On burnout.

Bruce Byfield has published an article on burnout in community projects, to which I was happy to contribute some thoughts. Overall I believe the thoughts people shared in that article, while not surprising or radical, can help people avoid putting themselves in a burnout situation. Moreover, they can potentially help someone realize that a friend may need a helping hand before they run smack-dab into burnout themselves.

One of the striking (but again, not surprising) bits Bruce wrote in the article was this:

The stress may be increased because the first generations of community members are now well into middle-age, and some are starting to have trouble working the hours to which they are accustomed, either because of reduced stamina or family obligations.

This statement really hit home with me, because in a very time-compressed way I went through a seismic shift in my work/life balance twice in just the space of a couple years. I was feeling somewhat in a confessional mood today, so I figured I’d try and write about my brush with burnout in an honest and not overly edited way. Like Linus, I don’t think I ever really hit a wall. Whether by luck or conscious introspection, I was able to avoid that disaster. But I did see it approaching in the distance, and maybe an explanation of what I did about it will help someone else who sees a reflection in my story.

I started in FOSS long after the very early, pioneering days. I joined the Fedora Project in 2003, by which point my wife and I were already expecting our second child. Since I was more of a homebody by that point, I found it convenient to work in a community software project. I was already hanging around the house more than I used to, but now I could plop down with a laptop and do something extra for my fellow man at night or on the weekend. Meanwhile, my day job was fairly regular, and no remote work was possible, so my work ended when I left the office.

Taking a job with Red Hat made open source the focus for most of my waking hours starting in 2008. By then my son was 4, my daughter was almost 7, and there was plenty to get done every single day on both the home and work fronts. During the next two and a half years, my work schedule became radically different. 12-14 hour days were the norm, and still there was always more to do. I would say that working from home made it easy for me to focus too much on work, and not enough on other important things, like my family. My wife, thankfully and far beyond the call of duty, took up the slack at home.

I joke sometimes to others that one of my purposes in life is to be a cautionary tale, and that definitely applies to my work/life balance problems my first 18 months at Red Hat. I only saw my kids for a small amount of time daily, and to this day I worry that I don’t have enough memories of my daughter’s early grade school or my son as a preschooler. I made it to the obligatory stuff, of course, but it wasn’t real quality time. Mostly when I wasn’t working, I was thinking or worrying about work. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were rushed events after which I’d practically sprint back to the computer, fearing about all the things I wasn’t getting done. It was a very unhealthy approach to work.

At some point partway through my job as FPL, I came to a realization: One day I’d wake up and my kids would be going off to college, and I’d be thinking, “Wait, you can’t go yet, I’m not ready.” Something had to change, and that something was me. But it couldn’t be as simple as just working less. There were lots of people counting on me for different things in Fedora, and many of them were giving their precious spare time for our project. So I had to figure out not how to work less, but how to work smarter.

I ended up overhauling a lot of my tools, for one thing. I tried to find more efficient ways of getting things done, so I could maximize my output per hour. I changed physical and network setup of my office so I had more flexibility and fewer interruptions. I also tried to refocus my work on critical path topics — for instance, trying to spend the majority of my day working on problems that would allow volunteers to get things done. And I started hitting the gym almost every weekday so I could energize the rest of my day. (I’ve fallen off the wagon the last couple of months, but I’m heading back this fall, since I’ve definitely noticed the difference in my mental attitude and energy without it.)

But that’s all mechanical, and not really as difficult as the psychological aspects. I also had to confront my own focus on trying to get everything right, and learn to forgive myself for making mistakes. (Especially since I tend to make so many.) Rather than spend a lot of time each day trying to make everything 95% correct, I needed to spend far less time to get things 75% or 80% correct, and trust other people to help me figure out the rest. When you think about it, that’s part of the open source way, really. We often say “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” and I found that was equally applicable to several parts of my life, including my approach to working in an open source oriented job. Amber Graner talks about “letting go” in Bruce’s article, which I think accurately describes the conscious approach I had to take.

