Category Archives: University

My time at the University of Toronto at Mississauga.

No Recent Grad Open Source Jobs for Non-Rockstars

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As I continue my job search, I realized the difficulty of finding open source jobs for recent graduates. Especially if you aren’t a rockstar programmer. Unless people know you, and you worked on a high profile open source project, there seems no real way of working in the open source business.

Open source businesses have started to rock the software industry. Software companies either want to convert to open source or want to stomp it out completely. Apparently companies want to protect themselves from the downturn of the economy, by hiring recent graduates who are cheaper to erm… maintain pay-wise. I don’t see lots of people wanting to hire lots of recent CS graduates with open source experience. Unless they are rockstars in the open source world already.

In my case, maybe its just that Toronto is oblivious to open source in general. Or maybe its my bad luck. But looks like my only way of getting hired on open source, if I can work at Red Hat, IBM or Sun Microsystems. That doesn’t look likely though.

I don’t have the time right now to rise to rockstar FOSS programmer status right now. I need a job sooner than later.

Is there any hope of a FOSS career for someone like me?

In Reverse Chronology

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Yesterday, I turned 24. Or 109 in dog years. I feel old when I think about it that way. But then again, reflecting back these past 24 years have been eventful. Thanks to everyone who helped, guided and positively influenced me over the course of those years. I just hope that the next 24 years will be just as fascinating, exciting and important as the past 24.

Monday, I officially received my diploma. Tired from lack of sleep, and a dentist appointment in the morning, I showed up just in time for my celebration. Now I have a real degree in my hands. I heard that someone cheered my name when my turn to shake the chancellor’s hand. That day I realized that I could achieve a dream. Further more, I was not just another name. I was a someone, at least for someone other than my own family. And again when I met up with my friends after the ceremony. Thanks Rob, Dan, Albert, Arnold, Konrad, Adwoa, Scott and Miranda for all the happy university memories, for making me feel special and for graduating together with me. Congratulations!

Today, I paid off my university loan. And the preparation for my adventure in Europe begins!

The Insanity Returns

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If one looks for trouble, one usually finds it. I guess the same applies to work. After a few months, huddled in the sanctity of university studies, I emerge to realize how much work needs my attention. A computer glitch almost killed my graduation. Weeds sprouted on the front yard, where the planned stone and stepping stones will be. My name needed to appear on the convocation list. And I need to get back to a bunch of people’s emails. I could on and on listing things, but that would sound like whining. And I try not to torture my readers with that. Fortunately, I seem to be making progress, in tying up all these loose ends.

As I mentioned in my last post, I resumed working on the justCheckers project. More accurately I resumed planning the future of the justCheckers project. With my disappearance for months at a time, most of the other developers seem to have lost interest. I sometimes wonder if I did not loose interest myself. However I challenged myself to build an open source game.

The challenge now revolves around putting momentum back into the project. justCheckers never had a community clammering for its release. And my designs did not pan out, with the development team being able to work on the project independently of me. For this reason I am working on fleshing out the details of running the project. This means reviewing the style guide, and core component design. My knowledge of Java now spans the entire project, so I should be able to come up with a simpler, cleaner and more efficient design. The most crucial point of the design is get the development team back on-board, and pumping out more releases.

The Compressed Life

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I can finally confirm, that there is a life after university. And a compressed one at that too. I could go through the details, but I feel too tired to remember all the details. And too lazy to write them all down today.

Last weekend, I went to Montreal for the Taizé event. Got to experience life in a predominately francophone city. Experienced a desire to get closer to God and people. Sang my vocal chords to extreme soreness. Meet a few folks from the Polish youth group. And a few Filipanas from St. Kevins. And now I found an excuse to learn French.

The rest of the week consisted of hosting my Polish godfather and his wife. Became an impromptu tour guide of Downtown Toronto. (Now if only I could find the entertainment district. 🙁 ) And when I did not have to travel, or work at home, I attempted reinstalling Windows XP for a client. The gremlins came out to play, and turned a simple recovery and reinstall into a few days exercise in futility. Now, I remember why I enjoyed Linux and Ubuntu Linux especially.

Yesterday I met up with Robert and his roommate. We hoped to tour Toronto, but Rob’s car broke instead. So we caught up on old times. And “invented” a new cocktail, the LimJim, since thats what guys do when bored. Also looks like I might end up installing kUbuntu on his system too.

And I discovered Facebook and I am hooked. Now if I can find time to write.

Where Did Everyone Go?

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Day 6 since handing my last assignment. 4 days to my only and last exam. Already I am wondering where did all my friends disappear to. Half of them probably sank into their textbooks, and wouldn’t come out until the end of April. The other half, already finished decided to leave the city, and possibly even the country. This effectively makes me alone. And I don’t study for exams. Ever.

