My Life With IT

I’m not sure if being a female will make you lose out in the IT industry. Perhaps when you are in the server administration role or helpdesk support. This, I agree with Kriscell. I have a friend who is in this role and has to move the servers. However, once she is pregnant, she will need help.

It isn’t easy to stay long in this role as there isn’t much prospects to go on if you are the type who is aiming for the position of the CIO. For a female to stay on in the IT industry, one has to continue learning new things like programming languages that are upcoming, getting certified for new software, and more.

Females tend to be thought of as the soft types, programming has better prospects due to the pay. With the knowledge of BW, BI, Oracle, SAP, PHP, AJAX, and many more languages, it helps to stay on in this game. The technology changes almost every 3 months and the new ones are trying to be better than the old ones.

However, in truth, how long do we stay updated? How fast can we upgrade ourselves? The question about females being suitable of IT is a relevant one but there is something that is missed out. The person who was asking it has a diploma. Despite her experience, she is losing out in terms of pay. Unfortunately, the scope that she has, doesn’t pay that well in the long run. She could be comparing herself to her male counterparts.

It is true that gender plays a part when it comes to any jobs, not just IT. When accounting comes to mind, females tend to come into mind. When it comes to moving the heavy servers around, males are needed when there is no way to move that server rack.

As females continue working in the IT industry, they aren’t really losing out but when it comes to pay, one is no longer sure.

I am very frustrated. I have reinstalled Ozh Better Feed more than 3 times and it is showing up nicely only 1 out of 5 blogs of mine. I went through everything and even copied from the working blog to no avail. I am not sure if it’s not compatible with the other plugins that I have.

Plugins

• Aizatto’s Related Posts 0.5
• Akismet 2.1.8
• Another Wordpress Tracker Plugin 1.1
• Bad Behavior 2.0.23
• Better Comments Manager 1.5.1
• Bookmark me 3.3
• Comment Analysis 2.6
• DashBar 2.0.1
• Enhanced WP-ContactForm 2.0
• FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.2
• Homepage Excerpts 1.0
• Ozh’ Better Feed 2.1.1
• Plurk updater 1.3
• Recent Comments Widget 4.0
• Show Top Commentators 1.05
• Text Link Ads 3.1.0
• Whydowork Adsense 1.2
• Woopra 1.1
• WordPress Database Backup 2.2
• Wordpress Mobile 1.3
• Wordpress Multi URI Ping 0.9
• Wordpress Thread Comment 1.4.7.8
• Wordpress Video Plugin 0.67
• wp-cache 2.1.2

I think I have overloaded on plugins here. So, does it matter what plugins I have activated? Is there anyone who has this problem too?

I’ve done my share of IT projects for years. Throughout the years, I’ve often learnt some techniques from different teachers along the way. The different users I meet also gave me the opportunities to improvise despite being angry about the ways that things just change at their whims.

The Indecisive User

This user kept changing the requirements at every meeting. Likes to pick on things that aren’t functional. Is unable to decide if this function is more important than that function despite the impeding deadline.

Alternative: Give them the low down of the thing and confirm which are the important features to be rolled out 1st phase. Subsequent changes can be rolled out in the 2nd phase. This alternative may be time consuming but mention the word: budget in the communication tools and you’ll see miracles.

The Picky User

This user likes to pick on the colours, layout, functions, features and more. Even after massive overhaul based on the changes said, everything changes back to version 1 for the layouts, colours, functions and more.

Alternative: Backup every design for each phase and show them the demo upon the decided UAT date. Mentions keywords like user interface, budget and more. Hope for miracles.

The Forgetful User

This user likes to talk to you and forgets about it after that. Claims non-ownership even if the idea came from this user in the first place.

Alternative: Always follow up with an email listing the requirement changes and CC to the bosses who are involved. This way, you save yourself a major headache.

The Haughty User

This user has all the requirements laid out and likes to wait for you to fetch them to the UAT environment. Does not like to be delayed but will always be late for the testing. Prefers to talk to the higher authority than someone who is of a lower status.

Alternative: Send reminder emails about the date and venue. Include the test case. Let the higher authority know that you will be fetching them to the test environment. In the event the user wants the higher authority, let the higher authority know too.

The Know-it-all User

This user usually has some IT background and will instruct you how to develop, code and how the layout should look like. Sometimes, does not know what he/she wants. See The Indecisive User.

Alternative: Design a prototype and asked for more specifics as the requirements are often vague except for the programming portion.

