a local coffee shop in Hopewell that I am slowly starting to adore.

Camille’s is closer to my house, but it has, for the entire place, something like two power supplies, and they’re not placed very conveniently. However, the wifi is Really, Truly Free, and that’s good. The food is also good, and you can get healthy stuff there, so I don’t have to buy something deep-fried or made of 85% refined sugar to justify my being there sucking up their wifi.

The local coffee shop is perhaps my favorite place. The wifi is Really, Truly Free, and I would call the power situation “adequate”. The coffee and the food are both really good, and you can also get healthy stuff there. The only problem that exists at this place is parking, but usually I can get around that without too much trouble.

…You Might Be a Freelancer.

So, today I tried browsing to one of my sites, linuxlaboratory.org, and found a 403 “Forbidden” error. Calling support, they said it was a “billing issue”. Well, I pay my bills, and I haven’t received any new credit cards, so I’m not sure what that’s about. Further, they haven’t contacted me in any way shape or form at all in a very long time, and I’ve had the same email addresses for years now. Last time they failed to contact me, it was because they were sending all of the mail to “root@localhost” on the web server.

What’s more, the tech support guy, having determined that this wasn’t a technical but an administrative problem, transferred me to a sales person who was not there. I left a message. That was 3 hours ago. So I took matters into my own hands and changed the name server records to my webfaction account, and linuxlaboratory.org now points to an old test version of the site that uses Drupal.

It’s Over Between Us…

Drupal holds the record for the CMS that has run LinuxLaboratory the longest. Since its launch in 2001, LinuxLaboratory has used all of the major, and some of the minor open source PHP CMSes. Drupal gave me something very close to what I wanted, out of the box. Nowadays, Drupal is even nicer since they redid some of the back end APIs and attracted theme and module developers to the project. I’ve even done some coding in Drupal myself, and have to say that it really is a breeze.

But the problem is this: I’m a consultant, trainer, and author/editor. I am an experienced system admin, database admin, and infrastructure architect who makes a living solving other peoples’ problems. I really can’t afford to have something that is super high overhead to maintain running my sites. With Drupal releasing new versions with major security fixes once per month on average, and no automated update mechanism (and no built-in automated backup either), it becomes pretty cumbersome just to keep it updated.

This is in addition to my experiences trying to do e-commerce with Drupal. I tried to use one plugin, but soon found myself in dependency hell — a situation I’m not used to being in unless I’m on a command line somewhere. So, out with Drupal. I know it well and I’m sure I’ll find a use for it somewhere in my travels, but not now, and not for this.

Is Django the Future of LinuxLaboratory?

So I’m thinking of giving Django another shot. In fact, I thought I might try something new and interesting. Maybe I’ll build my Django app right in front of everyone, so that anyone who is interested can follow along, and so people can give me feedback and tips along the way. It also lets me share with people who have questions about a feature I’m implementing or something like that.

For fanboys of <insert technology here>, know this: I’m a technology whore. I consume technology like some people consume oxygen. I love technology, and I get on kicks, and every now and then, a “kick” turns into a more permanent part of my tool chest. Python is one such example. I’ve done lots with Python, but have never really made friends with it for web development. I got a webfaction account specifically because they support Python (and Django). I’ve done nothing with it. Now I think I might.

But not to worry! I own lots of domains that are sitting idle right now, and I’m considering doing a Ruby on Rails app for one of them, and I’m dying to do more with Lua. There’s only so much time!

Webfaction Django Users: Advice Hereby Solicited

So if you’re a webfaction customer using Django, please share your tips with me about the best way to deploy it. I’ve used nothing but PHP apps so far, and found that rather than use the one-click installs webfaction provides, it’s a lot easier to just choose the generic “CGI/PHP” app type and install the code myself. This allows me to, for example, install and update wordpress using SVN. Is Django a similar story, or does webfaction actually have an auto-upgrade mechanism for this? How are you keeping Django up to date?

Thanks!

As part of my business plan, I’ve put in place a policy of accepting one pro-bono consulting project per year. So far, I haven’t gotten any requests for free consulting work, so here’s my public shout out to let you know what types of services are available:

1. Speaking or Training. My specialties are things like advanced Linux administration and SQL, but I’m perfectly capable of delivering content for people who just need to know how the internet works, or want to know more about social media.Training, funny enough, has been the bulk of my business for the past year.

2. I can help with MySQL performance tuning on *nix systems, including finding hotspots related to the design of the database itself, or how your application code interacts with the database. If it happens that your MySQL server is performing poorly due to an underpowered system, I can also pinpoint which resource is dragging on the performance of your database.

3. If you just need random scripts written to perform *nix system administration tasks, I can consult with you about the requirements and write them for you. Note that while I can script in several languages, my preference for anything longer than 40 lines of code is Python.

4. I can build PC’s, install networks, set up firewalls and wireless routers, and all of the normal “office IT” functions, but note that my consulting is Linux consulting. I don’t work with Windows (well, I do, but not for free)

5. If there’s some other thing you’ve seen me blog about here, chances are I’ll be willing to perform a pro-bono consulting engagement to do it for you, or show you how to approach a problem, a large project, a migration, automation, monitoring, security or whatever.

Unless you happen to live within commuting distance to Princeton, NJ, work will be done remotely

Please email your request to jonesy at owladvisors dot com. Include your organization’s name, your contact info, and as much detail about the project and what your organization does as possible. The decision of which project to take on will be based solely on the information in your request!