Category: Observations Page 67 of 90

Critical Friday

On September 28, 2012

All week long I am bombarded. I am bombarded with people needing me. They need my attention. They need my help. They need my time. They need me.

All day my attention is pulled in a million different directions. Just this morning, I was working on a critical ticket. The computer was failing to boot into Windows.

It wasn’t a blue screen, but there was a single line of text across the screen before the Windows logo appeared. When I arrived at the computer I saw it had the letters DDR in it so I figured it was either the video card or memory.

I removed the external video card and tried booting again. No dice. I then removed each piece of memory one at a time. Same error.

Then I looked up the error message and it seemed to indicate the video card was at fault. Since I couldn’t get it to boot, nor could I access the BIOS or any diagnostic settings, I decided to unhook it and take it with me to my desk.

As I was crawling under the desk to unplug the various cables, I received a call on my work phone. It is never a good sign when someone calls instead of emailing.

It was another critical ticket. In another building I support. Someone’s account had been compromised, and as a security measure, the account had been disabled.

I had a real life interview question on my hands. When you have a dead computer and a compromised account at the same time, what do you do?

This is how my Friday started.

When I got the computer back to my desk, I opened it up and tried some other memory to no avail. A co-worker then noticed the light on the motherboard was amber instead of its normal green hue. This meant the motherboard was bad.

Easy enough I thought. I will go to Dell’s website, verify the warranty and get a new board ordered.

So I did.

Only, the machine was over a year out of warranty. This meant no new part. This meant I had a computer I could no longer repair. I went to see the user and give him the bad news only to find out he had left for the day. So I get to have that conversation Monday. Happy Monday!

On I went to my other building to go see my user with the disabled account.

When I arrived, his account had not yet been disabled, so I thought there was a false positive or a misdirected ticket. As I verified the ticket information and as I sat at his computer I started to run an antivirus scan just to be safe.

Sure enough, the scan turned up three infections. Great, this is going to be the beginning of a long process. As the scan completed, there were only three infections, none of which appeared to be serious. I ran a rootkit scan and thankfully none were found. I then set about patching the multiple vulnerabilities with the computer using my Tech Support Triumvirate.

So I sent the logs of my scans to the security team to analyze and advise me how to proceed. I then called and had the user’s account reactivated and logged into webmail and investigated his Outlook account.

I found an email rule to send incoming messages to a suspicious looking email address. Similarly, I found a signature added to webmail with the same suspicious information.

I removed the email rule and deleted the suspicious signature and sent a couple of test messages through the system to assure nothing further suspicious was happening.

This is just a day in the life of a desktop support technician. Did I get anything else done the rest of the day? Not really. I sent a couple emails to schedule meetings with people for next week. I called and emailed the network and security teams to coordinate my restore and recovery efforts with the compromised account.

Before I knew it, the day had come to an end and it was time to head home. When I got to work this morning, my day was looking very different. I was hoping to followup with a half-dozen people and verify their issues were resolved.

Then I was planning to go see another dozen people and work to resolve the issues they were having. All until 10:30 when my day got hijacked by more important things.

I never know what each day has in store for me. I can plan and scheme and make lists of what I will accomplish. And it can all evaporate in the blink of an eye. All the planning is for naught.

Choosing a Platform

By Carl

On September 20, 2012

In Observations

Choosing a platform

Tonight I read Gnorb’s article on how he views the smartphone landscape. The problem with choosing a smartphone is no longer as simple as choosing the phone and what the phone can do for you.

With the major players producing tablets, integration into that ecosystem is something to consider. In addition, there is the possibly integration with the computer of choice sitting on your desk or on your lap.

Google Android

Android as a platform has unlimited options, choices and freedom. Android is shopping mall. It offers a variety of wares at prices all across the board and you can get exactly what you want at the price you want to pay.

Android also struggles with fragmentation and being forgotten a year after its release. When I had an Android phone my problem was there was always a bigger, better, more amazing Android phone being released the next week.

Every. Single. Week.

Apple iOS

Apple’s platform is the opposite of Android. Apple is the high-end boutique. It offers a couple of variations on a theme but overall, the quality is high and the choice is small.

Where Apple shines is control. It controls the vertical, it controls the horizontal. To use Apple products is to not just use a single product but to play in Apple’s playground and live in their world. Apple has built an experience.

Because of this totalitarian control, Apple is able to offer longer support and a consistent experience across all the devices in their playground. Apple’s control wrinkles the noses of those who feel there is not enough freedom across the platform.

Apple’s control also assures nearly no malicious applications are released to the platform and they have safe guards in place to resolve any issues that may arise.

