Two proposals for projects and capital expenditures in my new role, and two approvals. I've had very valuable help from my manager in fine-tuning (or totally revamping) parts of the proposals so that they're appropriate for the audience. We've done very well it would appear...despite a very tight economy and conservative holders of purse strings, we've approved nearly $250,000 of new projects.
The exercise of doing both is something everyone agrees should be commonplace for CapEx requests. I've been able to show both proposals will save real money, providing enhanced capabilities for free plus generate a return. It took a little effort and brainstorming, but it was far from impossible.
A lot of techies know when they've found the right thing to solve a given problem...the challenge is to get them to put it into terms that make sense to businesspeople. Technology hasn't been about 1's and 0's for a long time. If you want to be a technology professional, you need to link technology solutions to business problems, and sell them in non-technical terms using real numbers. If you can't do that, well, there's probably a call center hiring someplace.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Internationally Known
What a great tool LinkedIn has become for me.
Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it. I've taken some time to dredge up the names of faces I've met throughout the 15 years I've been a technology professional, and have been elated to find so many of them on LinkedIn. Reconnecting and catching up with former colleagues has been quite a joy. I only wish that more of them were on the service; I hope I've not lost all contact with those individuals.
Interestingly, participating in the Q&A section of the site has allowed me to establish connections to individuals I'd have never otherwise met or known. In particular, I'm now connected to someone in the Netherlands, someone in China, and have made the acquaintance of an individual in India. I have been able to provide career advice to a young professional searching for his way, and have been fortunate to receive many letters of thanks from both the question's authors and those who have found the words helpful.
The best thing LinkedIn has done for me, however, has nothing to do with their service. Realizing what LinkedIn really does happened in stages. There was the "What is this, really?" stage, then the "Wow, this could be a great showcase for me" stage, followed soon afterwards by the "Who else is on here" stage. Not long after that, a tiny dose of panic set in - how many people that I've known would be happy and eager to accept my invitation to connect? Any bit of self-doubt you had growing up in a cliquey school system comes rushing back. Fortunately, over 100 individuals I've known (and have recently met) are now connections; but the lesson taught by a desire to grow your network has been learned; Treat *everyone* you meet as if you'd like them to happily accept your invitation to connect.
Like anything, you get out of it what you put into it. I've taken some time to dredge up the names of faces I've met throughout the 15 years I've been a technology professional, and have been elated to find so many of them on LinkedIn. Reconnecting and catching up with former colleagues has been quite a joy. I only wish that more of them were on the service; I hope I've not lost all contact with those individuals.
Interestingly, participating in the Q&A section of the site has allowed me to establish connections to individuals I'd have never otherwise met or known. In particular, I'm now connected to someone in the Netherlands, someone in China, and have made the acquaintance of an individual in India. I have been able to provide career advice to a young professional searching for his way, and have been fortunate to receive many letters of thanks from both the question's authors and those who have found the words helpful.
The best thing LinkedIn has done for me, however, has nothing to do with their service. Realizing what LinkedIn really does happened in stages. There was the "What is this, really?" stage, then the "Wow, this could be a great showcase for me" stage, followed soon afterwards by the "Who else is on here" stage. Not long after that, a tiny dose of panic set in - how many people that I've known would be happy and eager to accept my invitation to connect? Any bit of self-doubt you had growing up in a cliquey school system comes rushing back. Fortunately, over 100 individuals I've known (and have recently met) are now connections; but the lesson taught by a desire to grow your network has been learned; Treat *everyone* you meet as if you'd like them to happily accept your invitation to connect.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Return of the Mac
A little over 12 months ago, I was fortunate enough to begin piloting an Apple MacBook Pro. It came with a 17" glossy display, 2GB of memory, pretty fast processor, and most importantly OS X Tiger.
After only a few weeks of use, I was so completely acclimated to the amazingly simple, elegant, efficient, effective design of the Mac that I began looking for ways to use them instead of Windows machines. Sadly, that effort stopped with Apple telling us they're unable to (and uninterested in) service broken systems on-site within any kind of SLA. This basically relegates Mac's to giant companies operating in a single campus, or companies with savvy IT hardware techs at each site - few of which are progressive enough to consider using Mac's.
After about 6 months, I started to forget how to use Windows as efficiently as I had before. What's funny about that fact is this; I held a job as a youngster which involved use of a character based point of sale system. I knew how to do everything with it, and could get around it with lightning speed - often helping my co-workers when they got stuck. Less than a year away from that job, I couldn't even tell you how to sign in anymore. It was completely gone.
