ken barber

Tutored clerical temps to use word processing software

Hired for a project.

Taught Linux system administration

One of the best companies I ever worked for. We had the contract to do desktop support at Intel's Oregon facilities. All of the managers were former techs who had worked their way up the ranks and knew what we techs were dealing with day-to-day. We were highly respected by management and were encouraged to get all the training we could handle. Sadly, Entex Corp. got the contract after I'd been there only six months. The difference between them and FOTI was like night and day. After six months of Extex, very few of the original FOTI techs were still there.

In the Northern Idaho / western Montana logging industry of that time, a Hooker performed the task of hooking logs with a pair of tongs so that the logs could be yarded uphill to a landing and subsequently loaded onto a log truck. Only one log was skidded at a time. It was dangerous work, and not suitable for anyone over the age of 30. I mention this position here because most of my friends will get a Big Kick out of hearing that I used to be a Hooker.

They were a Windows shop that needed to get a Linux infrastructure built. I built it.

The laziest, most incompetent people I have ever worked with -- and the incompetence went all the way to the top. Nobody (with one exception, and he died) had the foggiest clue how to do his job. I was expected to cover for their incompetence. Vulgar sexual talk and obscene language were an everyday occurrence. Nobody knew how to make anything actually work, or cared to learn how: consultants were brought in for that. The only thing employees did was maintenance. And gossip. The annual disaster recovery drills were faked because no one knew how to restore the systems from backups. The most unprofessional environment I have ever worked in.

Phone support tech for server products (e.g., motherboards, RAID controllers, etc.). Intel is a horrible place to work. Do not ever go there. I went there because I was in Oregon, where there are no jobs, and I needed the work. Thankfully, it was only a one-year contract.

Desktop support during the waning days of DOS/Windows 3.1 and the nascence of Windows 95. Ah, those were the days... back when you actually had to KNOW something about computers to make them work. Yep, we had to walk barefoot through the snow, at 9600 baud BOTH WAYS...

aka "Scream International" and/or "Warm Yellow Stream" 'coz that's basically the way they treated their employees. I was on the Windows 95 support team on Launch Day. Wouldn't have missed it for the world. Those were heady days indeed.

Tested new prototype desktop motherboards for hardware compatibility (i.e., with sound cards, video cards, SCSI controllers, etc.) I tested the first 100 MHz Pentium motherboard in existence! We were awed... 100 MHz was faster than anyone had ever seen or even heard of, and nobody knew just what would happen. My co-workers were curious, and crowded around as I turned on the power for the first time. Man, that seems like a LONG time ago, looking back.... It was there that I was introduced to the Internet -- and Linux. Slackware, and it came on about 30 floppies. Kernel 0.9-dot something.

A short project to migrate physical and some virtual servers to a cloud infrastructure.

Qforma, for whom I've been working for the past year, was bought out by Qpharma late in 2015. I continue to administer the Linux servers for the New Mexico office.

Learned science & math Activities and Societies: Stage band, forensics, science fair, photography club