IOException - Disk Quota Exceeded error - yet there's lots of disk space

I use a Mac for work.  I've run into an interesting issue with making backups of client web sites and zip files with my Mac...  It seems that whenever I've zipped a file and backed it up to my Mac, I get these wonderful __MACOSX folders - that's 2 underscores at the beginning of the folder name injected into the folder mix.

Restoring a site from one of those backups on a linux machine can have adverse consequences because of those 'injected' __MACOSX folders.  It seems that certain flavours of linux really don't like that folder name and as a result will not write a single file to the machine any more.... at all.  Instead, it throws an a 'Disk Quota Exceeded' error.  You can try touching a file, you can try unzipping some other files - whatever you do, you'll get that error.   The error didn't go away for me until I deleted all __MACOSX folders that got copied up to my machine in the zip file.  Once I did that - it was all good.

The interesting thing about this error was I could have tons of disk space still on the machine, and yet it would still throw that error until I removed those offending __MACOSX folders.

There are various commands out there for removing these folders from zip files created on a Mac... something like this:
zip -d your-archive.zip "__MACOSX*"

Get Hired as an IT Newbie Part 2 - Soft Skills

I participated in a focus group this past week at SAIT where we discussed their 'Web Developer Fast-Track Program' and its relevance to the industry.  The goal behind the meeting was how can we make the course more relevant to the changes and continual evolution of technology that is happening in the industry so students are more prepared for positions when they leave.  The discussion was engaging and took some interesting turns.  Here's what I took away related to Soft Skills:

Soft Skills
Employers like student hires to be reasonably technically adept.  Their technical expectations aren't in the stratosphere.  However, they want their student hires to have more than just technical ability.  Students should be well versed in soft skills.

Soft skills is (to some degree I'm sure) an ambiguous subject for many students.  I can hear you thinking 'What do people mean when they say that??'  In the context of our discussion  yesterday,  it meant prospective IT employers in the focus group yesterday were looking for students to have, in addition to technical skills:

• An ability to communicate well with a client - verbally, directly in front of them or over the phone.  Also having the discernment to know when to send an email versus when to talk verbally.  Poorly written emails are notorious for communicating the wrong things - particularly negative feelings where there were none.
• An ability to know what good work is.  Does the design and function of a web site fit the purpose/company it was designed for?  For example, does a sales/marketing website have lots of good calls to action?  Does the site feel right?  Would 'Joe's Mom' know how to navigate and use the site.
• A can-do attitude.  Students will likely get the soul-crushing repetitive work that senior developers/designers don't want to do (or don't have time to do).  Students should accept this and be prepared to do it with gusto.  If you're in an interview and you don't have a clue about a technology they asked you about, reply: "I don't know about that, but I will know about it tomorrow" and mean it.
• An ability and desire to collaborate and work in a team setting.  Its a fact of the industry - if you want to work in an agency, you're going to need to be able to work on a team and collaborate with team members. 

Also discussed was: What habits should students have (or start to form if they don't have them)?

• Students coming out of school should love learning and know how to learn things/solve problems on their own.
• Students should be able to receive constructive criticism without responding with excuses about bad instructors, poor course material, or the speed at which things were taught.  You don't get much chance for excuses on the job.  Employers are looking to 'break even' economically on their student resource investment within 4 months.  

Get Hired as an IT Newbie Part 1 - Have a Good Portfolio!

I participated in a focus group this past week at SAIT where we discussed their 'Web Developer Fast Track Program' and its relevance to the industry.  The goal behind the meeting was how can we make the course more relevant to the changes and continual evolution of technology that is happening in the industry so students are more prepared for positions when they leave.  The discussion was engaging and took some interesting turns.  Here's what I took away related to portfolios:

Student Portfolios
15 years ago I had gone through a similar IT fast-track program and we had to do portfolios of our work for potential employers.  I wasn't aware of a single employer who looked at my portfolio and as
a result I haven't placed much emphasis on it in my classes.  BIG MISTAKE.

