Category Archives: technology

Sausage…

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If you love sausage, it’s probably a good idea to not spend much time dwelling on how it’s made. Assholes, lips, and nostrils it may be, but somehow they work well together when conjured with the right mix of spices and applied heat.

It occurs to me that most things in the office are kind of like sausage. The end result usually turns out well enough, but taking a deeper look at how the gears are meshing behind the curtain is rarely a good idea. As I mostly just want good tasting sausage likewise I just want my automated work processes to be actually automated. If you have to spend hours talking about how many times an actual human person has to touch an allegedly automated procedure, chances are it’s not quite as automated as you think it is.

I don’t even to think that the money we pour out each year to build these magical systems that need dozens of people to manually intervene in order to give the illusion of automation. Seems better to just admit that automation is hard, expensive, and we just aren’t very good at it. Give me a routing slip, a clipboard, and an hour of walking around time and it seems like I could get the same results at a fraction of the cost as the high maintenance process designed and maintained by a small army of software engineers.

If you’re going open up the kitchen and let the world see how you’re making the sausage, don’t be surprised if more than a couple of them lose interest no matter how good you promise it’s going to taste once it’s cooked.

An open letter to the Enterprise Service Desk…

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To Whom It May Concern,

On May 31st I called the Enterprise Service Desk to request support with an ongoing issue of frequent restarts, freezing, running checkdisk, and random problems within Office software products. This was a follow up to a previous call made on March 9th for a similar issue where I was told to call back if the problem happened again. A help ticket was opened as a result of my call on May 31st.

On June 7th, my ticket was closed because it had been “resolved.” No one from the Network Enterprise Center or local IT customer support contacted me on this issue. In addition to this being a missed 3-day response time under the terms of the service level agreement, it also has the dubious distinction of being blatantly false. My issue has not been resolved and my computer performance continues to exhibit the same behavior.

I once again contacted the Enterprise Service Desk on June 7th and was informed that the original ticket from May 31st could not be reopened. The representative I spoke to then opened a new help ticket and the clock started again on a new “3-day” response time. With a computer under warranty exhibiting these troubles, the “no brainer” response should be issuing a new machine and sending the broken/defective equipment back to the manufacturer. I consider this service absolutely unacceptable. I’m simply appalled that I’m now in the second week of trying to achieve more than a “phantom resolution” to my issue.

Regards,

Jeff

Mother f%#@ing autoplay…

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Whoever it was that came up with the idea of autoplaying a video as a website opens should rot in hell right next to the guy who invented the pop up ad. For most sites I’m fully understanding that generating income from ads is how you make your money. Running a website and keeping up content isn’t an inexpensive proposition. I spend $50 a year out of pocket to keep the lights on here in my little sector of the web. I could be ad driven and defray some of that cost, but I’m determined that it’s just not worth it. Ad free content is, in my opinion, better for the reader as well as for the writer.

Usually this is something that would wait for the weekly roundup of WAJTW, but it doesn’t feel right to pile it into a list with three other things when it is so patently obnoxious. I’ve steadfastly avoided downloading ad blocking software because I know that even on the internet everyone has bills to pay, but with the ever increasing intrusiveness of your ads, I’m only another few bad experiences away from giving up my scruples and loading up some software to kill off as many of these ads as possible.

Site owners need to find a better model. No matter how good your content is, if I have to deal with an advertisers video yelling at me with no apparent off switch or pop ups that take up two thirds of the screen space, I’m not interested enough in what you’re saying to wade through the mess to look at it. Maybe it’s too much to ask, but if advertisers designed spots that were somehow compelling instead of just being annoying maybe I’d actually click over and have a look. As it is, I’ll just close the screen and go find my content elsewhere.

Most foul…

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I went on a bit of a tirade today. It wasn’t the career dissipating type, mercifully. Surprisingly enough it had absolutely nothing to do with the office. It didn’t come flying out of my mouth until I was safely ensconced at the house, settling in with a hot meal, and relying on the glowing box to give me a 45 minute break from really needing to think about anything.

That’s not how it played out, of course. What really happened was I sat down, attempted to flick on iTunes, discovered that Apple TV couldn’t communicate with my computer and then spent the next 30 minutes doctoring my Mac Mini out of a startup loop with my temper rising more with each passing minute and failure of the damned dirty contraption to “just work” as advertised.

By the time I coaxed the whole set up back to life, iTunes found my external hard drive, and I was again ready to sit down with a hot dinner, the meal had gone stone cold, I could feel the blood racing through my temples, and I’d apparently been shouting loud enough to frighten both the dogs to the other side of the house and the tortoise under a log.

It clearly wasn’t my finest hour and my mood is still most foul. It doesn’t bode well for the balance of the week.

