Far more about Josh Turiel than any normal person should know...

E-Mail: josht@janeshouse.com

I'm the former Network Services Manager for Holyoke Mutual Insurance Company in Salem, a personal line insurer in the Northeast, where I managed four network whizzes until becoming a layoff casualty in August of 2003. I was there five years. Before that, I spent six years at Adlife Marketing and Communications, a South Shore company that produces retail advertising for supermarkets and discount chains. At my current company I use Windows (95 and NT) and NetWare, at Adlife I used mostly Macs. At home I have a few of each (yes, I admit I'm a geek), and I mainly use Linux.

Background

I've been doing this kind of work for over a decade, starting as a dBASE programmer (a bad one), then moving into sales, system engineering, network administration, and then management. I studied at Northeastern for several years, majoring in Political Science, but got into this field before I had the chance to graduate (I'll take "Unemployed Poli-Sci Students" for $100, Alex). Oh well. Someday I'd like to go back, but I've grown rather accustomed to earning a salary, so it's not likely, unfortunately.

Interests, Activities

I am on the board of The Greater Boston Network Users' Group (BNUG), a roughly 1500-member organization that educates and supports administrators, engineers, and managers of all sorts of network technology. After three years running it, I finally was able to pass the buck to poor Andrew Daitch. Come to one of our meetings and tell him he's a great leader - maybe I won't have to do it again. When I'm not doing BNUG stuff or working 'til the wee hours, I lounge around the house with my wife Jane and our two cats (Millie passed away in April 2000 from cancer - we have another kitten (Gracie) now but there's a tribute to Millie at the cats link), walking around our hometown (Salem, MA), and playing with my homenet. Check out my homenet page if you want my nerdiness proved to you beyond a shadow of a doubt. I'm due to update the page - I have all new toys now but I'm kind of lazy. I also deliver food to the Northeast Animal Shelter here in Salem whenever I can, and encourage you to follow their link so I can browbeat you to do good. Lately I've started to get interested in cryptography, a challenge for one who's math skills are as bad as mine. My PGP Public key is available here. I'm also a pretty big self-taught Unix geek (Linux and UnixWare - I prefer Linux), and I collect comic books.

Other Interesting Things

I also like to play golf badly (I can shoot a little under 100 on a good day), but otherwise not much of an athlete anymore. I used to run track and race bicycles in my youth, as well as hack around in several other sports. I'm a mediocre (but sincere, so maybe I'll see the Great Pumpkin someday) writer, and there are several examples of that at the Writing link in this sentence. Hopefully I'll get good enough at the writing thing to get paid for it someday. I've written pieces for Linux Journal and the Linux Gazette so far, and I am working on a book about telecommunications for O'Reilly & Associates, due eventually. I'm also a very bad rollerblader, and I have the bruises to prove it. Eventually, I'm going to try and start playing basketball again. I'm a decent forward, but I have no vertical leap. I played for two years in a softball league at my old company - we went 8 and 32 in that time. So the skills have left me entirely...

Do you have a URL I should put in my Hotlist? E-mail me!

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My Hotlist

(Everybody has one...But I even update mine on occasion)

• If you have a Mac like I do, and have also decided that the Compaq iPaq 3700 series is just too cool, you need PocketMac.
• Given the state of the high-tech economy (or lack thereof), F***edCompany is as funny as it gets.
• Kuro5hin. Kind of Slashdot-esque, but less tech-focused and far more civilized.
• Useful information about wireless networking. Nocat.net.
• I might as well give props to a co-worker website - David Woodger works on the other side of the floor from me as a programmer - his HTML skillz are just way better than mine.
• The world is coming to an end. Jim,the wrestling goon has a website.
• For a nice news site that hits a lot of the stories that tend to fly below radar level you should read NewsTrolls. I also got to meet Diva and Hackworth at the Geek Pride Festival in Boston this past April Fools' Day, and they were quite likable folks.
• Great hardware/tech site with a healthy dose of fun. Ars Technica.
• Kyle Bennett's HardOCP. This man is one sick hardware freak, which is why I reload his site several times a day. I'm still chuckling over the Viking funeral he held for a motherboard once...
• I'm a fanatical reader of Robert Parker's Spenser mysteries. Here's a neat site for fans. He just wrote a new one - let me know if you've read it, and how it is. Another interesting Spenser site is here.
• I also really like the two guys named John from Brooklyn, also known as They Might Be Giants. This link goes to a neat unofficial fan site, with pictures and stuff.
• I've got my Imus brothers merchandise, courtesy of the Auto Body Express. It's pretty good stuff, too. Even my wife loves Fred's Hot Stuff.
• Slashdot. News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters.
• What's new in this town o' mine? Look it up in Boston Online . A cool and useful link.
• The Libertarian Party Web Take the World's Shortest Political Quiz while you're visiting, chances are pretty good that you might turn out to be one, too. The Massachusetts Libertarians can be found at http://www.lpma.org/.
• The Cato Institute Washington's listening to these people a lot right now.
• Russ Nelson's not only a serious computer whiz (probably scores in the high 80s on the Nerditity Test), but he has some real neat stuff on his homepage and a huge hotlist. I met him at Networks Expo a while back, and he's a nice guy. A very good reference site for Linux users. Check out the temperature plot of his hometown
• The MIT HyperArchive is a wonderful source for Macintosh freeware and shareware. This is the primary home for the sumex archive formerly of Stanford, searchable through Web forms.
• Finally! A website dedicated to the pursuit of my favorite place of fine dining! Visit the Taco Bell Web for a unique culinary experience.
• One more I-link for you to consider, Imus In The Morning feature player Rob Bartlett has built his own website. It's really very interesting.
• Justin's Links from the Underground is one of the places where I go to find cool stuff. Plus, he's a very good storyteller. This site is banned by SurfWatch! Gee, maybe I'll add some sex links, too, and get banned.
• Welcome to Salem. Now even my hometown has a homepage. Come visit! We have a hotel here, and everything.
• Monk Two men, one straight (usually), and one gay, a cat (the Dolly Lama), a Bounder mobile home, and a solar-powered Macintosh set loose on an unsuspecting America. Now if only they'd stop driving long enough to publish more often... I need another fix!
• If you think you may be a geek, but you're not sure, you can take the Nerdity Test. I surprised myself by only scoring a 38.5 on the index. I thought I was worse than that. It must be Jane's influence that saved me...
• Speaking of nerds, George Goble (recently immortalized by Dave Barry) is perhaps the biggest nerd in history. See George light a barbeque with liquid oxygen. Feel the burn.
• Apple Computer, Inc. Buy more Macs. Please. I mean it. They may suck, but other personal computers suck more, and Unix isn't for everyone.
• I worship Too Much Coffee Man. He is a glimpse into my own tormented soul... If Dunkin Donuts offered a larger than 20-ounce size, I could be happy.
• My other comic book heros are Milk and Cheese (dairy products gone bad). They spring from the mind of Evan Dorkin, a terrific cartoonist.
• My HTML editing skills are courtesy of PageMill, with fine-tuning courtesy of BBEdit.