The learning curve is so flat with Mac's, that you don't really have to "train" yourself to use them. It mostly involves forgetting many of the ill habits formed by using Windows. When you go back to Windows, you get frustrated very quickly at the stupid, work-losing default choices various buttons present.
Given that Gartner has recently declared Windows as "collapsing", my hope is that Apple gets over itself and creates an Apple Enterprise operating company focused on being a real alternative to the Big 3. I'm fairly certain that end-user software is slowly going to become OS independent, in one of a number of ways.
Nevertheless, I'd have been updating this blog more regularly were it not for Google's interference with the blogger.com service. It simply would not let me log in using the credentials I made to create it. After some rapid (and unrepeatable) clicking, I finally found a screen that would let me re-enter the e-mail address. I will endeavor to update the blog with more frequency going forward.
After only a few weeks of use, I was so completely acclimated to the amazingly simple, elegant, efficient, effective design of the Mac that I began looking for ways to use them instead of Windows machines. Sadly, that effort stopped with Apple telling us they're unable to (and uninterested in) service broken systems on-site within any kind of SLA. This basically relegates Mac's to giant companies operating in a single campus, or companies with savvy IT hardware techs at each site - few of which are progressive enough to consider using Mac's.
After about 6 months, I started to forget how to use Windows as efficiently as I had before. What's funny about that fact is this; I held a job as a youngster which involved use of a character based point of sale system. I knew how to do everything with it, and could get around it with lightning speed - often helping my co-workers when they got stuck. Less than a year away from that job, I couldn't even tell you how to sign in anymore. It was completely gone.
The learning curve is so flat with Mac's, that you don't really have to "train" yourself to use them. It mostly involves forgetting many of the ill habits formed by using Windows. When you go back to Windows, you get frustrated very quickly at the stupid, work-losing default choices various buttons present.
Given that Gartner has recently declared Windows as "collapsing", my hope is that Apple gets over itself and creates an Apple Enterprise operating company focused on being a real alternative to the Big 3. I'm fairly certain that end-user software is slowly going to become OS independent, in one of a number of ways.
Nevertheless, I'd have been updating this blog more regularly were it not for Google's interference with the blogger.com service. It simply would not let me log in using the credentials I made to create it. After some rapid (and unrepeatable) clicking, I finally found a screen that would let me re-enter the e-mail address. I will endeavor to update the blog with more frequency going forward.
Year in Review
Since it's been nearly a year between updates here, I should point out what's transpired.
Most significantly, I was promoted to Director of IS&T Infrastructure Services late last year. This essentially means I have full custody of the teams responsible for all desktop, server, and LAN/WAN environments - in addition to our support services. I hope eventually to back-fill my position, but much of that will depend on organizational issues above my pay grade (to borrow a term from some of my former military employees).
We're returning to Dell as a customer, after being so frustrated by the behemoth of IBM that we can simply no longer deal with them. To wit, we're replacing a 3 year old BladeCenter system with three Dell 2950's configured to run VMWare Infrastructure 3. We've also upgraded our Network Appliance FAS-270 to a FAS-3020, including the addition of 7TB of new disk - a process that was a bit more turbulent than we'd have hoped; vet your service providers carefully. That should give us plenty of capacity, and opens up a host of brilliant DR capabilities which we're excited to pursue this year.
We've also decided to put literally everything we do on the table for discussion. Decisions to either change or stay the course will need to be defensible, but everything is fair game. E-mail, file and print, networking services, etc. It's very exciting actually. Exiting this process, we'll have full and complete confidence that we're doing what's best for the business.
A more exciting development is the uncertainty surrounding some of the systems which have been outside my control. I'd have been far happier if we could have made the sale so to speak, and fully leveraged the investment in our ERP solution - the reality is that we didn't, and I think we're starting to face that fact by asking "how else can we tackle the problem"? It's a great opportunity to get much more closely involved with the business we support, and that type of experience is what I'm very much looking forward to in order to further my own professional development.
Finally, it was a great shame to see Martin Buckley leave Novell recently. I certainly do not fault him for doing so, and not just because I've made his acquaintance. Novell has deserved every bit of the intellectual capital loss they've experienced over the past few years. They are an organization which appears devoid of new ideas, leadership, and increasingly, relevance. The few bright spots within Provo are growing dimmer by the day. Plenty of blame to go around, for sure - Novell represents a master class in how not to run a technology company.
Most significantly, I was promoted to Director of IS&T Infrastructure Services late last year. This essentially means I have full custody of the teams responsible for all desktop, server, and LAN/WAN environments - in addition to our support services. I hope eventually to back-fill my position, but much of that will depend on organizational issues above my pay grade (to borrow a term from some of my former military employees).
