June 6, 2009 at 3:43 pm · Filed under Personal
From: What Consumes Me?
This diagram is a telling benchmark of where we are at in life. What makes us successful with business is the competitive edge that no one else can teach. Greatness isn’t something a professor in front of a very expensive classroom can provide you. There are certain things God blesses us with, talents if you will. When we focus on the blessing and move away from the desire to monetize life we can focus on what we love. The secret to greatness is waking up in the morning on top of your game and the only way to make this happen is to be passionate about a topic. For example I am excited to wake up in the morning and read the latest tech news. This is unlike the other computer guys that wake up in the morning and watch ESPN. That excitement gurantees that my time spent on things that excite me also contributes to my work. Likewise when I have to pull an all nighter I am not thinking of what big game I am missing, I am thinking of the next big break through on a problem. So everyone wake up tomorrow and have your Hooray moment. More tips can be found at the excellent website linked above.
June 3, 2009 at 2:37 am · Filed under Personal
My name is Nick and I am on Match.com. In a conversation I had recently (with a great girl from the site actually) I posed the question whether or not she had told her family about her expedition into the world of online dating. Other than mom, no. Truth is my family doesn’t know either (Hi Mom!)
There is a certain cut of people that comes from families that were supernatural. Eating dinner together every night or parents married for 20+ years, they spit in the face of normalcy and statistics. People that are from this type of family fall prey to the unfortunate side effect that their families think the same thing will happen. The days of meeting a girl at the drive-in diner or in 4th period History class are not the case anymore. Society and world dictate an amount of expedience in our careers and lives that doesn’t allow for that slow methodical guessing game.
It should serve as no surprise that this generation operates this way. Our minds are not filled with questions on life anymore, but rather quiries for Google. We know exactly what we desire and search for and the world should be well aware, they taught us. From this SQL database querying generation comes a single pitfall. While we busily search for an exact “match” we often loose sight of the fact that our searches are only as good as the input provided. This is where Grandma and Grandpa had us beat in the world of dating. While we busily pluck on a keyboard for what we consider our perfect life they were busy living it.
In my mind I always have this funny scenario I play out. I imagine a culture where arranged marriages are the normal course of action and see two parents sitting at the keyboard. Here they sit finding the perfect match for their son or daughter. The paradox of an arranged marriage and search for the perfect match makes me smile. Instead of living in a search-ridden world maybe we instead move to a world of open acceptance. Instead of searching for that girl with a knack for deep conversation I replace it with a splat for seeing it all with no filters on the results. Next stop:
May 22, 2009 at 7:59 pm · Filed under Personal
Information technology and assurance both are commonly seen as negative costs in a budget. Deploying a new or replacement server is seen as “sunk” cost for very little gain. In the same vein implementing costly security packages before an attack seems imprudent. “We haven’t had security issues thus far” is a slogan to be plastered on the side of Silicone Valley. Sticking with legacy platforms and code bases to dodge the upgrade bullet only serve to hit you with cost later down the road. As a good friend of mine Marc states “plan to do it right first or plan on doing it again later.”
As IT/IA professionals it is our duty to track and provide these metrics. There is a platform I support that runs on Red Hat 3 due to some legacy PAM modules. The software ends up driving architecture changes to multiple sources. Take for example authentication, backup, or the more expensive hardware choices. It is incredibly difficult to find compatible servers that contain certified HBA that interface with certified drivers to a SAN. Rather than having the ability to pick the right tool or vendor we are force to go with the ONLY vendor still willing to support such an old platform.
The down-select in vendors and products leaves us with proprietary solutions that are much more expensive than industry standards. Here comes the “sunk” cost as you look to upgrade. “Well Gosh we paid so much for those MFM controllers…” And so the cycle continues.
It is against human nature to incur changes that make additional work. In the course of a task we would much rather continue to purchase legacy equipment than make the leap. That is where IT/IA leads need to provide ASTUTE guidance. This requires a long-term and standards oriented approach as you are afforded exactly one opportunity. Woe to the admin who suggested a move to floptical and then had to deal with piles of worthless media and upset admins.
My rules are as follows for ensuring that architecture is sustainable:
- Never utilize a technology that is vendor owned in your core infrastructure
- Tie yourself to a company and you are now directly impacted by their pitfalls
- A product must have been on the market for longer than 6 months
- This used to be a one year window for me, but with technology and competition there is a great deal of testing prior to deployment of new apps. With that said, be safe
- Longevity of the project or company
- If the product is open-source I read the mailing lists and get a feel for the health of the project before deploying. Likewise I look at the stock ticker or Google news of a company before purchasing.
- Open Standards do not infer valid product selection
- Do not select products that are only being produced by one source. This situation is just as bad as #1 unless you have the knowledge to implement those standards in your own product.
- Security on the front end or it will never happen
- Can’t secure your product for 1.0? Then it never will be secure. In today’s world you cannot deploy products that lack basic security controls. SNMPv1, telnet, ftp, group accounts, and many other things exist because of laziness. To implement them requires drastic architecture changes. This means you are basically buying a new product when they do. See #2
- Size of team
- I have met some incredible engineers. These are the types that by sheer determination create a masterpiece of technology against all odds. Do not buy their product. Make them an offer or attempt to buy the company. One man can provide a decent amount of vision, but one driver with a lack of vision can take them out.
- Community of fellow users
- Is there a website that has mailing lists or forums where fellow users exchange information? Kudos if the website is vendor supported, but not necessary if the community augments this. No product I have ever
- Documentation
- The most I am willing to do is sign up for your documentation site, even that is borderline unacceptable. Documentation should serve as the wallpaper plastered in server rooms and night stands of competent admins. It is unacceptable to shelter poor documentation behind the guise of proprietary information. If you aren’t willing to describe the bucket of 1’s and 0’s, I am unwilling to provide you with my buckets of dollar bills.
These are of course not set in stone, but when asked this is my going in position. Exceptions can be found, but do not justify the expense you will pay. As mentioned earlier - Pay for it now or pay for it later.
May 17, 2009 at 7:08 am · Filed under Personal
As we move into a fully connected world there is a bigger expectation that we allow intrusions into our personal lives. While it may be a blackberry or a pager, in today’s world the expectation is that there is no more 9-5. This social contract is acceptable as long as the contract extends both directions.
Studies show that employees that visit facebook or twitter are more productive than those that are expected 8 full hours of heads down work. The reason is simple, the brain is designed to process way more information than we can utilize. By pulling away from a problem the synapses can evaluate in a different vantage.
The employee that answers a phone on vacation should also be afforded the opportunity to answer a call at work. The employee that skips a weekend with their friends should be allowed to catchup on facebook. The paradigm is changing and business has to adapt. I am fortunate to work with a company that understands that and gives applicable time to those employees who give up portions of their lives. The melding works well and the employees appreciate the trust and giving.
There is a misconception that the employee and employer can simply break connections. We refer to our blackberries as our “ball and chain,” but in the sudo-family atmosphere it is important to keep in touch. Doing so allows us to fully appreciate the taking and giving.
May 5, 2009 at 2:18 am · Filed under Personal
Lexmark provides subpar Linux drivers for any distro, but Ubuntu/Debian is horrible. At work we moved from HP Printers to Lexmark. The situation reminds me of ATI hardware in the late-90’s, great hardware and crappy drivers. I converted the Red Hat RPM for Debian based systems. Attached below:
To install sudo dpkg -i drivers-lexprtdrv_552-2_i386.deb
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