You know it is going to be a good day

When you walk into work and have voicemail from half of your staff saying they will be out...

Whatever is going around is kicking my team's butt.  Not good!

 

Another day of one tech, and one manager trying to do the work of 5...

Goodbye Smartphone

I've decided to cancel my Smartphone plan and revert to a "feature" phone.

I'd love to say the main issue is the cost (Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of getting ~$30 a month back to spend on other things) but I think I would be lying..

I can't stand being always reachable by so many different methods.



Currently, I can be reached by:

1. Email on my DROIDX


2. My Work provided Pager


3. My Cellular phone number


4. My On-call phone when I'm at work.

All of these, except for #4 are with me at work and at home.

Now, added in with those, let's take a look at other connected ways I can access information:

1. Personal Windows Machine at home


2. Work provided Laptop


3. iPad


4. cr-48

That's a total of 8 ways to access information/communicate with people at home/work. On a given day, I have 6 of them with me. At home, I have 7. SEVEN different ways to get in touch with me...

...Do I really need to be that accessible? AM I really that important? I'm going to with, Mostly.

I am responsible for several servers, and my team does have business hours on-call paging, but let's be realistic here: What I do is not "Patient Critical" or Super time sensitive. If there is an issue on the weekend, 9.9/10 times it can wait until Monday morning. I don't need to be constantly interrupted on the weekend by emails that can wait. If something comes up during the day, we get paged, not sent an email. If someone needs to reach me immediately, they either page or call my OCP/Cell.

If something goes wrong with a server, I do get pinged on it, but I could easily redirect those emails to my pager. If one of my servers/services goes down, it will most likely be a hardware issue, and my boss and his boss and I decided to have next business day for all parts, and for the "critical" pieces, we have support contracts that the vendors will be alerted by the servers themselves and they will come out and do the repairs with no interaction from me, other than to authorize their entrance to the data center.

So that brings me back to the immediate contact issue. If I dump my DroidX, that leaves me with two options instead of three...

To me, Two out of three Ain't Bad.

Oh great...

I've been on Parental leave for almost 5 weeks.

Just got an email saying that people were waiting for me to come back...and "had been saving things for me to fix."

Really? But...that's why we have a team!

well...at least I won't be bored when I get back :)

Who knew editing MSIs could be so much fun!

One of the joys of my job is getting crazy funky software to work.  Recently to get some software to work, I needed to modify the MSI package so when it was pushed out to the domain, it would apply all the required settings.

This has given me the pleasure of using the free MSI editor from Microsoft, aptly named ORCA.  It really does feel like I'm attempting to interface with a killer whale...and the Program Icon reflects that as well!!

Strangely, I kind of enjoy it...it feels like I'm editing a file in Windows 3.11.

staff meetings

Staff meetings make me feel awkward...

Vista Day 3: The day I get frustrated by OEM installs

After the fun of Day 2, I thought my fun with frustrating things was over.  Man, was I wrong.  Apparently the bundled Lenovo Connection manager also controls Bluetooth.  Sadly, it took me 10 minutes to figure out that it did that.  Then, apparently Vista and The Connection Manager were fighting over who had the best network settings.  I blew away all the network profiles and made sure that Vista just thought everything was automatic (DHCP at least) and then things settled down.  After that,  I was back in business.

Other than the fact it is using a Low Voltage Processor, I really love the X61 Tablet.  Not quite strong enough to run Half Life 2 at a decent frame rate, but for a work machine, Vista/Tablet is rocking.

Vista, Day 2

Well, Yesterday was an interesting day in Vista Land (C). The morning was fine, and managed to work away, and test out some Pen Flicks....Very fun.

The afternoon, was a bit frustrating, but I think I have to blame the Thinkpad Connection manager software and not Vista.  The Subnet in my office does not have DHCP enabled, and I had my Wired connection set to have an alternate configuration: If it doesn't get a DHCP lease, it would assign the address I gave it.  Well apparently the ThinkPad Connection manager didn't get that message.  It took me about 30 minutes for it to finally understand what connection I wanted it to use.  IT doesn't help that the Campus-Wide Wireless network is just about in reach of my office..and The Connection Software REALLY wanted to connect to it...I even turned off the wireless, but it assumed it was still in the "roaming" profile I created...I forced to use the "Wired Office" profile, but it would still flip back to Roaming...I'll have to take a look into that later today.