We're returning to Dell as a customer, after being so frustrated by the behemoth of IBM that we can simply no longer deal with them. To wit, we're replacing a 3 year old BladeCenter system with three Dell 2950's configured to run VMWare Infrastructure 3. We've also upgraded our Network Appliance FAS-270 to a FAS-3020, including the addition of 7TB of new disk - a process that was a bit more turbulent than we'd have hoped; vet your service providers carefully. That should give us plenty of capacity, and opens up a host of brilliant DR capabilities which we're excited to pursue this year.
We've also decided to put literally everything we do on the table for discussion. Decisions to either change or stay the course will need to be defensible, but everything is fair game. E-mail, file and print, networking services, etc. It's very exciting actually. Exiting this process, we'll have full and complete confidence that we're doing what's best for the business.
A more exciting development is the uncertainty surrounding some of the systems which have been outside my control. I'd have been far happier if we could have made the sale so to speak, and fully leveraged the investment in our ERP solution - the reality is that we didn't, and I think we're starting to face that fact by asking "how else can we tackle the problem"? It's a great opportunity to get much more closely involved with the business we support, and that type of experience is what I'm very much looking forward to in order to further my own professional development.
Finally, it was a great shame to see Martin Buckley leave Novell recently. I certainly do not fault him for doing so, and not just because I've made his acquaintance. Novell has deserved every bit of the intellectual capital loss they've experienced over the past few years. They are an organization which appears devoid of new ideas, leadership, and increasingly, relevance. The few bright spots within Provo are growing dimmer by the day. Plenty of blame to go around, for sure - Novell represents a master class in how not to run a technology company.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Why To Sell NOVL, Part 2 - OES Patching Issues
In January, I posted an entry out of raw frustration resulting from a series of experiences and announcements with and from Novell. The straw that broke the camel's back was related to their misguided BorderManager / Novell Security Manager statement (So long, linux - hello, NetWare). However, a huge heap of the load was due to the unbelievably poor method Novell chose for applying patches to OES on SLES.
In October of 2006, during an executive briefing I attended, I had raised this issue to a Novell OES product manager. I'm no longer certain what this title entails, since there's an awful lot of product managers at Novell, and they don't seem to talk to one another.
The product manager's expression was one of simple acquiesence - he understood that our request to split patches into several channels (rather than one, as it is today), was one that made sense and would be very simple to implement.
Fast forward 4 months, and we're in January - still no separate "stable" or "critical" OES patch channel...everything's still coming down in one big clump.
Fast forward another 4 months, and we're in May - where we've just completed another conference call with another OES Product Manager who agrees that ZLM is a poor method for applying patches to production servers, and who thinks the concept of splitting OES patches into multiple channels is a valid, actionable idea.
Novell have committed to us that they'd let us know by this week if/when they can make this happen, and if not, why. The alternative is to wait for OES 2, since that's when they intend to make this 'better', but in a way that leaves OES SP2 adopters in the cold.
It seems that there really are very few people who have made the leap from NetWare to OES on SLES as we have. Our move was one of necessity - NetWare wasn't stable enough to run the mix of services we needed on a single platform any longer. In speaking to a Collaboration SE last week, we agreed that Novell could do a better job of reducing barriers to adoption - like putting placeholder scripts on OES systems that mimic the look & feel of the old C-Worthy interfaces we enjoyed (like DSREPAIR, MONITOR, etc). Even if it doesn't look the same, it can at least tell you what options to put on the command line or present a menu of common tasks.
CoolSolutions has such a script for DSREPAIR specifically - originally written for eDirectory on Solaris, by an enthusiastic user. It's a brilliant idea, and eliminates one big reason that people have for not going to OES on SLES.
If you had to get training to learn a new server OS, would you pursue a niche product like OES, or would you just sell out and run Windows like everyone else in the world?
There's lots that Novell still doesn't understand about the market and their customers, unfortunately.
That said, we were treated to an overview of new features in OES 2, and from the sounds of it, we could really make use of those enhancements. Still waiting on more details, but our fingers are crossed.
In October of 2006, during an executive briefing I attended, I had raised this issue to a Novell OES product manager. I'm no longer certain what this title entails, since there's an awful lot of product managers at Novell, and they don't seem to talk to one another.
The product manager's expression was one of simple acquiesence - he understood that our request to split patches into several channels (rather than one, as it is today), was one that made sense and would be very simple to implement.