It turns out that prospective employers for SAIT students DO look at their online portfolios.... and generally weren't super impressed.  Here's why:

• Industry attendees said that a student's portfolio should reflect the position or career track that the students are looking to get into.  There should be evidence in the portfolio that the student tried on their own to investigate, explore, and work with technologies and code that interests them.  Posting student projects (with every student having very similar projects) doesn't help anyone in making a hiring decision.
• Prospective employers are not just interested in the technologies that students used, but also: 
• Thought processes that the students went through in completing their projects - why they chose to make certain decisions (for example, use a canned WordPress theme instead of design/develop their own)
• Challenges students encountered in design and development and how they overcame those problems in their journey to the completed project - Employers are interested in soft skills like perseverance,  the ability to google a problem and uncover a solution on your own, the ability to asking for help when you are stumped (not before you've tried googling the problem)... etc.
• Is the student willing to go the extra mile, put in some extra effort and explore interesting tools and technologies outside the classroom?  The industry was quite clear that this was one of the main things they were looking for  - a motivated individual with the right attitude.  This kind of motivation should be clearly seen in a student's portfolio.

There was also some suggestions during the focus group that students should be given the opportunity to provide constructive feedback to their peers on their portfolios.  A good critique is a gift.  Can students accept constructive feedback and use it to improve?  Could providing peer critiques give them a better perspective and more experience with what is good (design, code, functionality, etc.) versus what is not good.  We thought so.

Finally, here's a couple of links to student portfolios that 'make the grade' so to speak, in my humble opinion.  One was a student of mine this past semester, the other is a current student at the University of Calgary:

- Gary S. Jennings (former SAIT student)

- Carrie Mah (U of C student)

Books read to date in 2015

One of the advantages of a good commute is having the chance to get some good reading done.  I've taken a different tact the last few months in my technical reading in that I'm choosing books that I hope I'll enjoy.  For the most part, its been a good experience.  Here's what I've managed to get through so far this year:

The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll.  This has been the only 'reread' for me so far this year.  If you're in IT, you might this this book and enjoyable read.  Cliff recounts his adventures back in the late 1980's chasing a hacker internationally on the ethernet through university, military, and other government networks and computers.  If you consider yourself a geek and you haven't read this book, you really should.



The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford.  The team leads at my current contract recommended I read this book.  It's marketed as 'A novel about IT, DevOps, and helping your business win.'  I enjoyed this book (and probably most people do) because it was easy to associate characters in the book with real people I've worked with.  On top of that, the problems the characters confront in their business are taken from 'last month' in many IT shops around the world.  Readers can relate to this book.  In some ways, I could say I've lived this book about 8 years ago, and I'm trying to help implement those solutions again where ever I end up working.

Social Engineering in IT Security by Sharon Conheady.  I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would have.  Sharon doesn't only give a great overview of the tools, tactics and techniques of IT related social engineering, she also gives it a historical context and augments the 'theory' with real life experiences.

Cyber Warfare by Jeffrey Carr.  I found this book to be something of a disappointment.  Even though it was a second edition (2011) I didn't find many updates.  I believe its intended target audience is CIOs and it seemed to me that the author included more legal documents and previously published papers in this book it needed.  I seriously considered returning this book and getting my money back.

Callings by Gregg Levoy.  I really enjoyed reading this book, perhaps because I'm very interested in the topic.  Certain readers might find it a bit academic, but there are many interesting, true stories that keep the narrative engaging.  This is NOT an IT book - rather it more about 'finding and following and authentic life.'  I originally got this book from the library on a whim, but after reading it I bought a copy.  Beware - some editions of this book (like the one I got from the library) have the last 20 pages out of order.  Check the page order from 300 on before you buy your copy.

Enterprise Architecture in Calgary

I went to a CIPS (Canadian Information Processing Society) lunch on Tuesday and the topic of discussion was 'The State of Enterprise Architecture'.  The talk was given by Martin Mysyk, the curator of www.enterprisearchitecture.ca.  Actually, it was more of a discussion lead by Martin.  This was appreciated as there were many practicing architects in the room and it was good to hear the variety of perspectives, challenges, and concerns that these fellows face.

