To take away and to share.

The so called financial crisis is widely used as a wonderful excuse to beg for money.
Long before the first signs of the crisis became noticeable, Russian car manufactures demanded government to increase the prohibitory duties for used and new automobiles and to forbid the import of the cars with the right steering wheel. Actually, One can hardly find a left-handed car to the east of the Urals mountains, not speaking of the cars, manufactured in Russia.
Every person, from small entrepreneur to a CEO of a huge giant like GM would never loose her chance to raise additional funds.
Most of the news, terrifying the society, used to stare at the ice-skating shows, are used as an excuse to do something unpopular. Shrink expenses at someone's other cost. Raise prices. Decrease quality. Ask for money.
Today I came over a post from Seth Godin, devoted to the question about the imaginary bankruptcy of the automobile producing companies in USA.
The main idea of the post is to let the private-jet-flying CEOs burn in hell of inevitable bankruptcy.
The author assumes that such a measure could lead to a healthy new car market in the US through appearing of the hundreds of small companies, fighting for their customer.

Despite the temptation to join Seth in his cry "hail to the renewal!", I'm a little bit afraid, that after the disappearing of these companies there won't be car producing industry in the United States of America any more.

It's not the worst, that might happen, but such a decision always has loud consequences, that's why I'm for saving the industry and the private jets!

After all it would be pretty interesting to know what would Seth said after lots of fired citizens would crowd the cities, robbing for food and beverages?

Oracle 11g installation under Gentoo 2008.

Unfortunately, I had to run the installation of the server myself. From the initial gentoo linux installation to the Oracle instance setup.

Everything was fine, except the Oracle install of course! I read the standard Oracle for Linux installation guide, and didn't understood where to get the X server from.

To tell the truth, it's not that difficult.
1. There's no need to install X server onto the box which is supposed to work as a server - you can install any X server onto the client. If you are a normal person and use Windows as a desktop, as I do, you can choose minigX, install it on your desktop.
2. export DISPLAY variable
3. Do all the steps from official Oracle installation manual.
4. Somewhere at 78%, during the linking stage, Oracle Installer will report about some failure in the linking process. No need to worry, just use the recipe taken from the Internet!

Oracle works fine now.

A can not do attitude

Yesterday I was sent a link to the following text. A beautiful lady, who's working as a coach, writes about how one can change his doubtful attitude to the correct, can-do one.
In the mention article a reader was suggested five easy steps.

My last ten years showed me, that sometimes such thing as a can-do attitude is not such a good thing, actually. And looking back at some situations I would prefer to be more reluctant in accepting deals and suggestions to do some work.

That's why people, who work, often require

The five steps to the Can-Not-Do Attitude.

1. Say "I need some time to think" first.
Everybody has faced a new opportunity plenty of time. A new cool project proposal, which could bring money. or be simple interesting. It's so tempting - to dive into a new project, leaving all the boredom of the old ones behind.
It's really better to take some long time to think before you agree.

2. Develop a realistic point of view
We are used to live in a plenty of world two of those are so called Real World and the Land of Dreams. In my opinion the only real thing in the Real World is a possibility to measure.
So, it's really better to perform a straightforward calculations to identify whether you "Can Do" today.

3. With the problem in mind, estimate the requirements
In youth people tend to take any chance to do what they like. Despite the approaching exams, despite the previous incomplete projects. It's always challenging. And it always seems like a piece of cake. For me almost every new project seemed much easier at the glance, than it appears afterwards. Keeping this fact in mind, you should identify the approximate amount of effort required, and then frankly answer a question - "When am I going to do this?" After the job, at home? During the weekends? During the daytime, at the office?
So, when you clearly realize, that next half a year you will spend your weekend working, it makes you doubt.

4. Be open to other people - check the team availability
Could this work be done better using different qualified persons working in a team? If it could, and if you don't know such people, I mean, know by your previous projects, then don't initiate!

5. Do it your way
Instead of working hard for different tangibles, like the most people in the world do, try improving your skills by learning and meeting new people, who share your interests.
Despite the banality of the above - sometimes it's better to avoid following the first desire, and to thing a little bit.

A vacation.

On this Sunday I'm going to fly to the vacation with Galya.
First, we are going to Java, where we'll be involved in the search of Ruby.
Besides, I hope we won't meet a python there )

Flickr's special offer

Since last 3 years I'm a user of Flickr. There are even some pictures of mine uploaded.

Today I have received this letter:

Hi robocomp2,

You've hit a limit of of your free Flickr account. You have
243 photos but you're only seeing the last 200!

Perhaps you'd like to purchase a Flickr pro account? Its
unlimited and you get video and stats too!

You'll even get 3 months free for purchasing before 30
September 2008!

I can't even imagine, how good they are! A limit of 200 pictures! So cute.
One has to pay, to upload new pictures (and make them visibile) above the limit.

