Adele Shakal

Just an FYI...

2008-03-14T19:12:38Z

I've let this LJ account lapse out of paid status. This means that the embedded style whereby my most recent few entries appear in the center of the main page of my shakal.org website no longer functions.

This is part of my Clever Plan to get my personal web presence updated and shoved over to a new site which will be running WordPress with hugwill's OpenID plugin, and transition shakal.org into more of a family-tree and historical interest sort of website for my extended family, rather than an exclusively personal one. I've been working on this project/effort for a while.

It would have been more convenient for me if my LJ paid status lasted another couple days, to let me have Saturday to finish a couple things on my new personal site, but hey, if things look broken on a Friday? Why is anyone noticing? Go skip class or work and play in the big blue room for a while! Shoo! Go be outside!

Me, I'm in the office, being my usual workaholic self, but I'm looking forward to going home a little early. Yay for the big blue room!

upcoming travel

2008-03-13T18:17:38Z

I'll be attending the EDUCAUSE Western Regional conference in San Francisco March 31 - April 2. I should be arriving in time for lunch on Monday, and am leaving early afternoon on Wednesday.

I'm considering organizing a Birds of a Feather session for Project Managers doing Google Apps for Education rollouts... I've never been to an EDUCAUSE conference before, so I'm not sure how those are done, but it can't be all that different from LISA, right?

My co-workers Brendan Bellina and Will Norris are each giving presentations... rowan_redbeard, did you say you were giving one, too?

Two very cool conferences this weekend in Los Angeles

2008-02-07T15:56:05Z

SCaLE 6x, the Southern California Linux Expo, is this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Friday there's a one-day miniconference on Women in Open Source, and another on Open Source in Education, and yet another on Open Source in Health Care.

SCaLE 6x also just added two LOPSA training classes for Friday! Open-Source Email Systems: One Approach to Spam Fighting, and Introduction to Virtualization on Linux. I adore LOPSA.

My posts about last year's SCaLE are here and here and here.

I'll be helping out with the Women's miniconf on Friday, and I'll be working the registration desk on Saturday. Come on by and say hello!

If I weren't attending and helping out with the SCaLE conference, I'd be attending the 24/7 DIY Media Summit that is happening this weekend. There are a bunch of different academic panel and workshop tracks, but there are also screenings open to the public.

Political commentary, activist media, independent arts, machinima, US media vidding, video blogging, anime music videos... and some of the most fabulous people presenting, curating, and discussing and receptioning about emerging patterns as well as the history of these new media... what's not to love?

http://www.video24-7.org/ has complete info.

I'll probably also wind up prowling around diyvideo later, which has information on some of the webcasts associated with that conference.

And if I ever get more free time (ahahaha, shut up) this note is to remind myself to prowl around in the videos on In Media Res.

I wish I could be in two places at once.

Where has Adele been? At work!

2008-01-12T06:52:10Z

Students Get Google Plan for USC E-mail

:-D

Women's Technology UnConference in NorCal

2007-10-08T20:35:59Z

I won't be attending this one, but I did want to spread the word: http://shesgeeky.org/

At the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. It starts at noon on Monday, October 22, and goes 'til 6pm on Tuesday October 23. Sounds quite nifty!

Clickable activism: Burma/Myanmar.

2007-10-03T15:32:04Z

Please consider signing this petition about the situation in Burma: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/

BBC coverage in-depth

Dear friends,

Our emergency petition to stop the crackdown on peaceful protesters in Burma is exploding, with nearly 500,000 signers from every nation of the world. But the situation in Burma remains desperate, with reports of hundreds of monks being massacred and tortured. Burma's rulers have also killed and expelled international journalists, cutting off global media coverage of their cruelty.

China is still the key - the country with the most power to halt the Burmese generals' reign of terror. We're delivering our message this week with a massive ad campaign in major newspapers, beginning Thursday with a full page ad in the Financial Times worldwide, and in the South China Morning Post. The strength of the ad comes from the number of petition signers listed – can we reach our goal of 1 million signatures this week? The link to sign the petition and view the ad is below, forward this email to all your friends and family!

