-------------------------------- INTERVIEW WITH ROGER KRESGE| -------------------------------- I am humbled by Roger Kresge. My main business is network and computer consulting and in my main business I am the terminator. I'm the guy they call when they've tried everything and can't fix it. Roger is the guy I call when I can't figure it out So, why do you care we are interviewing Roger? Well, he not only possesses the knowledge of three normal people, but he freely shares this information on various messages forums such as RIME and Usenet. He never tires of answering the same questions again and again and is never at a a loss with a possible solution. It is because of people like Roger that the on-line world is prospering and growing. Well, Roger and private chat rooms You can contact Roger at roger.kresge@labb.com! PG: You are quite a qualified fellow professionally. Can you list your qualifications and describe them? With the Novell qualifications can you touch upon what it took to make it there? RK: Novell CNA, CNE, ECNE and CNI. Soon to be Master CNE as well. 4+ years learning PCs starting as a hobbyist, then into telephone tech support (and network specialist), and finally as a systems engineer and classroom instructor. I found that I was very interested in networking, so worked extremely hard at learning everything I could get my hands on. Most of the knowledge that goes into the certifications is self-taught and/or based on much field experience. In addition to the certifications I've had articles published in trade magazines like "Network Administrator", and co-authored a self-teaching book (yet to be published) on obtaining a Novell CNE. PG: What is the question you are asked most when it comes to supporting a NetWare network? Why do you think folks ask it? RK: I don't think there is any one question, but I see an awful lot of people who don't bother to read the manuals. I think they expect that managing a NetWare network and file server will be something they can play around with until they get it right, and they forget that their company's entire operation is riding on the availability of their network. Guesswork doesn't work. PG: Obviously you don't answer questions on-line for a living. What do you do for a living? RK: Primarily spend my time working as a Consulting Engineer for Inacom Information Systems in Lancaster/Harrisburg, PA. I consult on the design, implementation, installation, configuration, maintenance, etc., of customer networks large and small. I've worked on everything from "mom and pop" shop 5 node networks to Fortune 500 multinational networks. PG: Do you think the direction Novell is taking is good or bad? RK: Yes. Seriously, there is good and bad in everything. They make great products, but can't market for squat. Microsoft makes pathetic to mediocre products but has an incredible marketing machine. I'd like to think that quality product will succeed over marketing hype, but I'm also afraid the hype may win out in the end. PG: There have been recent changes in the CNE program. Is this how you would have changed it to make it better? If so, why? If not, why? RK I'd have gone to the current "performance-based" testing years ago. I'm glad Novell has added an across-the-board requirement for certification in NDS for all future CNE candidates. PG: Describe some of your hands on networking experience in real life. What was the most challenging installation you have wrestled with? RK: That's gotta be the 60-site frame relay network I helped build for a two-county consortium of public school systems. It included routing requirements for Appletalk using AURP, TCP/IP primarily for management, allowance for IPX in the future, and was required to bridge LAT. The hardest part of it may have been designing the addressing scheme. But then again, it may have been even more difficult getting educators to understand and cooperate with my company's need to make a profit (i.e., my team was not on an unlimited time budget). PG: What hobbies do you have? RK: Computers, reading science fiction, and I'd like to get into model railroading when my younger son finally moves out to go to college next year. PG: What is your home computer setup like? Do you have a LAN at home? If so, describe it. RK: I've got a NetWare v4.1 file server running on a NEC Powermate 386-16, 10Base2 with a spare connection for my Compaq Aero laptop, plus a 486DX2-66 that I built myself from parts. The network is primarily used for testing and experimenting. PG: What type of music do you like? What groups? RK: In my previous career I was a radio personality/disc jockey for nearly 20 years. My preference leans toward oldies, but my car radio is tuned to the local classical music station. I can't stand most commercial radio that I hear today, so I don't listen to it. PG: What sports do you like? Why? RK: To watch, hockey (Philadelphia Flyers and the AHL's Hershey Bears), baseball, football. To play, I used to play a lot of tennis. Today I coach a slow-pitch softball team in the local church league, and play pitcher and first base. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK | Interesting people you should know about . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Robert Moskowitz is a pioneer. As head of the American Telecommuting Association, he is working to make the next wave of employment opportunities home or remote based instead of site based. You can contact Robert at robertam@ix.netcom.com. PG: The American Telecommuting Association is catching a new wave. When did the organization start and how? RM: The organization was conceived during 1991 and 1992, and formally launched in February of 1993. It accepted its first members in August of 1993. PG: What are some of the benefits available to members of ATA? RM: Members receive the ATA newsletter, plus a free copy of either Volume 1 (How To Increase Your Personal Effectiveness and Job Satisfaction By Telecommuting) or Volume 2 (How To Increase Your Effectiveness and Satisfaction As a Telecommuter Through Advanced Techniques) of the Official ATA Handbook. Members also receive a coupon which enables them to purchase the Handbook's second volume at a 60% discount. If you pay $10 extra when you join, the second volume will automatically be included in your Handbook binder when you first receive it. Members automatically receive the loose-leaf directory of services and benefits to which they are entitled, plus regular packets of service