thomasnguyen.com

First Year on the Job.

2008-11-17T09:51:00.006-06:00

First Week on the Job | First Month on the Job
(If this ever gets to "First Decade on the Job", then WLOWL.)

Anyway, it's been about a year now and things are awesome. I've completely changed both as a developer and an employee since I've started. I'm hoping for another great year with way more on plate. Consider this an "end of the year review" for myself.

Accomplishments both development (yay) and non-development related (sigh)

Audit Collection Admin RC
Audit Collection Data Miner Beta
Audit Collection Syslog Gateway
Subversion migration (with Mantis)
Create MSI Installers (believe me, 32/64bit installers are beasts!)
Email management, developer onboarding, document templating, manage third-party software repositories, website maintenance/updates.

Things I Have Learned

System Center Operations Manager: what it is and how it is used
Subversion: administration rather than just the TortoiseSVN part, still way more to learn on this
Creating test users under the domain and using "runas" helps with testing
32-bit Vista will only recognize 3GB of RAM
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V is awesome!
Having a laptop dock saves seconds of your life a day
I don't like Silverlight/WPF because of XAML. It's ugly!
NAnt is nice, but MSIs are what the customers want/need
A downed Subversion Server on weekends makes for a really painful commit on Monday
Outlook does not manage emails well nor make support migrating to new machine fun
Sometimes working from home is way more productive
Web and Win development has its own gotchas and fails
Employers who trust trustworthy employees reap ginormous benefits (I think I'm pretty trustworthy)
The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side of the fence, but you might end up having to landscape it, weed it, edge it. In the end it will become what you make of it.

Things I Would Like (to Learn)

Common Design Patterns
Enterprise Architecture and Design
One experienced C# developer (who enjoys the alt.net initiative) to brain storm and do code reviews.
Someone creates MSI Installers for us (I hate them)
Daily stand-up meetings with myself (yeah, I'm a lone developer)
Subversion Administration (helpful hooks, scripts, and processes)
Broadband wifi card (so I can work on the bus or just anywhere)
I need formal, hands on agile training from JP, not just reading blogs
Remove dependence on a cup of coffee a day

Areas of Improvement end of year reviews always come with this part

Provide training for others on Subversion, Mantis, and knowledge sharing
Ask for more feedback and detailed requirements
Improve on product roadmap knowledge
Understand more about customers' needs and use of products
Attend more User Group meetings to learn from others

Something I need to improve on is quality of life. This startup has a lot potential and a lot of things to do, but I need to find something to do outside of this. I have a huge passion for development, but I need to find something to do off the computer. I mean, even my side projects are web-related and I just recently got the Android SDK so I can start making stuff for my brother's new G1. I'll need to start jogging again to build up some stamina in preparation for our snowboarding trip in December. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

I Casted My Ballot.

2008-11-04T12:19:00.005-06:00

I wanted to go early, so I left around 6:45 AM to get to the polls. I arrived and the line was crazy long! I figured these were probably the other early birds who wanted to vote before work. I ended up grabbing some coffee and heading back home to get some work done.

So after watching MSNBC's coverage I was expecting a complete madhouse at my polling location all day long. I drove over there after a quick lunch and pulled into the parking lot. HMPH...lots of signs with names and positions everywhere. There was no line and finding a parking spot was so simple, YAY!

I found a table with a sign: "L-R" (L-M-N, hey that's me!). I gave them my driver's license the hunt for the correct NGUYEN begins. The lady almost marked me off for my dad's name just because we had the same address, ARGH! Oh well, I helped turn five pages to get to the right name and signed my name. I got a card with my precinct number on it (518) and I walked over to the next table. I got another little ticket with my access code and the gentleman directed me over to booth #3.

TURN-TURN-TURN. CLICK. DONE.
TURN-TURN-TURN. CLICK. DONE.
...
TURN-TURN-TURN. CLICK. DONE.

I finally casted my ballot and I got the biggest chills I've ever had in a long time. I felt great!

David showed me this...I got the chills again! Call me a sucker, but I VOTED!

Tom, Motorpool: "Thanks, I had Fun!"

2008-11-03T13:35:00.000-06:00

Two weeks ago, Kevin (coworker) let us know that he needed two people to help out at the Wings Over Houston Airshow on Sunday. A couple days later he came back with hats, tickets, and a parking pass. Next thing I know, I'm waking up at 4 AM on Sunday to get ready and head way down to Ellington Field after picking up Cory (another coworker).

I had no idea what to expect, but it was a ton of fun. We got radios! The only thing I've played with are the pair of radios we bought back in the day with maximum range of one end of the house to the other, lol.

Anyway, we got the opportunity to move people from the the parking lots to their tents. These weren't ordinary people, they were the in the Heroes and Legends booth. I even took a Congressman there who went to make an appearance there.

(Sorry for the crappy pictures. I just snapped them from my phone. Next year, I'll take out my RebelXT.)

Weekend: Chopin in Paris

2008-10-20T09:01:00.004-05:00

A while ago, the Housonist posted something that caught my eye: Da Camera of Houston presents Chopin in Paris. I immediately emailed Katie in hopes of grabbing up a pair of tickets. She let me know that they would be at the box office, yay! Jenny and I arrived a little early, picked up the tickets and ended up going to dinner right across the street first. If you haven't been to Mingalone, you should. It's a really nice place for a lunch/dinner before the show. They have a "Curtain Call" section for a quick meals so you can make it to the show on time. It's a bit pricey, but if you got free tickets then the price is offset. THANKS AGAIN, KATIE (Houstonist)!