Microsoft Windows Phone

The last Windows Phone I used was a disaster running Windows Phone 6.5 which was basically Windows XP crammed into a smartphone body. It came with a stylus and extreme frustration.

Since then, they’re built a respectable platform and have embraced Apple’s control to make the hardware and software which should help the platform. I haven’t used or had experience with any of the new phones so that’s as much as I’ll say for the platform as I don’t feel it fair to talk about a platform I’ve not used.

Decisions

So what is a consumer to do? Buy into the Apple iLifestyle? You’ll pay a hefty price but will be rewarded with multi-year support and a consistent ecosystem. You’ll also be subject to the whims of the big red fruit and their seemingly arbitrary removal of support for features in older hardware. The tight integration between the mobile and computer platform can be real benefit to those living in both. However, if you only use one or the other, there is a lot of missing value.

What about the Open Android platform? There are phone sizes, speeds and carriers for everyone. There are a vast array of tablets. There isn’t a desktop companion but they play decently with the big players. The initial price is low but quality is all over the place from excellent to appalling. The overall lack of support could mean your shiny new toy get abandoned a year later and never see another update.

Then there is Windows phone which has some real potential. Microsoft is putting together a cloud-based ecosystem and is betting big on Windows 8 which features a lot of integration and visual similarity with their Windows Phones.

My experiences

I owned an original Motorola Droid. I was very happy with it though the lack of support from Motorola was disappointing. I had to root the phone to install an Android Operating System update after Verizon claimed the phone could not support it. There was also a large gap in the availability of applications in the earlier days of Android.

Many things were iOS only and Android support was more promised than delivered on. This was before the Amazon Android store and Google’s integrated Play store. This was before Android was a household name and more the domain of nerds and Blackberry refugees.

After the Droid, I got an iPhone 4 which is the phone I still use today. The instant upgrade in camera and software quality was welcomed. At the time I had a Mac laptop so the integration between phone and computer was a welcomed change, since there was no good way to sync media to Android and DoubleTwist was just being released. Though I used the Droid as my phone and primary device, I had an iPod Touch for all my music because Android was so frustrating to use.

I had an Android in the dark days of the platform and it has come a long way since then. However, it still has many of the same issues as it did when I had the Droid. Specifically, the lack of support from carriers after purchase, lack of OS updates to hardware that can handle it, the fragmentation meaning not every phone can run every app, or run it well and the constant New Big Thing means support quickly gets forgotten for the phone you choose in weeks instead of years.

What works for you

What is comes down to is what works for you. What is the best choice for what you wan to do. Are you a writer? Are you a photographer? Are you a technologist?

What phone best fits your lifestyle and what are you going to enjoy using for the next few years since most of us can’t afford to get a new device every year.

What I have

I have the iPhone 4. My contact is up in December, though I am eligible for an upgrade now. I am looking at the iPhone 5 because while it doesn’t overwhelm me, I do get all the features that came with the iPhone 4s as well. I still like the iPhone over the Android choices because of the ecosystem I bought into starting with an iPod Touch. I feel like I know what I am going to get with Apple. Like it or not, they’re consistent and I know I will see a new operating system in a year and possibly another one after that. With Android, I don’t know if I’ll ever see an upgrade, and when the carrier loses interest, so too goes the support.

I have a Lenovo Y570 laptops running Windows 7. My plastic MacBook died years ago and I wanted to get a laptop I could play PC games on, had enough power to last me a few years and have some room for upgrades. The biggest selling point was price since I had a small amount of money to spend on a computer and a new Mac or even used Mac was out of the budget. I work in IT Support so I live in Windows and Mac OS all day so I don’t have any allegiances to one or the other. Operating Systems are tools.

I also have a 1st Generation iPad which I did not buy. It was a Christmas present a few years ago. It is also easily my most-used device and my go to reading and chill out device and the device I am itching to upgrade the most.

I have a Google CR-48 Chromebook I was lucky enough to receive for free when Google first announced the new project. I use it from time to time and while I love Chrome on all my devices, the Chrome OS is not enough to be an everyday use platform. At least not for me. The CR-48 is a decent machine albeit under-powered and with a terrible track pad. I like the keyboard and the lightness. I wrote this post tonight on it because it was sitting next to my bed and within reach.

This is what I use and what I like. It’s not going to be perfect for everyone but it works for me. And that’s all that is really important.

Free Speech

By Carl

On September 7, 2012

In Observations

There is free speech in this country. This means you can say what you want to whom you want. I defend the right to free speech. I don’t have to agree with what you say just as you don’t have to agree with what I say.

The right to say it is still there and will be defended.

