Technology


Q-SKY Radio – No Static at All 1

I am looking for a few “friends” or if you were part of WVIN back in the late 80’s or at WCEB during the 1986 -1987 semesters and would like to help out and get on the air and have some fun.

Do you have a topic you want to talk about or a genre of music you want to get others hearing, or maybe go live with a podcast you are involved with then reach out to me at wbilancio@qskyradio.com.

I would prefer people in the Corning area to start with, but am open to others in other locations if you have a good idea for a show.

The format of Q-SKY is going to be a mix of talk and freeform music radio, but we will have to follow the DCMA rules for streaming radio stations to stay legal. All rules and broadcast information will be explained if you are interested in doing a show. This is all voluntary and not a paying gig so don’t quit your day job to do this.

I just ask that anyone interested be willing to give me at least six months of shows and not flake out on me and just disappear. I want to get a very robust and fun schedule and get some listeners other than our parents and relatives. 🙂

I want to start broadcasting Q-SKY Radio in the first part of the new year to get things set up and get some ideas fleshed out.


Thank you Google

I have been down a lot lately and I was flipping around on the TV and the ad for Google+ Hangouts came on and made me smile and lift me out of my funk.  It is now my number one favorite on YouTube.  It combines the Muppets and Queen..and features ANimAAL….how cool is that?

So if you are down this will lift you up.

Thanks Google!

https://youtu.be/JrM0qzRA6Vw


WordPress Development and WordCamp

blue-mI have been doing a lot of work with WordPress and helping some of my customers setup there presence on the Internet with the software.  We use WordPress for the Professional IT Community Conference web site and have just started scratching the surface of what we can do with it.  I have found that there are so many ways to get things done with WordPress. 

On Saturday November 5, 2011 I went to my first WordCamp in Philly. It was a good conference and the price was right.  The conference cost was $20 and the parking was $14 so a full day conference for $34 is a good deal.  So for my $20 I got an ok t-shirt and a full day of talks on how to make WordPress better as well as how to make my blogging better.

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Now for the down side of the conference….the WIRELESS Network! WordCamp was held at Temple University and you would think the wireless network of Temple could take the load of about 450 people.  The network kept dropping throughout the day.  This is the sort of thing that is a BIG pet peeve for me.  I know that I am supposed to be there to learn new things but I also like to be able to put what I am learning right into effect on a test site and if the wireless is down I can’t do that.  The other thing about the network that got me a little upset was that the network ports weren’t “open”.  I don’t use standard ports for my SSH services on any of my servers and because the network had only port 80 open I couldn’t get to my servers. 
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Other then the Wireless Network the conference was great.  I was able to hang out with my buddy John Lemasney for the day and catch up and hear what he is doing with WordPress and what’s going on in his life.  I am already putting some of what I learned from the 2011 Philly WordCamp into effect on my clients sites. 

So if you work with WordPress you need to go to a WordCamp.  To see if you have a WordCamp in your area check out WordCamp Central.


What would my grandfather Louis G Bilancio have done with the technology of today?

This was written as an article for my family newspaper La Vigna.  It appeared in the Fall Issue 2011.

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imageMy cousin John and I were talking the other day how people at work don’t like change. We have some 40 something’s that don’t like us making any changes to there computers or other devices at all. After a lengthy discussion we both came to the conclusion that if our grandfather Louis G Bilancio was still alive he wouldn’t be bothered by the new technology of the day, in fact he would have embraced this technology.

So let’s take a look at some of the new technology that has matured and developed since his death that Lou would have picked up and used to their fullest advantage to make his life better and more productive and enjoyable.

The Cordless Telephone: He would have embraced the cordless telephone with both hands and run with it. It would have given him the ability to take or make calls anywhere in the house by breaking his tie from the phone with its 50 foot cord tying him to the kitchen as well as saving anyone in his way from having the cord wrapped around them as he walked and talked.

The Personal Digital Assistant (PDA): The PDA would have revolutionized the way he took notes, scheduled his appointments and kept his contact information. He was the first person his grandkids knew that had a “little black” book with all his contacts in it. I am sure he would have gone digital with one of the first PDA devices or the Apple Newton. By retiring the book and the calendar hanging in the kitchen by putting all his contacts and appointments on the device

The Cell Phone: The Cordless phone and the PDA would have had him adopting the Cell Phone as his main calling device. But he would have waited till they got smaller than the first cell phones which were huge devices. Being able to combine the power of the cordless phone and adding the ability to make or take a call anywhere at any time would have been like gold to him and adding the contacts of the PDA to the phone would have made the world Lou’s office.

But those three technologies pale next to the next three technological advances.

The Personal Computer (PC): A lot of our childhood memories of Lou were of him sitting at the kitchen table with all his papers spread out while he worked and wrote his letters and papers. The PC would have been a game changer for all of his writing and note taking. Of course Lou would probably always be the type that would want more power and be upgrading all the time. John and I both think that at the beginning of his jump into the personal computer world he would have been working in a PC/windows world but would have moved and now be working in the Apple Mac world. No matter what kind he took to he would have many, a desktop to do the heavy work in his office and a laptop for working in the kitchen in the back yard or on the patio or at some undisclosed location.

