Wednesday, October 29, 2008
So, there's been all this hooplah (created by me) about the MacBook Pro that I'm using at the moment. I have been really enjoying my time spent with it, and I've been able to overlook some of the minor issues that I've run into. I do wish that it had more RAM. I do wish that Excel could open my timesheet. I do wish that I could easily sync offline files (Paul tipped me on a product, but I don't want to write about it until I've fully tested it).
Those are all small issues, but what I've run into now is bigger than that. Apparently, I am running a 32 bit operating system <pausing for the collective gasps>! I made the attempt to create a new virtual machine running Windows Server 2008, so that I could run a couple of the management tools that I can't run in OSX. My attempt resulted in this screen:
Shocking, I know. Now, I also understand that with a smaller amount of RAM in my system, it's really not a big deal to not have all 64 bits of addressable space, but the outrage is justified. In doing some research, I found out that the chip that was shipped was 64 bit CAPABLE, just not ENABLED. I'm not going to futz around and try and make it work, but that is something that I want to make sure my next hardware purchase can handle. I know this sounds silly, but I try to research these things, and I've walked away from buying hardware because it lacked a single feature that I wanted. NOTE: This should be taken with a hearty understanding that a) this is a WORK laptop and that I didn't pay for it and b) I am very grateful for the chance to use it and experience the goodness that is a MacBook Pro.
That all being said, I'm off to dig up my 32 bit version of Windows Server 2008 to install. Whee!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
I'm out in Los Angeles, supporting some of the demos for PDC and I have to say that tons of cool things are going on. Since I've been busy actually working, I don't have the time to actually summarize all of the things that have been presented on the stage, but I'll be posting several follow-up articles on some of the new things that are coming out. I'll also make sure to include some neat stuff about how demos are set up, run, and torn down, while the attendees are all going crazy over all the new products. Just to keep the pot warm:
- Software as a service is big. Azure Platform.
- Windows 7 is the R0X0R.
- Live Mesh is full of Silverlight goodness.
- .Net 4 is neat. I'm not sure I understand WHY, but it is.
- Office 14 is going to blow the socks off the people who actually have to use it!
Friday, October 24, 2008
I'm getting ready to head out to PDC to do some support work and I'm faced with a very difficult decision, in my mind. As I stated in my last post, I just got a shiny, new (old) MacBook Pro. I've been using it for two days now and the only thing I've found that was kind of wonky has been working on my timesheet in Excel (the Mac Office 2008 version). The dilemma, to cut to the quick, is that I am worried that something will come up at the PDC where the MacBook Pro will not suffice. If there was an issue I could be concerned about, straight up, I would address it, but this is more of a nebulous fear.
I currently use a Lenovo Thinkpad T61 with 8GB of RAM and a 160GB drive as my primary work machine. It's been doing "OK," but there are always quirks. The new MacBook Pro has less RAM, and a slightly slower processor, but it also has much more hard drive space. Most of these things are a non-issue, but that is where the fear comes into play.
I think that what I'm going to do is just end up taking both machines with me. The nice thing about working backstage is that I'll be able to (mostly) set up my stuff and then not have to worry about it. I don't think having a "backup" Thinkpad is going to be an issue, but I can have it there as a security blanket, just in case things go belly-up. If someone DOES point out that I'm a huge geek and I should just pick one machine and stick to it, I can claim that the Thinkpad is a backup for the demo! Woo! I win!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
So my boss has gone and done something terrible to me. He's given me his old MacBook Pro for a project. The main reason why I think of this as a terrible thing is that I am absolutely loving it, and I am going to hate to have to wipe it if the project requires it. I have been a big fan of Apple and the Mac line since I inherited my first Macintosh Plus from my brother, back many, many years ago. While I have been a big Apple fan, my work has required me to mainly use Windows based machines as my primary device, but I think that I'm going to use this as a chance to try to move over to a Mac based solution. If I can work this and really move to it as a full featured work solution, I'm going to seriously think about making my next machine purchase a MackBook Pro, instead of a new iMac, and use one machine for work and home.
