Computer World has an article about Telecommuting . So, I thought I’d chip in my inflated $0.02. Telecommuting, doesn’t mean working from home. This is one of the biggest myths, and truths people will realize over time. What makes me such an expert? I’ve been telecommuting for the past 3 years, straight, full time. I’m not talking about moonlighting, and doing part time work for companies who post on craigslist. I’m talking multi million dollar projects. I haven’t been fired, I haven’t left the company, and I’ve been rewarded with a raise, and more importantly, I haven’t missed deadlines.

You still have a job, act like it. (The Ugly)

Telecommuting, is not that hard. But, it’s not the holy grail for workers either. You’re not going to become productive because you work from home, you’re not going to save a lot of gas, and you’re definitely not going to “make your own hours”. The last part is true, if you want to be a telecommuter.
Just because you work from home, or remotely, doesn’t mean your responsibilities to other people go away. Deadlines are deadlines, people need to know what you’re up to, and what the status is. The only time they can get this information is when they’re working. So therefore, you’re still working when they are. Sure, you can actually do the work later, but you better be awake and available to answer phone calls during the 9-5. Your client is being nice enough to let you make your own hours and work remotely, but they can only do so much, you must extend the favor back to them, by being available when they need you.

Working from home isn’t so awesome after all (The Bad)

You’re not going to work from home, if you itch to telecommute, you itch not because you love your home, it’s because you hate the monotony of your cubicle, and your office. You’ll hate your house soon enough. I’ve found that if I work from my house for more than a week, I go crazy, and productivity drops. I’ve found many cool coffee shops and bars that I work from. Yes, I said bar. No, I don’t drink while I work. Get yourself a good pair of headphones, a 3g card, and a good laptop. You’re finally free to work from where you want to, don’t waste it at home.

And the commute shall set you free! (The Good)

I’ve found that I’m more creative, I get more done, and more importantly I’m happier. I don’t have to worry about the morning traffic report, and I don’t have to worry about inclement weather. I make sure I’m available during the day, even if I’m not working, I can answer a phone call from the pool, if the call requires me to get on the computer, I can very quickly. It’s a type of freedom, that can only be experienced once you understand your new responsibility.

I’m not sure if all recruiters work off some hidden cosmic rhythm, or if they share information.. but I find it amusing, that a bunch of them call me around the same time every month. Anyway, in the past 3-4 months I’ve been underwhelmed, and frankly offended by these email recruiters.

In light of This article by Nick Halstead , I thought I would throw in some experiences from contractor/job seeker side. I’m glad to see that these recruiters aren’t horrible just to the recruitee, but also to their paying client, yet disappointed.

Actual Conversation (this happened last week):
Recruiter Email and immediate phone call: Looking for web designer with over 10 years of experience in Adob (that’s how they pronounce it), photoshop, html, xhtml and css.
Me: I haven’t used photoshop since photoshop 3, I suck at design I learnt that in high school, i’m not fit for this position.
Recruiter: So how many years of Adob experience do you have? I have your old resume on file and I don’t see any.
me: Yes, because the last time I messed with photoshop, was when System 7.5 was out, and I had a pirated copy of it on our high school computer. I am not interested, and more so, I am not qualified for this position.
Recruiter: Ok do you think you can add photoshop to your resume and send it back to me?
me: ……. …. .. ..

This happens a lot, and I hate to say it, the recruiter is always some guy from India.

Now, almost all of my contracts I’ve found have been through recruiters, there are some really good ones out there, but finding the good ones shouldn’t be so hard. Recruiters are necessary, I’ve been on this one contract for 3 years now, this contract was found by a really good recruiter in Chicago. These guys were so good and ethical, that they haven’t tried to recruit me away, or use me as a way to get other candidates through the door, though I do know some other contractors that have started working there via them.

PS: To the recruiters reading this, this is not an invitation to solicit me. I’m just venting, I’m sure the good recruiters out there, have some horror stories of bad candidates themselves, I’d love to hear them.