Fast forward 4 months, and we're in January - still no separate "stable" or "critical" OES patch channel...everything's still coming down in one big clump.
Fast forward another 4 months, and we're in May - where we've just completed another conference call with another OES Product Manager who agrees that ZLM is a poor method for applying patches to production servers, and who thinks the concept of splitting OES patches into multiple channels is a valid, actionable idea.
Novell have committed to us that they'd let us know by this week if/when they can make this happen, and if not, why. The alternative is to wait for OES 2, since that's when they intend to make this 'better', but in a way that leaves OES SP2 adopters in the cold.
It seems that there really are very few people who have made the leap from NetWare to OES on SLES as we have. Our move was one of necessity - NetWare wasn't stable enough to run the mix of services we needed on a single platform any longer. In speaking to a Collaboration SE last week, we agreed that Novell could do a better job of reducing barriers to adoption - like putting placeholder scripts on OES systems that mimic the look & feel of the old C-Worthy interfaces we enjoyed (like DSREPAIR, MONITOR, etc). Even if it doesn't look the same, it can at least tell you what options to put on the command line or present a menu of common tasks.
CoolSolutions has such a script for DSREPAIR specifically - originally written for eDirectory on Solaris, by an enthusiastic user. It's a brilliant idea, and eliminates one big reason that people have for not going to OES on SLES.
If you had to get training to learn a new server OS, would you pursue a niche product like OES, or would you just sell out and run Windows like everyone else in the world?
There's lots that Novell still doesn't understand about the market and their customers, unfortunately.
That said, we were treated to an overview of new features in OES 2, and from the sounds of it, we could really make use of those enhancements. Still waiting on more details, but our fingers are crossed.
Everything You Know About Desktop Security is Wrong
This is what Ivan Kristic told an audience in Australia at their annual AusCERT conference. Kristic should know a thing or two, as he authored ''The Official Ubuntu Book". Here's some of the more interesting things he had to say during his keynote.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9020061&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
"Everything you know about desktop security is wrong. Desktop security is about the user not protocols and algorithms," he said, adding that 75 percent of machines are infected with malware.
"Today, there are more than 100,000 known viruses, not to mention spam and phishing and that is because we rely on users to make choices about things they don't understand."
To reinforce his point, Krstic showed how a user interprets a pop-up dialogue box that appears on their screen.
"To a user it simply says: "Blah blah, technical terms, I don't understand, blah blah."
"Then it will ask the user to press 'yes,' 'allow,' or 'permit'.
"Of course they will click on 'yes,' 'allow,' or 'permit' because it rewards them by letting them get back to work. We are training users to ignore security and rewarding them for it," Krstic explained.
Kind of makes the Mac ad where PC is constantly interrupted by a security "agent" a lot less humorous, doesn't it? Kristic asked "how did we get here", probably in reference to Linux specifically. The answer would be, "By following Microsoft." Instead of doing the hard work of either writing secure code to begin with, or the somewhat more difficult work of setting default behaviors with security in mind, Microsoft shoves the entire burden of system integrity to end users who barely know how to set headers and footers in Word.
I have no expectations that Microsoft market share will erode significantly this decade, but if past performance is an indicator of future behavior, I think it's safe to say that Microsoft will never get it...leaving itself open to marginalization by whomever gets this stuff right. Easy. Inexpensive. Secure. Feature-rich. Powerful. Fast. It simply has to happen.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9020061&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
"Everything you know about desktop security is wrong. Desktop security is about the user not protocols and algorithms," he said, adding that 75 percent of machines are infected with malware.
"Today, there are more than 100,000 known viruses, not to mention spam and phishing and that is because we rely on users to make choices about things they don't understand."
To reinforce his point, Krstic showed how a user interprets a pop-up dialogue box that appears on their screen.
"To a user it simply says: "Blah blah, technical terms, I don't understand, blah blah."
"Then it will ask the user to press 'yes,' 'allow,' or 'permit'.
"Of course they will click on 'yes,' 'allow,' or 'permit' because it rewards them by letting them get back to work. We are training users to ignore security and rewarding them for it," Krstic explained.
Kind of makes the Mac ad where PC is constantly interrupted by a security "agent" a lot less humorous, doesn't it? Kristic asked "how did we get here", probably in reference to Linux specifically. The answer would be, "By following Microsoft." Instead of doing the hard work of either writing secure code to begin with, or the somewhat more difficult work of setting default behaviors with security in mind, Microsoft shoves the entire burden of system integrity to end users who barely know how to set headers and footers in Word.