The show was nice, but I often found it hard to read some of the texts before they disappeared. One part that caught my eye was the "GET DRUNK!" note, but when the French and English mashup/translation/take-turns/whatever voices came on I got really frustrated trying to hear what they were trying to say. Overall, they performance was ok, but maybe it's just my ignorance with that kind of artistic style. I was hoping for an ensemble of the grand piano and imagery, but instead it was separate and the music reflected the mood of poem afterward.

Code Review FUN!

2008-10-15T10:40:00.004-05:00

Legacy code can be fun!
How many wrongs make a right? The more the merrier?

//VB.NET
Public Function ConvertSDToStringSD(ByVal securityDescriptor() As Byte, ByVal securityInfo As Integer) As String

Dim pStringSD As IntPtr
Dim stringSDLen As Integer
Dim success As Boolean = ConvertSecurityDescriptorToStringSecurityDescriptor(securityDescriptor, 1, securityInfo, pStringSD, stringSDLen)
' The following ensures that the memory allocated to pStringSD by the unmanaged
' Win32 API is freed.
Try

If Not success Then

Throw New System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception(Marshal.GetLastWin32Error)

End If
Return Marshal.PtrToStringAuto(pStringSD, stringSDLen)

Finally

If (pStringSD <> IntPtr.Zero) Then

Marshal.FreeHGlobal(pStringSD)

End If
pStringSD = IntPtr.Zero

End Try

End Function

TOM ANGRY, can you guess why?

Reading Material: Writing Secure Code.

2008-10-02T17:34:00.005-05:00

Shey asked me today, "how many books have u read in the last 4 months/" and well, I suck. I re-read Catcher in the Rye, but it's not technical. It helps me go to bed, really. I have been glancing at Wrox's C# 2008 as well, but not really reading it in depth like I should.

Today, I also realized that I didn't actually read Writing Secure Code. I thought read it, but in reality, it took me forever to read Code Complete. I thought I read both. C'mon they almost look the SAME!

I'll start reading chapter one from Writing Secure Code tonight and hopefully one chapter a night until I'm done. I'm hoping I can finish before I head over to he Kaizen Conference at the end of this month. I got my official invitation about two weeks ago, WHOOT!

P.S. If anyone knows whether we can recommend a friend to get an invitation, please let me know. I want Garo to go with us...NERD Power Hour FTW!

No Right Click? Use Shift + F10.

2008-09-21T13:20:00.003-05:00

I've been using this Dell Vostro 1700 for almost a year now while working at Secure Vantage. I have absolutely no complaints about the performance of the laptop. Every time I pulled out my laptop at a coffee shop or library, I often get looks. This laptop is a monster and its heavy. I don't mind it's got a 3GHz processor, 2GB ram, and 240GB HD! I only have one complaint: the keyboard. There is just ONE key that is missing and makes me really frustrated: the right-click key. Weird part is that there's an empty space between the right-ctrl key and up arrow key. There SHOULD be a right-click key there!

I've tried using the actual right button on the touchpad, but there's a catch. Context menus have a this little underline thing for keyboard shortcuts. It does NOT appear if you use the mouse's right-click. It only appears if you use the actually keyboard right-click key! I guess it makes sense, but I have times when I'm only on the keyboard, especially when coding.

I also remember my old tablet PC, the Toshiba M200's keyboard layout was annoying too. The right-click key and other stuff were jammed up at the top-right hand side. It was way our of reach of my fingers, but at least it had a right-click key.

Anyway, if you don't have a right-click key or it's out of range of your finger tips, you can also do a Shift+F10. Same effect and best part is its within my finger's reach. Yeah, we developers are lazy.

Hurricane Ike Recovery.

2008-09-18T16:11:00.004-05:00

[Day 1 - Friday]
Just before a round of Wii Mario Kart, we got our flashlights together in a little competition of who has the brightest flashlight in lieu of a some Hurricane named Ike. Around 9:00 PM Friday, we lost power! We all (Ben, Sarah, Jenny and I) rushed outside to check out the neighborhood and found a really eerie sight. The entire neighborhood was lit only by the moonlight that could pass through the thick could passing over us. We walked around, met up with Teresa (she copied us and moved in OUR neighborhood after us, hahaha) and ate her ice cream in the front yard during the blackout. The wind started picking up and we rushed inside their house before we got hit in the face by anything flying around.

The house was lit by a few candles and we hung out in the kitchen. I don't know why, but Ben, Sarah and I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes taking turns trying to ninja-flick the candle flame out. There we a bunch of close calls, but I was the first one to flick it out, GO ME! I think Sarah brought up the fact that there was beer in my refrigerator and so we unanimously decided to hurry back and drink up!

By the time we got back, the house was already a bit warm, so we opened up a few windows to let the breeze cools us off. We played a round of King's Cup (OMG awesome game), Jenga, and Speed-Scrabble. It sucked not having any power the first night. By this time, the wind really picked up and it started to sprinkle. This was Teresa's signal to go get her brother from a neighbor's house since he forgot his phone. As Teresa and Jenny are knock at the door, Ben sneaks up behind a truck. They start returning back to our house and Ben POUNCES on them! Teresa runs off screaming and her brother runs the other way. What a brother...hahaha. Teresa heads home and we end up back at my house to get ready for bed.