There’s an old saying that you’ll never hear someone on his deathbed say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” I agree with that — in general, I don’t want to have regrets about how I live my life. After all, that’s why I came to Red Hat when the opportunity of chairing the Fedora Project arose. I didn’t want to look back and think, “If only….” Now I realize for me to be at my best for open source, I’ve got to be better at balancing my obligations. I have to let go of the things I can’t do, or can’t do well, and focus on the areas where I can make a difference.

Not all those areas are in work, either. I can make a big difference in my family’s quality of life by doing a better job focusing on the important parts of being a parent. Over the last couple of years, and especially this past year, I’ve started to take better advantage of opportunities to be off the keyboard and building experiences with my family. That might mean going to historical sites or museums, traveling to visit friends, or just doing fun things together, but I feel it’s made me better equipped to deal with job stress when I know I’m doing well by my family.

Of course, it’s not like I’m doing this perfectly. I still have problems with balance, but at least I feel like I have the experience now to identify them and hopefully deal with them. As I mentioned, this is somewhat a confessional article, but I’m not looking for pep talk (or, obviously, the opposite). Rather, I just wanted to share something I care deeply about, which is that I want you, Gentle Reader, to be happy in what you do and find a balance that suits you. I’d love to hear your story about how you’ve found balance, or the challenges you face in doing that. Feel free to write a comment, but I’d love to see trackback posts where you don’t feel constrained by a little comment box.

Required merriment.

I know it’s been said many times today, but happy 20th birthday, Linux. You’ve given me two great careers thus far and I’ve enjoyed a lot of learning and achievement thanks to the hard work of all the people that contributed to you.

Remember to raise a toast to our penguin pal this weekend!

Trying out Fedora 16 Alpha.

I’m sure there will be plenty of news reports on the wire with Fedora 16 Alpha reviews. I wanted to share a couple brief thoughts, as opposed to a long review. I downloaded a copy of RC5 (which is the candidate that got the gold star) from the stage location and made it into a Live USB stick using the livecd-tools package’s livecd-iso-to-disk tool. These were some things that popped out at me when I was using it:

• The Design team’s background image is quite striking. Although it’s a little higher energy than some previous desktops, I really like the underwater motif (I liked the underwater background in Fedora 9 too). From what I understand, the login screen should have some significant changes shortly, and that should show off the background well.
• My ThinkPad x220′s hotkey (Fn+F8) for switching the touchpad on and off now works! This is fantastic because I often find myself brushing the touchpad, which is not recessed, and it can cause me problems in some interfaces. But at the same time, I don’t like turning it off in the BIOS because (1) I do sometimes use it in mouse-only interfaces, and (2) although I have no problems altering BIOS settings, I don’t think users should have to interact with them, especially when they have a clearly labeled keyboard function they should expect to work.
• Bluetooth wasn’t working for me at all. This was only a brief test and I had no time to track down the problem. It’s quite possible this is a hardware dependent issue specific to my ThinkPad. So this is merely an observation, and if it’s not done already I’ll be looking further into the situation later, and filing an appropriate bug.

Sadly, I don’t have quite as much time to do deep testing of Fedora as I used to. So the above is basically a minimal report from about 3 minutes of usage I was able to fit in a couple nights ago. But I can say I’m looking forward to doing more! Remember that if you’re testing and finding problems, we need bugs! Without them it’s really hard to make a better product. So do your part for free software, and report them.

Nice work to all those involved thus far with the release and all the collateral that goes with it.

What I’ve been missing.

There hasn’t been a lot of music in my life lately, other than listening. Work has been very demanding lately, and between that and traveling to do fun things with the family, not much time has been left over for playing. Today I have a day of glorious playing ahead, though, with some good friends up the road in Reston, VA. It’s nice to have a hobby that gives out such a positive vibe and that you can share with other people.

You can also really connect with your tools as well when you play music. This morning I took out a couple of my basses to make sure they were ready to rock’n'roll, and I enjoyed getting reaccustomed to a couple of my favorites. One of the basses I’m bringing with me is a 1953 Fender Precision issue. I believe it’s the Sting signature model, but I can’t be completely sure. I bought it used for a little under $700, and it’s Japanese made as I would expect from that model. (Typically the Japanese made instruments these days are second only to American built Fenders, and only by a slim margin in my opinion.) The serial number seems to support it.

