Why is a Server OS being used for day-to-day development?
I'm so glad I don't work for old-style corporate/government anymore, your story gave me bad flashbacks. XD
Do you still need to support IE7?
At home I have, from left-to-right:
23" 1080p landscape, 23" 1080p portrait, 27" 1440p landscape
At work:
24" 1920x1200 portrait, 27" 1440p landscape, 27" 1440p portrait
I had planned to replace the 23" with 27" 4K monitors, but have not bothered in the past like two years lol.
I generally sit much closer than 3 feet, maybe 1.5 feet or just over 1 foot if I'm leaning in to REALLY read something lol. Everything is scaled as default, so no issues there.
"Zooming in something like VS or SSMS just wind up with the actual text window blowing up but the rest of the screen still being tiny to see."
4K is going to make this even worse.
I certainly have coworkers that need the text sizes to be bigger in general, and they aren't even older than me... so whatever floats your boat haha. Sounds like you would like the text to be bigger and you should get it done, for your own sanity!
New Computer Build(s) #3
Moderator: victimizati0n
Re: New Computer Build(s) #3
For computers, buying cheaply and often will only leave you constantly in a world of shit.
Re: New Computer Build(s) #3
I think at the end of the day, I just need to sit closer. In general I'm usually a minimum of 24" from the screens to nearly 36". If I were to cut that down to 18" (as I lean in now towards my screen) it becomes a lot more bearable. My current desk sucks. I need a new desk that allows me to sit closer, with monitor arms. I also want to add a third monitor so I can have one in portrait mode.
Bro... you have no idea. We still basically have to support IE 5! As to why we are running server 2008 OS? I have no idea. I assume it's likely due to the way they have their domain / AD setup configured but still... no reason as to why it HAS to be that way. The reason I stay at the job is also the reason I need / want to leave it. I can literally do NOTHING for half of each sprint and still no one bats an eye. Of course, it's hard to do nothing all day but somewhat easier because I work at home. The double edge sword is that I'm not where I could be in terms of progression in the career because I'm stuck working with legacy and proprietary tech stacks, and due to being unmotivated by a few different things (stagnat raises / promotions*, often crappy morale in the company, lack of job security / stability) it's not really making me as marketable as I need or want to be.
That's all why I started doing some freelance work on more modern projects. Big jump in pay, completely new modern tech stack, co workers with a much bigger drive to mentor less experienced devs. I went pretty all out at my first (and current) day job. Really felt I knocked it out of the park as a junior dev and then entry level dev, but haven't gotten past that in going almost 3 years now. My old manager felt I was ready for engineer level 2 almost 2 full years ago but never got the bump. I consider myself a strong mid level guy who in a few years of being properly motivated and mentored could make the case for senior level.
Bro... you have no idea. We still basically have to support IE 5! As to why we are running server 2008 OS? I have no idea. I assume it's likely due to the way they have their domain / AD setup configured but still... no reason as to why it HAS to be that way. The reason I stay at the job is also the reason I need / want to leave it. I can literally do NOTHING for half of each sprint and still no one bats an eye. Of course, it's hard to do nothing all day but somewhat easier because I work at home. The double edge sword is that I'm not where I could be in terms of progression in the career because I'm stuck working with legacy and proprietary tech stacks, and due to being unmotivated by a few different things (stagnat raises / promotions*, often crappy morale in the company, lack of job security / stability) it's not really making me as marketable as I need or want to be.
That's all why I started doing some freelance work on more modern projects. Big jump in pay, completely new modern tech stack, co workers with a much bigger drive to mentor less experienced devs. I went pretty all out at my first (and current) day job. Really felt I knocked it out of the park as a junior dev and then entry level dev, but haven't gotten past that in going almost 3 years now. My old manager felt I was ready for engineer level 2 almost 2 full years ago but never got the bump. I consider myself a strong mid level guy who in a few years of being properly motivated and mentored could make the case for senior level.
Re: New Computer Build(s) #3
I think there's value in not looking at things up close as often, for the sake of your own eyes. Smartphones do enough of that to us already. That said, I don't practice what I preach. 
Doing nothing a lot is totally fine as long as you get your work done, amirite? Curious about how well your company is set up for people who work from home, career-wise... it seems easier to forget about those you never see. But I suppose if the company you work for ONLY has remote employees, then the playing field can be more even.
I used to be in government contracting and I know the feel regarding job security, stability, and ancient tech stacks. Concern back then was how much I was pigeon-holing myself the longer I stayed. Bailed on that shit and went back to Silicon Valley lol.
Would you consider relocating to work on-site somewhere?
Doing nothing a lot is totally fine as long as you get your work done, amirite? Curious about how well your company is set up for people who work from home, career-wise... it seems easier to forget about those you never see. But I suppose if the company you work for ONLY has remote employees, then the playing field can be more even.
I used to be in government contracting and I know the feel regarding job security, stability, and ancient tech stacks. Concern back then was how much I was pigeon-holing myself the longer I stayed. Bailed on that shit and went back to Silicon Valley lol.
Would you consider relocating to work on-site somewhere?
For computers, buying cheaply and often will only leave you constantly in a world of shit.
Re: New Computer Build(s) #3
I'm totally fine with a more "relaxed" environment, but to be truthful at times moral is so poor that I really struggle to get a meaningful amount done. That's since gotten better (side gig) but yeah... I'm not quite where I could be this far in due to that lack of drive. Stagnant salary and advancement will do that.... that plus the whole job security and all that. Yeah. I feel that doing nothing most of the day hurts me the most. I don't see myself ever really wanting to be in a management position, but I'd like to be a senior dev making well into the low six figures (110K-125K) in the next few years. Then I could coast my way until an early retirement around age 55 (22 years for me). I do not want to relocate.
