Jobs: Andrew Zakordonets, testing consultant working remotely in Thailand
Workplaces / / December 27, 2019
With Andrei, I met in Thailand on. Samui. The story, which you will read below will be of interest to all who are interested in distant work (and not necessarily on freelancing!), Testing tools software, Mac-Switchings and general change a person's world, which was ready for another half a year ago to work on 4 monitors and buy a can of IT-only stuff to create the perfect workplace, which proved to be very others.
What do you do in your work?
For four and a half years doing software testing. Sonopia started at the company as a Junior QA Engineer. After the closure of the company, went to work in Cogniace. So for these fleeting and interesting of the four years I became a Junior Tester independent Senior Consultant testing. At the moment, I continue to work with the company on a major project for the creation and delivery of mobile advertising.
How does your workplace?
For a long time, working place, I had the unique and the company knew me as a person, which operates using 4 monitors :)
Initially, I was working with Windows desktop and dual-monitor him. After a while I began to take my laptop and asked to borrow one additional monitor to your laptop. As a result, my table were three 19-inch widescreen monitor and ViewSonic 15.4 "Dell Vostro 1500. But since the computer was two, I did not want to run from a single keyboard and mouse to another, and I started looking for solutions to this problem. I found pretty quickly -
Synergy. Finest software which allows share the mouse, keyboard, and clipboard between multiple computers. Voila, as a result, I have two of windows machines that I helped in testing for a long time. On one screen I swirled the logs and the command line to the test server, on the other monitor I had one browser, and the third (Noutbuchnogo) - Mail, Giro and just a browser, where it is necessary to look for it on fourth monitor I still hanging Skype + IM + is another browser. In fact, on certain projects, this configuration is very rescued me. Let's say I need to check the interaction between multiple users, but still did not forget to cover all the required browsers - Firefox, IE, Safari. Easier simple - on each of the monitors open a separate browser and then start to manage their testerskuyu magic - until entered login \ password on one monitor, and mouse eyes immediately defected to another monitor and then to third. And then in a circle begin to take actions.But recently began appearing change in my workspace. First I had to go to Greece almost two months, to help colleagues with the upgrades. There I did not have the luxury home and I only managed to obtain from them a small 17 "monitor to help. At first it seemed to me terribly uncomfortable, but with time I got used and to return to Ukraine, I gave the desktop and monitor administrators and myself left the laptop (at that time I already had a 14 "Sony Vaio VPCCW22FX) and one monitor. It turned out that the space on the table was larger, and comfort in the not too less. Then three months later I was able to realize a dream that cherished for almost a year - with friends went to Thailand on about. Samui for a long time. Workplace I have changed dramatically. In our house there is a large veranda on which we are all stored and operated, occasionally distracted and admiring the sea. Sometimes, when you want a change, we go to a cafe or even some secluded spot and work from there - good wi-fi is, in almost every cafe.
What hardware are using?
For a while he worked on the new Sony Vaio (did not work in my relationship with this laptop and I was not pleased with them), and then decided to buy a Macbook Air. How I decided? I'm more than a year he wanted, and he knew that will take him to Thailand, just for a while thought to wait the first quarter of 2012 in the hope that Apple will release an update of its notebook line. But then I realized that it's a bad job, and went to one of Samui's Retail-shops and bought a 13 "Macbook air with 128 Gb SSD. To say that I am pleased with the purchase, then do not say anything. With this laptop, I do not think about the second monitor. Speed, convenience, ease and battery make this machine an excellent workhorse and I hope it will last me a long time. After such a pleasure from the laptop I celebrate even bought a iPhone 4S 16 Gb and is also not a bit sorry about the purchase. This phone has repeatedly rescued me at the operating time. When the storm broke on Samui, and two days have flooded without prodyhu, we lost at home internet, but 3G mobile working without problems and I was able to distribute the Internet phone itself for nouta. Mobile 3G here very quickly, so the discomfort in both Wi-Fi, and 3G for not watching. Vindovyh laptop now lying almost idle. In addition to laptops and phones still use the iPad sometimes - if you need to mail or Skype to look to get out, and the laptop away. Although after the purchase of Air to the tablet longer treat as a device on which to read good books, RSS, Twitter, Facebook, play games, and just as a backup device in case the battery in the laptop He died. On the phone rassharivat Internet and connecting the tablet - it is also pretty convenient. In Ukraine, the plate was very popular because of the fact that I could lay on the bed to watch a movie or TV series and in parallel to sit on the tablet to read the news or correspond to IM. In Thailand, especially do not want to lie around and watch TV shows, so I was just in the evenings reading books on the veranda.
What software use?
Since I recently switched to Mac OS, then with the software is not yet fully mastered, but what I do have in stock:
post office. I have long been there following principle - take Chrome, it prescribes two settings addresses, which should be open by default when you start the program - it is a personal and corporate post office. These two taba I recorded and are always open by default. I check the mail in the following way - I have a tray hanging notifier program that informs me about the letters come in the inbox. In addition, I have from time to time I look in both boxes, because I get a lot of letters still skirting the inbox and settled immediately in the different labels (this is especially true of letters from the bug tracker). Then I look over them too quickly and react as necessary. For use in Inbox Notifier.
