One of the things it bothers me most is that most of the bugs I am working on are not functional ones. They are rather due to the fact that the integration teams that are using our software and are creating the products from them have a poor understanding of how packaging works, what are the protocols used between internal and external interfaces and generally refuse to think outside the bos as they stick in having a set of procedures to that they adhere strictly. They seem to like the army-like environment where the creativity and research are not welcomed.
As for ops teams - it is even worse.
20091205
Virtualization and stuff
This week was quite crappy from a technical point of view.
The VXML Interpreter we have been developing for some time now has to discuss with Nuance software for TTS/ASR.
The problem with Nuance is that it runs on x86 hardware. Our baseline is HP DL380 G6 running RHEL 5 which is purely x64. I had to make lots of tricks and combinations between Realspeak, Recognizer, SpeechServer and some compatibility libraries in order to have a working setup.
The backup solution was to create a RHEL4 + Nuance virtual machine and force the RHEL5 host to boot it and present it to the TTS+ASR client. Management was very reluctant to it. However this solution would have bring other advantages - the developers could have used the virtual machines for unitary testing.
In the meanwhile my SS7 simulator ceased to work. It was not a big issue - a DHCP conflict in the network - bu this determined me to have a look on the system. I have discovered that the whole simulator is in fact a system having two ATCA blades. One is a DHCP/BOOTP/TFTP server (hence the conflict) ant the other is a diskless blade with SS7 and SIGTRAN interfaces. Again both machines could be virtualized - so I could replicate the expensive simulation setup on every PC on my team. And all this at 0 costs.
The VXML Interpreter we have been developing for some time now has to discuss with Nuance software for TTS/ASR.
The problem with Nuance is that it runs on x86 hardware. Our baseline is HP DL380 G6 running RHEL 5 which is purely x64. I had to make lots of tricks and combinations between Realspeak, Recognizer, SpeechServer and some compatibility libraries in order to have a working setup.
The backup solution was to create a RHEL4 + Nuance virtual machine and force the RHEL5 host to boot it and present it to the TTS+ASR client. Management was very reluctant to it. However this solution would have bring other advantages - the developers could have used the virtual machines for unitary testing.
In the meanwhile my SS7 simulator ceased to work. It was not a big issue - a DHCP conflict in the network - bu this determined me to have a look on the system. I have discovered that the whole simulator is in fact a system having two ATCA blades. One is a DHCP/BOOTP/TFTP server (hence the conflict) ant the other is a diskless blade with SS7 and SIGTRAN interfaces. Again both machines could be virtualized - so I could replicate the expensive simulation setup on every PC on my team. And all this at 0 costs.
20091129
Forgotten news
http://www.gardianul.ro/Guvernul-de-la-Chisinau-a-trecut-la-limba-romana.-Consulul-de-la-Bruxelles,-insa,-cauta-profesor-de-moldoveneasca-s149844.html
Maybe one of the most important piece of news. Sadly it was almost forgotten because of the countless scandals in Romania.
Somehow this means that extraordinary people as Grigore Vieru did not died in vain.
Maybe one of the most important piece of news. Sadly it was almost forgotten because of the countless scandals in Romania.
Somehow this means that extraordinary people as Grigore Vieru did not died in vain.
20091123
Winnie the Pooh
I found it on http://www.dob.ro - a nice memory from the days when I was watching it on Russian TV as there were no cartoons on Romanian pre-revolutionary TV.
20091122
Election results
Sad. It is time time for me to consider opportunities elsewhere.
The Romanians have been manipulated again wit the referendum. Here is a tremendous lack of political culture. Having a single chamber parliament is not in line with the global trend. One chamber is strictly consultative while the other is legislative. A single chamber will be less reliable as there will be no filtering in the law proposal process.
However in 2013 EU will impose again a bicameral institution - so this referendum is quite useless apart from demonstrating again what suckers we are.
For the reduction of the number of chairs to 300 - it is idiotic in my opinion. Mathematically with a constant ratio of corruption and idiocy among them on 471 will be more smart persons than in 300.
As for the president... no comment. God help us!
The Romanians have been manipulated again wit the referendum. Here is a tremendous lack of political culture. Having a single chamber parliament is not in line with the global trend. One chamber is strictly consultative while the other is legislative. A single chamber will be less reliable as there will be no filtering in the law proposal process.
However in 2013 EU will impose again a bicameral institution - so this referendum is quite useless apart from demonstrating again what suckers we are.
For the reduction of the number of chairs to 300 - it is idiotic in my opinion. Mathematically with a constant ratio of corruption and idiocy among them on 471 will be more smart persons than in 300.
As for the president... no comment. God help us!
Weekend works
After about one year with the Gemini Dreambox image I decided to reflash my Dreambox to PLi.
So far so good - it works okay, I'd say that slightly better than Gemini although it lacks some of the tools fount on the other image. The best feature is that the samba client on dreambox works better and now I can browse my music shares directly from Dreambox (audio is connected through RCA connected to my stereo)
In the same update spree I have updated my router firmware. As a result I got traffic reports on all interfaces. To my horror the numbers were quite high.
So far so good - it works okay, I'd say that slightly better than Gemini although it lacks some of the tools fount on the other image. The best feature is that the samba client on dreambox works better and now I can browse my music shares directly from Dreambox (audio is connected through RCA connected to my stereo)
In the same update spree I have updated my router firmware. As a result I got traffic reports on all interfaces. To my horror the numbers were quite high.
20091113
Books for managers wannabe
1. The Deadline - MUST
2. The Mythical Man Month - MUST
3. Fearless Change
4. Peopleware
5. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
2. The Mythical Man Month - MUST
3. Fearless Change
4. Peopleware
5. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning
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