Welcome to the professional life of the StormRaiser. Hey, I gotta eat! Anything related to work, or work related, is listed here.

Ruby Tuesday, Inc. - http://www.rubytuesday.com -
Current employer. Ruby Tuesday is one of the leaders in casual dining. Over 700 stores nationwide and overseas. Try it. You'll like it!

U.S. Cellular - http://www.uscc.com -
A former employer. US Cellular is a wireless communications provider operating digital (CDMA/TDMA) and analog networks in many markets nationwide. Check out the web page. It offers many consumer and custom services to fit just about any need.

Pellissippi State Technical Community College -
A former employer. If you need to take classes on a budget, or want to get some experience, this would be a good place to check out.

Operating Systems

IBM AIX - This is the OS that currently puts food on the table. OH MY GOD WHAT A MESS!!! Don't get me wrong. AIX is VERY powerful. It comes with many features you normally have to pay extra for to bolt onto other operating systems. For example, AIX includes a proper storage volume management system. Maybe not as pretty as what Veritas sells, but very capable. The problem is AIX is a hodgepodge of various UNIX strategies. As far as I can tell, IBM originally started out trying to make their own proprietary UNIX-like OS. There are many standard UNIX commands, and many IBM-centric commands to various standard UNIX functions. Problem is the IBM-AIX way of doing things tends to be fairly convoluted. Then at some point someone decided they should play along with other UNIX's and they started bolting in POSIX and BSD mechanisms. Now you have four or five ways to perform the same function. Oldtimers use one way. People like me crossing over from SystemV/BSD systems do things another which confuses the oldtimers who insist their way is the only true way. ARGH!!! For what it's worth, this is the first OS I have actually gone after and obtained certification for. After only 4 months of working for it no less... Worked with Solaris for 4 years and never went after my cert. Go figger!

Sun Solaris - I used to be paid to maintain an almost completely Solaris environment. To be totally and brutally honest, Solaris is 'just another UNIX' to me. The only thing impressive is the hardware it runs on (especially older SPARC equipment). Otherwise it has the usual amounts of contradictions (eg. treatment of skel directory by GUI versus useradd) and problems (eg. Solaris just now learning to implement privileges/roles... bound to be a security hole for awhile). The only thing going for it is the amount of advertising budget it gets.

OpenVMS - If you have a need for a system which must NEVER go down, and you have alotta cash, this is the way to go. Small businesses need not apply. Hobbyist version available.

NetBSD - Yes, Linux is great and neat and groovy and all that jazz... But can you make money from it?? NetBSD is a free operating system geared towards total platform indepedence and includes a more commercial-friendly license. In addition it is very small and easy to install. The entire NetBSD binary distribution fits under 100MB, and a base install easily fits under 200MB. It's my free *NIX of choice for the moment.

Linux - Yes, I will include Linux here. Granted, I'm not into it. I do not fit the Linux mindset model. However, Linux has immense amounts of loyalty and support from it's user community (reminicent of Macintosh fans). Some of the distributions available are some of the most complete I have seen. It is very easy to go down to the local Best Buy and plop down $30 for a Linux distribution that will include everything you would ever need. If all you want to do is word processing, you're set. If all you want to do is run an E-commerce site, you're set. Too bad the amount of software available 'off the shelf' is not at the same level as Microsoft based products.