E-Mail: Many of you probably didn’t realize that e-mail came out before the Internet took off with the start of computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and companies like CompuServe and AOL and we are sure that he would have had e-mail. Because like the telephone and the written letter in the past, e-mail would have become his main means of communication to all family members and the rest of his crew (Yes Lou would have had a crew of many of his friends). E-mail would have opened up a new frontier for him in the world of Italian/American relations. We are sure he would have had many e-mail addresses depending on the project and the amount of SPAM he got.

THE INTERNET: We feel this would have been the biggest With a grandson who was on the “grid” before most people in the Bilancio family he would have been right there with him exploring the new frontier of this new world. He would have had many web sites and pages for all his projects and ideas that he was working on. We feel that he would have been the first to get personal domain (louisgbilancio.org) and then moved all his projects and e-mail addresses to it. First in the family to have and online blog you bet. Would it have taken him long to get caught up in the social media craze…no it wouldn’t. J How would you feel to get a Tweet or a Facebook poke from him. We think it would have been great. The Internet would have been a place to work with his brother in-law Lou on getting the family history together and getting the family tree fleshed out with as much information as he could find. It would have probably changed the way he did his research and we are sure that many new ideas and projects would have come from him surfing the net. I bet he would have finally found a way to make those Cannolis for New Year’s Eve with all the directions on how to make them on the internet.

Smart Phone: With the advent of the smart phone he would have up graded to one to be able to combine all four of the big technologies (Cell Phone, E-mail, Computer, and the Internet) into a small mobile device that could fit in his pocket. He would have everything he needed at any of his many meetings and classes at his fingertips. Outings and dinner with him would never have been the same.

To make sure he got the most out of all this technology he would need a few things to make it all work together. So he would have the following put together for his use and for the rest of the family.

A Home Network: With all these computers and devices that he would own he would want to have a way to reach the internet and store his stuff from anywhere on his property. So he would turn to his IT team to come up with a Wi-Fi and cabled network as well as a server farm to hold all his papers and notes and media files.

An IT Team: The team would consist of his son in law Dean Acquaviva as the team lead and Apple Product support, his grandsons William Bilancio and John Johnson for his network and infrastructure (home network, cell phone and servers and programing) support. The team would of course be on call 24/7 because he was an early riser and late to bed kind of guy and the team would have done it without a complaint or grimace.

After this look at some of the technology that probably would have changed the way Lou did things and how he would have blazed a trail for those family members following in his path to this new world of technology and change. Would he have gotten more of his generation working these new things we think so. Would he have embraced more than we have brought up, we hope he would have and we know that he would never complain about the changes, he would enjoy and embrace them like he did life.


Do I need a mentor and if so how do I find one?

I have been working for the past 20 years in the IT field, and in all that time I have never had one person I would go to for advice.  At times in the past year I have felt that I have been floundering in my work life.  For the last 11 years at my current job I really don’t have anyone who I can go talk to in the company about IT issues or management help since I am the IT department.   I work with both Windows and Linux and do desktop support and do all the paper work and budgeting for the department. 

I really don’t how to get a mentorship relationship set up or how to find a person that wants to be my mentor.  I know that LOPSA has a great mentorship program going, but it’s mostly on project by project basis, but I don’t need that at this point.  I am looking for a mentor to guide and point me in the right direction on improving my work life.

So if you have any ideas on how I can find a mentor or are interested in becoming my mentor please get in touch.


After six months and a ton of e-mail it’s over

img_1625 After six months of planning and tons of e-mail the Professional IT Community Conference 2010 is done.  We had over 80 registrants and everyone seemed to enjoy the conference.  Now that the it’s over I took a long look at my e-mail and realized that I had over 250 e-mails in my inbox.  As the planning of the conference moved forward I was real good at labeling and filing all conference e-mails, but in the first few weeks I wasn’t that good at it and a bunch of the first ones sat at the bottom of the pile.  So this morning I decided to start organizing and replying to and trashing all the email in my inbox.  After two hours of this I am down to two e-mails in my inbox… Yea me.

As I make the final payments to my people and hotel and get things finished for this years conference, I am going to take about two months off before starting the planning of next years conference.  I am looking for a conference chair to take over the running of the 2011 conference so I can focus on the back end planning (dealing with AH, the hotel, LOPSA board) and the training track for next year.

This conference couldn’t have come together without the great group of volunteers who came together and worked hard to make this a local and community building conference that was a great success.  I couldn’t have done it without you so thank you for all you guys did.


Getting a NJ System Administrator conference up and running

I have been busy working on a project that has taken up a lot of my time in the past few weeks, the LOPSA-NJ Professional IT Community Conference 2010.