I have no expectations that Microsoft market share will erode significantly this decade, but if past performance is an indicator of future behavior, I think it's safe to say that Microsoft will never get it...leaving itself open to marginalization by whomever gets this stuff right. Easy. Inexpensive. Secure. Feature-rich. Powerful. Fast. It simply has to happen.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Staying Red, Part 2
Back in May of 2006, I wrote about the fact that Ken Muir had taken over the GroupWise product at Novell and how his presence there alone caused us to place on hold our disdain for their flagship collaboration product.
Today, Ken commented on that post and asked if I'd provide an update on our experience with GroupWise since 7.0 SP1. Despite my other issues with Novell's general direction and execution, as hoped, GroupWise has been polished into a state nearly befitting a crown jewel.
We run GroupWise 7.0 SP1 exclusively on Linux, and since my days here, our GroupWise systems have never been as stable or feature rich. SP1 was a home run for Ken and his team, proving that he's able to lead and deliver excellence in both gilded halls and gloomy basements.
As you've no doubt read, I've converted to a MacBook Pro recently...it's now my sole production computer. I've cleared my desk of the IBM T42p, the docking station, second monitor, external keyboard and mouse, etc., in favor of two cables - the Mag Safe power supply, and my external speakers. Sure, I had to deploy 802.11g access points, but people have been asking for that anyway (grin).
The Mac client for GroupWise isn't bad per se, but it's not on-par with the features in the Windows GW7 client. It's very much like GW 6.5 on Windows, but slower (thanks again, Java). I know Ken intends for GroupWise to be feature-identical on all platforms, and I sincerely hope that happens soon with a native-binary version of GW on OSX. I must however say that a recent e-mail discussion with Novell's John Dragoon was a bit more tepid toward Mac's than Ken and his group. Ken, I sincerely hope the pro-Mac mindset prevails - at least until SLED is a realistic competitor in the non-Windows space.
During the Mac evaluation, I was using their native Mail application (along with Mac's iCal and Address Book) over IMAP. I was frustrated by the way iCal in particular looked for appointments from Mail, and quickly found myself missing features like "Forward as Attachment". What GW lacks in visual appeal, it more than makes up for in functionality.
I wasn't in attendance at BrainShare this year, so I cannot speak to the new release of GroupWise and what it intends to do with regard to Exchange/Outlook feature parity and collaboration in general (much more important than keeping up with the Redmond Joneses to me). Ken provided some links, which I've included below, for those who may find themselves among the masses abandoning the S.S. Microsoft.
GroupWise "Bonsai" Demos - http://www.gwava.com/gwavacast/?p=14
Friday BrainShare 2007 Keynote w/ GW Demo - http://www.novell.com/brainshare/general_sessions07.html (about 1:10 minutes into the stream)
Per Ken, "As always, you and all customers have an open line to me. kmuir@novell.com"
Ken remains excited for Novell's future, and in so far as he's able to rally people elsewhere in the company around his principles and standards, he's probably right to be. There's still a very, very long row to hoe in Utah.
Today, Ken commented on that post and asked if I'd provide an update on our experience with GroupWise since 7.0 SP1. Despite my other issues with Novell's general direction and execution, as hoped, GroupWise has been polished into a state nearly befitting a crown jewel.
We run GroupWise 7.0 SP1 exclusively on Linux, and since my days here, our GroupWise systems have never been as stable or feature rich. SP1 was a home run for Ken and his team, proving that he's able to lead and deliver excellence in both gilded halls and gloomy basements.
As you've no doubt read, I've converted to a MacBook Pro recently...it's now my sole production computer. I've cleared my desk of the IBM T42p, the docking station, second monitor, external keyboard and mouse, etc., in favor of two cables - the Mag Safe power supply, and my external speakers. Sure, I had to deploy 802.11g access points, but people have been asking for that anyway (grin).
The Mac client for GroupWise isn't bad per se, but it's not on-par with the features in the Windows GW7 client. It's very much like GW 6.5 on Windows, but slower (thanks again, Java). I know Ken intends for GroupWise to be feature-identical on all platforms, and I sincerely hope that happens soon with a native-binary version of GW on OSX. I must however say that a recent e-mail discussion with Novell's John Dragoon was a bit more tepid toward Mac's than Ken and his group. Ken, I sincerely hope the pro-Mac mindset prevails - at least until SLED is a realistic competitor in the non-Windows space.
During the Mac evaluation, I was using their native Mail application (along with Mac's iCal and Address Book) over IMAP. I was frustrated by the way iCal in particular looked for appointments from Mail, and quickly found myself missing features like "Forward as Attachment". What GW lacks in visual appeal, it more than makes up for in functionality.