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_burma/u.php

China continues to provide key economic and military support to Burma's dictatorship, but it has been openly critical of the crackdown. Now we need the government to match words with actions. Our ad paints a powerful moment of choice for China in its relationship with the world – will it be a responsible and respected member of the global community, or will it be associated with tyranny and oppression?

People power, on the streets of Burma, and around the world, can triumph over tyranny. Our strength is in our numbers, spread the word!

With hope and determination,

Ricken, Paul, Ben, Graziela, Pascal, Galit and the whole Avaaz team.

For the best local reporting on the situation in Burma, try these links:

http://www.irrawaddy.org

http://www.mizzima.com

Thank you for your time.

Want to work university IT in sunny southern California?

2007-10-03T15:22:27Z

Various groups in our department at USC are hiring, everything from a senior Unix sysadmin, a midlevel Windows/Mac sysadmin, a hardware specialist, three programmer/developers, and three NOC folks of varying experience levels and shift schedule.

http://www.usc.edu/bus-affairs/ers/

Search for Information Technology Services, and if you find something you're interested in, email me your resume so I can get it under the right noses, OK?

We have a grand new building, we're all moved in, we've got exciting projects going on, friendly geeky folks to work with, an environment which is encouraging work/life/study balance, and we have cold breakfast and hot lunch plus salad bar food service available on our floor (there are disturbingly-high-powered energy drinks in the vending machines if you're into that sort of thing, too). If you want to walk to lunch there are tasty restaurants in at least three directions from the office. We've also got free coffee, hot chocolate and tea stations scattered around the office. Getting to and from work is very doable... we're across the street from the off-campus parking center, and if you take mass-transit bus, light- or heavy-rail to LA's Union Station, there's a USC shuttlebus that goes between there and campus, and then you can either take the parking center shuttle or walk the short distance from campus to our building.

If you know anyone else you think might be interested, please pass the info along... thanks!

Professional resources for project managers

2007-08-22T21:07:56Z

http://www.pmi.org/

I'm still researching, but these are some of the interesting local and California-specific training and educational opportunities I've happened upon so far:

http://www.scctc.org/

http://www.uclaextension.edu/index.cfm?href=/departmentalPages/index.cfm&department=/shortcourses/index.cfm

http://www.pmi-la.org/localunicourses.html

http://irc.caltech.edu/courses/Successful_Project_Management.htm
http://irc.caltech.edu/ProjectManagement/Project_Management_Certificate_Program.htm

http://www.learningtree.com/training-directory/Project-Management-Training-15.htm

http://www.pmi-la.org/

http://apm.stanford.edu/certProgram.html

http://www.agu.edu/Project_mgnt/master_project.html

http://www.vbpm.org/index-training.html

http://www.amanet.org/seminars/category.cfm?cat=209

I've already read (and use as reference) Information Technology Project Management, Fourth Edition by Kathy Schwalbe, but I see now that there's a Fifth Edition available.

Do you know of more good ones? Please enlighten me!

Professional resources for webmasters

2007-08-22T21:03:12Z

(I've been doing system administration, technical documentation and project management more than webmastering for the past few years, so some of these organizations may have shifted in the meanwhile.)

~~Webgrrls International: http://www.webgrrls.com/~~ (see comments for why this is struck-through)

The HTML Authors Guild: http://www.hwg.org/ (I think I let my membership lapse, it's been a while,; but they do have decent online training opportunities.)

International Webmasters Association: http://www.iwanet.org/

Webmaster Organization: http://webmaster.org/

World Organization of Webmasters: http://joinwow.org/

Webmonkey, the web developer's resource: http://www.webmonkey.com/

Jakob Nielsen's Website: http://www.useit.com/

Lynda.com's online training library: http://www.lynda.com/products/

CSS Zen Garden: http://www.csszengarden.com/

I've been hauling around various editions of these books for years, referencing them as needed:
Webmaster in a Nutshell by Stephen Spainhour and Robert Eckstein
Web Design in a Nutshell by Jennifer Niederst
Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites by Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity by Jakob Nielsen
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data by Stephen Few
The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web by Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag

plus various CSS books by Eric Meyer:
CSS: The Definitive Guide
Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design
More Eric Meyer on CSS

plus I've picked up whatever O'Reilly, Peachpit, and No Starch Press books were appropriate to my immediate job and/or sanity needs.