Pixel envy…

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Unlike with some other electronics, I’m not a slavish devotee to having that latest and greatest television set on the market. I bought a highly rated Pioneer 42-inch plasma back in November of 2007 (read about the hilarity that ensued) and have been lugging its heavy carcass around with me ever since. It was state of the art eight years ago and still does a reasonable job, but if I’m honest, it’s getting a little finicky about what peripherals it plays nicely with and the picture quality is suffering. The old girl has seen better days, but considering how often she’s been crated, toted, and banged about, I’m a little impressed she still works at all.

I was willing to keep going along with it until last month when I bumped up the sizes of the set in the bedroom and discovered just how much better the viewing experience was on that new unit. If you’ll forgive the pun, the difference between a new smart LCD and its old, dumb predecessor was quite the eye opener. Sadly, it also means I’m just starting to peck around to decide what features a new “primary” screen should have… which means that sometime in the next three months I’ll have settled in on my actual requirement.

Now that 42-inchs feels like something fit for the bedroom, there’s little doubt that the replacement will be bigger – and I’m sure better in every single way. Still, I hate this part of the process – and wish just a little bit that I wasn’t wired quite as tightly into the compulsion for researching everything nearly to death. It tends to take the fun out of those “spur of the moment” purchase decisions. Still, it will be awfully nice to be able to sit down to watch something and not need to fiddle with every single setting under the picture menu to dial in a decent picture.

I’m afraid I’m about to succumb to a serious case of pixel envy. And you damned well can’t fix that with more cowbell.

Lost Not Found…

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As part of my highly specialized and important position, one of the duties I’m saddled with is performing oversight of a 750 seat auditorium. It’s like being on the event staff at a concert hall that never puts on an event more interesting than the 100-meter snooze or a Gregorian chant marathon.

In addition to approving reservations for such entertaining acts as Mr. Smith’s Retirement Ceremony and calling in service orders when the crack in the foundation starts leaking (again), about once a week I get to field calls from panic stricken people who have left something behind in my beautiful facility. We’ve turned up everything from briefcases, to iPads, to an entire box of key chains. More often, though, it’s a call about a cell phone or eyeglasses.

Today’s call, routed through a third party to me, inquired about a trifecta of loss – cell phone, ID card, and passport. I rolled my eyes and explained that no, no one had turned anything in matching that description. Knowing full well that the chances of any of these items being there were slim to none, I still schlepped down, unlocked the building, and poked around “where the guy thinks he might have lost them.”

Aside from a stray dime, my exhaustive search turned up nothing at all. The only thing it did accomplish is to set me thinking on what kind of human being goes the 40 miles between here and Baltimore without once realizing (or attempting to look at) his cell phone? Allowing that amount of time to elapse between checking in on the latest Tweets, posts, or headlines is just unnatural. Probably some kind of damned terrorist.

70% (or why I fell in love with my new phone)…

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I’ve been struggling a bit to fall in love with my new phone. The “+” form factor just felt wrong in my hand. The balance was off and I found myself needing to use both hands for things that I could do for the last seven years with just a flick of my thumb. I liked the new model well enough, but I wasn’t in love with it.

After spending all day with it at work today, though, I’m getting turned around on all that. I left on schedule after what I would consider a regular day of use at more than 70% charged. With the last phone, I’d usually start hunting for a plug sometime after noon – and that was after giving it a boost during the morning commute.

I’m now officially of the opinion that if battery power alone were the only improvement from the last model to this new one, it would be well worth the upgrade. The new camera is impressive, with live photos being a bit gimmicky. 3D touch is fine and works as advertised – though I don’t find myself using it all that often. I’ve never particularly liked Siri and haven’t given her new incarnation much of a chance to change my mind.

Yeah, I’m a tech junky who probably doesn’t use a third of the capability of the gear in my arsenal. Sue me. I don’t need new and innovative ways to check email or ask for directions. I’m old school enough that typing on the screen is still ok by me. When Apple can beam information directly into my frontal lobe, then maybe I’ll be more interested in doing things the “new way.”

Is the 6S/6S+ a must have upgrade if you’re running the 6? No. Is it a respectable upgrade if you’re coming from one of the earlier models? Oh yeah. It’ll likely knock our socks off.

Even if that big beautiful new battery is the only thing I use to the fullest, it was well worth the price of admission. At some point maybe I’ll even get around to teaching myself how to use all the extra bells and whistles I paid for… or maybe not. It all depends on how and if I can see it improving my workflow in some way. Until then, I’m well satisfied.

Ashley Madison slept here or, The importance of knowing thyself…

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The Ashley Madison hack resulted in 30 million or so potentially unfaithful mates having their email addresses, phone numbers, credit card, and physical address information published yesterday. I’m the very last person in America who’s going to go on a moralistic rant about the virtue or vice of infidelity. It’s not like the internet made cheating possible, but it did make it theoretically easier to do so if you were inclined to stray. Now thanks to a band of supposedly holier than thou hackers, millions of people get to wonder if their other shoe is ever going to drop.