There’s a really good paper that has won the first annual Security Best Practices competition held by FIRST (www.first.org ) and the CERT Coordination Center . The paper is from Taiwan, and shows a very interesting methodology of study, and more importantly a means to educate the human. As the paper says; “Social engineering concentrates on the weakest link of the computer security chain, which is also the most essential part of the security component: human.” You owe it to yourself to read it, and try to implement something educational within your organization. Your security patches will have no effect against a good social engineer.

So, twitter is down again, all jokes aside, I know a lot of people say the problem with twitter is that it’s built on RoR, is it really? Is ROR really the problem? Or is it bad infrastructure? Could it be that twitter as simple as it is, is actually innovative in what it’s trying to do? Or is it doing something very simple, in a very foolish manner?

For the people who say the problem with Twitter is RoR, I’d like to ask them and possibly bribe them, into building a clone of twitter, in their language of choice.

Why? Because, I’m curious.. is it really the language, or the framework? or just poor architecture? is the architecture poor due to the framework’s limitations? I’ve thought a little bit about what Twitter is doing, and I can’t think of any other application that does the type of notification, except financial sites, and stock tickers.. but they usually claim the 20 minute delay.

I haven’t done any real research on twitter’s problems, I’m a consumer so I didn’t feel like trying to figure out where their blog is, or who is actually behind twitter, so pardon me if my question is dumb to some of you.

Considering the few posts made recently, regarding Telecommuting, I thought I’d put in my $0.02, adjusted for inflation.
See Cal’s Post and this awesome job opportunity.
I want to discuss the various tools and options available to the telecommuter in 2008.

Disclaimer: I don’t want to make this another post on the benefits of Telecommuting, as I strongly believe there is no silver bullet for the problems an individual or a company faces. There are many drawbacks to telecommuting, and the positives don’t always neutralize the drawbacks.

Background: I’ve been telecommuting since 2003, that’s when I decided to quit working for the ‘man’. I chose a laptop to give myself mobility. This mobility also came in the form of being single, unattached, and my willingness to drive. I drove from New Jersey to San Antonio, to Corpus Christi, TX, back to San Antonio, to San Francicso, to Los Angeles, to Boca Raton, FL, to Alexandria, VA, Birmingham, AL, to Herndon, VA to San Antonio TX.

All of this traveling was done between January 2003 and October 2005. So, for almost two years I lived in hotels, and everything I owned, fit in my Nissan Sentra. This was telecommuting 1.0, I call it telecommuting because quite often, I could work from my hotel room, they just wanted me close by, in case of meetings.

As much as I loved driving and finding new places, hotel life does get a bit tiring. So, in 2005 I decided to settle down in San Antonio. I’m sure a lot of you will wonder why I chose Texas of all places, to which I can only say ‘try it’.

Here are some tools I use to help keep my sanity, and my contract.

1. Laptop: I use a macbook pro as my one and only machine, the laptop is my primary means of income. My laptop is almost 1.5 yrs old, and it’s still more than what I need. My only gripes are:

   1. Glossy Screens: I chose the glossy screen from Apple, it’s a great looking screen, but it’s not the best in all situations (outdoors).
   2. Resolution: 1680×1050 is nice, but I think I’d prefer 1920×1200, so I want to buy the new MacBook Pro’s, but I don’t know what to do with this laptop first. I can’t logically, or fiscally justify two laptops.

   Since OS X has unix at the core, I have a local development environment for all my projects. I’ve tried out things like MAMP, MAMP Pro, but I keep going back to my old Linux roots. I have the default Apache, and a customized PHP installation, along with MySQL.

   I use subversion for my source control, though I am thinking of switching to GIT. But, whether you use GIT or SVN, it doesn’t matter as long as you use something it’s good. Basically, the use of SVN, Apache, PHP and MySQL allows me to have a full local dev environment. I can write new code, make bug fixes, document, whatever, all from the comfort of my laptop. And I never have to say
   “oh, I can’t get to that file it’s at home, or at the office”.

   The laptop alone gives me the freedom to work from home, or any other place with internet. As much as I love my laptop, I stronly urge you to learn to live without it as well. I’m a strong believer in the no laptop per meeting initiative (there should be one if there isn’t already).

   You don’t have to use a mac, or install Linux. I know people who are very happy with Windows as their primary OS/Development environment, this is development so performance is not your primary concern here.