Do you know of more good ones? Please enlighten me!

Professional resources for system administrators

2007-08-22T20:53:36Z

The League of Professional System Administrators... I am currently a member. This is all-OS-inclusive.
http://www.lopsa.org/

The System Administrators Guild (a special interest group within USENIX)... I suspect I need to renew my membership. This is all-OS-inclusive.
http://www.sage.org/

"LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux and Free Software, and for women and men who want to support women in computing. The membership ranges from novices to experienced users, and includes professional and amateur programmers, system administrators and technical writers." http://www.linuxchix.org/

The Systers mailing list is rather more... venerable, and it's all-OS-inclusive. I joined as a member of the mailing list back in February... I only lurk, reading and soaking up information and conversation like a little sea-sponge. :-)
http://anitaborg.org/initiatives/systers/

There are local computing user groups (LUGs) in the LA area, they're an excellent place to network among local sysadmins, especially Unix ones; I don't know what resources each group has to offer, but I collected links to many of the local Unix/Linux ones in a blogpost after I helped out at the SCALE 5X conference back in February: http://shakal.livejournal.com/91747.html

There are local Mac groups which might be handy for OSX sysadmins, too:
http://www.lamg.org/
http://appleusergroups.com/locator/find/locate.cgi?zipcode=90089&Submit=Search

I'm still rather clueless about Windows-specific sysadmin professional resources. I asked a friend of mine to send me some links a couple years ago, and they're buried in my to-do email box, I suspect. When I get a moment, I'll find them and post them here, too.

In addition to jobs lists and boards at those organizations, aside from http://www.monster.com/ two other big techie jobs sites seem to be http://www.dice.com/ and http://www.techcareers.com/

These books are must-haves (and must-reads):
Time Management for System Administrators by Tom Limoncelli
The Practice of System and Network Administration (2nd Edition) by Tom Limoncelli, Christina Hogan, and Strata Chalup
For Unix, "the purple book" aka UNIX System Administration Handbook (3rd Edition) by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Scott Seebass, and Trent Hein
For Linux, "the pink book" aka Linux Administration Handbook (2nd Edition) by Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent Hein
plus whatever O'Reilly, Peachpit, and No Starch Press books are appropriate to your immediate job and/or sanity needs.

Do you know of more good ones? Please enlighten me!

Professional resources for IT tech writers and documentation specialists

2007-08-22T20:47:23Z

"LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux and Free Software, and for women and men who want to support women in computing. The membership ranges from novices to experienced users, and includes professional and amateur programmers, system administrators and technical writers." http://www.linuxchix.org/

According to http://www.techpubs.com/resources.html#Prof_Assoc the major tech writer professional organization is the Society for Technical Communication: http://www.stc.org/

One of the benefits of membership is access to a tech writers' annual salary survey report. http://www.stc.org/membership/index.asp

There are a number of local STC chapters, including Los Angeles, Orange County, Inland Empire, San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley: http://www.stc.org/membership/chapterSearch02.asp

In addition to jobs lists and boards at those organizations, aside from http://www.monster.com/ two other big techie jobs sites seem to be http://www.dice.com/ and http://www.techcareers.com/

Do you know of more good ones? Please enlighten me!

Professional resources for those of us working in academic IT

2007-08-22T20:40:57Z

http://campustechnology.com/

http://www.academicimpressions.com/

http://chronicle.com/

Do you know of more good ones? Please enlighten me!

My project manager metamorphosis continues...

2007-08-07T00:29:05Z

I wasn't able to figure out a way to attend LOPSA's awesome Sysadmin Days training today and tomorrow on the east coast (too much else going on!), but I will be attending the Southern California Coalition Technology Conference August 24th and 25th.