Independent contractor is a very interesting thing though. Right now I'm actually self contracting with a group that is paying quite a bit higher than I'd ever made before... just shy of double to be exact. It's basically west coast pay on east coast living. I'm not holding my breath that I'll get the raise and promotion I deserve, but part of me taking the Independent contracting job is to prove to myself I could earn more money and could get another job if I needed / wanted it. Might sound silly, but that self validation process was a bit scary since my one and only job out of college was in ancient tech with a proprietary API on top of it, and no significant advancement in 6 years kinda paints a bad picture on me as a dev... worried that companies would see that and pass on me. I'm in a position now where I am the sole income in the house and even though it is (before side gig money) fairly low for a dev, it's a lot more compared to the average "easy to get" job around here. So much so that if I were to lose this job, I'd be screwed. That's why I've been saving money like crazy, to be able to give myself at least 3 to 6 months to find more work should the day ever come I lose the old day job and am no longer self contracting for whatever reason.
Independent contractor is a very interesting thing though. Right now I'm actually self contracting with a group that is paying quite a bit higher than I'd ever made before... just shy of double to be exact. It's basically west coast pay on east coast living. I'm not holding my breath that I'll get the raise and promotion I deserve, but part of me taking the Independent contracting job is to prove to myself I could earn more money and could get another job if I needed / wanted it. Might sound silly, but that self validation process was a bit scary since my one and only job out of college was in ancient tech with a proprietary API on top of it, and no significant advancement in 6 years kinda paints a bad picture on me as a dev... worried that companies would see that and pass on me. I'm in a position now where I am the sole income in the house and even though it is (before side gig money) fairly low for a dev, it's a lot more compared to the average "easy to get" job around here. So much so that if I were to lose this job, I'd be screwed. That's why I've been saving money like crazy, to be able to give myself at least 3 to 6 months to find more work should the day ever come I lose the old day job and am no longer self contracting for whatever reason.
Re: New Computer Build(s) #3
So updates.... got a promotion to SE 2 and... a "raise" but IMO pretty small one. Also a decent jump in terms of the job description and what's expected, but that's fine. It's all stuff I'm capable of and I wanted / needed the title more than anything in terms of my career.
Side gig going very well, earning really nice money and getting lots of good experience.
Also, my X370 will now run the corsair vengance LXP sticks at their full rated 3200mhz! BIOS update... so it could have been like that from day one... but oh well, they run nice on the XMP 2 profile at full rated speeds!
Just a touch over 2 years in, and this build seems pretty adequate still. I do plan to replace this radeon HD 5870 with something much more modern. I also plan to bump up from a 500GB SSD to a 1TB SSD. Down to 50GB free on the 500GB... might go with an nvme PCI-E based SSD. My T480 has one... boot times are, nice. It seems to be noticably faster, which is kind of impressive given how fast even a normal sata SSD feels. But I can feel the difference on the PCI-E based drive too. I was planning for this build to have the shortest lifespan yet. So far this thing still feels like day 1. I can't envision that changing really. But by the time the 4th Gen ryzen chips come out I'll probably be ready to move on.
Side gig going very well, earning really nice money and getting lots of good experience.
Also, my X370 will now run the corsair vengance LXP sticks at their full rated 3200mhz! BIOS update... so it could have been like that from day one... but oh well, they run nice on the XMP 2 profile at full rated speeds!
Just a touch over 2 years in, and this build seems pretty adequate still. I do plan to replace this radeon HD 5870 with something much more modern. I also plan to bump up from a 500GB SSD to a 1TB SSD. Down to 50GB free on the 500GB... might go with an nvme PCI-E based SSD. My T480 has one... boot times are, nice. It seems to be noticably faster, which is kind of impressive given how fast even a normal sata SSD feels. But I can feel the difference on the PCI-E based drive too. I was planning for this build to have the shortest lifespan yet. So far this thing still feels like day 1. I can't envision that changing really. But by the time the 4th Gen ryzen chips come out I'll probably be ready to move on.
Re: New Computer Build(s) #3
Congrats on the raise!
I agree that computer performance has gotten pretty solid and pretty much feel the same over the past ... many years. I'm entirely sure that if my 8 core was replaced with a quad core, I wouldn't even notice.
Of course, compile times and video encoding and other intensive tasks might benefit, but for most use cases, anything modern is fine.
I do have some weird issue with my desktop though... where doing things like refreshing Gmail in one tab can cause YouTube in another tab to freeze long enough for the audio to cut out.. been like this for at least half a year by now and I have no idea what to do.
Makes me want to build a new PC just to see if its something about the hardware, or something about the sites/software I use...
I agree that computer performance has gotten pretty solid and pretty much feel the same over the past ... many years. I'm entirely sure that if my 8 core was replaced with a quad core, I wouldn't even notice.
Of course, compile times and video encoding and other intensive tasks might benefit, but for most use cases, anything modern is fine.
I do have some weird issue with my desktop though... where doing things like refreshing Gmail in one tab can cause YouTube in another tab to freeze long enough for the audio to cut out.. been like this for at least half a year by now and I have no idea what to do.
Makes me want to build a new PC just to see if its something about the hardware, or something about the sites/software I use...
For computers, buying cheaply and often will only leave you constantly in a world of shit.