My plan for trying this out has required that I use (and find) some software that I know I will use a lot. This is the short list of things that I've installed so far:
ecto -- This is an application that Paul (my brother and ultimate boss at work) mentioned in a blog post and now I'm hooked. It looks like it supports Drupal (my home blogging platform) and Subtext (my work blogging platform).
CoRD -- In my role as a system administrator, I have to spend a lot of time logged into multiple machines. It's not really required, but I don't want to have to walk down to the server room for every little thing. I've been using this tool for a couple of hours now and it looks like it can handle everything that I need. It is a beta piece of software, but I always have Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection Client to fall back on. It's just not nearly as elegant.
Microsoft Messenger 7 -- The company I work for is primarily a Microsoft shop. With this in mind, and the fact that my official title is "Unified Communications Consultant," it's important for me to be able to stay connected with the people in my company. The reason why I am pointing out this tool is simply for the fact that version 7 of Messenger can connect to an OCS 2007 environment. This is cool, almost beyond belief.
Microsoft Office 2008 -- Okay, I'm sure no one is really surprised by this. With Entourage (which I still have to think about spelling correctly) and Word, this suite is a HUGE part of my daily work of technical writing. I've been using it at home for a while for schoolwork and a bit of this and that, but this is my chance to use it in the workplace as more than just a curiosity. Who knows, maybe if I use it and talk about it enough I might get selected for any beta programs for the next version of Office or Entourage!
Firefox 3 -- Once more, almost a no-brainer in the IT world. I don't know many people who don't have at least two, if not three web browsers installed.
VMWare Fusion -- This is just a ROCKING application! I don't have any VMs running right now, but if I get to use this as more than just a project clunker or if I decide to purchase one "for real," I'm going to follow these simple steps to put my current laptop's OS into a VM, and then I won't have to worry about Windows-only management tools!
As excited as I am, I know that there is a very real possibility that I won't be able to do everything that I need/want to do, since I'm going to have to use this to make money for 3Sharp. Along with that healthy dose of reality (it's not MY toy (; ) is also the very real limitation that this laptop only has 2GB of RAM. If I was doing nothing but surfing the web and using MS Word, this would not be an issue, but for example's sake, my current work laptop has 8GB of RAM (I use almost all of it, constantly), and I'm upgrading the drive to 320GB because I keep running out of room. With those warnings in hand, I'm still willing to give it a go. Now that I've really established my value to the company and to myself, I think I'm better prepared to do something like make a major purchase of Apple hardware. (Just for clarification, anything that I would purchase would have to be major, just to fit my RAM and space requirements)
P.S. Does anyone have a good recommendation on a tool that will be able to sync offline files with our company file server?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
I just was forwarded a great blog post about how one CIO manages the 600 e-mail messages he gets every day. I don't go through nearly as many e-mail in a day, but I think that these rules can apply to almost anyone.
The first rule he pointed out was:
1. E-mail marked with a “high importance” exclamation point must pass the “cry wolf” test. Is the sender a habitual “high importance” e-mailer? Are these e-mails actually important? If not, the sender's emails lose points.
I seem to rarely get messages with raised importance, and almost every time, it is about something that isn't important or time sensitive at all. It seems like most people don't think about what they are doing when it comes to e-mail. Most of the people I work with are very clear in their e-mail construction and I think one of the things I value most is that I've almost never received a "High Importance" e-mail from them. Most of the time, when an e-mail is tagged, it's because someone was sending out a joke or picture and added a "[HUMOR]" tag to the subject line.
It's the little things that will get your e-mail read by other people, so here are a couple of e-mail etiquette rules that I would like to post of my own.
- If you are sending me a forward, clean it up. I understand that there are only six degrees of separation, but I don't need to see the entire history of the e-mail thread. Sometimes this means that some significant work would have to be done, and if that's the case, I'd rather you NOT send it to me. If I think a forwarded message is that wonderful, I'll take the time to correct the formatting and remove all the junk. I could go on, but I think we all get the point.