It's two days of project management meets quality assurance, apparently, and sponsored by three of the local PMI chapters, along with other local IT and QA professional organizations.

In other news, I'm really looking forward to the new second edition of yesthattom's (and Strata's and Christine's!) sysadmin book. I've ordered it, and now can't wait for it to reach my grabby hands! *obsessively refreshes shipping tracking site*

Know any SoCal IT tech writers looking for a job?

2007-08-03T19:52:04Z

I work at USC's ITS department these days, and we're looking for a full-time tech writer. If you know anyone who's interested, could you please have them either comment here or drop me an email (adele at shakal dot org) with their resume, in addition to filling in the online app?

A fleeting thought on project management

2007-06-05T15:25:14Z

If a project was never clearly defined at the start, it is nearly impossible to define its completion conditions, nor conclusively state (or convincingly defend the statement) that it is actually done.

Solvang wine review: Royal Oaks Niagara and Royal Rose

2007-04-08T14:55:58Z

Niagara: Meh, for me this one's OK. Not bad, not great, not really memorable.

Royal Rose: Oh, wow. I really, really like this one. Supposedly it's made with "white grapes, cranberry juice, orange flavors and cloves" and the spices and sweetness blending together the way they do makes me very happy.

http://www.royaloakswinery.com/

Solvang wine review: Royal Oaks Noir Blanc

2007-03-26T00:38:07Z

I like this one. It's apparently grape wine with black currant juice added. Kind of sweet, kind of tart, not cloying at all.

http://www.royaloakswinery.com/

Aebleskiver for all!

2007-03-19T20:01:25Z

Note to self: If you have the opportunity to attend the Taste of Solvang weekend again, Just Do It.

Apparently this is a once-a-year thing that happens in March, and a friend and I stumbled right into it after deciding about a week ago that we needed to get out of LA this past weekend. We spent the weekend wandering around Solvang (which apparently means "sunny field" in Danish, and is about 140 miles west and north of Burbank), shopping, stuffing ourselves silly on wonderful food, and greatly enjoying the Saturday evening wine tasting room walking tour. All of the wine-tasting rooms on the tour were staggering distance from all of the local hotels, so no one had be a designated driver in any of the groups who wandered and mingled on the sidewalks and in the 14 different tasting rooms that stayed open late for us.

My friend and I didn't book ourselves for all of the organized Taste Of Solvang weekend activities, choosing instead the wander-and-explore approach to everything but the wine tasting. Though in retrospect the Friday dessert reception sounds like it would have been nice, there was absolutely no way we were making it out of LA in time for that, thanks to our crazy!busy! work schedules.

We stayed at the Solvang Inn and Cottages, which like many of the local hotels is walking distance from pretty much everything in town.

I am not a wine expert, I just know what I like. I usually drink Australian reds and German whites I buy at the grocery, so I'm pretty far from the expertise of most more experienced wine-tasting folks. That said, I wanted to keep track of what I learned this weekend, so...

Solvang wineries of note:

Royal Oaks Winery - Here we got to try some amazingly wonderful dessert wines at the "sweet" counter. My favorites of them so far seem to be the Olallieberry (fabulously berry-y) and the Royal Rose (spicy and berry-y), though I was also fond of the Syrah Santa Ynez 2003 they were pouring at the "dry" counter.

Lucas and Lewellen Winery - I enjoyed the 2004 Goodchild Vineyard Chardonnay. The two reds I tried here just weren't my thing, though others seemed to like them.

Presidio Winery - Here I very much enjoyed their 2006 Gewürztraminer especially, but honestly, everything I tried here was good. They're one of the few places in town that offers port.

We also tasted at Mandolina (I enjoyed the Barbera, Dolcetto, and Rosato)

and at Stolpman (I found the the Poetry in White and Poetry in Red to be pleasant, but not really memorable).

More info about Solvang's local wineries is available here and here.