Martin began by posing the question 'What do Enterprise Architects Do?'  Someone responded from the back of the room, 'We slow projects down!'  Everyone laughed and then we got more serious.  Other answers were offered:  'we provide strategic vision, influence, and guidance to the enterprise',  someone read a Wikipedia definition for EA's.  In the end, Martin compared EA's with municipal planners.  I thought this was interesting and decided to google it, and I found this page:  Enterprise Architecture Analogies  Some interesting food for thought.

A slide was displayed about EA As a Career and a short discussion ensued on how does one get their foot in the door (certification, promotion from BA role, promotion from SA role, etc).  EA's require a delicate balance of technical and business expertise, combined with superb soft skills like communication and effective discussion leadership.  Martin recommended a book called the Zoom Factor by Sharon Evans.  I might have to pick this one up as it looks like it might be interesting.

Warming to his subject, Martin moved into the EA Practice.  He reviewed several different flavours of EA methodologies out there today, commenting that TOGAF seemed to be the current favourite.  A slide was displayed with EA Practice at the top, followed by four boxes (focuses of EA?):  Business, Data, Applications, and Technology.  I was surprised that Security didn't count among them, and it didn't seem to arise in the discussion as much as I thought it would.  If TOGAF suggests that a Business architecture is important, doesn't a Security architecture merit some consideration?  Perhaps I missed it in the diagram...

Some important considerations for EA's that came up in the discussion:

• We need to consider growth versus optimization in Calgary right now (considering the price of oil)
• Who in the organization should benefit from EA?   Is I.T. really the right place for every organization's EA practice? Some companies have their EA practice reporting to the Legal dept.  others report to Operations, or even the CEO.  
• Perhaps the question is 'Where can the EA practice provide the most value in organization?'  Answers to these questions will be different for each situation.  Depending on the answers, one may have to reconsider who the EA practice reports to...

And finally our discussion wrapped up with the challenges that EA's face:

• We need to prove our value with a small budget.  How do we do that?
• How do we influence the decision makers without seeming heavy handed?
• How do we provide guidance and structure to development and growth without seeming heavy handed?

I'd love to have some comments!

A couple more business ideas...

I think one could (somehow) put together a company that offers to host data for clients for free, in return for being able to datamine their data.  Obviously there would be privacy rules to consider and content with.  However, my intuition is telling me there are still opportunities in this area that are yet untapped.

My other idea would be to build light fixtures that incorporate a similar 'fan' model to the Dyson fan - in other words, no blades as part of the light fixture.  Rather, there would be a main hub that houses and hides the working fan.  The fan would blow the air at high pressure through slots in the light fixture.  The slots could be anywhere on the light fixture.  The fixture itself could potentially even move....

Based on the cost of these 'blade' fans, I'm sure a bundle could be made on similar light fixtures.

Adding another idea to this (Aug. 4).  I'm very surprised I don't see more rechargeable (hair) blow driers out there.  Along with that, hair clippers.  When I'm getting my hair cut, the stylist is always messing around because the cord isn't long enough, or the cord has knocked something over or gotten twisted or caught on something...   Isn't that what building contractors wanted cordless drills for?  They've been around for years. 

The Value of IT Certifications and Skills

After I've told my students at school how I finally managed to get a full time job in IT, they've asked me what I thought was the most important thing I did to get that job.  I've always answered 'getting my SCJP certification' (Sun Certified Java Programmer). It's been over 10 years since I started working at the job.  While I still maintain certifications are important for developers who are trying to break into the industry, I've become less enthusiastic about them and what they mean now that I have more experience. 

Having said that, I ran into a couple of articles today that I thought were very interesting:
15 IT Certifications That Can Get You a $100,000 Salary
30 Tech Skills That Can Get You a $100,000 Salary

Granted, the way these articles are written is 'just a little bit of' hype.  These skills and/or certifications aren't going to net you a 100k salary all on their own.  They need to be married with a resume that has several years of IT experience and related, well developed soft skills.