The right to free speech is also paired with the right to react to that speech. I can say what I want to say. But there is a reaction to what I say. You can say what you want to say. But I will react to what you say as well. We all have the freedom to say whatever we’d like. However, there are consequences to those words.

Free speech is a two-way conversation.

Sharing in the Digital Age

By Carl

On September 6, 2012

In Observations

There is a growing need in our increasing isolated digital world to share.

My wife has an Amazon account linked to Kindle books.
I have my account and own set of books. It is frustrating not to be able to connect those two accounts. To not even be able to lend the “not lendable” books to each other is irritating. ((Thanks publishers!))

I would like nothing more than to read some things she has purchased and she’d like to enjoy some of the things I have purchased in return.

The problem is not limited to Amazon’s Kindle.

In Audible((Also owned by Amazon)), I have a growing collection of audiobooks and it’s silly to have two accounts for one family but there is no way for me to share my books with my wife or for her to share the couple of books she collected before we were married.

This would be a moot point if we had started out with a joint account. However, as single people we each had our own account. Even thought I am able to add her to the Amazon Prime plan for the family, we cannot combine any of our other services and are forced to maintain separate accounts and permissions.

The best Amazon was able to suggest when I contacted them was one of two things.

1. To deregister the Kindle or Kindle app we happened to be using and register it in the other person’s name. Not an ideal solution by any means.

2. I was offered a refund on the books I purchased through the Kindle store. Then the offer was taken away since I had “too many” books already. In the words of the Amazon rep I got a reply from,

>I can understand the inconvenience with this. To help you out, I would like to issue refund on your Kindle content orders, if you have placed fewer orders. So that you would be able to buy the content again after registering to your wife’s Kindle. But, you have placed many orders for Kindle content. So, I’m unable to issue refund on all the orders.

So the only solution is to deregister and reregister as my wife and I trade-off using it. This includes redownloading and resyncing any books we had made progress on. That is the only solution for this problem.

Amazon has revolutionized many industries and changed the book buying world. However, this is an area which has seemingly received little to no attention.

Perhaps it has and perhaps it is the publishers not wanting the risk of “piracy” to rob them of their sales. I would love to be able to limit sharing to a physical address, or even just a single other Amazon account. This is not piracy.

Perhaps one day there will be a way to share digital content between two linked accounts. Perhaps there will come a time when technology will catch up with their analog equivalents.

Podcasts I Love

By Carl

On September 4, 2012

In Observations

I started listening to podcasts when I would commute into DC everyday on the Metro and I got tired of listening to music everyday.

My love of podcasts is best summed up by Andrew Marvin in his post Talk Show Thoughts.

That’s the beauty of podcasts: you can listen to thoughtful conversations on the topics that you love.

Most of the podcasts I listen to fall under this idea. They’re tech related and I enjoy listening to the people I respect talk about topics that interest me.

There is one notable exception to the list which is a throwback to the old radio dramas. I remember listening to the radio on Sunday nights growing up. My dad, brother and I would be in the car going back and forth between his house and mom’s house where we lived most of the week.

We would listen to GunSmoke among others as the truck rumbled along the gravel road. Somehow, that gravel road and the rumbly old pickup truck added authenticity to the stories we’d hear on the radio.

In that same vein, I love We’re Alive, which is a drama about life after the zombie uprising. It follows a group of survivors and their trials and tribulations with the living and the undead. It’s brilliantly acted and the production quality is top-notch.

I highly recommend it if you enjoy survival stories or zombie fiction.

Can’t Miss Shows

Enough

Patrick Rhone‘s ongoing quest for balance in the form of Enough. He and Myke Hurley ask the question, What is enough for you? He does a “How Bare Is Your Air?” segment where he asks guests if they had a stock 64GB MacBook Air what they would install on it. I have become a devout follower of Patrick Rhone’s. I had the pleasure of meeting him for lunch a couple months ago and having a wonderful conversation over BBQ. He truly is the nicest guy on the internet. He embodies the idea of Enough in all that he does. He is a deep thinker and each episode makes me think about something in a different way than I had before. I am seeking what truly is “Enough” in my own life. I’m not there yet but I don’t think anyone ever truly arrives. It’s a journey, not a destination.

Back to Work

Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin‘s weekly zany talk about working culture, recapturing your time, funny voices and pearls of wisdom. Very long but always worth the listen. The show often goes completely off the rails, and over into the next galaxy and other times is spot on and absolutely world changing. You never know what the next episode will hold but they’re all good in their own way.

