Who works in IT

[jgillmanjr]

Alright, I know a couple people here (including myself) work in IT.

Fess up to what you do 

I'm a Technical Sales Engineer (Design Engineer) for a hosting company in Lansing called Liquid Web. With that said, I'm moving to the QA department.

What about you?

[bigt8261]

Internal Web/DB development for a company in the Grand Rapids area.

[linux203]

Systems Engineer at a Fortune 500 bank in Auburn Hills.

eDirectory, Active Directory, ZENWorks, and Systems Center Configuration Manager. Other duties as assigned.

[gryphon]

I don't currently work in IT, but in the past I have been responsible for some of my Fortune 500's IT infrastructure.  In fact, I designed and managed the installation of a fiber backbone for one of our Lansing campuses.  There are some other things as well, but I am most happy about some of the software I have written that is (or at least was) in use across the world.   Several projects were publicly reviewed in magazines and scientific journals. Those are separate from my current employment.  I multitask. 

Currently I am a PM.

[Ezerharden]

Currently I am a PM.

Would that be Private Message or Parts Manager? 

[fozzy71]

Would that be Private Message or Parts Manager? 

I would assume it is Project Manager given where he works.

[gryphon]

Project Manager. 

[Ezerharden]

Ok that would have been my guess after Prime Minister 

[TheQ]

I run a theft administration IT system that runs in SAP for the criminal gang known as the "State of Michigan".

[bigt8261]

I run a theft administration IT system that runs in SAP for the criminal gang known as the "State of Michigan".

Do us all a favor and miss some mundane detail.

[jgillmanjr]

Jeez,

Now I feel inadequate on the coding side of things.

I do PHP work for proof of concept stuff and other utility type stuff. Not a pro by any stretch of the imagination.

Probably the most "pro" thing I've done to date is write a PHP library to interface with our Storm API
https://code.google.com/p/storm-api-php-library/

[gryphon]

Probably the most "pro" thing I've done to date is write a PHP library to interface with our Storm API

I remember the early days of personal computing with fondness, of writing and freely sharing libraries.  Of course, this was before M$ knew what that was.  Yes, I am one of those Amiga/Unix assholes people that was doing modern computing on an Amiga platform in the mid-80's when PC people were arguing the merits of amber screens v. green screens and Mac people were learning Apple's obsequious and infinitely inferior OS and UI.  I was doing 4,096 colors and a Motorola 68000 in 1985.  PC people were bragging about their Dhrystone ratings, but not only couldn't their computers do crap, they couldn't themselves.  PCs and Macs were so inferior that it was like being fluent in multiple languages and having modern writing and publishing tools (Amiga) and dealing with infants who could barely speak and wrote by chiseling in stone tablets (IBM and Mac).  I began writing C in 1986, but wrote assembler in several flavors before that and the first computer I used was an IBM 360 mainframe using Fortran IV in 1974.  I was running X Windows (er, excuse me, the X Window System) remotely from home on MSU engineering Sun and HP servers in the early 1990's when Microsoft was pushing Windows 3.0 and 3.1.  lmfao  I was also running BSD-Unix on my Amiga in the early 1990's, mostly for an 800-level OS course where I had to tear it apart and rebuild it.  Because I was running a superior computing platform I could do this from home.  Everyone else who had PCs and Macs lived at school in the engineering and CS labs.  lol

Some people reading this have no idea what I'm talking about.  Comparing AmigaOS with MSDOS-Windows/MacOS is like comparing a modern fighter jet (AmigaOS) with a biplane (MSDOS-Windows/MacOS).  Adding on the X Windows client just makes the equation that much more unbalanced.

As much as I admire Dave Ramsey, I disagree with him on Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, especially Bill Gates.  M$ set the personal computing world BACK twenty years.

I have also written a few small programs in Smalltalk against my will (as well as ported Smalltalk to Amiga.  I hate Smalltalk).  I have pondered the idea of learning Python for several years.  Maybe when I retire I can have fun again.

Oh, yeah, there is no reason for C++ or any derivatives.  You can't improve on C's simplicity, power, and perfection.  C++ and derivatives are a solution to a non-existent problem.  Kinda like our government.  But then C++ was developed by a Dane.  What would you expect?  A nanny state in computing.

Yeah, I have opinions on this stuff.   

[jgillmanjr]

OOP is useful for some things, and overkill for others.

I should probably acquire a copy of K&R C at some point and actually learn it.

[gryphon]

God bless us, each and every one!