- Use at least SOME punctuation. I know that most people think that typing (e-mail, text messages, IM, and blog posts) is a lesser form of communication and by that same logic, not in need of things like capital letters, periods and commas. This is not really the case, however. The more that an e-mail looks like it was typed by a cat walking on a keyboard, the more likely I am to just delete it without reading it.
- Know your target audience. I don't want to get too mired in spouting what I believe in, but I just have to say that I don't need any e-mail that an action of mine will cause more angles to do anything. I don't particularly want to have a "blessed" day, and I don't need any kind of inspirational messages. Those people who know me, should know that I am not interested in those things, and should, by expansion, know that I don't want to get e-mail about it.
- Make sure you include some context in a reply. I know that I said that I liked to clean up forwards, and I do like to clean up replies as well, but there still needs to be SOME context or continuity. It is very hard to respond to a request for information when you have no idea what the context of that request is in. The whole thread doesn't have to be preserved, but something will help!
- Think before you send. Yes, I'll repeat that; think before you send. Just because it is so important, I'll say it another way; don't send an e-mail until you've actually thought about it. Some people think about the e-mail while they are writing it, but I know from looking at my inbox, this is not the norm. It doesn't take much. Just look it over quickly, read it out loud, do SOMETHING to ensure that you aren't sending a raunchy link to the CEO or a ribald joke to your grandmother.
All that ranting and raving aside, e-mail is a communication tool. As a tool, I have the option of using it, or choosing something to use instead. You don't even have to make the e-mail interesting or new, just make it something that shows you've done more than reacted out of reflex. It doesn't take much!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Lately I've been working with System Center - Data Protection Manager from Microsoft and I have to say that while it's a nice product, there are some areas that need improvement. One of the things I've been wanting to do is talk about some of the issues I've had and open up a forum to discuss those issues. To start this off, I'm taking some of the problems that I've had with DPM's tape handling.
Note: I don't want it to look like I'm just bashing DPM. I DO like parts of it. If you know of ways to resolve these issues, PLEASE let me know. I'll post those fixes as updates.
Tape Issue El Five:
Inconsistency in tracking tape movement. When I use the tape device to remove a tape or multiple tapes (since this is the only manner to eject or load tapes), DPM does not see that I’ve done anything; it never actually talks to the tape library. When I try to resync, the progress bar completes but no updated information is produced. If I re-run a Detailed Inventory, it then finds out what tape slots are actually occupied. This seems like a lot of tape movement just for DPM to see that a tape has been removed.
Tape Issue Number VI:
The whole OMID and barcode thing. I know there has been talk about getting this fixed, but it is a big stopper when I can’t erase the tapes or generate an OMID on my own to pop in there. Until this gets resolved, I’ve just turned off the barcode reader in the tape library.
Tape Issue Number 7:
I can’t figure out how to allow multiple protection groups to get written to a single tape. This may just be me missing something pretty obvious, but I would like to be able to put multiple, smaller protection groups all on one tape so that I don’t have the huge number of extra media just to back up a bunch of 600MB – 20GB protection groups.
Yes, Number 4 is missing. When I was writing this, originally, I was doing it in the heat of irritation. That leads to many things like snarky humor and missed counts.
Friday, September 12, 2008
One of the things that we are constantly working on here is better time management. I work on a number of different projects every day and I like having the option to multitask and split up my day between several different interest groups. While it is fun and it keeps me busy, it can be a pain when trying to track time and account for what I did all day long. In the past I've tried keeping Word or Notepad++ open all day, writing in the tasks as well as when I start on them. I've also tried to update my time sheet in real-time, filling the bits in 15 minute increments. Both of these methods failed miserably, not because they are bad ideas, but rather the swift nature of my changes in focus mean that I might only spend 2-4 minutes on any one given task at a time. When installing operating systems or software packages, or working on system maintenance and IT tasks, I normally will have 4-5 RDP sessions open. With all of those open, it's a quick flip to sort through all of them and then find the one that's complete and click "next" or reboot.