But unlike the mother of pearl signature marker at the octave fret which you see on the Sting model, this one has a black bar. On very close inspection it seems like the previous owner actually painted carefully over the inset, and then refinished the neck. He did a fine job, though, so I had no qualms about buying it. It did make me wonder why you would go to so much trouble to cover up the signature on a signature model bass. Maybe the guy played in a honky tonk band and the Sting signature gave the other band members the willies.

All I know is that one of the other mods he made was to add a Lindy Fraling hand-wound pickup that, when combined with the strings passing through the body at the bridge, gives this axe the sonic nuts. The neck is pretty round and kind of like playing a baseball bat compared to a couple of my other basses, so playing this bass for long stretches can be a little like a wrestling match — you have to muscle it into submission. But the reward is a big fat P-bass sound that’s shaded just differently enough from a stock 1960′s style Precision to give it a unique vibe. Definitely looking forward to playing it today!

New Logitech H555 details.

In reference to my earlier post, I picked up my replacement H555 headset this weekend and wanted to share the changes I noticed from the earlier model I previously owned. Some changes are good, some are not.

Pros: The headset band is now a little thicker — this might make the newer one just a little less prone to breakage if you dropped it from a great height or if someone who didn’t weigh a lot sat on it. All the previous adjustments are still available. Also, although the microphone stalk is about the same size, the mic housing itself at the end of the stalk is a little bulkier. This probably contributes to a little better noise reduction, which I’ve noticed in casual use thus far.

Same: The general mic sound quality is the same. It’s quite good for VoIP and casual use in screencasts, but of course not as good as a quality microphone.

Cons: The hard case that used to come with this unit was not included in the retail package that I purchased. The new headset fits just fine in my existing case, so this is wasn’t a deal breaker for me. Unfortunately people purchasing this for the first time will only get a carrying bag which doesn’t protect the unit as well. Also the detachable dongle that used to convert the unit from dual TRS 1/8″ plugs to USB has been changed into a non-detachable, USB only plug. If you were hoping to use the headphones with other standard audio jacks, you’re out of luck.

I’m still happy with the quality of the headset, and overall I think it’s a good purchase. The new USB hookup is now recognized by my Fedora 15 box as a “Logitech H555 headset,” so I expect the audio hardware inside is updated slightly. It seems to work perfectly just as the old one did. Just be aware of the above changes if you intend to buy one.

Logitech H555 headset.

UPDATE Aug. 15, 2011: There have been a few changes to the new model, which you can read in this additional post.

Continuing with another “gear I like” post… Yesterday my Logitech H555 headset finally gave up the ghost. I’ve had this USB headset for about three and a half years, which may be a record for me. I’m very tough on wired things where I have a propensity for yanking on the cord. I’ll routinely do clumsy things like try and walk away with it still attached to both my laptop and my head, or drop the headset on the floor, or get it tangled up with other things on my desk. So it’s a wonder it survived this long, and a testament to how good the product is.

I greatly prefer using a headset to relying on a laptop’s internal mic and speakers. Those internal sound devices can make conference calls and even point-to-point contacts painful because the person on the other end can get a lot of echoes, typing clatter, and environmental noise. A headset may make you look like a Time/Life operator (“Can I take your order?”) but it really makes business dealings more professional and your personal chats more pleasant.

The sound is fantastic, and I find it to be very comfortable to wear for extended periods since it has dual adjustable earpieces with thick pads. It’s not as comfortable as a great set of over the ear studio monitor headphones, but those aren’t really as portable. This headset can fold up into a convenient carrying case (sized just right for a nice Fedora logo sticker!) which makes it highly portable and unlikely to be damaged in transit.