(I actually have two copies of this, one pre-ANSI.  The post-ANSI one [above] I've rarely opened and looks like brand new). 

[TheQ]

It's not OOP, but I like Perl.

[gryphon]

I'd like to keep this thread going.  To me it is one of the most interesting ones we've had here for some time. 

One time I was hired to write software that would manipulate a very narrow focus range camera in the X, Y, and Z directions. The camera was servo motor controlled. My software allowed for gear backlash. Each position of the camera would result in a photo. Anything above or below the photo’s focus point would be so out of focus as to be invisible. The camera would work through the subject top to bottom so to speak. The resulting images would be stitched together into an animation.

I created a simple user interface where someone could enter X, Y, and Z values in window fields, but I also wrote a C interpreter (some here know what interpreters and compilers are and the difference) that a user could utilize to customize their own routine by writing a simple C program and having the software follow their program. It was quite powerful.

The subject matter was injection molding. We would use clear material with carbon fibers to show flow. Different temperatures and injection pressures would reveal different patterns. All this data could be analyzed to reveal best results for producing consumer parts such as automobile fascias and other parts.

Interestingly enough, one of the leading injection molding companies flew in from California, checked this out, and was surprised by the results. Unfortunately they used what they saw to improve their own fabrication process free of charge.

1993. I remember it well. (If anyone cares, I did it using Amiga computers. IBMs and Macs were inferior platforms. The UI looked like something you’d see today).  This was written up in at least one scientific journal that I know of--a French science journal, no less.

Here's a modern human body equivalent of what I did (MRI I think).  Kinda neat, eh?



I would be interested if other people followed up with their own stories.  I can add a couple more.  I know there are some techies here.

[CV67PAT]

I have IT experience too.

Sent from my Commodore VIC-20 using hunt and peck.

[TheQ]

I have IT experience too.

Sent from my Commodore VIC-20 using hunt and peck.

And a dumb phone.

Maybe at some point you ran some Cat5 cable...?

[CV67PAT]

And a dumb phone.

Maybe at some point you ran some Cat5 cable...?

Actually I ran some CAT6 cable on Thursday for camera use.

And my phone isn't so dumb now that I have upgraded it with that new speed dial feature.

[jgillmanjr]

I'd like to keep this thread going.  To me it is one of the most interesting ones we've had here for some time. 

One time I was hired to write software that would manipulate a very narrow focus range camera in the X, Y, and Z directions. The camera was servo motor controlled. My software allowed for gear backlash. Each position of the camera would result in a photo. Anything above or below the photo’s focus point would be so out of focus as to be invisible. The camera would work through the subject top to bottom so to speak. The resulting images would be stitched together into an animation.

I created a simple user interface where someone could enter X, Y, and Z values in window fields, but I also wrote a C interpreter (some here know what interpreters and compilers are and the difference) that a user could utilize to customize their own routine by writing a simple C program and having the software follow their program. It was quite powerful.

The subject matter was injection molding. We would use clear material with carbon fibers to show flow. Different temperatures and injection pressures would reveal different patterns. All this data could be analyzed to reveal best results for producing consumer parts such as automobile fascias and other parts.

Interestingly enough, one of the leading injection molding companies flew in from California, checked this out, and was surprised by the results. Unfortunately they used what they saw to improve their own fabrication process free of charge.

1993. I remember it well. (If anyone cares, I did it using Amiga computers. IBMs and Macs were inferior platforms. The UI looked like something you’d see today).  This was written up in at least one scientific journal that I know of--a French science journal, no less.

Here's a modern human body equivalent of what I did (MRI I think).  Kinda neat, eh?



I would be interested if other people followed up with their own stories.  I can add a couple more.  I know there are some techies here.

Dan,

That's interesting. What kind of optics were you using? Sounds like some wide open aperture action, or mad macro level.

Interesting the mention about the C interpreter. I'm assuming the time savings of being able to quickly write and use the code outweighed the performance benefits of actually compiling the code?

By formal education, my area is information systems, rather than straight up coding. That said,I was always the go to code monkey when that sort of thing was required.

My only real claim to fame is being second author on a teaching case that my advisor had published in the Journal of Information Systems Education. I basically did the data model and some other stuff.

I've picked up one of those Arduino units, but don't really have any other electronics to interface it with.

With that said, I have registered http://www.opensourceavionics.com - at some point when I get the time and money, I'd like to proof out some open source avionics platform (I have my pilots license).