So basically I get to bum around the house all day, cleaning, gardening and helping renovate the house. My portfolio(s) have to wait until, I finish everything around the house. I doubt it that I will touch any of my work-related work until after next weekend’s the trip to Montreal. Bother. With some chance, I will post a real open source gaming article this next week.

Freedom From Assignments!

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After a weeks hiatus I can finally blog again. The last few weeks tried my patience and sanity, since the majority of courses consisted of assignments. Leading up to last week Wednesday, my entire life revolved around writing assignments. Then the weekend ended up as one long last minute writing session for my professional writing course. Now with the exception of two articles that my writing professor wants me to edit, I am unofficially done my undergraduate studies. One exam from my easiest course this semester awaits. And then sometime in June, I officially pick up my diploma.

Unfortunately, freedom from assignments (mostly) does not translate into freedom from work. With guests coming from Poland, my folks want to fix up the house. And that translates into long days of housekeeping chores for me. Once the house is done, I still need to work on an outstanding contract, and work on my work portfolios. Portfolios, since I want to gather my programming, writing and graphics work in separate portfolios. Then the ominous job hunt commences. Lucky me.

With all this work ahead for me, I wonder about three issues. First, when (or if) I can take an extended vacation before I start a real job? Second, who will pay for my increasing debt? Third, when will I find the time and energy to do everything? I feel a 12 Task of Hercules moment coming on. So much for freedom from “assignments”.

Busy Week

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Reading Week? Why not Busy-As-Hell Week as my friend Rudy once called it. I am so busy with work, especially writing that I don’t have much time for anything.

The radio documentary and all the writing is slow going. I am praying for a breakthrough tomorrow. Sigh.

The best news is that I got my Palm keyboard in the mail today. Yay! Now I can type away on a Palm during my commutes. Sweet.

Its late. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Hell Week In Progress

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Sorry about the lack of updates. My hell week of assignments on top of assignments just began this week. Started off tame too.

Anyways, I am going into “silent running” mode until I get a handle or break from the onslaught of work. Today by itself has 2 assignments due. The cryptography assignment is proving a worthy adversary. At least the writing is done, and I learned LaTeX. The hard part of proofs is now what I must face.

Dorian, over and out.

The Plague (Part 3): Recovery & Headaches

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Ah the third part of our series…
Today I do feel better, even with the occasional headaches and tiredness. Everyone is more or less on the road to improvement. Kind of too tired to write about this much, and I still am waiting for my “wakeup” tea to cool enough to drink.

Lets me go down and check… Much better. Its funny how a cup of orange pekoe tea can wake a person up. The miracle of caffeine, good thing the decaf folks did not outlaw that substance. Cause if they did, half the people would not get up and go to work the next day. And they would have to close the universities down for the day… Hmm… I feel an evil plan coming on. Muhaha!

In other news, I started keeping a radio diary of myself. Its harder than it looks. Keeping the noise down, speaking clearly and making sense at the same time, all of these create a challenge. Hopefully, by doing daily diaries I can figure this challenge out. And not sound like a cross between Adam Sandler and William Shatner. Yes. Really.

The Plague (Part 1): Enemy at the Gates

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Today I am blogging close to ground zero of a plague in progress. My younger brother become ill yesterday with a fever. While unfortunate, worse is the knowledge is that he rarely gets sick. When he does, the whole family usually falls ill too. A cause of concern for me, since this might turn out a busy one for me. So I fell an extra incentive to finish my work early on this week, before I too succumb.

On the note of rushed, a Saturday of intense gaming did not help achieve any considerable work. Whoa is me but doing the whole Half-Life canonical story from beginning to end proved to0 tempting. I finished up to the Lambda Core chapter in Half-Life, and skipped ahead to the last two chapters that I never beat. Well I finished it, cheated at the Nilinath final fight, but finished. Half-Life 2 proves much smoother and hence more fun. Up to the Nova Prospekt level, one of my absolute favourites.

Now, if only someone could convince Valve to port Half-Life 2 to Linux. Then I would be totally happy. While id and Epic Megagames both port their game to Linux, I never liked id’s games all that much. Unreal Tournament is different, and I enjoy the hyperactive action. But I am waiting for the 2007 instalment. If Bungie ported to Linux, I would buy Halo. But since Bungie is a part of Microsoft now, I can forget about that.

But all this gaming, I need to put on hold. It takes too long, I lack the funds to spend frivolously, and my procrastination may prove my undoing for this semester. A number of assignments are due this or next week, and need my attention. Instead I plan on resurrecting my old hobby, computer graphics. If I manage my day wisely, I will upload some of my “art”.

Now I must depart. Work awaits, and the “plague” looms. I go hither!