updates, information on telecommuting, and ongoing developments at the American Telecommuting Association. As you can imagine, the best way to keep in touch with the ATA and to remain ab breast of all our services, information, benefits, and activities is to become a member. Employers are also finding it valuable to join the ATA directly or to subsidize the ATA memberships of their telecommuting employees. PG: What are ATA's main goals? RM: To provide whatever information, services, and products our members and potential members will find most useful to make telecommuting a better, more productive and enjoyable experience they can maintain for a lifetime, if they wish. PG: Relate your own telecommuting experience. RM: My last "commute" ended in 1970. I began working as a writer for various magazine nes and other publishers, doing as much of my work as possible without going in to their office. As a "time management" consultant I spent a lot of time and energy finding ways to make people more productive, and traveled all over the US and Canada giving seminars and doing consulting engagements. Th ats just how my mind works. Eventually, I tired of it and developed a computerized "audit" that would do much of my work, but at a distance, and also wrote a book published by Doubleday: "How To Organize Your Work and Your Life." Later, when I became interested specifically in telecommuting, I realized that all my thinking on how to be more productive as an em employee applied even better to telecommuters. Now I avoid travel whenever I can, but I still find that meetings and conferences require personal attendance. So I'm traveling more than I wish, but consider it an investment in future non-travel opportunities. I have even been asked to speak in Europe t wo or three times a year, and in fact I just returned from a speaking engagement in Austria. PG: What are some of the issues corporations address when deploying Telecommuters? RM: There are too many to list here, but top motivations to accept telecommuting by employees include recruitment, retention of key employees who are tired of commuting, productivity, dramatic savings in "bricks and mortar" investments and expenses. Main anxieties include fear of employee isolation, management's fear of malingering by telecommuters, concerns about data security an d insurance issues, and just not knowing much about it. A practical concern is that once a few people begin telecommuting, others want to do i t, also. There's usually a groundswell in favor of it, but from the bottom, not from the top -- not until management sees the financial analysis. Then they want it, too. PG: What are the necessary hardware components needed to be a telecommuter? RM: All you really need is a pad, a pencil, and perhaps a telephone. Telecommuting is not really about technology. But of course if you use any technology to do y our work in the office, that same technology would be a help to you when telecommuting from home or a nearby telework center. PG: What do you do for fun when you aren't working? RM: My work is fun. But I like hiking in the woods, taking vacations by car with my family, reading, and just sitting in the sun if it's not too hot. PG: What do you see as the future of telecommuting? RM: Inevitably, all of us will become comfortable with telecommuting. If you think about it, dragging people to a centralized place of work is a relatively recent and short-lived phenomenon, mainly since the Industrial Revolution, although there were earlier "pre-factories" where people came to get raw materials and deliver finished piecework. But most work has always been done at home, on the farm, in decentralized settings. Telecommuting is simply a return to a lifestyle that makes more sense, and it's inevitable because use we can no longer afford to costs of centralizing labor and equipment. PG: What is your personal computing environment like? What type of machines, peripherals, etc. RM: I use generic clones most of the time, but I just got an IBM "butterfly" portable that I think I like even more. Computers tied to desks are a bit clumsy, don't you think? As long as the keyboard and screen are acceptable to me, a computer should be no bigger than a calculator, or a wristwatch. I'm online a couple of hours a day with various Internet connections and online services, and then I spend more hours responding to material I get from others via online connections, and preparing materials to send to others via online services. My phone bills are astronomical, even though I try to make local calls as often as possible. PG: What is the key for total acceptance of telecommuting? RM: Give it a fair trial, and youll never go back. When you stop, step back, and really think about all the lost time, energy, money, trouble, agitation, inconvenience, pollution,waste of non-renewable resources, and everything else required of a lifestyle where you're dragging yourself to a distant location to work, and dragging yourself home again, it's ridiculous. I have a ten second commute, and I can work any hour of the day or night th at I have something useful to contribute. And I can stop any time and help my kids with homework, or drive them to an appointment. It's the most natural and productive lifestyle you can imagine. Why would anyone do it any other way? The only answer is they just don't know any better. But they will learn. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK | Interesting people you should know about . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Games Editor, | Doug Reed, dreed@panda.uchc.edu | --------------------------------- "I was born in February of 1966 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the last of four children. I was an army brat, moving from place to place, living in Fort Hood, Texas and Heidelberg, Germany. In 1975 my father retired from active service and we moved back to Oklahoma to stay. After high school I attended Oklahoma State University, where I received a bachelors and masters of science in microbiology. From there I moved to Dallas, where I attended the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and received my Ph.D. in Immunology a scant 6 months ago. It was in Dallas that I met my wife and that my daughter, Allison, was born in February of this year. In June we moved to Connecticut, where I am now working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut." "I grew up on the original Atari games and in the early 1980s received