I wasn't in attendance at BrainShare this year, so I cannot speak to the new release of GroupWise and what it intends to do with regard to Exchange/Outlook feature parity and collaboration in general (much more important than keeping up with the Redmond Joneses to me). Ken provided some links, which I've included below, for those who may find themselves among the masses abandoning the S.S. Microsoft.
GroupWise "Bonsai" Demos - http://www.gwava.com/gwavacast/?p=14
Friday BrainShare 2007 Keynote w/ GW Demo - http://www.novell.com/brainshare/general_sessions07.html (about 1:10 minutes into the stream)
Per Ken, "As always, you and all customers have an open line to me. kmuir@novell.com"
Ken remains excited for Novell's future, and in so far as he's able to rally people elsewhere in the company around his principles and standards, he's probably right to be. There's still a very, very long row to hoe in Utah.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Of Fruits and Vegetables
For several months, my VP and I have been having somewhat informal, tongue-in-cheek discussions about adoption of Mac systems. We've been so frustrated by Dell (in the past), and now IBM, in addition to being faced with an avalanche named Windows Vista, that we're ready to look at any alternative.
I'd evaluated SLED 10 from Novell late last year, and found it to be somewhat half-baked. I had to re-install GroupWise twice, and rebuild the entire system three times in the span of about a month. Simple stuff like dual-monitor support and switching wireless networks from work to home were exceptionally cumbersome on my IBM T43p eval system. I gave up and went back to Windows XP on my now two-year-old T42p.
So, the frustration had been mounting again, and I offered that I could get a MacBook Pro to evaluate from Apple's refurb store for relatively cheap. My VP wasn't at all hesitant to OK the endeavor. And so now, here I am, updating this Blog on a shiny new-to-me 17" Glossy MacBook Pro. 2GB of RAM, 8x SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme wireless, 160GB HD, 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor, etc.
I can sum up my impression of the MacBook I've been using for the past month in one word. Unbelievable. This is EXACTLY how technology is supposed to work. Call Steve Jobs whatever you want, the end result is the most evolved, refined, performant, and impeccably crafted work of functional art ever to communicate on a LAN. EVERYTHING about it is art. EVERYTHING about it's interface and operation is frighteningly simplified. It's as if Apple has been studying human behavior for the past 20 years, and developed an OS interface that plugs directly in to your psyche.
The challenge isn't in learning how to use it, the challenge is in learning how to break it. The shackles we bear from years of Windows use are tough to shed, but the feeling is very rewarding when you eventually do something you'd have thought wasn't possible. This is what drag-and-drop is supposed to be. This is what plug-and-play is supposed to be. This is what a computer is supposed to look and act like. Forget everything else you've been using - I've used them all, too, and I'm here today to tell you this: they're all toys.
Sadly, the vegetables in this story are the vendors in the enterprise management space. I know far too little about how to manage Apple equipment. Perhaps I'm well ahead of the curve for the first time since beta-testing ZEN 1.0...but I don't think I should be. OS X is a mature operating system, not some garage-based skunkworks project. The mystery to me is that vendors like Novell, etc. haven't woken up to the fact that they build the eggs from which these chickens will hatch. Apple won't find mainstream adoption in heterogeneous environments based on the state of our industry today. That can only mean two things...1) a lifetime of a Microsoft-based, super-homogenous, mind-numbing, unrewarding IT as a whipping-post approach to IT, or 2) a lifetime of an Apple-based, equally homogenous, mind-numbing, smash a square peg into a round hole approach to IT. Neither is very attractive.
Here's hoping the fruits can influence some of the vegetables to grow some seeds.
I'd evaluated SLED 10 from Novell late last year, and found it to be somewhat half-baked. I had to re-install GroupWise twice, and rebuild the entire system three times in the span of about a month. Simple stuff like dual-monitor support and switching wireless networks from work to home were exceptionally cumbersome on my IBM T43p eval system. I gave up and went back to Windows XP on my now two-year-old T42p.
So, the frustration had been mounting again, and I offered that I could get a MacBook Pro to evaluate from Apple's refurb store for relatively cheap. My VP wasn't at all hesitant to OK the endeavor. And so now, here I am, updating this Blog on a shiny new-to-me 17" Glossy MacBook Pro. 2GB of RAM, 8x SuperDrive, AirPort Extreme wireless, 160GB HD, 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor, etc.