Mac Power Users

David Sparks and Katie Floyd dive deep into a topic that matters to Mac Power Users. They also host “Workflows” episodes which dive deep into how people do what they do. The interviews they conduct are excellent they are both very knowledgeable about the Mac and using it to make their lives easier and more productive.

512 Podcast

Stephen Hackett‘s love letter to Mac tech, sometimes old and sometimes new, and journalism. He talks with Myke Hurley and it’s a great listen for the old Mac nerd. Recently, they talked about the entire history of the iPod from start to present and the history of the Apple Display. A little geekier than your usual tech show but very informative and a lovely stroll down Mac memory lane.

Build & Analyze

Hosted by Marco Arment and Dan Benjamin – Don’t let the name fool you into thinking it’s a development show. It’s a show about coffee, parenting, Macs, Instapaper, Coding, Computers, and text editors. There is also talk of development from time to time. I really enjoy Marco and Dan’s talks. It’s replaced a spot in my lineup that Leo Laporte’s used to fill. I think Dan and Marco have a great chemistry and they clock in at less than 2 hours.

Rising Stars & New Arrivals

Mikes on Mics

Mike Vardy and Michael (he whose name must not be spelled) Schechter are like two brothers who are best friends but know exactly what buttons to press and how to playfully incite disagreements. The show covers all sorts of topics about productivity, focus, working with people and working for yourself. There is a segment each show called what are you drinking where they share what beverage they’re enjoying as they talk to each other and to us.

ZenGeek Podcast

Zengeek is a newcomer to the podcasting scene but is quickly becoming a can’t miss show. Andrew Marvin of Quarter-Life Enlightenment and Jeffrey Inscho of StaticMade discuss topics like money, sports and the written word from their diverse backgrounds. The differences in age, background and geography lend themselves to the topics they choose to cover. They choose one topic for the episode and dive deep into it and explore it from their individual perspectives. The resulting conversation is always interesting and constructive. They’re only seven episodes in so start listening now to catch up.

CMD+Space (formerly The Bro Show

When I started this review, this show was still called The Bro Show and starred Myke Hurley and Terry Lucy talking tech news together, often with a guest. The show has had a metamorphosis with Terry stepping down from the show and Myke describing the format as a “late night talk show” and his goal is to move it more in that direction. Tired of rehashing the same news everyone else does, the show was relaunched August 1st with Merlin Mann, who Myke managed to keep fairly on topic, as its first guest. I liked the show before but ever since the relaunch, Myke has been on fire and the show is only getting better and better. Each week Myke sits down and dives into the world and interests of his guests asking interesting questions and exploring their areas of expertise. The show was good and has only gotten better since it became CMD+Space.

Home Work

I don’t work at home but Dave Caolo and Aaron Mahnke talk through a lot of things that not only help the home worker but is solid advice for all people who have to work with teams, battle distractions or have a side project they’re trying to work on from home. The show is valuable every week and Aaron and Dave are a delight to listen to and I look forward to their voices in my headphones.

Systematic

Systematic is Brett Terpstra‘s new show. I feel the man needs no introduction but he is a programmer with AOL, he had written a markdown previewer called Marked, contributes to the Notational Velocity fork called NVAlt, has an array of TextExpander snippets among other things. Brett is a man of many talents and seemingly never sleeps or slows down. He may or may not be a robot. However, when he’s not writing fantastic scripts, developing his own software, contributing and helping out anyone who asks and somehow working to support himself, he has a show now. The show has been excellent. It is still in its infancy but eight episodes in, it has quickly become one of my favorites. Brett is the kind of guy you’d want to hang out with and pick his brain because he knows so much about so many things and is a genuinely nice guy.

Seasonal

The Fantasy Football Guys

I love football season and I run a fantasy football league every year for a few friends. It’s friendly and fun and it gives me something to pay attention to when my home team is having abysmal year. Kevin and Lyle podcast and poke fun at each other each week and answer questions from the community. They’re knowledgeable and always fun and they’ve put the time in watching games and looking at players so I can make smarter moves.

Hidden Gem

Huffduffer is little known but absolutely vital part of my life. Huffduffer will allow you to take any audio from the web and save it for later. This is great for listening to a single episode of a podcast, or for capturing audio from a blog post like an interview you want to listen to later.

Huffduffer allows you to collect these various audio files from across the web and turn them into a podcast by providing an RSS feed. Then, I can take the RSS feed and put it into iTunes and it will download the audio I add to my feed and when I sync my iPhone, it will pull those interviews, single podcast episode, and whatever else I’ve found.

If you enjoy podcasts or want to capture audio for listening to later, you need Huffduffer. And the best part is it’s free.

Huffduffer, the Instapaper for audio.