[Day 2 - Saturday]
I didn't well sleep all night. I kept one waking up, walking around, checking windows and the yard. Morning came and still no power, HMPH. I took a look around the house and the only damage we had were two of our bottle-brushes were leaning at forty-five degree angles in the backyard from the crazy wind and one panel from our fence was knocked out. Jenny and I took a drive around the neighborhood to check out the damage. There were just a few trees leaning over, nothing really completely uprooted, a bunch of branches in the streets, but still drivable, and shingles everywhere.

After returning, my parents showed up to check up on us since they're only about a twenty minute drive away. We all agreed to crash at our parents' house since they lost no more than thirty minutes of power the entire night! My parents assessed the damage and took off. Ben and Sarah took off afterward while Jenny and I drove to Marie's house to scoop her up. This was when the devastation of Hurricane Ike was more visible. Street lights were hanging from the poles, huge trees knocked over, billboards knocked out, and some flooding. Some streets were impassable due to debris and there was absolutely no power.

When we got to Marie's house, we saw that her fence was knocked over, and TONS of pine needles and branches scattered throughout her yard. They seemed to have it worse than us, but nothing crazy.

[Day 3-7 - Sunday-Thursday]
I don't remember much besides playing Risk, Monopoly, Wii Mario Kart, and getting on the canoe around my parents' lake. At one point, Ben and I returned to our house and cleaned out the refrigerator. This was completely disgusting, but we had to do it. The freezer had blood from the sausage and ground beef we stored up pooled at the bottom. The fridge smelled like an old trash can. Nothing Colorox can't clean up. The same day, my dad came by and we cut off some branches to the tipsy trees and put the upright again. We were on a roll, so we weeded the backyard, trimmed the rest of the trees so we can have a nice walkway without a branching slapping anyone in the head. These were the highlights of the aftermath.

If you're asking about work, well our building lost power and got a little water damage from the windows. Working from kind of sucked, but I did learn to mock a bunch of objects and catch/handle exceptions properly.

That evening, a few of us decided to go to Sammy's despite the curfew. While we were there, I got a text message from a friend that our friend had power (she lives in our neighborhood too). Around midnight, we drove home and sleeping in my own bed in my own house with A/C felt great!

[Day 8-9 - Friday-Saturday]
We spent the Friday morning enjoying the power and then I was off to work. We finally got power there as well. We setup all the servers and cleaned up all the cabling. We left the place ready for a fresh start on Monday!

What good is power without the Internet? Almost absolutely POINTLESS! We just got home today (Saturday) from a dinner at Luby's and returned to my house with Internet. Time to catch up on news, blogs, and everything that I've missed...

CI in SD Conference.

2008-09-05T11:09:00.003-05:00

Continuous Improvement in Software Development Conference!
Long name for something I've been longing.

I'm at a point in development where I need to start improving not just code, but the also practices as an entire team. There are so many things out there to help product development/quality, but I just don't have enough time to investigate them on my own. What better than to learn from the cream of the crop?

So, where do I learn about these things? From the source! Subscribe to their blogs and you'll get the news before it's anywhere: Ayende Rahien, Chad Myers, and Jeremy Miller.

Microsoft ArcReady Event.

2008-08-20T23:05:00.002-05:00

FREE Event, so join up!

I just hope it's not a marketing thing...

University of Houston Alumni Organization.

2008-08-11T22:03:00.005-05:00

We had a our monthly meeting today and had the opportunity to talk with Barry Adams, our current President and CEO of the HAO. We discussed many changes the University has taken to move UH to a Tier 1 school and Barry has joined us to help the efforts with the HAO constituent groups, like us, the NSM Alumni Association (NSMAA). A few questions came up around the room and I wanted to get some feedback from who ever reads this post.

1. Have you even heard about at the HAO?
2. Are a member of the HAO? If not, why?
3. Are you interested in joining and participating? If not, why?

Here are my answers...

1. Not at all until I went to a CougarCS meeting to talk about the RoboCode competition at JPMorganChase. Here, Danny introduced us to the NSMAA scholarships given out each year. This year alone, we gave over $50,000 distributed equally among the colleges of the NSM.
2. I paid for a one-year membership after my first year membership was up. I just recently signed up myself for a lifetime membership.
3. I was interested the instant I joined a board meeting. I've been the Treasurer for about a year and this is what prompted me to give something back to UH. Besides, I am where I because I'm went to UH.

Arrested Development - Great Show!

2008-07-29T12:39:00.005-05:00

WHY did Fox cancel this show?! Gob and Buster were my favorite characters. (Watch it FREE on Hulu)

Buster: "Where'd Annyong get that juice box?"
Annyong: "Annyong."

Buster: "I decided to sleep in the car so my snoring wouldn't bother you. And I left that recording of my snoring so you wouldn't know I'm gone."

Gob: "Hey, maybe that's it. Maybe we should do to the Japanese what they do in their movies. Build a miniature city, put it outside the window, tell them it's far away. It'll look real if you squint. God knows they're squinters."

Gob: "Hey, guy. They tell me you're the actor who plays Marta's brother, Tio."
Spanish actor: "Como?"
Gob: "Oh, you're gonna be in a coma, all right."

NYTimes.com - Double Click a Word, Try It.