Thanks, but no, thanks - I would rather continue using PicasaWeb instead. It's a little bit more free

A bike trip

Everyone has to ride a bicycle, that's for sure!
Summer in Moscow is quite specific, you never know whether it's still summer, or may be autumn already. But it doesn't mean that Moscowites have to spend all their weekends in the city's concrete jungle )
We like going outside, to dachas, or just somewhere in the meadows with a tent and tons of BBQ meat.
Same it was on the last holidays, when we with a group of my friends decided to go out for some sort of a men-only party, with tents and fishing and staff to make out some vegetables out of people.
Despite the weather forecast, which predicted rain and wind no sun at all for the nearest city of Serpukhov, it was decided to depart no matter what. Our gang was well equipped with special clothes and tents and over magical staff to make the rain go away. A friend of mine an me - we had decided to go by bikes. It's amazing, really, to ride a bicycle after a long week of hardworking.
The destination point is located not far from Serpukhov, it's about 110 km. Only a mad cyclist can set on such a trip on a Friday evening, waiting for a rain.
So, we used some sort of a local train. It was heavily crowded, no place to sit, or even to stand. Unavoidable participation in several small fights for a room for us and our bikes took place. Raged passengers wanted to throw us away from the train.
After leaving the train we had to travel. There was no rain! It was cold, but dry, and lots of stars were glittering in a complete darkness of small and awfully destroyed road along the bank of Oka river.
As for me, I was afraid to miss the right turn from our 'highway' to a country road. It's quite hard to identify the correct track in a darkness, is it?
But our friends, who managed to get to the place by car faster, than we, helped us occasionally not to miss the thing!

The whole weekend was warm, sunny and without rain at all!
I suppose, that sometimes when you do something despite the forecasts, and when you want something to be as you want it to be, it shapes itself into a right form, as you want it.
May be it's the universal rule of universal generosity? I'll keep watching )

Most of the pictures are posted at PicasaWeb

A wedding day
On 19th of July 2008 I've married my fair girlfriend (or, may be bride?) Galya, whom I know for three years already. I can't boast of my new shiny ring, because I don't have one, but I'm looking forward for our first journey as a married couple. I haven't decided yet where would we like to go, but it's not the point, I think.

Decisions.

Every time I come upon a necessity to make a decision, I do hesitate. My mother always told me that this streak is an inherited one. But the more years pass by, the more obvious it becomes, that hesitation is in human' blood. Whether you need to choose a job, or find yourself a university to study at - you do think and trying to find an advice from any one around.
A very famous book, written in eighteenth century in Japan, Hagakure I mean, contains some sort of Samurai code.
Every modern reader of this masterpiece wonders how did Samurai in particular and Japanese in general managed not to kill themselves during so many years of their history, being placed on such a small piece of land?
Besides the picturesque descriptions of different kosher ways of ancient suicide, Hagakure's author generously provides us with aphorisms, which shortly give a correct direction in his (or may be her?) life.
As to decision making, Yamamoto Tsunetomo says, that every decision must be made in longer than seven breaths. There's no anything on Earth that deserves thinking longer.
I do agree. That's true. But can't follow, can I?

Delayed projects

In my opinion it would be very interesting for me to start blogging about how not to complete projects on time.
I've lot of experience in this field.

The most strange thing is that the longer you postpone the project work that is already late, the more painful become these activities for every single participant.

Developers have to recall what the subject area is all about, PM has to review his or her initial project plan, and feel sorrow.
Customer must think about why these so cool looking guys with so much good references failed the project.

And so on.

The obvious solution is not to postpone the project everyday tasks, that are used to be planned so nicely in the initial network chart.
Then it won't become painful and will bring only fun and, well, satisfaction.

President elections in Russia

Today it was day of President elections in Russia, you know. And it was pretty interesting. We didn't managed to vote with my girlfriend, because we were late. And the doors were closed.

There are two types of system administrators:
those, who don't backup yet, and those, who do it already.

Old truths must be felt by every person.

There's one very-well known eternal verity - if you want to do something relativly complex, that involves a labor of a team, then you must build a team you can rely on.
It's pretty simple, and everyone agrees with that. It's hardly possible to find a person who would object.
And I wouldn't object either. But understanding - is one thing, and the feeling, that you fail a project because of you inability to gather a good team - is something completely different.

Not so long ago I felt pretty well that if manager doesn't know the team, if she is not sure that she can withstand any 'storm' with the team members, then she has no team.
Manager must not underestimate the risks that follow the cooperation with unknown or not enough known team - that's clear.

And by accepting these risks manager bets her reputation. Because it's obvious that the only person, responsible for the project failure, is the manager. It's impossible for manager to blame anyone else except her.

So, team matters and this risk must be valued along with any other risk, such as new and unknown technology, time shortage, small budget and so on.