EMS / chat. Skype, Skype and once Skype. My most important means of communication, without which the life of me just not nice :) In addition, I still use Skype IM with support for various protocols - gmail, jabber, facebook, vkontakte. If I had someone write, I prefer just the person to answer. For me, this is not a problem because I do not write often, but since I do not like to correspond in the browser and can not see immediately notifier of new messages in the mail, I decided to use IM. On Windows, it was the first Pidgin, then moved to the QIP. On Mac OS addresses this issue with it does not work well using Adium, but with facebook - often messages are sent late / come.
Browser. For me, it has long Chrome. I can not say that I am always happy with his work, but on the whole he copes with all the necessary tasks to me and he already has all my settings / bookmark syncing with Google. Therefore, I do not see to move to Safari for themselves meaningless. He bought himself another Growl notifications to see immediately a message from Skype / Adium - small krasivenkaya softinkoy.
I use to work:
- natural browsers. Since I'm working with a Flex application, I most of the time enough Mac OS Firefox + Chrome, but sometimes you have to go in Windows.
— zoc6 - a ssh client that I use for a couple with Terminal. Its main advantage is that it can store at the details of multiple servers and I'm a single click can be connected to any of them. I do not need to remember ip addresses, logins / passwords, and this is the only reason why I keep it. Why only? And because at the Lion he hangs every time session terminates and I have to restart it, which is very disappointing.
- to work with the database I use PgAdmin + SQuirell.
- automation on ruby + selenium use RubyMine 3.2True to this still had to install XCode.
- I still on duty have to do a lot of screenshots and they indicate defects - as long as I use Skitch me he arranges.
- Dropbox lets you synchronize working files between Macbook and Sony Vaio, and backup documents.
- even in the work I have one indispensable tool - BBEdit. On Windows use Notepad ++ and I liked it because of the possibility of opening multiple files distributed as tabs + work with different formats like csv, xml. On a Mac, I've been looking for an alternative to Notepad ++ until I was advised to BBEdit. I keep a lot of files open, because they are stored data that periodically need to have access - for me it is the replacement of paper notepad. So far they are very happy. TextMate did not take, because he was pricey.
In addition to this use has:
- download files - Transmission + Folx;
- photo processing - Photoshop (gluing panoramas) + Lightroom. Not yet fully transferred to the photo archive of windows nouta, hands do not reach;
— VMWare Fusion - virutalka c windows need for client-bank, which is a mac os naturally does not want to work and hardly ever will.
Still sometimes as a file manager use muCommander. It is useful when you need to throw a stack of files from nouta an external screw.
Music to listen via Windows foobar2000. I really liked the fact that it was possible to hang up hot keys to play \ pause \ next \ previous. he was sitting in the tray, but it was very convenient one button to put music on pause. On macbook I listen to music on iTunes. Until alternatives do not see much, and iTunes has become accustomed to almost. True to stop the track or rewind to the next have to use Fn, because RubyMine keys F1-F12 are often used.
To watch the video using MPlayerX. Of small programs still use:
— jettison - Remove external screws when the laptop goes into sleep mode. I read somewhere that often mac os does not work correctly in this case, and the possibility of data loss from external storage - here and decided to err;
— flarefighter - as I often have to work with flash / flex-technology, for me it is a very useful utility. Very often flash after closing or stopping still continues CPU intensive. This program follows the flash during and after their completion to certify that they have been unloaded from memory and no longer load on the CPU.
— daisydisk - perfectly demonstrates the who, what, and how long it takes on the SSD. For me it is very important, because the 128 Gb is not so much :)
- Evernote - this program I do not use so often. Basically, I have it acts as a guardian of recipes. Sometimes I like to get into the network, found an interesting recipe and then cook it. But I was just too lazy to rewrite the list of necessary ingredients, and the recipe itself is also necessary to save "for posterity". So I decided this issue with the help of this program - to save the laptop, and then in the store on your phone depends on what I need to buy.
Is there a place in your paper work?
No :) I had forgotten how it is - write with a pen. At home I never find a clean sheet of paper or a pencil or pen. All recorded on your phone / laptop / tablet.
Is there a dream configuration?
I existed. When I was in Kiev, I would like to have my house there was a big TV connected to Google TV. To it was connected to the power screw to couple terabytes. A folder with the torrent would lie in the dropbox and at home torrent client would be included a rule to automatically jumps all newcomers torrents. That is, I'm at work could take any torrent, put it in a folder and, having come home, he could already see the downloaded movies and TV series. All photo / video / audio materials would be stored on the network and the screw would be available to the macbook / tablet / phone. To TV was connected to xbox 360, which could sometimes play something distracting. But now, being in Thailand, I understand what it's all complete garbage. I have a laptop, tablet and phone - that's more than enough for me. I can travel light and I did not need gigabytes of TV shows and movies. Now I am much more interested in new places, sea and sunset / sunrise on the bank. Revealed an even greater desire to read books, to be engaged in sports and yoga, swim, cook new dishes, discover new places and people here just to enjoy the tranquility and beauty for themselves. Why lie down and watch TV shows when you can take a moped and go on an empty road with your favorite music in the headphones? Especially when you have the opportunity at any time to turn off the road and come to the sea, to sit there and listen to music comfortably surf. Therefore, now I already have dreams configuration :) No, yet still it would be nice to have a good SLR camera with a tripod and high-quality optics and a set of filters. Here is what to shoot, and I would like to develop their photographic skills. iPhone takes off nice, but when you look at the small screens. Yes, and to convey the gamut of colors and paints it is still, unfortunately, can not be compared with a DSLR camera.