2. Mobile Data Cards (EVDO/HSDPA): These things are awesome, and worth it if you telecommute. Now, I’m sure you’re going to ask.. but if I work from home, isn’t my cable/dsl faster and more reliable than Sprint/Verizon/ATT? Why yes it is, but telecommuting doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be in the comfort of your home all the time, nor does it mean that you’ll want to be. I spend more time at Starbucks, Coffee houses, and other places where the weather is nice, and the view is even nicer. None of these places have reliable Wifi, or wifi at all. But, my Sprint EVDO card works. Plus, for what I do, it’s awesome. I don’t upload massive files, I don’t download massive files, I upload incremental changes, ssh into remote machines, and I read the news with my RSS reader. I really don’t need a 10mbps internet connection. I need a stable connection, that lets me work anywhere. These card work all the time, and work every where I have been.
3. Good headphones: I use the V-Moda head phones, they are good enough for my ears. They sound great, and fit perfectly. They’re so comfortable that sometimes I get up with the phones still in my ears, only to be yanked down by the laptop. I’m interested in bluetooth headphones, if someone has any opinions, please share them. Anyway, the reason for headphones is because they help you concentrate. They drown out the ambient noise of the environment you’re in, OR you can turn up your music as loud as you like then. I can’t work in silence, nor can I work when other people are talking. I love listening to music when I work, it helps me concentrate.
4. An extra power cord: I have two power cords for my laptop. One is stationary and never leaves the house. The other is always in my laptop bag. This is just a peace of mind/convenience thing. I used to land in a different city, or get to the airport and find out I left my powercord at home, or at the client’s site, but no more. Part of it is due to better discipline, part of it is the intangible comfort I have when I travel, that there is always a cord at home.
5. A good laptop bag: Like a man or a woman, is hard to find. Everyone has their own preferences, I prefer to use bags that can carry things besides my laptop. I like to take pictures, and since I normally find myself in places I find interesting, the ability to have my camera with me is a huge plus. But, sometimes I want to travel light, I want the ability to take the camera out, as well as the compartments for the laptop and lenses. The bag should transform from a large laptop bearing bag, to a smaller version of it self.
   I prefer the use of back packs, but I like the style of messenger/brief case bags. So, I’m still trying to find the perfect fit, but for now I use a Targus back pack. I’ve tried Brenthaven, Tumi, Timbuk2, and InCase bags, the Targus has been with me the longest, due to it’s simplicty, and my ability to pack my camera bag in it, when I need to.
6. A portable hard drive: I have a Maxtor 160GB USB only drive, I bought it on sale for $80. I now have a constant backup of everything on my laptop. If I’m traveling, I just start the rsync before I go to bed. In case the events of the day cause me to lose my hard drive, drop my laptop, or I become a victim of the burning battery, my work is backed up. I am looking at Truecrypt, to see how I can make my backups a little bit more secure. If I lose/forget my drive, then my work becomes the property of Joe H4×0r, which is bad. I’d love to hear your opinions on this. I’m trying to find a balance between encrypting everything, and only encrypting the things I need encrypted.

I believe these 6 items, will help you, because they have helped me. I don’t want to talk too much in detail about how you should
live your day, or how you prioritize your tasks. There are plenty of sites out there to help you with GTD, Focusing, Time Tracking/management. Those same rules still apply, whether you work from home, or the office, you will still need to prioritize. You will still need to keep track of your hours, and you’ll still need to make time for the wife, kids, dogs, and most importantly, yourself.

Every now and then you see someone do something with technology that makes you go..”duh, why didn’t I think of that?”. I happened upon one of these moments, when a friend of mine showed me Awesome Highlighter. The concept is simple, it’s like bookmarking with comments, but where the comments are easy to add, and relevant. People send me links all the time, they tell me to check out a specific page, or a story, but I don’t always get the joke, or the point they wanted to make to me. Now, with this tool, I can see what they thought was relevant. I can remember specific steps I had to follow when I bookmarked a page. As a developer, I can send this to clients, or copy editors, who can pinpoint the errors on the web pages more easily to me.

This is the natural evolution of delicious, let’s see if they can keep up.

For the framework fans out there, the site is built using PHP5 with Code Igniter.