Mail, males, and run of the mill stuff

After nearly 4 years of faithful service I decided that it is time to retire my current local mail server, so I got a headless box with 1gig of RAM.

Whoa! I don’t need that for a mail server, mail servers are puny machines in dusty corners which nobody notices quietly doing their work till something goes wrong with them…. so much like some people.

So much for a mail server setup, I ended up configuring Apache and PHP to my liking, this will be the test bed for optimizing code etc, I hope that running Apache (along with my experimental apps) will not kill the server too often 😉 In short it looked like I had already messed up the plan for a cleanly laid out mail server. None the less I did manage to get Postfix along with Spamassassin running on it with a bit of help from here and there. It has been running for three days without any problems and behaving exactly as I wanted it. On experienced advise I chickened out of installing IMAP and continued with POP3

Swati wanted to try scouting for experienced PHP programmers, so we gave an Ad in the paper – the kind of riff-raff we got was hilarious in the very least, needless to say that I did not appoint anyone. So we are back to our original method – get freshers who know at least one programming language well and train them. In six weeks the right candidate is ready for commercial work. The problem arises when they leave too soon (< 6 months). I don't like to bind people in contracts and bonds but it looks like the outsourcing boom will result in job hopping as a side effect and I feel that serving 6 months (on a decent salary) is not too long a period specially if I have imparted a vocational skill. On the hobby front I need a better/more professional set of lights I have been losing out on too many fantastic pictures because of either camera or model shake which occurs due to long exposures required for tungsten lamps. Watched for the first time today, a movie which had been recommended by my parents "Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam". The coming week is threatening to be very very tough on the work front - just hope to survive

  • ahem

    KIDDE PORN :O

    • Re: ahem

      You Dirty Old Man!!!

    • Re: ahem

      Not kiddie porn, but definitely aimed at people who enjoy kiddie porn.

  • There’s a lot of shuffling happening in the job market since the past couple of years. It’s relatively easy to get a “better” job, so people just quit like it’s no one’s business.

  • hire people as consultants. pay them a lump sum amount. no hra, no medical, no travel, no pf, no allowances. you keep the CTC the same, probably a little lower. The employee gets huge tax benefits – their take home is higher than a salaried employee.

    chances are they’ll stick around a little longer.

    the primary reason most companies don’t hire people as consultants is because they don’t want them to walk away whenever they feel like it. You already have that problem, so what do you have to lose?

    • Sounds like an idea, the next problem is getting consultants who can start work on commercial projects right away without any need to be trained.

  • Anonymous

    Which camera.

    Which camera do you use Tarique? I think your photos are coming superb.

    In case you are intrested, you can take look at photos which I took during my lake side walk. [Camera – Olympus C-740] Check them here: http//www.phpkid.org/milwaukee/gallery/

    And for contractors problem, hire me to work for you from home! 😉

    JD
    https://www.phpkid.org/ [Blog not running right now! :(]

    • Re: Which camera.

      Thanks, I use a Nikon Coolpix 5700