Back at LISA ‘09 in Baltimore, I had a sit down with one of the other NJ System Administrators and we discussed what was the problem with the system administrators group that we belonged to an how to help fix it.  The problem we saw that the League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA) had was getting there name out and getting new members.  So out of this conversation over a few beers as well as pulling in another fellow NJ SA we came up with the LOPSA-NJ Professional IT Community Conference 2010 (PICC ‘10) to be held in New Brunswick, NJ on May 7th and 8th. 

We came back from Baltimore and jumped right in by finding a location and picking a date and forming the committee to work on getting the conference off the ground.  We have gotten 2 sponsors so far, 10 trainers and training classes, 3 keynote speakers and are now working on getting the Invited Talks and submitted papers together.

The training classes range from how to write better documentation, how to better manage your time, disk virtualization, automation with Perl as well as a class on automation with Powershell, as well as IT Policy writing and the tools to move from being a junior system administer to a senior administrator and more. 

The 3 keynotes we have scheduled are David N. Blank-Edelman on Friday night giving his "Through the Lens Geekly: How SysAdmins are Portrayed in Pop Culture?", Tom Limoncelli on Saturday morning and Eden Haber closing out the conference on Saturday afternoon with his “System Administrators in the Wild, What We’ve Learned from Watching You!” talk. 

The conference schedule is made up of 8 Training class on Friday and 2 on Saturday.  On Friday night will be the Conference Dinner and then the opening keynote followed by a movie. We haven’t gotten the movie figured out yet.  Saturday will also have the invited talks and submitted papers as well as a room set up for unconference topics.

Saturday will start with another keynote and then followed by the papers, invited talks and unconference tracks.  It’s shaping up to be a great conference.  We are hoping to get at least 150 local system administrators to attend.  If you are a NJ/PA/NY System Administrator and are interested then check out the website http://www.picconf.org and save the dates May 7th – 8th 2010.  Oh yea registration for PICC ‘10 opened up yesterday so to register go here.


Cool picture and the need for a small good camera

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So this morning I had to take some photos for work for a proposal. I had to use my bosses camera, a Canon A2000 IS. It was easy to use and had a good size LCD display and the pictures came out well (because we all know it’s all about the camera, not the photographer). The one thing I didn’t like about it was that the SD card was in the battery compartment on the bottom of the camera, so I dropped the batteries out when I need to take the card out. I took this photo of the stuff on one of the admins desk. It turned out real well and the color was great and it just looked good.

I have a Pentax digital SLR that I got as barter payment for a mail server build job I did. I love taking pictures with it, but the problem with it is..it’s to big and not easy to just carry around and have with me in my bag to take a quick shot when one presents itself. I try to take my daughters camera out with me once in a while but she doesn’t like to give it up without a fight. So the next time I have a little extra money I am thinking of getting a Cannon PowerShot SD1100 IS. I like that they are small, light and have a quick write speed. Now my birthday is right around the corner on the 19th, so if one of you fine readers want to get me one as a present that would be great.

Till next time…..


Pet Peeve about other web sites and fixed the issue on my own.

I have come to hate web sites that don’t give me the option to e-mail the article or a link to the article. I follow a lot of websites/blogs through Google Reader and if the article is something I think is worth sending to a friend or family member I like to send right from the site. Most times the site will send a little synopsis of the article which is more then I would do if I just sent the link from my mail client. This way if the recipient likes what he/she reads then they can continue or trash the e-mail.

So as I was fuming about this the other day I realized I didn’t have that option on my own site so I went and fixed that with a plugin for WordPress. So enjoy.


Thinking of 15 albums just wasn’t enough for me.

It started with an e-mail from Facebook stating that I was tagged by my buddy Brian Jones on a note he wrote on his face book page.

Think of 15 albums, CDs, LPs (if you’re over 40) that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wasu, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then when you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good.

Well I came up with the following 15 albums:

1. Beatles – Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. Billy Joel – Piano Man
3. The Blues Brothers – Briefcase Full of Blues
4. Kinks – Give the People What They Want
5. The Allman Brothers – Eat a Peach
6. The Nails – Mood Swing
7. Steely Dan – Aja
8. Wings – Wings Across America
9. The Who – Who’s Next
10. Web Wilder – Doo Dad
11. The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers
12. Sam & Dave – The Best of Sam & Dave
13. Huey Lewis & News – Fore
14. Supertramp – Breakfast in America
15. Boomtown Rats’ – A Tonic for the Troops

But with my back ground of radio and also the fact that there wasn’t much to do in Bath NY in the winter as well as being a member of the Columbia Recod Club..I had just so many more albums that had influenced my life. On my ride home form work I came up with at least 10 more and by the time I sat down and really thougth about it I came up with a total of 55 albums that had such a profound effect on me. This list is in no order except for the first 2 albums, they were the first albums I ever owned and listend to and effected me. This list is not complete in my mind because I am still being effected by new music and albums as well as I keep thinking of other albums I use to listened to…I still haven’t gone to the basement and gone through my many cases of vinyl. So enjoy the list of “The Albums that have influenced my life from the early 70’s and onward.”