2008-07-28T09:47:00.004-05:00

I just read a short article on 43 Folders and wanted to read the full article. As I was reading, I came across a familiar word, but did not really remember the full meaning, so I wanted to look it up. I scrolled over and double clicked "dilettante". BAM a window pops up and I think it's another annoying advertisement. I glance over and there is a full definition of the word! Nothing but awesome, so I had to post it ASAP.

I tried clicking other words, small ones long ones, people, places, everything I could think of, but Answers.com find almost everything. The coolest feature is the query does not just search the word, but instead the context the word is used. For example, try clicking on "LONDON" at the very beginning. FAILED! But it's okay. It is only returning what it was told to query on.

I wish some other websites like CodeBetter.com and other development websites had something similar to this, but instead pointing to API/SDK documentation and stuff.

Secure Vantage Technologies is Hiring.

2008-07-15T10:23:00.006-05:00

Shh, keep it on the hush-hush. We're not posting this public on our website, but I'll put the positions and basic requirements here. If you are interested (or know someone who is interested) on the complete details, please email me: tnguyen [at] securevantage [dot] com.

Principal/Senior .NET Developer (Houston, TX)
-Windows Forms, GUI, backend, Client-Server, WPF, Silverlight

Principal/Senior Report Developer (Longmont, CO)
-Reporting Server and SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008 experience

SqlException: Invalid object name.

2008-07-10T09:39:00.004-05:00

SqlException: Invalid object name 'dbo.sometableName'
Actual name: 'foo.sometableName'

Mappings for table schema and table names are in the view:

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES

NHibernate: Let users update/modify .hbm.xml file. That's just too much work to have users set that up on installation.

Manual SQL: Create a class that will hunt down the schema of a table from the view. This just seems ridiculous!

Any ideas to dynamically find the schema of a table?

System.OverflowException!!!

2008-07-03T13:49:00.008-05:00

This is the first time in my life I've actually run into an OverflowException when converting a string value to C#'s Int32. It's time to upgrade and beef up the application to handle Int64 in certain scenarios. Time to play with the big boys.

The max value for an Int32 is 2,147,483,647.
The max value for an Int64 is 9,223,372,036,854,775,807.

Here's my Event Log:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Secure Vantage Audit Collection Admin
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 7/3/2008
Time: 1:39:23 PM
User: N/A
Computer: CLEAN-OPSMGR
Description:
Could not update AuditCollectionAdminServices.

System.OverflowException: Value was either too large or too small for an Int32.
at System.Number.ParseInt32(String s, NumberStyles style, NumberFormatInfo info)
at System.String.System.IConvertible.ToInt32(IFormatProvider provider)
at System.Convert.ToInt32(Object value)
at SecureVantage.OpsMgr.Consoles.Services.AuditCollectionAdmin.DataAccess. AdtAdminData.GetStats() in C:\apps\opsmgr-consoles_BUILD_0.2_Beta\src\Services.AuditCollectionAdmin\DataAccess\AdtAdminData.cs:line 66

...

So what the hell is Audit Collection Admin Services? It's a BETA product I'm currently fine tuning for SecureVantage. WHOOOHOOO!

Vacation in Chicago, IL.

2008-07-01T11:26:00.009-05:00

So two weekends ago, a few of us (Marie, Sohel, Vikram, and I) took off to Chicago to meet up with Mai.

Thursday, June 19
Vik left for Chicago around noon.
Sohel was supposed to leave around 3:30 PM, but it was delayed.

I left work a little early to start packing and leave with Marie to the airport. I check the status and our flight is also delayed...cool more time to pack. So I pick up Marie and we head to the airport. The storms have subsided and weather looks fine for flying. By this time the Portugal has completely lost to Germany and were giving Sohel shit about it on the way from the parking lot to the terminal.

I get a phone call from Orbitz about our flight being delayed by an hour; they're a little late, but a notification nonetheless. So we go through security and Marie didn't believe me when I told her that we had to take off our shoes. What a NOOB! We arrive at the gate and I check the screens...11:20PM. Wait. ANOTHER delay?! Well, what can you do, right? So we sit and wait. I get a little pissy so I walked around to find a drink. EVERYTHING IS CLOSED. We're heading back to the gate when I see everyone who was just there five minutes ago leaving. THEY CANCELED THE FLIGHT. Marie and I are walking back with the group with our two bottles of Vitamin Water. Long story short, our flight was rescheduled to 1:20 PM the following day and we got to extend our Sunday morning flight to an evening one.

Anyway, I remember Sarah wanted to go to Deco to see Kaba Modern. It was filled with teenie boppers, blah. I had a few drinks, relaxed and just hung out with Sarah and Marie.

Friday, June 20
I got my rest and we were off to the airport again. Marie took off her shoes at the security line without question. She's a quick learner, hahaha. At the gate, we learn that our flight is delayed, but this time due to mechanical problems. They couldn't tell us how long the delay was since they didn't know how long the mechanical problems were going to take to fix. Eventually, they found another plane for us to take and we moved to another gate to wait to more. So we finally board and I don't have to sit next to Marie on this flight, WHEW! We take off and I'm thinking, "what else can go wrong?"

Well, on our way in, we were in a holding pattern because of the weather in Chicago. After about thirty minutes, the captain comes on and lets us know we need fuel. Ok, cool fuel...let's land in Chicago and get fuel. We landed in St. Louis. We didn't have a gate ready for us to get fuel when we landed, so we hung out at the tarmac fora while. By this time I'm even considering taking a train from St. Louis it Chicago, lol. We finally fuel up, take off and FINALLY land. Awesome, time to PARTY.

