Re: [edlug] teleworking

[William Anderson <neuro@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

Nick wrote:
> [snip]
>
> So, do any of you telework, or know of any teleworking interest groups,
> especially any in the Edinburgh area?

Yeah, I've been teleworking for SmoothWall for over two years now.  The core 
parts are our IPsec VPN (using SmoothWall Corporate Server, natch) so that 
we can communicate [1] securely between all our teleworkers and our two 
offices and our telephones - we use a mixture of PSTN (with 
$insert_provider_here call grooming so I can use my own line but with a 
prefix for biz calls to save me cash) and VoIP.

The bulk of my work is done either on dev kit in one of our offices or on 
the productions servers in thdo and Reading, but I have dev servers here too 
- gets a bit noisy!

[1] we use IRC as our primary communication method, with a private server on 
our VPN and a public server for irc.smoothwall.org.  Files tend to get 
bumped around by various methods - http, scp, rsync, smb, email ... - again 
over the VPN.

Rachel Willmer wrote:
> [snip]
> - a work area and computers dedicated to the job, (e.g. not using the
> kitchen table and/or the family PC)

definitely - luckily my house has three bedrooms, two upstairs and a much 
smaller one downstairs.  I use the downstairs one as an office and computer 
room (so that I use the office space for personal purposes too - random tax 
regulations).  It's nice to just blast on some music and get working, only 
turning it down/off when the phone or the door goes.

What's also nice is if the office doesn't feel too inviting for a hour / 
couple of hours / whole day, I can camp out in the lounge with some tunes 
through the surround system, nice sunlight in through the window [2], and 
the laptop on the LAN/VPN via wifi :)

[2] my house is south facing, with the office on the north end, and the 
lounge at the south end, so it's not as bright oop north!

> [snip]
> - a good social life, or something else that gets you out of the house
> at least once every day. cabin fever is a problem

absofrickinlutely!  I must admit to missing the sense of face-to-face 
camraderie you get working in a team in a traditional office environment, 
which I did for five years before this job, so not only is the social life 
part a must, having regular in-person meetings with the people you work with 
is just as important.

--
_ __/|  William Anderson      | Brodie: The Force is strong with this one
\`O_o'  neuro at well dot com |    Jay: Dude, don't encourage him
=(_ _)= http://neuro.me.uk/   |  -- Mallrats, (1995)
   U  - Thhbt! GPG 0xFA5F1100 |
-
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