The Want-it-all User

This user wants everything to work for the system. Likes the system to be 100% bug free. Prefers to have just 1 click and the system will do its magic. Expects the developers to be able to produce it in the shortest time possible when the requirements are not fully discussed. May be a little like The Haughty User.

Alternative: Give them the lowdown and explain that the system is unable to achieve everything if the deadline is too short to be able to fully test for 100% bug free launch. Send emails to confirm to prevent disputes. Documentations should include what the system is and isn’t able to perform.

I am not a project manager but I’ve seen mine using ways to calm down the users. There were times when I had to manage some projects on my own and recall how to handle it. While I’m not perfect, I learn them along the way.

I have been using aLinks happily for quite some time. Unfortunately, it is now generating fatal error when attempting to activate the plugin. I don’t know if it’s to do with the Wordpress version or the plugin is unable to access something.

The current version is updated but there seems to be a conflict somewhere that I can’t find. I do want to use it again. However, I don’t know how to troubleshoot this part. Help.

The grass always look greener on the other side. When you see a friend earning $4, 000 per month for doing seemingly simple job, you envy them and wished that you could earn that amount every month too. IT is known for its high pay. Just note that in Singapore, it ain’t that high a pay unless you are at manager level and above as they don’t see paying $8, 000 a month for a SAP developer or BW developer is worth the money.

Read here about foreign talents being paid more. Enough said. Being in the IT line for at least 6 years, I have seen different users with different ways of giving you their requirements. How they give it to you so that you can interpret it correctly is one thing.

It’s very frustrating when your user don’t even know what they want or are not able to tell you how they like it except they love to tell you how to programme it. Now, isn’t this great? I should just give them the programme and shake my leg while I still get my pay.

After 6 freaking months of doing 2 seemingly simple databases, I am about to give up. I kept being chased after on when the things can be up when they can’t even tell me what they want for nuts. If that’s the case, please gather your thoughts and sort them out before even telling any programmer to do anything.

After the development, they started to look at cosmetic changes. Nothing new. Except the changes involved the codes and there is no way I can shorten the timeline to change them they want to see it ASAP. Finally, they seem to have decided what they want. Now, they want another change to a previous request.

I’m starting to wonder if IT users tend to be the sort where they tell you how to do the programme rather than tell you how they want the system to function. Work can be such a headache and at times like this, I feel like changing to another field.

After resolving my site problem, I decided that all my sites will be re-installed. Major re-do. I wonder if I will actually get down to it. I have a problem. The user wants all the categories in the view to be collapsed. Not a problem.

The user also wants the selected view name to be highlighted if the view is being viewed. Not a problem either. The problem is combining both. I used a text with the following:

@Command([ViewCollapseAll])

I cannot use the same in an Outline. The Outline is able to highlight the selected view name but is unable to comprehend Formula and I don’t want to do such a complex code for a simple menu. It’s silly.

The headaches of using Lotus Notes. It’s a bane when I’m faced with conflicting interests. If anyone has an idea or alternative, do leave your comments so that I can try it out.

I am having a headache. I don’t know where to begin to tackle this bug or spam that is autogenerated somehow by some script that I can’t find. I’m deleting the following files every time I login to my FTP.

All the file names are randomly generated. This happens if the main Wordpress page is loaded. Where should I start looking for the culprit? I’ve checked index.php, theme has been updated to the latest version. Even the footer displayed in here isn’t showing up as version 1.5.

I want to get rid of these files (they do look like 16-bit hex keys) permanently besides resorting to installation for the domain. Anything to do with file permissions? I’m not sure now.

Image via Wikipedia

I decided to try out Zemanta after FoxTwo introduced it. I am so loving it except for the times when the photo gallery keeps giving me the same photos. It’s a Firefox extension and doesn’t take up much space. The updates are at every 300 characters live.

I find it easy to use except it will default to displaying the photos to the right. Thus, I have to edit the codes each time. A little bit of a hassle but then again, it’s free, I won’t penalise it for much except for the photo placement.

In addition, the photos are mostly from Wikipedia, I don’t know what sort of keywords would let it search from Flickr or PhotoShack. Perhaps the search is based on PageRank? Anyone knows?

The links are automatically placed in the first word that it finds. The links aren’t necessarily localised. I did try using Flickr Dropper but unfortunately, the search results with the same search terms aren’t what I see in Flickr itself.

Since then, I’ve used Zemanta a few times and use it when I’m lazy to search for images via Google. If some script is able to search for photos or images for me, I might as well let it do its job, right?