After being unemployed for a year, the time was right to get a job again. I applied for a job as 1st line support engineer and was invited for an interview.
My preparation wasnt as good as it could have been, and in my opinion the interview wasnt the best and longest interview I've had. I was pretty sure that I would either get rejected, or would never hear from them again; as was the case with many other companies. I wont go into too much ranting or detail, but out of the 100 job applications that you send out, maybe 2 or 3 reply. Either my resume is complete shit and not even worth a rejection, or so many people replied to the add that they don't even bother to send rejection letters anymore; I don't know and quite frankly, stopped caring.
Anyway, it was not the case with this company. Even though I thought they would not call me back, they actually did and I was invited to a second interview! The Second Interview was quite short as well, but I went home with a big smile on my face; I had a new job 
So today I started my new job at Netpoint, a small company in the city of Waalwijk, that is specialized in IT stuff for orthodontists. The company makes special software for orthodontists that covers the whole range of tasks, so that the orthodontist doesn't have to worry about computer stuff and can just worry about doing his/her own thing. For some of the customers the company also does remote desktop management, but that part is handled by 2nd line support.
My first impressions are quite good, so we'll see how it evolves. One thing I really, really like: the company pays for our lunch. One of the girls from the administration department does groceries for the company every morning before coming to work. She always brings fresh milk, bread and a large selection spreads (various meats, cheese, peanut butter, etc..) to put on the bread; and the boss pays for it. Now and then she also brings some candy for us.
Free food is always good
Put your brand new HTC "Snap" messenger phone in your pocket... Then when stepping out of the car brush your leg against the doorpost. What do you get?
HTC, the manufacturer of the phone, will send a courier to pick it up for repair next Friday, I hope they can get my poor baby fixed soon. 
While attempting to arrive at work, I am blocked by a big firetruck and a police officer. Upon further investigation it turns out that constructionworkers had snapped a gaspipe during work. My appologies for the poor picture quality. As always Murphy's law never sleeps and (of course...) the only day that something cool happens, my normal camera's batteries had to be empty, forcing me to make some simple snaps with my cellphone.
Heres something new for you: an Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.0 GHz with 12 MB cache and 1333 MHz FSB is not the same as an Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.0 GHz with 12 MB cache and 1333 MHz FSB. Uh... what? Yes, exactly, thats what my co-worker Thom and I thought as well. To the untrained eye, this would seem like a steaming pile of bullshit, but unfortunately, it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Allow me to explain.
Two weeks ago we ordered a new web server. Since were going to do clustering, it seemed logical that we get the exact same server as we already had; so we would have two identical servers doing the clustering. The new setup would be running on the Microsoft Windows 2008 Web Edition X64 operating system; the same operating system Im going to run on my own server (which, by the way, is almost done ) So this morning, Thom and myself fired up the new server with the Microsoft Windows 2008 Web Edition X64 DVD in it, and
What the hell? 
A blue screen of death during setup? That cant be good
A quick search on the error code told me that it means that the processors are not the same. For example, a Pentium processor and an 80486 processor, as Microsoft puts it. But Im pretty sure that we have two identical processors: two times the Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.0 GHz with 12 MB cache and 1333 MHz FSB. It turns out that there are multiple revisions of the E5405, and Windows 2008 regards that as non symmetrical multiprocessing.
A bit of research later the cookie was cracked. It turns out that one of the processor we were using, a Xeon 5405 of the sub-type SLBBP, was designed in August 2008; which was later than the BIOS (which was of 2007). Which in turn meant that the BIOS version that we were using does not recognize this sub-type of Xeon 5405 because it doesnt know of its existence. An update to the latest BIOS fixed the problem. All in all it was an interesting challenge. 
My coworker Mark arrives at the office whistling and starts working. 10 minutes later another coworker, Newten, arrives and says Dude, your car is on fire, to which Mark replies Oh yea, I know. Newten continues to say No dude, I mean flames and stuff, to which both Mark and Newten dash to the door with a fire extinguisher.
5 minutes later I got curious and decided to check it out. I was just in time to see the fire department arrive.
A common situation: a customer sends his laptop in for repair, the manufacturer claims that theres nothing wrong with it, and sends it back. The customer sends it back to us and claims that its still not working as intended. Apparently it had problems with HD video, so that needed to be tested. (Un)fortunately, the only HD video that we had around was a porn movie, and I had to watch it closely to see if the movie would play smooth and without problems.
Did I ever mention how much I love my job sometimes? 
Another toy, another joy ( 
) A long time ago, a customer sent three Netgear ReadyNAS 1100 with 3 TB storage each back, because they were too slow for his taste. They were stored in the warehouse collecting dust for almost half a year, but apparently my boss found someone who wants to buy them. Time to give them a proper checkup.
They are 3 TB each, so if you ever wondered what 9 TB of storage looks like, heres your answer:
One of our customers sent back a Hewlett Packard ProCurve 4204vl modular switch, because one of the modules wasnt working. Most of the time it is a legitimate complaint, but sometimes its a so-called pebcac issue. Since its a rather pricy switch (1957,- Euro), we decided to check it out before sending it back to the manufacturer.
Hmmmmm, flashy lights *purr* 
Sorry if the video appears a bit shaky. Im testing out different converters, and this one seems to have problems with the HD video. This results in quite a bit of frame skipping.
Im driving home from the datacenter right now. My boss wants to move to another datacenter, because the other one is cheaper and provides redundant uplinks. Were looking to move two full-size racks; one for ACES Direct (ICT retailer, my main employer) and one for Direct Movie (Video on Demand hosting, the other employer). For the Video on Demand hosting Im probably going to rebuild the web servers from scratch with load balancing for the new datacenter, so they fully benefit the redundant uplink.
That will be a fun project, I think
Turns out the whole issue with a 2nd company isnt as bad as I thought. Today I visited the other company where Ill be working 2 days per week. The company seems to be ok, and the work looks fun and interesting.
My initial reaction was pretty violent, I admit... but thats how I felt at the time. It felt bad, and I had to vent some dissatisfaction. The way it appears to me now, its not so bad. The other company has a whole different structure, and has some very interesting challenges. From what I could tell from my short visit, most of the employees are about my age, and are dudes; so Im sure Ill fit right in.
Ill tell more about it once I start there (in other words, I need to check with the boss if hes ok with me blogging about my work :P).