First off, if you’re having or planning to have an affair and don’t have a throwaway cell phone and a pre-paid credit card you’re probably too stupid to get away with it. If you’re in a relationship and use your real name and home address to register for a cheating site, you probably deserve to get caught. Even so, getting jammed up in an enormous program of data theft is a pretty crummy way to get caught – especially if you never went through with the act, or it’s something from your life long past.

Ironically perhaps, as a perennially single guy, I can see some compelling advantages to dating a married or otherwise involved woman – especially if you’re not the type who’s looking for an extensive commitment. You’ve got no worries about being drug somewhere you don’t want to be for the holidays. There are no pesky in-laws. You’re not the jackass that didn’t take the trash out or who shrunk a load of laundry or who hasn’t had more than four hours of uninterrupted sleep in the last six years. You’re the guy who gets to go out and have a nice meal in and a great bottle of wine. Or the one who gets to enjoy the excitement of walking into a cheap motel room in the middle of the day. Or the one who’s there when the weekend “business trip” becomes three days of playing house in some location distant enough from home that no one would suspect anything beyond business as usual.

Anyone, married or single, who signs up for a site like Ashley Madison has their reasons. I’m not the one who’s going to cast a judgment on any of them. People have an expectation of privacy online, even when it’s a false one. All this latest story does is reinforce that there is very little in our lives that is truly private – and it’s becoming less and less private all the time. Then again that’s really only a problem if you aren’t willing to take ownership of who you are and what you do.

Know thyself and the world is your oyster.

LinkedOut…

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In an ongoing effort to un-muddle my digital footprint, I deleted my LinkedIn account over the weekend. I talked about doing it a year or two ago but didn’t get around to it. A spate of emails from the service this week drug it back onto my list of things to do. I wanted to like LinkedIn – and maybe if I worked in a universe that traded on creating a massive professional network I would have. But for what I do, and the scope of people I need to interact with, it just wasn’t doing much for me other than sending a dozen emails a week to my inbox. I don’t need that kind of help.

I have to think LinkedIn is so popular because it creates a benefit for people in a sales environment, or those interested in building their professional network, or those who have any kind of professional ambition left. Since I don’t fall into any of those categories it was just one more extraneous feed of information I wasn’t using.

The simple fact is I don’t really identify, even “professionally,” with my 9-5 self. If someone wants me in their network it should be as a sometimes writer, a blogger, an opinionated blowhard, a reader, and hopefully, in some small way, as a thinker. That other stuff, how I whore myself out to pay the bills, is entirely secondary to what I consider the “real” me.

It’s just the most recent bit of transition from a guy who long ago thought what he did for a living defined who he was to a man who’s trying to define himself in some other – if far less tangible – way. What that definition is, what it will become, remains to be seen.

Whatever the definition, I know with certainty that future self doesn’t require an account with LinkedIn.

How it starts…

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I’ve often wondered how it is that old people lose touch with technology – whether that’s the eternal flashing 12:00 of a generation of VCRs to or the firm instance that GPS will never take the place of a glovebox full of paper maps.

Once upon a time, I could build my own computer. Sure, I bought the components off the shelf and wasn’t making my own chips or anything, but I knew the specs I wanted, knew where to order them, and was able to slap the whole bit together into a functioning PC. I haven’t tried (or really even been tempted) to do that since the late 1990s. It stopped being a cost effective use of time. Easier to buy the whole rig off the shelf and go to work.

This afternoon I finally accepted that maybe it was time to update my iPhone playlists – that I probably haven’t substantively changed since the days when I had a Memphis address. First things first, it almost feels like with the bevy of streaming services available now, the whole idea of having a self-curated playlist may be a little old fashioned. It’s like having a bookshelf full of CDs or 45s. Its existence is a throwback to an earlier time. That’s when the first light of recognition came on – the way I like my media delivered is on the verge of being utterly overcome by the march of progress. I like having my “own” copy of my music – even if it’s just a digital representation. I made it from cassette tapes to CDs to mp3s and Winamp skins, to iTunes, but after four format changes, it seems I’m beginning to resist the onrushing future.

I wonder if this is how it starts to go off the rails for me. Am I going to wake up some morning in 2045 and wonder why I can’t make my 20 year old Mac Mini work. Are printers going to someday be as rare as 8-track players? Is this where tech abandons me to the future as I grow more and more entrenched with only the technologies that I fully understand?

I don’t want to be that guy who thinks of every device as a damned infernal contraption. There’s some way to head that off, right? Some magic bullet that will let us stay attuned to what the kids these days are up to?

I’m not ready to live in a world where the best device I ever bought is one I have already.