We tried out the following restaurants, and heartily enjoyed ourselves:

The Mustard Seed (the split pea soup was great)

Bit O'Denmark (the Danish sausages, meatballs, and red cabbage were wonderful)

the Solvang Restaurant (the medley plate of open-faced sandwiches was lovely: roast beef/cucumber, ham, cheese, and sliced meatball/red cabbage all on dark heavy pumpernickel bread, with potato salad and tomato in the middle)

And of course we had to sample the aebleskiver every time we felt remotely peckish... they're basically little round balls of sort-of-pancake batter with raspberry preserves and a dash of powdered sugar on top, at most places... though each place prepares them slightly differently.

Shops I really enjoyed poking around in (even if you don't eat anything, wander into the chocolate shops and bakeries, they smell amazing):

the Talowick Candle Factory (beautiful dipped tapers of every size you can think of, naturally-scented votives, and also stunning sculpted stripey dipped pillar candles that I'd never get up the gumption to actually burn)

The Home Connection (I found some lovely Wilton Armetale pewter, two bowls in the Eddy pattern, marked down to the point where I could afford them - yay!)

Solvang Needlework (mmm, yarn)

Ingeborg's Danish Chocolates (mmm, chocolate)

Thumbelina Needlework (mmmm, more yarn)

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory (mmmm, more chocolate)

The Book Loft (mmmmmm, books)

The Village Spinning and Weaving Shop (mmmmmmmmmmmm, even more yarn, and some of the most wonderful roving I've seen anywhere)

The Mystic Merchant (playing the crystal singing bowls was fun, as was meeting one of the two shopcats, Ernest, the most mellow ginger cat who has ever deigned to make my acquaintance)

Picket Fences Home, Gift & Garden (wonderful French-style soaps, and fabulous glass bell jars of the sort which I shall have in my conservatory when I have a suitable home with a conservatory *cough*)

The Mole Hole (sparkly shiny foofy home decor and jewelry things I'd never spend that much money on, but oh, so lovely to look at!)

Solvang Shoe Store Inc. (I think this was the place I oggled all sorts of Dansko and Ekko shoes that looked absolutely wonderful, though they're out of my budget at the moment; apparently I have very Dansko-shaped feet, since I've been happily wearing my Danskos to work pretty much every day for the past two and a half years, or is it three and a half?)

Birkenstock Footwear (oh, there were some lovely shoes here, too)

Pearl's of Provence (incredible bright, cheerful table linens and such, inspiration for me to finish some sewing projects of my own in yellow, white and blue which have been languishing lately)

and all of the various wine tasting rooms that were also selling jams, marinades, salsas, barbeque and finishing sauces. I brought home a jar of blueberry-lime-ginger jelly that's fantastic.

On the way back to LA we stopped at Ericsson's on the Pier in Ventura for wonderful seafood. It was a good way to break up the drive homewards.

In conclusion, Solvang is kitschy and touristy and fabulous in that dorky-yet-pretentious way that some places are... it's a great place to walk one's feet off poking around into interesting shops, and has the most wine-tasting rooms in such a small area I've ever seen. Also, the drive up the 101 to get there is a fun drive, and the ocean beaches are lovely.

I was away from the internet for a whole weekend, which was strange and a much-needed decompression from work stuff lately.

So this is what jazz fusion from Peru sounds like...

2007-03-08T07:51:16Z

...and I'm very impressed. Tonight I saw Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Sextet perform at the REDCAT theater in LA. I don't know diddly nor squat about jazz, and everything I know about Peru I learned from nature documentaries on public television and a few local new age Andean and/or Incan musical groups that perform in Montrose and Burbank at the arts festivals, so this was a very welcome eye- and ear-opener. :-)

http://www.gabrielalegria.com/ has all sorts of niftiness, including information about two summer tours in July and August where, rather than the musicians touring the US to come to you, you go to Peru to tour with the musicians, seeing all sorts of local stuff and incredible sights, good food and wonderful music, putting the band's own music in broader and more in-depth context. It looks like fabulous fun and if I had a spare ten days off work and a couple thousand dollars, it sounds like it would be an amazing time.