Because my focus changes so much, I've started looking at tools that will allow me to keep pretty accurate track of all the things I'm working on. Even when I've found something, I generally lose interest in it, especially if it isn't cross-platform.
Eariler today, I came across a tool that looks like it might be a good fit for me. This is my first day using it (first hour, actully), so it is mostly hope at this point (:
Right now, I've only popped a few items in it, but one of the things I liked about it was that it works both on the Windows Vista Sidebar and iGoogle. This means that even if it doesn't sync across versions, I can still use the same interface from any number of machines. I think I might look and see if I can actually code some improvements into it. I'm not an expert hacker but I would like to see:
- Categories or Parents (For example, under "IT Schtuff", I would like to have one item called "Patch Management" where when I punch in, it ticks the IT clock as well)
- List synchronization (I don't know how it works yet, but I would like to be able to keep the list synchronized through a website [read: SHAREPOINT] or txt/xml file that I can export across machines)
- A little bit of UI clean up (when I first started using it, I thought that the green "IN" button meant that I was in that task and tracking time)
If anyone else out there has any tools that they use to track time like I need, I welcome the feedback!
P.S. In the writing of this blog, I switched to three tasks (blogging, logging in to the Exchange server to change the name on an Equipment Mailbox, and replied to a project e-mail) and punched in for each of them!
Lately I've been working with System Center - Data Protection Manager from Microsoft and I have to say that while it's a nice product, there are some areas that need improvement. One of the things I've been wanting to do is talk about some of the issues I've had and open up a forum to discuss those issues. To start this off, I'm taking some of the problems that I've had with DPM's tape handling.
Note: I don't want it to look like I'm just bashing DPM. I DO like parts of it. If you know of ways to resolve these issues, PLEASE let me know. I'll post those fixes as updates.
Tape Issue Numero Uno:
No tape controls in DPM. When I am using DPM to back up data to tape in a library, it would be nice to be able to eject and load tapes using DPM, instead of having to navigate through the menus on the front of the tape library.
Tape Issue Number Two:
Lack of success at erasing ANY tape. Whenever I try to put in a new tape and erase it, it fails. It does not matter if it is a new tape, fresh from the plastic or one that has been used for backups before, I’ve never had a tape get successfully erased. As far as I know, erasing the tape using DPM is the way to get around the issues of media with no OMID.
Tape Issue The Third:
Lack of success identifying any tape. This is the situation, I have five tapes.
- Tape 1 – Fresh out of the box
- Tape 2 – Fresh out of the box
- Tape 3 – Used on the old system (has data)
- Tape 4 – Used on the old system (has data)
- Tape 5 – Used on the old system (has data)
Every tape is put into the loader and then once a Detailed Inventory is run. Here are the results:
- Tape 1 – Unknown
- Tape 2 – Unknown
- Tape 3 – Unknown
- Tape 4 – Unknown
- Tape 5 – Unrecognized
I try to Erase or Identify any of the individual tapes. The jobs all fail, but when a particular tape gets put back, it changes from Unknown to Unrecognized and I can “Mark as Free…” So now, I have:
- Tape 1 – Unknown
- Tape 2 – Free (Contains Data)
- Tape 3 – Unknown
- Tape 4 – Free (Contains Data)
- Tape 5 – Free (Contains Data)
So now, out of 5 tapes, I have three that I can use. This seems like a lot of work with little return.
I know that DPM is supposed to be very different from traditional backup systems, but I think that the change has been too radical. It is hard to educate IT organizations to the point where they are comfortable migrating to a new technology when something as important as backups are concerned. I'm looking forward to see where Service Pack 1 will take us in the future.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
I know that the rumors had been floating around for a while, but now the news is out. Cisco is purchasing the privately held Postpath for $215 million dollars. This is really interesting to me in that I've been working with Postpath for a short while and I'm really wondering about the value that Cisco is going to pull out of this deal. For starters, in this article, it's mentioned that Postpath:
"...provides a browser-independent AJAX Web client."