I can sum up my impression of the MacBook I've been using for the past month in one word. Unbelievable. This is EXACTLY how technology is supposed to work. Call Steve Jobs whatever you want, the end result is the most evolved, refined, performant, and impeccably crafted work of functional art ever to communicate on a LAN. EVERYTHING about it is art. EVERYTHING about it's interface and operation is frighteningly simplified. It's as if Apple has been studying human behavior for the past 20 years, and developed an OS interface that plugs directly in to your psyche.
The challenge isn't in learning how to use it, the challenge is in learning how to break it. The shackles we bear from years of Windows use are tough to shed, but the feeling is very rewarding when you eventually do something you'd have thought wasn't possible. This is what drag-and-drop is supposed to be. This is what plug-and-play is supposed to be. This is what a computer is supposed to look and act like. Forget everything else you've been using - I've used them all, too, and I'm here today to tell you this: they're all toys.
Sadly, the vegetables in this story are the vendors in the enterprise management space. I know far too little about how to manage Apple equipment. Perhaps I'm well ahead of the curve for the first time since beta-testing ZEN 1.0...but I don't think I should be. OS X is a mature operating system, not some garage-based skunkworks project. The mystery to me is that vendors like Novell, etc. haven't woken up to the fact that they build the eggs from which these chickens will hatch. Apple won't find mainstream adoption in heterogeneous environments based on the state of our industry today. That can only mean two things...1) a lifetime of a Microsoft-based, super-homogenous, mind-numbing, unrewarding IT as a whipping-post approach to IT, or 2) a lifetime of an Apple-based, equally homogenous, mind-numbing, smash a square peg into a round hole approach to IT. Neither is very attractive.
Here's hoping the fruits can influence some of the vegetables to grow some seeds.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Wasting Energy on Energy Preservation
The ridiculously myopic Energy Preservation Act of 2005 mandated that Daylight Savings Time - a predictable fixture for longer than I've been alive - would be modified to start sooner and end later.
Hilarity ensues.
Unlike the Y2K issue, EPA2005 approached rather unexpectedly. Much like Y2k, however, it highlights the remarkably poor, closed-minded job software companies do at planning and developing software.
As one might expect, nothing is immune from the DST change. And, as cynics would bet, patches for this issue wouldn't be available until mere months before the change was to take place - spinning IT departments into instant crisis mode. "Yes, we would have fixed this sooner, but *none* of our vendors got it right." Keep in mind that this was the Energy Preservation Act of 2005. It's now firmly 2007, and we're just now in possession of all the patches we require.
So, again, the entire IT industry looks like a bunch of children who couldn't plan their way out of a wet paper bag. This should be a very, very easy problem for IT departments to fix. OS vendors would simply issue patches that contain the new DST start and end dates...we apply them...end of story.
W r o n g .
Turns out that very few applications rely on their host OS to tell them the correct time.
. . .
So, the fun begins. The insidious plague - the scourge of mankind - the boil on the face of IT known as Java - keeps it's own time. Each JRE keeps it's own time. And as you've read here before, seems like Sun has never embraced "backwards compatibility" as it applies to Java. So in short, just about everything we have that runs on Java needs it's own patch. Nice.
It gets worse.
Novell GroupWise needs patches too. Again, it runs on servers whose time MUST be kept in synchronization with one another. I understand that WebAccess might need to know the new parameters....actually, no I don't. I also don't understand why the GroupWise SMTP server, or GWIA, can't just ask the OS "Hey, what time is it?" now and again. I don't understand why the GroupWise CLIENT, which runs on WINDOWS, which KNOWS THE TIME, can't figure out from the OS itself what time it is, let alone the DATE.
It all confuses me. It's all ignorant. It's an embarrassment for anyone other than an OS vendor or hardware platform vendor with a proprietary embedded kernel (like Palm, RIM, etc) to require patches for the changes to DST. If you have custody over an IT shop of any size and haven't figured out NTP, you're a bozo and need to turn in your resignation right now. If you're a software developer and think that YOU know better than anyone else how to track time, you need to smash your computer with a sledge hammer and never ever touch one again. The sooner, the better.
In the mean time, those of us whose laps receive the problems and challenges that nobody else has the guts or brains to tackle - the enterprise IT professionals - will dutifully go about cleaning up someone else's mess....again.
Hilarity ensues.
Unlike the Y2K issue, EPA2005 approached rather unexpectedly. Much like Y2k, however, it highlights the remarkably poor, closed-minded job software companies do at planning and developing software.
As one might expect, nothing is immune from the DST change. And, as cynics would bet, patches for this issue wouldn't be available until mere months before the change was to take place - spinning IT departments into instant crisis mode. "Yes, we would have fixed this sooner, but *none* of our vendors got it right." Keep in mind that this was the Energy Preservation Act of 2005. It's now firmly 2007, and we're just now in possession of all the patches we require.