Other than that, I have to say, Running Vista on recommended hardware is a lot better than on non-recommended...I think my last Vista Machine was a Dell Optiplex Gx260....yeah...Vista was mad :)

30 days with Vista

Yes, that's right. I'm taking the Vista Plunge. I decided that I had better get used to it, since it isn't going away.

My last attempt at Vista lasted about 3 days....then again I had it installed on a Dell GX280...not exactly recommended specs. This time around, I've got a new machine to test out on...

A LENOVO X61 TABLET!!!

Now before you start yelling at me saying "Mark! That's just a toy! You're a gadget gouger!" let me explain.
I decided that to test Vista, I should get a laptop, mostly because I know that is how most of my users are going to end up getting it: They have this tendency to just go out and buy laptops without talking to me first. Desktops, they do come to me, but Laptops "aren't department machines..." umm...Yes they are, but that's another argument for another day.

I can test vista on a desktop and get to know all the ins and outs, but a laptop offers me the distinct advantage of being able to bring the machine with me, instead of it residing in my office, sitting unused for half a day. I figure the best way to get to know Vista, is it use it full time for a month, not just a part of a week.

So here's to Day 1: Installing all the things I forgot to install before the day started. Up first, Oracle Calendar and Twhirl

Stupid Educational discounts!

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact I can order machines for a generous discount throught a lot of different Vendors for my job...I love saving money.

The thing I can't stand is when the list of things I can buy is threefold smaller than the list of actual products they sell.

I mean, why not give me the option to buy ALL of your products, and just point out to me that I'm getting a Super sweet deal if I buy from the "Recommended for Universities" list instead of the "Recommended for home" list.  Sometimes, your home list has more up to date hardware than your University list...

Why would I want to buy a 1.5 year old machine (at a good price) versus a brand new machine that really isn't that much more??

Am I asking for too much?

Tuesday fun!

getting back to work on Monday was fantastic. Well, not really, but it wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be. I hit the ground running with a lot of little things that people held onto until I returned, but not bad. I got up when my alarm went off, which is something new for me.

Usually, when my alarm goes off at 5:20, I turn it off and lay around until 6. Now, as soon as the alarm goes off, I get out of bed and get ready for the day. I used to get to the gym by 6:40...now I'm there by 6. I would start my cardio around 6:50...now around 6:20. Side note: I have no idea why it takes me 20 minutes to get from the locker room to the gym which is 25 feet away...

On Monday Morning Al, the guy who gives me my workout bag ( shorts, T-shirt and towel...there's a jock in there but I refuse to use it...I'll just use my boxers and bring a new pair for after the sweat session), asked me if I was on Vacation. I told him I indeed was on Vacation and that it was good to be back in the swing of things. He said "Good, you look like you were ready for some time off." How Right he was.

I know it has only been two days since I returned from my week off, but I feel energized and ready to face the looming projects (AD/OD integration, A redesign of a lab, and another couple lab updates) and get shit done.

I thought about quoting larry the cable guy but I refuse.

...Really?

So I had a machine go bad.  It was still under warranty so I called to have a tech come replace the motherboard.  (mostly because then the machine is still under warranty...apparently I'm not good enough for them to replace motherboards...EVEN THOUGH  I did about three months ago and had no problems....glad I gave into their crap they fed me today.)

Tech comes, replaces it.  Machine POSTs....yay!  All is done right?

...Right?

...Hello...?

Apparently one good boot does not mean the machine is fixed.  Now it won't boot anything.

Hard Drive?  pishaw!

CD-ROM?  So 90's!

USB drive?  What do I look like?  I'm not a call girl!

So now I get another new motherboard/Tech Combo tomorrow...

Why does this have to happen on the ONE machine I don't want to have trouble with....

Look what I found!

It's so pretty!  A message pad for me!  Now to get it to talk with my MacBook Pro...that'll be an interesting challenge...