The captain comes on as we're taxiing, and tells us that the original gate we were assigned was taken and we'd have to move to another gate. OMGWTF. We head to the other side of the airport it looks like and right when it looks like we're about to be done with this adventure, we end up going back to the original gate we were assigned. I've never been on any delayed or canceled flight before, so I guess I'm taking my fair share of it on this trip to Chicago. Hopefully, I don't get this crap again...

So, it's time to party at the Enclave with Mai. Here's a summary:

We drink.

Vikram drops his drink.

Marie wants to sleep. Marie gets shot with cold air. Marie wakes up until the next shot of air hits her.

We bump into a couple who are also Chicago noobs and we all try to go to another club, but it's packed as hell.

Mai and Chris take Marie home because she's weak sauce.

Sohel, Vikram and I go to Rush and Division. We somehow end up at Dunkin Donuts.

The Octagon.

Security pays us a visit.

ZZZzzz...

Saturday, June 21

Marie left without getting her wallet and phone from me the night before. She would have had a really hard time finding her way back, but thanks to Mai's phone she finally gets back to the hotel. I was hungry as hell, so I popped open a bag of sunflower seeds while everyone was getting ready. Once that was done, we started our day trying to find Giordano's. We got lost a few times, but we finally got to it...and man was it worth it! We were way too stuffed to finish ALL the food.

We decided to take the Architecture Tour. We tried finding a bus to get us there, but waiting sucked, so we took a cab. We got in line and guess was in front of us? That Chicago noob couple from the night before, crazy. If anyone visits Chicago, I highly recommend this tour. It's really relaxing (so relaxing Sohel passed out) and you get to hear about all these artsy-fartsy terminology I kind of remember from Art History class a few years back.

We start heading back and trying to figure out what to do. We go to the theatre district and took a few pictures in front of the Chicago Theatre. I'm not too interested in this, so no pictures.

The night in summary:

Sohel lost his ID...possibly at Rush and Division, Dunkin Donuts or in cab on the way back to the hotel, BOO.

We go to SoundBar and the anal bouncer wouldn't let Sohel in.

It was supposed to be free, but the anal lady upstairs said we were one minute late.

More drinking.

Guys in the corner throwing ten whole one dollar bills in their own area, talk about ballin'!!!

"Dough for a Blow" bachelorette party girl.

Marie falls down on the stairs trying to walk up.

We all head to Wiener Circle.

Vikram takes a pit stop in a low-lit area with a metal gate.

Vikram passes out on one of the red benches.

The crowd DAWGS on the Canadian's inability to drink.

Mai orders and we eat, YUMMMM!!!

Vikram throws up while we try to head over and get a cab.

Vikram almost gets a chocolate milkshake.

Back at the hotel to find Sohel up, packed, and ready to hit the airport due to some new ID requirements.

ZZZzzz...

Sunday, June 22
Morning comes, and the alarms sounds, but Vikram still sleeps. He's supposed to make the same flight back with Sohel, but because he's Canadian and can't take the alcohol, he misses his flight. Good thing United doesn't charge for rescheduling a missed flight! Marie and I are on our own and we go to Millenium Park and Shedd Aquarium.

After getting our bags, we head over to Mai's area to have dinner and we headed off to the airport. Good thing Mai checked us in! On our way in, we check our flight take a wild guess what the status was: DELAYED. This time by an hour. You have to love flying! I guess through all that crap, I got lucky, on the flight back, I sat next to a United employee. He got the first class meal, but when he got it, he offered it to me! Cheese, meat, fruits, crackers, YUMMMMMMM!!!

I need another trip to Chicago to do all the stuff I want to. Hopefully the flight won't be as bad as it was on this trip.

Studying for the GMAT.

2008-06-08T22:37:00.003-05:00

I've finally got into the rhythm of studying again after a few years. I've been talking about going back to school for a long time now and I'm just now working toward making that dream a reality. I have the GMAT Princeton Review 2008 and completed the Math portion of the practices. This was a lot of fun and quite a review. Although there was no Calculus or Graph Theory, the questions were quite difficult. The hardest part is the "Data Sufficiency" section where the answer choices are:

A. Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) alone is not sufficient.
B. Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) alone is not sufficient.
D. BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement alone is sufficient.
E. EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.
F. Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient.

These bother the hell out of me, but after a few practices, and tricks they taught me, its a little easier...just a little.

Working on the Verbal section starts tomorrow and I already know I'll be having trouble with this part. The introduction says the English follows GMAT rules, not typical spoken English rules. Thanks a lot GMAC...

SVNMigration Project.

2008-06-02T16:48:00.004-05:00

Before MMS, we streamlined our product line, revamped our website, and now it's time to re-align our source code and build processes. Our old development environment consisted of three different source repositories: VSS, Subversion, and a shared folder. I piloted Subversion/Trac since started here and we've decided to move all of our source code into Subversion/Trac.

The hardest part about this entire process was making sure we didn't lose anything while we're doing our house cleaning. Even though we only have four people working on projects that will be moving to Subversion, we needed to make sure we didn't delete something someone else was working on in the shared folder. This painful process shined a light on Subversion and is one of the reasons why we're (finally) migrating.