I bought two CDs at the show, but you can preview/listen (and download/buy for $1) songs here. The entire sextet looked like they were having a great time, and I particularly enjoyed the saxophist... *consults program* ...Laurandrea Leguia and the astonishing percussionist Freddy "Huevito" Lobaton. The whole group was just delightful.

Because I don't know how long they'll leave these blurbs up, I'm quoting here a description from the REDCAT website and a review from LA Weekly:

From the REDCAT theater's blurb: Smoldering jazz is kicked up with the intoxicating polyrhythms of coastal Peru as trumpeter and composer Gabriel Alegría continues to chart a fresh new idiom. Combining his own distinctive approach to jazz trumpet with the rich heritage of Afro-Peruvian music, Alegría is joined by saxophonist Laurandrea Leguía, guitarist Jocho Velazquez, bassist Joscha Oetz, drummer Hugo Alcázar and percussionist Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón—who plays traditional Afro-Peruvian instruments such as cajón (box drum) and quijada (jawbone) and adds spectacular passages of zapateo criollo tap dancing. This performance, the group's only West Coast appearance in 2007, features music from Alegría's latest recording, Nuevo Mundo.

From the LA Weekly's blurb: Peruvian trumpeter Gabriel Alegría’s fine Nuevo Mundo mixes straight-ahead jazz and subtle Afro-Peruvian polyrhythms (think classic Miles and Susanna Baca’s criollo sounds). At REDCAT he’ll front his all-Peruvian sextet, with tenor sax, guitar, bass, drums and Freddy “Huevito” Lobatón on some distinctly Peruvian percussion, including cajon (a wooden box), quijada (a donkey’s jaw, scraped) and zapateo criollo (percussive dancing). It will be a fascinating glimpse into how jazz is fusing with regional music around the world.

The REDCAT theater is actually fairly small, by the way. Great venue. I'd thought it would be big, since the Disney concert hall looks huge from the outside, but it's a little side-stage sort of thing and it has a very different feel from the main areas. Parking was easy once I figured out the one-way streets around the concert hall; for $8 I could park in the security-patrolled, well-lit structure right underneath the hall from the little stub of 2nd street accessible from Grand. I'd be happy to attend other performances at the venue, that's for sure.

But now I'm tired, and tomorrow morning will come too early...

Yay for my new cube-office!

2007-03-02T19:15:11Z

USC has put up the the official blurb about our office move. I'm in my new cube already! *twirls around gleefully in new comfy chair*

Now I'm trying to decide if I want to put little fake terrarium-style displays in between the glass panes along the top of my cube walls. There's about two and a half inches of space between the panes, and I have two 38" panels shared with the cubes on either side of me, and two 20" panels that are all mine along the aisle. The panels are all about 11" tall inside.

View Poll: cube-top-panel terrariums

Greening Los Angeles

2007-02-22T20:37:42Z

Nifty link o' the day: MillionTreesLA.org

Flashback: Oci preparing for the Oscars, 1999

2007-02-17T17:06:42Z

I'm remembering the good times, bear with me for the next few days...

Oci had to stay with my parents for a while during 1998-99... and while she was there, they introduced her to the idea of dressing up to watch the Oscars. All fabulous glamourpusses must be properly coifed for the red carpet, after all, and Oci was absolutely glam when she wasn't busy being a total goofball.

Spending the day at the salon

Ready for the red carpet

(And before you ask, yes, that's my beloved cat being blown dry after a bath. Indiana was a cold place for a California cat, and she apparently was willing to put up with the noise because she loved the warm air. And this was pretty much another confirmation that my eccentricities are most likely genetic. *grin* Love you, Mom and Dad...)

Oci the fabulous glamourpuss, ready for her closeup...

She was a very good kitty.

2007-02-17T03:30:13Z

Rest in peace, Oci, my stubborn little fuzzball.

Ocelette, 1993-2007.

Posting In Opposition

2007-02-14T17:14:23Z

I oppose the surge and I want our troops brought home.

Posting In Opposition
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
5am-5am PST

To contact your elected representatives:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.democrats.org/page/s/noescalation (a Democratic party petition thing to "help Republicans and Democrats stand together in Congress on this issue")