The reason I have a problem with that line is that the Postpath client is actually Zimbra's client.
I'm sure technical blogs are popping up all over the place talking about the things that Postpath can and can't do, but having installed it a couple of times and poked around inside, it seems like there is going to be a battle over some of the features. For example:
- ActiveSync - Postpath reverse-engineered ActiveSync rather than licensing it (say, like Apple), and I'm not sure how Microsoft will react to a large company like Cisco selling reverse-engineered technology.
- Exchange compatibility - I know that Postpath advertises that it integrates well with Exchange 2003 (and can exist in that environment), but how does it work with Exchange 2007, where there are significant changes to the architecture.
- Price comparison - When I looked at Postpath the cost comparison felt a little bit shady, but I don't want to sink into a full teardown. The main point is that they make some pretty grand claims about the savings that they can provide a company.
I really don't want to turn this into a Postpath bashing blog post, but I really don't see why so many people think that this will allow Cisco to become a major player in the messaging marketplace. If they were purchasing something like Zimbra, then I would give credence to the idea that they were looking to field a product that would really be commercially viable.
Having installed and used at least 5 messaging platforms in the past year, I kind of have to wonder about Cisco's choice. At least it wasn't Lotus...
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Last night a co-worker and I were having a discussion about some of the things that we'd really like our e-mail clients to be able to do. One of the things that I was lamenting was the fact that there is no really easy way to have Microsoft Outlook tag e-mail so that you could build views that were built around tags rather than folders. This got us thinking and I think that I came up with a nifty way to do some e-mail-fu using metadata in a file system for some neat things.
The first idea that I had was that if you just were able to keep each e-mail item as a separate file, you could then use the built-in metadata features of some file systems to tag each item. If you did it this way, you could have a really light-weight e-mail client that would just build a view based on what tags you gave the e-mail. It would also be really simple to have the system (either server-side or client-side) tag e-mail as it came in. Then once it is looked at, it would get tagged as something else.
For example, one of the things that we talked about, was the idea that you could give your client the logic to thread and tag e-mail based on things like:
- If it is a reply to someone in particular, it gets tagged for one view
- If it is a reply in a thread, it gets tagged for that conversation
- If it contains keywords that you have designated as important, a special tag gets added
- On and on, in the same vein
The real beauty of this system is that all three cases could be applied to one e-mail that came in and all you would have to do is select a view or type of view to quickly sort through all your incoming and existing e-mail, based on those tags.
Another really cool idea that was brought up (I think he brought it up, but I can't remember at this point), is that you would be able to do some visualization that is not possible in a standard e-mail client. You could create views and viewers that would group your e-mail and messages and all that jazz as a tagged cloud. Then it would be really easy to analyze and comprehend things about your e-mail that it's not always easy to find. I know, personally, that I have a better time understanding complex relationships if I can draw them out or put them into a visual paradigm.
Another area that I think that this would make for some really neat features is in security, backups and speed. Instead of keeping all your data in databases, all of your information is in files. This way, you wouldn't need to have a client that was able to read or access a proprietary data format to access all those messages. Most of the file systems in use today support strong encryption and file-level security, so the integrity of the data is less at risk as well.
I think that this is a fun mental exercise and I would really like to see some changes to the way we look at messages, but I also know that this would require a lot of work and know-how that most people wouldn't want to sink into such a fringe concept. I think that with the changes we've seen in how messaging is approached (as in, the unification of multiple messaging formats and the convergence of information access devices like computers and cell phones), we'll see a lot more expansion into areas that are different in concept than we're used to. I would like to believe that changing the way we look at information was a quick process, but I know that there are many people who think that, "this is the way it's always been done and it's the way it'll always BE done."
This is getting to be a long post, so I'll wrap this up by saying that I really like the way that messaging of all types seems to be converging. I love the way that I can have a central place for all my communications. I like the fact, most of all, that I'm at a place where I can have these kind of discussions and really feel like I've come away with an idea that really fits who I am.