It was surprisingly very simple to do, and with only one hurdle.

1. Backing up the SVN and Trac Repositories:
Our SVN/Trac system sits on a VM and our biggest concern was if the VM passed out, so I created a script that would backup all of our stuff and copy it over to a physical machine.

svnadmin dump --quiet C:/SVNRepos/_Template > C:/Backup/SvnDump/_Template
C:/Python24/Scripts/trac-admin.py C:/Trac/_Template hotcopy C:/Backup/TracDump/_Template

2. Load them back into the revamped projects list:
With our new product line and consolidated projects, we needed to load the projects up one at a time. Man, the repository is so fresh and so clean!

svnadmin create C:/SVNRepos/template
svnadmin load C:/SVNRepos/template < C:/Backup/SvnDump/_Template

In order to load up Trac again, I stopped the Trac service and copy/pasted the hotcopy (just a copied snapshot) and restarted the service again. I hope they'll create a command for it soon.

One Roadblock/Hurdle, whatever you want to call it:
I had dumped all of my projects, backed them up, and started to loaded them back up in Subversion. Here's the scenario:

I have two repositories, ProjA and ProjB. ProjA is the main one, and ProjB is the prototype. Yes, I wrongfully treated them as seperate repositories. So now that I have two dumps, I want to load ProjA and then ProjB into the ProjA/branches folder. After properly loading ProjA, I took a look at the documentation for svnadmin load and went at it:

Try One:

svnadmin load --parent-dir C:\SVNRepos\ProjA\branches\prototype-ProjB C:\SVNRepos\ProjA < C:\Backup\SvnDump\ProjBDump

Twitter to call on help, and James to the rescue:
(2:54:51 PM) James: yeah that'll fail

Try Two, after James fix:

svnadmin load --parent-dir branches\prototype-ProjB C:\SVNRepos\ProjA < C:\Backup\SvnDump\ProjBDumpK

Still get a file not found error for 'branches\prototype-ProjB', gah!

After playing around, I found the problem. It was telling me exactly what was wrong. All I had to do was add the folder 'branches\prototype-ProjB' and commit it BEFORE loading ProjB, der der. I assumed that Subversion would automatically add the folder for me, shame on me. No wait, shame on the documentation for not telling me. Or should I shift the blame to Subversion for not implementing that for me? Actually, I really shouldn't have made two seperate repositories in the first place. Oh well, it's done and I'm happy.

3. Sit back, relax, and enjoy.
Not really, next week I'll start working full time, hardcore, and heads down on a BETA for our Audit Collection Admin. Supposedly, a lot of buzz is going around about the demos I created for MMS.

Santa Marta, Colombia - 5/5.

2008-05-19T21:32:00.005-05:00

Part Five of a Five Part Series.

Day 5 (Monday):

It's the last day of enjoying Colombia before heading back to the United States and it's packed with plans. First was a trip to la Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino. Did I know where I was going? Nope, but we did pass up the Exito we visited the day before. This is the death place of Simon Bolivar, a.k.a "El Libertador." The place is now a museum and monument with an awesome garden.

Afterwards, we visited the port again, but this time with sunlight. It's totally different during the day...and hot. We stopped to get a cup of camaron from a well known cart near the beach. I wanted some gifts, so we walked around the streets and stopped by another Exito. We ended up back at the market street and I'm craving some more sapote, so we grab a cup...YUM!

After returning to the house, we rested up and I got ready to play photographer for Leah and Marcelo's pictures, while David got ready to become the god father for his niece. Off we went, just in time for the sunset and lighting. I was a bit nervous because I haven't shot direct sunset photos before and didn't know what to expect. There's a really small time frame when the sun is just right for photos and you have to make the best of it. When it was all over, it was time to head back and get ready to celebrate David's newly baptized niece. Yes, this means more eating, more drinking, and definitely more vallenato.

Despite the stomach-ache I got (probably from the camaron), I tried to enjoy the night. I ended up packing up and passing out early. I woke up in the middle of the night, still heard music and chatting, so I walked outside. It was Daniel, his friends, and his father. We just bullshitted all night and drank a little more. I said what I could and listened as much as I could. It was only a few hours until we had to leave for the airport, but Daniel and his friends wanted to eat. We went off to get arepas de huevo and some juice made from rice. Man, what a way to end the night, too.

I don't even want to talk a lot about the trip back. We got a cab at 4:10 AM, a flight got canceled, we got new itinerary, blah blah blah and we didn't land in Houston until 8:15 PM. That's about sixteen hours cramped in two cabs, a bus, and three planes!

Santa Marta, Colombia - 4/5.

2008-05-19T19:55:00.003-05:00

Part Four of a Five Part Series.

Day 4 (Sunday):

Waking up in a bed to totally foreign to you and taking a few minutes to gather your mind with a hang over during a vacation in another country is somewhat frightening. After I got collected and realized where I was, I hear yelling, splashing and more music. I have no idea what time it is, but Daniel told me that food is being made. He said something about fried fish, fried bananas, and I hopped up, left the room and went into the kitchen. I was hungry!

After breakfast, we headed back to the house for a few more beers and relaxed in the hammocks for a few hours. We went to the mall and the Exito to get coffee and snacks to bring back. Here's where my mind gets blurry again and I don't remember what we did in the evening besides a well needed rest and recovery.

Santa Marta, Colombia - 3/5.

