Category: A Day in the Life

In 1998, I took a computer science course at Arizona State University. Professor Whitehouse had office hours using video conferencing tools – CUSeeMe.

I remember going to Best Buy to get the webcam. They had no idea what I was looking for. They had web cameras but the staff was not educated in this area… I was sent to cameras, I was sent to computers. I had considered using a video camera. Finally, I was able to find and purchase the web camera.

The first quickcam pic I took, was in a hoodie. A couple of years later, because of bad math… by the engineering advisor, who told *me* I needed more math, I was declined re-admission to the computer science program. So, I was a mathematics major for a semester. During that semester, I wrote a book about the DMCA. The year was 2000. I used that first quickcam pic for the back cover.

The course was CSE 200. There I learned much more than C++. I learned social engineering, about the DMCA, and was introduced to slashdot.

I had used Solaris before and was looking for an alternative to Windows and Mac. This course changed my life.

Here are some instructions:

So, I was censored. I posted the lessons for the youth on https://norwich.ai

This site has no offending content. There is one post with an embedded video with instructions on how to create geometry dash.

The odd thing was the student went to the site and we could see it for a second but then the noticed RESTRICTED displayed. He refreshed and again, we could see a flash of it. Then, refreshing again, it went straight to restricted.

Strange, right. I have Spanish speaking only students and the site was to help them succeed as well. I had Spanish and English versions of lessons. I included links to important information. This, was ridiculous.

Click it… if you dare!!!! muhahaha

https://norwich.ai

So, as any sys admin can concur, logs hold the keys to solutions.

On one contract, we used a third party payment processor. The system was down. The third party stated they checked and it was not on their end. It was the beginning of the term and payments were needed. Executive pressure by day three yielded no additional results. “Must be the third party.” Finally, the intern came in.

I’ve been telling them to check the logs! Check the logs. I’m telling you. I don’t think they even know where the logs are. Let me know if you need help.

The ignored tech writer

Sure enough, there it was in black and white. Not us, third party issue.

You can find your logs for the system:

/var/log

Kernel log:

/var/log/kern.log

Lots of logs. Use these!!!

I share some demos, tutorials with the community.

In this series, I share pi information.

Video tools:

• ffmpeg to convert to mp4
• online video editor
• youtube

I was the technical editor for a few books at Wiley:

Professional Javascript for Web Developers 4th edition

Javascript: The new toys

Exploring Beaglebone

At one point I submitted a proposal for a book about AI on Small Board, got the contract but due to work obligations were unable to commit.

So, I never really was transparent about my personal life with most people, as I kept my work and personal life separate.

All my career, all my community contributions, the conferences, the protests, the coding… I was a single mother of 3 (0 financial support) before I ever used or installed Linux, before I heard about the DMCA, and before I started coding.

People don’t know this about me. I was a working single mom with 0 child support from 1996 to 2014. By 2007, I had 5 babies.

Justina – who when she moved out made a Pringles can antenna on her own. Did not like Debian Jr as a child and went straight at it on potato.

Cordell – who worked on robots to donate to Mexico and rural areas

Zack – who installed red hat on the way to Boys and Girls Club at 12 years old

Alex – Lua programmer and super techie. While we ate at our new house, Alex – 3 years old, finished setting up the network. No lie. Then at family day at Microchip, he did so well with a racing game and picked up the remote for a robot better than adults, the engineers called him Savant. He was 5.

William – Interested in Audio, Video and VR. As a child, used a script to fix an issue with his game. I was proud but disappointed he used VB…

I tried to get them to call it GNU Linux Essentials, but it wasn’t happening. So, full disclosure, I was brought in to edit and review the content for correctness. What a show. Most of the content they paid for from Cisco was plagiarized and on top of that, incorrect.

The “writer”, I use the term loosely had copied from various sources but the worst issue was when she reworded how the kernel number standard happens and … that was not correct at all. You cannot reword a standard or formula. I had seen this in tech docs when working at a HRIS software company also. The “writers” reword and make formulas incorrect. This is why it is so important to have a good technical writer.

Fast forward – this is still happening in tech: In one case, I was working for an AI startup in 2020, where they wanted me to edit the writing of less knowledgeable authors and I told the manager… It would be faster if I had simply written the content myself. It was garbage.

So, anyway, I wrote 13 chapters as the sole technical write for CBT used at universities worldwide, including my alma mater. While I never received promised royalties and didn’t even have my name in the book, it was an amazing start for many wanting to learn Linux and get Linux+ certification.

The company sent me to LinuxWorld in San Francisco, all expenses paid and I took the LPI exam. The only issue was they wanted dpkg and I was source, aptitude and midnight commander. Sure, as a dev, now I have all the commands, but I felt that was an unfair situation because I was top notch.

I wrote the chapters using man pages and testing only. There were no guides, references or anything of that nature.

Ultimately, they sunset this training at or about 2018. Yea. I found out from one of the college professors. About time. Haha. I don’t know how many people learned Linux because of this work, but I was glad to be a part of that.

The history section came straight from a conversation I had with RMS about the history as I had just finished my internship with FSF in 2003.

The other thing I wanted to mention about this was in the beginning, there were questions from the IT support person as to my skills. He nagged at the sys admin who hired me. One day when the other IT staff had left, Josh, brought me over to the computer and said he had a new sound card and it wasn’t working.

So, I said, well you have to set the module in XFree86config file. He was like well what do I put there. I said, I’m not sure of that module for that brand. You can just search for it online. He had a serious spaz and was screaming at me… like I didn’t know what I was doing.

Section "Device"

Identifier " "

# Nothing yet; we fill in these values later.

EndSection

Then, I remembered. I had only used that brand unsupported on Linux once. So, I tried it and it worked. He calmed down and was very nice to me after that. See, there is really no reason to have to go through this type of trial or testing. I knew my stuff. I wasn’t upset about it at the time or even after but I was a little concerned my skills were treated with doubts until I “proved myself”. However, I was satisfied he had the confidence in my skills and a story to report back to the “haters”.

http://www.aries.net/cte/it_linux.html

I wrote this… in 2003.

Because I was not informed about limitations for non compete, I had to stop training at the end of the contract and took other work, trying to stay on free software systems and make a living.

In 2016, I was given a beaglebone black from cfengine to write up instructions to use with Yocto. Originally, they hired me to do this on pi. Promised more work but this was a write up for a conference and was not transparent. The idea was to teach at the 8th grade level. However, as I moved along with instructions, it was clear my own bright 8th grader was having issues following along.

https://www.hackster.io/30847/yocto-on-beaglebone-black-9ae649

I shared the instructions on Hackster instead. This was picked up by Beagle but recently is a 404.