IT Fandango

The course about systems security has been delayed by the assistants, so I'll teach it in two weeks.
Probably this isn't definitive either. I guess I'll have to learn to live with uncertainty.

I've just been told that probably during the next week I'll have to go to Madrid to teach a course about systems and network security. So I'll have to setup the machines for the course, remember what is this about, and tell my client here that the migration we were going to make next week would have to be delayed.
Lovely.

Sometimes I see myself like throwing my fist through the TFT screen of my laptop... And feels good, man.
It is monday morning.

I've had to go to a site in construction where my company is installing a communication system. The site, when finished, will be a big mall, and since we are the nearest regional branch, we will give support, despite we don't know a single word about this kind of equipment. We will work as remote hands, a very satisfying work. The equipment has several antennas on the site at about 15 meters height, I DO HOPE that antennas to never broke, or me and my vertigo are gonna be in serious trouble.
Well, I was there receiving an explanation about the configuration and management techniques, I had to copy to my laptop some software and documentation when my CD decided to stop working (it has a trong temper and just works when it wants to), no problem, I will connect to the LAN and will download it. Guess what? I've found that the ethernet connector of my laptop is jammed, it randomly loses the link, you see I have very good hardware to work with. The laptop is one year and a half old and it's been under repair yet (it switched off randomly), what a nice piece of equipment!

If I were given 10 cents for each hour spent searching stupid things I wouldn't be working now, I would be on pemanent holidays.
I've passed 30 minutes searching a null-modem cable in our warehouse. Of course I didn't found it, so I had to setup a hub to make the connection (another 15 minutes while I got the hub, install it and so on...) When I had everything ready I realised that one of the cables attached to the hub is a Null-modem, why was a null-modem cable attached to a hub? I don't know... and the sad thing is that I don't care.

It's been quite productive. More work on the PIX, some updates to one of the courses we offer (Network security), and a review of the speech on BCP I'll have to make in two weeks (needs a bit more of work)

Somebody hasn't done his job and the rebound has came to me. I'll have to find out a way to communicate a NTP client with a GPS via serial bus.
Sounds funny

It is nice to spend a morning experimenting with a new machine. I've been playing with a PIX and the hours pass nicely.

I forgot to say the monetary value of my 24x7 duty. During this week I'll be paid the amazing amount of 18 euros per hour of work.
Wow!

This week I'll be in a 24x7 duty, ever ready, ever aware, waiting to go to whatever place they say me.
Hells!

Just came back to work after two weeks vacation.
Last four hours I've been browsing through pending mail. At less, our spam control seems to be working fine.

Projects I'm currently involved:
The main project is the remodelation of an old fashioned corporative network. This is a company (call it A) which has about one hundred workstations, and some twenty remote offices. The also have a big important server which hosts every critical application to the company. When we arrived there, they were concerned because their network has grown up quickly during the last two years. They had passed from puntual modem connectivity to a bunch of ADSLs and ISDNs. The worst point of this, was that they have outsourced all the network management to a not so much seriour company (call it B).
For example:
'A' was paying the renting of the lines, but the lines were property of 'B'
'A' has an exclusivity contract with an important carrier and 'B' changed the carrier of the lines without reporting to 'A'
'B' works like a black box. Things are working, but 'A' doesn't have any kind of documentation, so they are very dependant on 'A'
This kind of obscurity is typical in Spain, we are very jealous of our own knowledge and will be almost imposible that we will share it, even if we are going to make profit of the sharing.
For reasons like these, 'A' contracted us to make a consultory of the state of their network. We promised total transparency and tons of documentation (we are like obsessed about documentation, we hate it and we love it)
Our works concluded with the need of a major remodelation, due mainly to big security problems, for instance, the main server was in the same network segment (in fact the only segment they had) as the users, and the remote access routers (which some of them were remotely accesible and still with their default password).
Now we are working in the migration plan, I'll post about this later.

Second project: For the last two years, my company has been very fond on Security, so some people (me among them) have improved theri skills at that subject. We are trying to open some security market in Spain, but we are finding that the main problem is an almost total ignorance about the security problems. When talking about IT security here, everybody automatically thinks about a green-hair-punky-boy with communication problems and a PC late at night in a dark room. Nobody has ever thought about the inside problems like internal misuse of resources, unhappy employees, etc.
The way we are trying to aware our customers about all these, are a series of presentations where we explain different issues as "What is a security audit" "The ISO-17799 and the BS-7799", "Hacking laboratories", etc...

Everlastin' project: I also, give commercial support and make internal works helping our LAN manager

I'm starting my thirties, I have a degree in computer science. I started working in this company four years ago. That was the golden age.
Our clients had the money and the will to spend it. Me and my colleagues were the big guys, we entered our clients office and our proposals started to glow, impressive top-of-the-pop solutions.
We were making the world go round. Things were great, and the company rewarded us nicely. We had all the resources we needed, we were making the works we want to.
For example: I was working in Madrid, but I had my wife in my home town. My pal and I proposed the boss to open a delegation there. He said OK, but would be our responsibility. We managed to include the new delegation inside a project and opened the delegation. We were again at home, doing a lot of tele-working and traveling, but our life quality was substantially improved (life in provinces is much better than in Madrid)
We had the best job in the business.
But the bubble exploded.
The dot-coms, ISPs and carriers that were our main clients had to cut their investments, new projects were rare and our work load started to fall.
The job market was softened, salaries were decreased, people were fired, but ours is (or at less was) a nice company to their workers and we didn't lose our jobs, but the job changed.
The job as consultant was very nice, but doesn't fit very well in these times, so we had to recycle ourselves and started to make field work.
We still work as consultants, but we are also first layer technicians, commercial agents, support engineers, etc
I find this multiplicity quite stressing and surely will be the object of many of the upcoming posts.

Just a little remark, Spain is in Western Europe, despite some people (some US citizens) still locates it in South America. Madrid is about two hours flight to London, Hamburg, Rome or Paris. Which makes us still more miserable, 'cause when we go to courses or meetings abroad, the differences are still more obvious.
For example in hardware: our laptops are old and noisy when compared to the brand new machines our european colleagues wear.

Fandango is an ancient spanish dance, but it is also a word to express uproar, confusion, disturbance, riot.
As you will see in this blog, IT working in Spain is not a serious and technical activity, but a fandango.

By the way, there is another meaning for the word:In El Salvador fandango means buttocks!
I didn't know that meaning before this post, but I think it is pretty accurate too for the purpose of the blog :)

I've been working on IT for the last five years, I have a clear understanding of the theory and the techniques that make the Internet work. But my life is not the life of my colleagues in first-line countries. I am Spanish and I am working in a spanish company for spanish customers.
What does that mean?
Well, Spain is a technologically impaired country, we are trying to improve, but we are still several steps behind.
The purpose of this blog, despite of providing some kind of relief to the author, is to paint out how is the life of an IT worker in a non T country.

Nowadays, IT businesses is the Business. A bunch of companies world-wide are sharing the whole cake. IT workers have a special aura, they handle state-of-the-art technology everyday. They have a knowledge on certain subjects unknown to most of the mortals. Many people uses the Internet, but only these IT workers know how it works (at less some of them)
Being an IT consultant is a glamorous job, 'cause you can propose nice technological solutions for your customers. Once the solution is implemented and working, your customer starts to see you like an oracle, a semi-god that knows everything on new technologies...
At less, this is the impression you get reading IT forums. Most of the people posting in these forums are from first-lines countries (USA, Germany, UK, Russia,...), but there are other places where this is not accurate...