2008-05-19T17:55:00.008-05:00

Part Three of a Five Part Series.

Day 3 (Saturday):

It's wedding day, my camera's charged and time to put on my guayabera. I put on sandals...yes sandals for the wedding. You don't know how big this is for me. This is the first time I'll be going to a wedding where I don't have to wear a tie, much less wear sandals! We piled up a couple cabs with the wedding cake, flowers, and much more. We finally packed ourselves in a cab and head over to the wedding location. Of course, I have no idea where it is, but all I know is that I have my camera on me.

We arrived near the beach in what seemed like a small neighborhood and arrived to a block completely gated with ten foot walls and a grand sliding wood entrance. We hop out, knock, and walk in. This place was freaking awesome! I'll just let the pictures do justice on this, words aren't enough. I walked around snapping some pictures, trying to find out good places to take pictures when everything was going down. Meanwhile, Marcelo was getting pimped out, Leah was getting ready upstairs, and everyone else spent a few hours waiting...and waiting...but that's normal here, remember? A few guests arrived, and finally, everything was ready. I set my camera, snap-snap-snap. After the ceremony, the music began so did the festivities.

After dinner and a few drinks, I joined in on the fun too. I even snapped a few pictures to capture the moment. After most of the guests left, a few stragglers kept drinking and the music going. I ended up having some drinks, soup, drinks, and more drinks. I ended up passing out in some bed. I don't remember who took me or showed me this room, but all I remember is David was already passed out in one of the beds. I don't remember much from the night, but I do know they love their vallenato! They played for what seemed like hours, with the volume on high. David's dad explained to me that this is how the music is best: the louder, the better. Believe me, the music was good.

Again, congratulations Leah and Marcelo!!!

Santa Marta, Colombia - 2/5.

2008-05-18T22:37:00.006-05:00

Part Two of a Five Part Series.

Day 2 (Friday):

My first morning in Colombia and plans have already been made. We woke up to more home cooking and my first time having arepas. We got ready and headed outside to catch a cab out on the main street which was less than a block away. David pointed out something to me and told me to get out my camera. I had to look twice, but there was a donkey crossing the middle of the street! David wasn't kidding around about the stories of El Burro.

We made a pit stop at the hotel Marcelo's family stayed at and waited...and waited. One thing I learned (and was told) is that in Santa Marta, you wait. There's no sense of rush, hurriedness or "on time" for having a fun. It's what made the vacation much more relaxing and laid back. After everyone was ready, we walked a few blocks to the Rodadero beach front to catch a boat ride to the actual beach, Playa Blanca.

We all hopped on the boat and put on our life jackets. They had a horrible stench of old ocean, but we had to wear them. Not too long afterwards, we arrived at the beach. Right after we got off the boat, vendors from all over came selling candy, seafood, drinks, toys and much more. They kept following us and tried to sell us anything and everything they had. We bought a few beers from one guy and he just left the igloo there for us to pick at. After some playing around, swimming and catching some sun, it was time to eat. I ordered what everyone else ordered: bowl of soup and the catch of the day. It was delicious. The soup was jam packed with all kinds of seafood and tons of flavor. The plate we had was a fried fish, some plantains, and some garnishes. After a few beers and finishing up the food, we got ready to head back home.

We went out to visit La Quinta, the main market street in Santa Marta. This place was awesome. It had tons of small vendors, and we stopped at a juice place. I was introduced to ~~zapote~~ zapote drink that had a unique, but very good flavor.

We got back to the house and rested up. I laid out on the hammock with a couple beers. The other neighbors were having a party and their music was blaring. I ended up passing out from all the events of the day. By the time I woke up, the front yard was full of family and friends. I passed out again for a bit and finally decided to wake up. Little did I know, they were planning a serenata for Marcelo and Leah! The band came in through the park and into the front area. Music was blasting all night from the band, it was great. After the night died down a bit, Daniel and his friends wanted to take me out. Apparently, according to Daniel, I'm a party boy.

We went to the a small narrow street filled with night clubs, people, and cars. Ironically, it was really close to South America's oldest cathedral, built in 1766! After checking out a few places, we ended up at the ~~Rodadero~~ by the port for some food. David and I walked over to a cart and the smell alone made hungrier. It was a mixture of all the insides of a pig and a huge frying pan. I was digging this big time! David had the tripes and I had some blood sausages. Time to go home and rest. We got locked out, so we jumped the gate and knocked until someone let us in.

***Updated 5/19/2008: David clarified and corrected. Memories are beginning to blur now.

Santa Marta, Colombia - 1/5.

2008-05-16T09:54:00.005-05:00

Part One of a Five Part Series.

So far, this is one of my favorite trips and guaranteed the best vacation I've had to date. I barely speak Spanish and I don't know anything about Santa Marta (except that there are literally burros in the middle of the street), but going with David to his hometown and the hospitality of his family was awesome. I have too much to talk about to just write one post. Everyday was a different adventure!

Day 1 (Thursday):
After landing into the tiny Barranquilla airport, going through customs and immigration, I finally realize I'm on vacation. We took a one-hour plus ride from Barranquilla to Santa Marta. We initially took a cab to get to the "bus station", which isn't really a station, more like a line bus on the side of the road next to a row of never ending mom-n-pop shops. We dropped by one of the shops for a drink: Pony Malta. I've never had it before, but if I can find these in the states, I'm getting pack of it! So we hopped on the empty bus expecting to take a straight shot there. We were going down the streets, and one of the guys kept yelling out the window, "Santa Marta! Santa Marta!" while the driver slowed down. They were filling up with bus with people in Barranquilla who were heading to Santa Marta too. We made a few stops, a few times people would jump in, and when we got near the end of the strip, they collected our money, pesos.

