| location: |
| NYC |
| site: |
| Community Connect Inc.
(BlackPlanet.com,
MiGente.com,
AsianAvenue.com)
|
| servers: |
| ~250 |
| workstations: |
| ~150 |
| sysadmins on staff: |
| 8 |
| site overview: |
|
We build community websites - think social networking sites, but with a group
emphasis, not a one-on-one emphasis. We've been doing it for 9 years,
too, so we've survived a bubble burst or two
and are still going strong - hundreds of millions of page views and
millions of unique users every month. ;)
|
| job title: |
| Director of Operations |
| time at this job: |
| Over 5 years |
| years as a sysadmin: |
| Over 10 years |
| first computer: |
| My first “real” computer was an Apple IIc, but the
first one that I fell in love with was my Amiga 2000. |
| first OS: |
| Well, see above. I started on an Apple IIc, but I didn't
really get into computing until I got my first Amiga. |
| favorite OS: |
| Nowadays I prefer Linux (Gentoo, specifically) to anything else.
|
| first computer with root/administrator access: |
| An old DEC PDP. I
learned Pascal on that old piece of junk. When it
was finally retired, we each took a piece of it as a keepsake.
|
| first programming language: |
| Basic. After learning the basics by
typing in entries from old computer magazines, I
tried doing my own stuff. Naturally, I tried to write an adventure
game (think Zork). It worked, sort of. |
| favorite programming language: |
| Perl. I've tried to get into other
languages and just don't enjoy them nearly as much
as I like Perl. It's got a lot of flaws but is still the most
practical -- and fun (when you're not banging your head
on your desk) -- language I've found. |
| most often used programming language: |
| Perl, again. Followed by shell
scripting and PHP (we build our sites in PHP,
for better or for worse). |
| first sysadmin job, computer and os: |
| Well, back in school, I was one
of the student computer administrators on that
PDP I mentioned above. We got rid of it and replaced it with a Mac
“server” later. My first professional Sys Admin
job was at a Windows NT/ SGI Irix shop. |
| ideal sysadmin job: |
|
System Architect over a massively scaled website,
with complete autonomy and really smart
coworkers. (I'd say I'm about 75% of the way to that goal now.)
|
| favorite sysadmin tool/most interesting sysadmin tool/
sysadmin tool I couldn't work without: |
|
(There's a lot of cross-over in these
questions... so...) I don't know if I could pick a single tool I
couldn't live without, but I guess if I had to narrow it down, some of
the most useful tools in my job are perl (I'm cheating a little, I
know), strace, and nagios. I constantly write little scripts in perl,
some keepers, some one-offs, but it's invaluable. Strace? Well, when
something's not running right and the logs and other first-level
debugging techniques don't show anything, sometimes you have to roll
up your sleeves and strace the heck out of it. You can learn a lot by
watching how a process actually works. Finally, Nagios just because
you can't be an effective SA without effective monitoring, and I don't
know any open source monitoring platform that's any better.
|
| education: |
|
Not much. ;) I'm mostly self-taught, or taught by
coworkers, etc. I went to school for art, so that didn't really help
me much in this field.
|
| when I was growing up, I wanted to be: |
|
An artist! For a while, I
really wanted to make comic books, and then later wanted to be a
painter (oils)... but I loved computers, so I thought maybe I could
combine the two. I played with digital photography, 3d rendering and
animation, all sorts of things. None of them really brought me the
same satisfaction as dragging a brush full of oil paints across a
canvas, and that didn't pay nearly as well as working with computers,
so I adopted my second love as my profession.
|
| If I wasn't a sysadmin, I'd be: |
|
Nowadays? I'd probably go into the
restaurant business, whether as a chef or as a food writer. I love
cooking, eating, all of it. I don't have time to do nearly as much of
either as I'd like, thanks to the day job.
|
| when friends and family ask me to
“fix” the computer or
“fix the internet”, I say: |
|
*sigh*
|
| when I first meet someone,
and they ask what I do, I say: |
|
I usually
just say I work with computers, and if they persist, I'll get into it
a little more. Generally, the eyes start glazing over once I say I
work with computers, so I try to spare them.
|
| system administration is ...: |
|
a way of life. I know what they say
about work/life balance, and that's important (required, really) - but
ultimately, to choose to be a Sys Admin is to choose a way of life.
You can't ever really leave it behind, not 100%, and the skills and
abilities you learn stick with you in anything you do.
|
| advice to a junior admin: |
|
Find a mentor (or two) to help you when
you're in trouble, but learn to think for yourself, and remember to
always use common sense. Anyone can pick up technical details, but
learning how to really approach and dissect and finally solve a
problem is a rare skill that's a lot harder to pick up than most
people expect. Some people never figure it out. Don't be one of
them.
|
| advice to a senior admin: |
|
Think. I've met so many “senior admins” who
had lots of experience and lots of skill but it all went to waste
since they couldn't be bothered to spend 5 minutes actually thinking.
I'd rather have a smart, thoughtful, driven junior admin with real
common sense than most so-called "senior admins" out there.
|
| favorite food/cuisine: |
| Hard to know where to start. I live in NYC, I
can get almost any kind of cuisine I want, and some excellent examples
of it, too. I guess... crab. Fresh crab, steamed, a little butter.
Can't beat it.
|
| pizza topping: |
|
Nothing. I like toppings on a pizza, but the best way to appreciate a good pizza is without any extra toppings at all.
|
| work music: |
| I don't usually listen to music while I'm working. Too distracting. |
| crisis music: |
| see above.
|
| ___ gets me through the work day: |
| My coworkers. |
| hobby/other job: |
| Hobby? What? Sleep, maybe. ;) When I can, I enjoy riding my bike around the city, taking photos, and barbecuing (my smoked brisket is the best you can find this side of Texas!) up on my roof. |
| my office is: |
| Messy |
| co-workers say my desk is: |
| Hard to find under all of the junk on it. |
| learned the most from: |
| It's really hard to say. I've worked with a
lot of really smart, really talented people, and I'd feel bad singling
any one out as “the one”.
I wouldn't be where I am without the help
of all of them. (Or at least most of them. ;) )
|
| wish list: |
|
Sleep.
|
| Is the Sarbannes-Oxley Act (“SOX”)
good for system administration? |
|
I'm going to stay out of this one. :P |
| editor: |
| vi |
| mail user agent: |
| pine at home, outlook at work, and webmail everywhere ;) |
| web browser: |
| firefox |
| gui or cli: |
| both |
| computers at home: |
| half a dozen, give or take. |
| (primary) home computer and OS: |
| My servers run Linux, my desktop runs
Windows. (Hey, I try to be practical.)
|
| oldest hardware in your garage or basement: |
| I'm in NYC, I don't have
either, but the oldest box I *currently have running* is a Pentium 90
that's serving as webserver, mailserver, and dns server. Yikes. |
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