my very first personal computer, the VIC-20. I was hooked. It wasn't long until I committed my first upgrade, selling the old VIC-20 to get the all-new, super-cool Commodore 64. Laugh if you will, but that C-64 was a great computer. I learned how to do word processing on it, and the games that were made for it were light years ahead of anything produced for the IBM-PC until the end of the 1980s. Classics like Impossible Mission, Project Stealth Fighter, Gunship, and MULE, made me a computer gaming fanatic for life. Unlike most people, I like a variety of games, including both strategy, wargames, and action games. About a year and a half ago I met Patrick through my brother-in-law Roger Klein, who co-founded the original Cybernews with Patrick and signed me on as a reviewer. When Patrick converted Cybernews to Compunotes, I stayed on as a reviewer although my reviews have not always covered games. I hope you enjoy our efforts, and I heartily thank you for reading Compunotes!" ------------------------------- Paul Ferrill, Languages Editor| ferrill@teas.eglin.af.mil | ------------------------------- "Paul Ferrill holds a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida and works for Sverdrup Technology at Eglin Air Force Base. He writes regular reviews for InfoWorld covering networking hardware and software in addition to other odds and ends. He's also written for PC Magazine, PC/Computing, Home Office Computing, Federal Computer Week and several other small publications. He has six computers running various operating systems including Windows 95, Windows for Workgroups, Novell NetWare 3.12 and 4.1, Windows NT 3.51, Linux, and plain old DOS (POD). He's fluent in C, FORTRAN, Ada, BASIC, Pascal and various Assembly languages. Current interests include HTML and WWW-oriented things, JAVA, TCL/TK, and object-oriented databases. --------------------------- Judy Litt, Graphics Editor| Jlitt@aol.com | --------------------------- "Judy Litt is the owner of QuaLitty Design, a graphic design company that specializes in making small companies look good. QuaLitty Design specializes in logo, advertising, and web page design. Judy has been writing software and book reviews for CompuNotes since its beginning, as well as for other publications such as The INK Spot and The Electronic Bookshelf. She's thrilled to be the webmaster and graphics editor for CompuNotes, since this will help her stay on the bleeding edge of technology. Reach Judy at 73621.400@compuserve.com, qualitty@aol.com, qualitty@msn.com, or qualitty@gnn.com." ------------------------------------- Dennis MacPhereson, Utilities Editor| pctc@infi.net | ------------------------------------- "My name is Dennis MacPherson and I am a consultant/trainer with a company I helped get started called the PC Training Corporation." I have an MSA in Operations Research from George Washington University ('81) and a BS in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts ('72). I built my first computer in 1978. It was a kit from Heath/Zenith. Since then, I've used PCs as a Systems Analyst for the Government, taught hundreds of computer classes for local community colleges and universities, and written scores of applications in Fortran, Pascal, and Basic; now I'm building Web pages for our clients on the Internet. As the Utilities Editor, I'll have the opportunity to find and evaluate new and useful tools for the benefit of CompuNotes' readers. Computer users everywhere (business, industry, government, and at home) have always sought those handy little programs that make doing things on a PC just that much easier or faster. Programs like PKZIP, Sidekick, and Stacker will always have a place on our hard drives. It will be my job to sort through the hundreds of new shareware, freeware, and commercial programs being developed by smart young programmers from around the world. I'll look for the best utilities in terms of their usefulness, ease of use, and cost. Then I'll pass on the news to you. I also hope to interview some interesting people along the way. I'll find out who's doing what and where we can expect the next great applications to come from. I'll be doing this because I love the business. With my experience in computers, I'll be able to sift through the fluff and uncover the real gems. I know what its like to try and write some of these "simple" utilities, so I know what to look for. I hope my reviews attract lots of attention so that people on the Internet make it a habit to read CompuNotes." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK | Interesting people you should know about . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internet Web Rambler, | Raymond Hines, (solari@gate.net)| --------------------------------- Greetings, readers. I'm Raymond Hines III, but better known as Ray or "Solari" on the net. I'm a Florida native, having been born in Daytona Beach on October 21, 1967. I currently reside in Sarasota, Florida and plan on getting hitched (married!) this coming May 18th to my fiance of 8 years! As for education, I attended several colleges, such as New College, the University of Florida, and a few community colleges to round things out. I've recently started my own company, called, "DreamStates Digi-Publishing" that publishes electronic magazines for bulletin board systems, especially those with graphical interfaces. I'm also getting into the Internet Access/Webmaster business in a few months. I guess I consider myself a "Net Vet" since I've been on the Internet since 1983, using a lovely Commodore 64 at the time as well as the school's computer printer-terminals (no CRTs!). Now, I sport a Pentium and an even lovelier Amiga computer to keep on computing. It's amazing how much the face of the Internet has changed, especially with the encroaching commercialism. It's somewhat sad to see this, but then again, it's to be expected with any "hot" medium, and it could even benefit us further in the form of free access to the Internet, etc. As for my position here as the officially designated "Web Rambler," I'll be rambling around the net looking for web sites to review as well as checking out software that's made for use with the Internet. If you've got any particularly interesting web sites for me to look at, or have some software you'd like me to review that's for the Internet, do email me at solari@gate.net. I'm looking forward to writing for COMPUNOTES and am very honored to be a part of it, thanks to Patrick Grote. þ