So, again, the entire IT industry looks like a bunch of children who couldn't plan their way out of a wet paper bag. This should be a very, very easy problem for IT departments to fix. OS vendors would simply issue patches that contain the new DST start and end dates...we apply them...end of story.
W r o n g .
Turns out that very few applications rely on their host OS to tell them the correct time.
. . .
So, the fun begins. The insidious plague - the scourge of mankind - the boil on the face of IT known as Java - keeps it's own time. Each JRE keeps it's own time. And as you've read here before, seems like Sun has never embraced "backwards compatibility" as it applies to Java. So in short, just about everything we have that runs on Java needs it's own patch. Nice.
It gets worse.
Novell GroupWise needs patches too. Again, it runs on servers whose time MUST be kept in synchronization with one another. I understand that WebAccess might need to know the new parameters....actually, no I don't. I also don't understand why the GroupWise SMTP server, or GWIA, can't just ask the OS "Hey, what time is it?" now and again. I don't understand why the GroupWise CLIENT, which runs on WINDOWS, which KNOWS THE TIME, can't figure out from the OS itself what time it is, let alone the DATE.
It all confuses me. It's all ignorant. It's an embarrassment for anyone other than an OS vendor or hardware platform vendor with a proprietary embedded kernel (like Palm, RIM, etc) to require patches for the changes to DST. If you have custody over an IT shop of any size and haven't figured out NTP, you're a bozo and need to turn in your resignation right now. If you're a software developer and think that YOU know better than anyone else how to track time, you need to smash your computer with a sledge hammer and never ever touch one again. The sooner, the better.
In the mean time, those of us whose laps receive the problems and challenges that nobody else has the guts or brains to tackle - the enterprise IT professionals - will dutifully go about cleaning up someone else's mess....again.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Computerworld's "Vista" About Face
Interesting how the tone & tenor of Computerworld regarding Windows Vista has changed post-launch.
An article on Vista today begins like this:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9010188&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
An article on Vista today begins like this:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9010188&source=NLT_AM&nlid=1
Microsoft is losing consumer operating system market share to Apple for many reasons, but most of those reasons can be oversimplified thus: Mac OS is simple, and Windows is complicated. That's why it may be such a costly error for Microsoft to make the Vista upgrade such a confusing mess.
Until today, even experts couldn't tell you off the top of their heads the differences between each of the many Vista versions -- or even how many versions there are -- or what the basic requirements are for the Upgrade versions. Ordinary consumers are baffled to the point of paralysis.
I have to say that my next PC will probably be an iMac, as my 8-year-old HP Pavilion is showing it's age. The 24" version is particularly stunning. That said, a MacBook Pro isn't out of the picture.
Back to the press...in Big 12 country, the Sooner State is again a bit ahead of the curve...pity for them. Listen to the way Computerworld opens this article:
Unlike most large organizations, the University of Oklahoma plans to deploy Windows Vista on more than one quarter of its 65,000 PCs by the end of this year.
Because of those early migration plans, Dennis Aebersold, the university's CIO, is already well versed in the new operating system's volume activation features.
But Aebersold was disappointed to find that Microsoft Corp. has yet to release its Volume Activation Management Tool, which the school needs in order to use a proxy server to centrally activate multiple Vista desktops via a single connection to Microsoft's systems.
To meet Microsoft's requirement that Vista be activated and validated on systems within 30 days of installation, the university also plans to use an internally hosted Key Management Service developed by Microsoft to support automatic activations.
But Matt Singleton, the school's director of IT services, voiced concerns about that method of activation as well. He said Microsoft's KMS offers no user-based authentication, so to enable students who aren't connected to the university's network to activate Vista, the IT department will have to customize its firewall rules to allow only authorized users to access the system running the KMS.
"We believe the new volume-activation process can be beneficial for license compliance purposes," Aebersold said. "But the existing tools need more work and should have been released sooner."
Sooner...(chuckle).
Regular readers of this blog (all of whom have too much free time on their hands) will note that I view just about everything from Redmond as suspect...it's the stuff from Speen St. that I usually trust a bit more. In my opinion, Computerworld's coverage of Microsoft as it applies to Vista has been all over the map - especially as it applies to their electronic content - to the point that one could make a good case against them as a reputable, independent journal.Having corresponded with Don Tenant, I know he'd find this troubling and unacceptable. I hope he has a chance to see how wide an arc his publication has travelled with regard to it's "positions" on Vista.
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