The connection from the headset is actually via two 1/8-inch TRS plugs — one for the stereo headphones, and one for the microphone. You could plug that into a large number of laptops that have separate headphone and mic connectors. Why TRS for the mic then? Ah, that’s where the magic comes in. There’s a USB dongle into which you can plug the leads and that allows the mic to become a noise canceling, low-powered condenser. The resulting sound from the mic is very clear, which makes my VoIP calls comprehensible to folks on the other end of the conversation. You can also use it for screencasts and podcasts, although of course the sound won’t be as good as a professional large condenser type microphone.

But how does it work with Linux? Spectacularly. It’s automatically recognized on every Fedora I’ve used it with, starting with Fedora 9, as a USB audio device. I can use PulseAudio to easily control the volume on the mic and headset — and if that’s inconvenient for some reason the headset cord has a mini control which allows me to vary the headset volume with a rotary dial, and mute the mic with a slider switch. The control is at a perfect location, not too close to my neck and not too far away to find when I’m in the middle of a conversation.

By the way, I don’t shill for Logitech or anyone else. This is just a gadget that has made my life easier. I use the H555 daily, usually for several hours, on voice-over-IP softphone calls. Now that Google+ has a neat Hangout feature for multi-party video conferencing, I sometimes use the headset with that app as well. Hopefully this post will help someone have an easier time choosing a device to suit their needs.

Asus Eee Transformer TF101.

Here’s something I posted earlier on my G+ account in response to a question about our new tablet, the Asus Eee Transformer:

I love it. It’s a little heavier than a couple other tablets like the newest iPad but the iPad was not something I wanted. It’s bright, easy to use, comfortable in the hands, and despite some odd reviews I saw to the contrary, not flimsy feeling at all. I switched the onscreen keyboard input method to the Android keyboard (instead of the Asus one) since the Android one places the keys in a more harmonious way if you’re a touch typist. Obviously there’s no tactile feedback but my accuracy is much better with the Android onscreen keyboard.

We also got the companion keyboard and that makes it work very much like an Android powered notebook computer (or a Chromebook+ if you like). Some apps make the physical keyboard a little slow, particularly Facebook or other web apps where there is too much live updating going on in the background via AJAX, or it’s poorly optimized. Google+ works well on it though. Using Google Docs is much more comfortable using the keyboard.

It’s Honeycomb based (3.1 out of the box) and I understand 3.2 is being shipped soon. The update mechanism is slick and easy like any phone, and the market is much more elegant in the tablet interface. Also I like the book reader, although if you do a lot of reading this way, or any outside, the Transformer can’t hold a candle to a Kindle.

Battery is very generous, and the keyboard extends the charge life by a lot. I haven’t run out of power over a day yet. One thing I haven’t been able to do yet is get the tablet to use my Droid X phone’s 3G for its internet connection over Bluetooth. It looks like it should work and connects correctly, but the browser doesn’t appear to find anything. Maybe DNS related but I need to look into it further.

All in all, 8 of 10 and well worth the $349 I paid for the 16GB model with a Staples coupon.

I had a number of Fedora folks ask me about this hardware who I suspect catch my blog from our planet, so I’m including this on the feed even though it’s a little off topic.

Since I wrote the above, I have the following updates:

• The above report concentrates on Google services since it’s an Android device and some of the best experience comes from the integrated services. On the other hand, it’s also useful in other ways.
• I installed the ConnectBot SSH client which definitely makes good use of the tablet form factor + keyboard as a fill-in laptop. However, it also exposes some issues with the keyboard mappings of which upstream is aware and hopefully will have solutions soon. The most glaring issue is the Tab key not working, which as a frequent bash user I definitely miss! Also the current lack of direct Ctrl and Alt key mappings can be frustrating too.
• I also found a couple VNC clients which I found interesting if not vital.
• The vendor updated to Honeycomb 3.2 which has a number of little improvements such as a more intuitive mouse cursor, smoother graphics, and a bunch of other general tweaks. Still no solution for the networking through Bluetooth issue though. It’s possible this is an OS tweak by the vendor that would require hacking to solve; I really haven’t had time to revisit it.

I hope this is helpful — feel free to ask questions in the comments, or trackback if you have experiences to share.