By this time, the bus was somewhat (American) full (American "full" and Colombian "full" are totally different!). It didn't take long at all for me to realize I was the only Asian person; not just on the bus, but everywhere I went! Not bad, but it just made me giggle inside; I was an outsider, a foreigner, an alien...hehe. One of the guys on the bus just blatantly stared for a good fifteen minutes, he knew I knew he was staring, and yet he continued. It is just amazing to realize the diversity Houston has and the great appreciation I have for being exposed so much variety and cultures.

David explained to me that we were taking a toll road and we made a few stops. There were armed military men with shotguns, M-16s, and I think I saw an AK. I didn't feel uncomfortable, why should I? This was the way of life for them and it was just quite an interesting sight to see. Next thing you know, a bunch of street vendors attacked our bus with foods I can't even start to describe much less name. One thing David did buy was, "queso": two goat cheese balls with some sweet candy thing. Sadly, that's the best way I can describe this, but it was DELICIOUS!

The first thing I realize about the drivers in Colombia is the bigger the vehicle, the more priority you have. Then I realize some don't care and just have bigger balls than others. ~~Going~~ SPEEDING down a two-lane two-way street, we passed up anything going slower than us, even if there was opposing traffic. According to David's theory, this is where whoever has the brighter headlights has right of way, even if you're in the wrong lane. There must be some competition for passing vehicles because we seemed to be passing everyone, often times crossing double yellows and close calls. That didn't faze anyone out, and surprisingly I wasn't scared either. I think Sao Paolo prepared me for this. The swerving, sudden stops, speeding up, flashing headlights, and honking continued throughout the ride.

So by the end of the bus ride, we stopped at the "bus station", which was yet another place where taxis lined up along another strip of mom-n-pop shops ready to take passengers directly to their destination. Very efficient, very effective, and most of all, very quick compared to the states. The only waiting we had to do was to get our bags from the trunk. How awesome is that? More swerving, honking, passing, and flashing of headlights got us to the front door of David's family's house. We hopped out and immediately we were greeted by his family.

We brought up all of our stuff, got comfortable and man, this house was awesome: hammocks in the gated patio, mango trees right on the other side of the fence (where there's a little park) and people. I can't stress the total shock I had when I saw neighbors talking to each other, music playing, drinking, and just a sense of community that existed on this little street. I have never seen anything like this were I've lived. Everyone knew each other and everyone knew what was going on.

We were off to bed and I hear someone blowing a whistle outside. I don't really think of it as anything and just ignore it. David wonders if I'm curious about what that is and explains to me that it's the security patrol going around on bicycles. It lets the citizens and potential criminals know they are there. I never know when our security cop goes around our neighborhood, how genius!

I don't remember anything else besides eating my first homemade Colombian dinner I don't remember the name of and hopping into bed.

Pictures? Yeah, they're coming soon. There were so many things I could take pictures of, but soaking it in and allowing myself to just be in Colombia was more important to me. I think this is what made this vacation...a vacation, rather than a tourist-trip.

MMS2008 - Las Vegas, NV.

2008-05-07T08:33:00.005-05:00

This was my first event of this type, size and magnitude. When I read that the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) sold out for the first time and there was going to be about 4,000-5,000 people there, I didn't know what to think. Yeah, it's a lot, but seeing it live is a totally different story. It was a five day/four night event full of hands-on labs, sessions, q&a, and an expo in the Venetian for an IT summit and SecureVantage (SVT) was one of the sponsors.

After six months with SVT, I've learned more about our product suite and now I can give you sky-high view of what our company does, "it's easy as 1-2-3" (our sales pitch):

1. Security Management
Real-time alerting and health monitoring of Windows security events and group policy changes.
-Windows Security Auditor: Alerting, operations and knowledge guidance.
-Group Policy Auditor: auditing for changes and setting configurations.
-Security Management Dashboard: centralized console for alerting.

2. Security Auditing
Administration, archiving and reporting for Audit Collection Service (ACS).
-Audit Collection Admin: Console to administer ACS.
-Audit Collection Archiver: Solution for archiving and historical reporting.
-Audit Collection Base Reports: Forensic and IT audit reporting, filter lookups and dynamic grouping.
-Audit Collection SYSLOG Gateway: centralized syslog event collection and reporting with ACS.
-Security Auditing Dashboard: Centralized security console for Security Management and auditing solutions.

3. Security Compliance
Comprehensive regulatory knowledge and control mappings that deliver GRC-specific auditing and context sensitive alerting, knowledge guidance, operational views and security reporting.
Solutions: Compliance Management Packs, Audit Collection Compliance Reporting.
Libraries: CoBITs, DS484, FISMA, HIPAA, ISO 27002, PCI and SOX.
-Security Compliance Dashboard: IT Auditor and Executive Portal for GRC Summary Analysis.

Items in red are the items I've developed with the help of our team. It's awesome to hear customer feedback, inquiries and stories while I was at the expo, especially when it's about the product you've created.

~~NOTE: A few pictures coming soon...hold your horses.~~
Here are the few pictures I took.