January 2009

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When the Project Ends

January 29, 2009 in Current Events | No comments

Its been about 7 weeks now working pretty much every day 10 hours a day except weekends which I did about 4 hours each day. I’ve not had a day off in awhile. The project I am just closing out was one of these critical things which had to get done in what I’ll call “FedEX overnight priority” style. I had to create an imaging server, build a method to safely copy 291g of very critical data, and then ship the copied appliances every day to replace corrupted systems. I had to be “on” every day. Phone calls, emails, fast and furious. I had to also create two additional solutions which would help them fix things without imaging the entire system. Some systems could not be sent back to me because they are in Spain, Israel, the UK. I built two solutions in as many days basically.

Then some corruption of my own crept in and I had to re-invent part of the solution to account for that. To the rescue, a group of friends I’ve known since the Linuxcare days! They gave me the hints on what I should do and I had to go build it. Then the hardware it was on got flaky and started having ATA reset errors each time it did copying. Okay time to run to Central Computers and replace.

But now, I’m at the tail end and I may have some withdrawl symptoms from it. I feel like I need a break; but I was telling my old friend Edster last night how it makes you feel to be the one. That person that it depends on, that’s needed. That’s intrinsic to the success. It creates such a feeling of worth and accomplishment. When you bind it with a time limitation it gets even better. Combine it with an office relocation right in the middle and I ended up driving systems to a FedEX/Kinko’s manually.

But in the end, we won. We rose above and did the job. Its not only the money that was nice for the company but it was the feeling of satisfaction, of gain, of learning. The work was so very good.

Now I head off to Singapore and india in a week and I may get some kind of bonus or something. Honestly guys, the work was the bonus. It had been awhile since I had that feeling.

The feeling that I could and would.

Then I did. And it was fine.

Zen to Done — Outlook 2007 Setup

January 24, 2009 in Current Events | 2 comments

I blogged awhile ago about some workflows that seemed to work for me with Zen to Done. I’ve been testing the basics for about a month now and have refined my own process a bit. I settled on Outlook 2007 for this because my employer provides an exchange server for me which makes things a bit easier. I also have a Windows Mobile Phone that sync’s with the exchange server. I did add one additional tool called PocketInformant to the mobile device. Here is my setup at a basic level:

Tasks – All my minimal GTD is based on tasks and categories. I’ve defined the following major areas:

  • Weekly Tasks – these are the big things that I need to do in a week.
  • Daily Important Tasks – the daily things that rock my world
  • Projects – This list has gotten a lot of attention since I can link things, add files, create rich text for the fields in outlook.

Then I have a few contexts or actions which include work, personal, calls, errands.

I spend time each day on the day’s tasks usually in the mornings. This is over coffee before kids start their interrupt-driven schedules. I also have a weekly review scheduled which lets me focus on the weekly tasks.

Using exchange for this produces a very simple workflow that presents itself on each computer I use. No additional GTD software and it also sync’s to my phone. I gather the “bursts of consciousness” things on my smartphone since I always have it with me. Then I spend the time to take the hardly readable notes and create the workflows in outlook.

Verdict… It works pretty good for me; but I tend to simplify how my workflows actually go down. Classic GTD is too heavy for me and having a separate tool means opening yet another application. Outlook works good for me.

I’m going to write a separate page on this blog about my efforts around this stuff next describing how I do what I do in case anyone wants to capture and use it.

Heading out in two weeks

January 23, 2009 in Uncategorized | No comments

Well, in two weeks from today, I’m flying the lonely skies. Going back to Singapore for some days and Chennai, India for a few days. This is a faster trip but there is a lot on tap. We’ve got a lot of momentum at work building.

My priority project is about 75% at the fully cooked state. Its been weeks of very focused activity for a large multi-national integration firm. I’ve received a few accolades which always a person feel better. This project has been a real significant thing for me at work. Its raised the bar for me on what I can do, how I can be a team of one, and really increased my knowledge-base around cloning, imaging, copying of sensitive data. I’m thankful to the team I worked with for stressing me, pushing me, making me feel the fire.

Today I got to leave work at 2pm which was mighty good. I reached the “done” state and could just walk away from it. Next week will be back to being busy but this weekend, I’ll only work for a few hours each day.

Then soon, I’ll get away in a big way. Hop that 15 hour flight to wondrous Singapore. I really love that place and the hotel I stay at rules there. Then on to India and the wondrous Raintree Ecotel with the “above sea level” bar and grill.  Then a week after I leave, I’m back home again. I’ll just be getting used to the jet lag and I’ll reverse the trip :)

My reservations are made; meetings are set. My boss and the CEO smile at me because they know I want to hit the road. I like the things I do at work and the places work takes me.

Clonezilla and DRBL – Cloning Instances

January 21, 2009 in Ideas, Linux | No comments

My ongoing project has been a learning experience for me. One of the areas I’ve played in more than a few times is building installers for Linux but this time I wanted to create a way to clone systems from a master image at 5 to 10 at a time. The image I need to clone is Linux and I wanted to only use open source tools. I ended up over at Clonezilla reading about DRBL and clonezilla server there. Here is the basics of it on Linux:

  1. Setup a linux system to act as a server and install the clonezilla packages. I chose to use Ubuntu 8.04 since its very stable for me. I used a Intel Core Duo with an Intel motherboard and 8g of memory in a micro-ATX form factor.
  2. Install the relevant bits and bytes for clonezilla. Be sure to follow all the howto information. Run the scripts called drblsrv and drblpush to set things up.
  3. Capture an image you wish to use from a system. This saves it on disk.
  4. Now decide how you want to serve up the image. You can use multicast, broadcast, and unicast. I chose multicast and then had to get a switch that was a bit better. I settled on a Layer 2 dlink switch. Remember to add in support for UDP Multicast on port 2232 I believe it is in /etc/services. If you don’t do this, multicast will just fail. This one got me for a few days.
  5. Now set a machine to PXE boot after its all configured. Whammo! I get 5 systems cloning at the same time and they’re done in 15 minutes.

Next step for me is on a second ubuntu box I setup to do some intensive rsync’ing using no SSH, no compression, etc. But the basic clone is done and you have a working linux box. I’m cloning an rPath Linux distribution from Ubuntu AMD64 and it works a treat! I also do some post install configurations and error checking to ensure I’ve got the correct bits.

If you want a working cloning solution, give Clonezilla a try. You can get things up pretty quickly. Its free too!

Issuing Forth with the Weekend Data

January 16, 2009 in Current Events, Linux | No comments

Its the weekend I guess. I’ve been rather busy with the same project these days and I’m at the point of wanting it to wrap up but I still have miles to go before I sleep. It appears I am going to be working with Jeremy for awhile which I will really enjoy. Jeremy brings a great talent around Linux, command-line tools, administration and systems and I am hopefully going to be able to get some consulting time for him. I’ve architected the solution at this point but I think you need to know when to say when and ask for help. I’m lucky that my boss listens to me and responds. I think I’m lucky I work where I do as well.

I was thinking the other day when considering how to solve a thorny data corruption and copying problem and suffering on it a bit; that I need not. I reached out to a few people in the world and they provided some valued insight. Thanks to Setuid, Ed, Jeremy, Andrew Tridgell, and others for their valued advice and friendship and support. Its nice to know that people will take the time from their schedules to tell me ways to do things I had not considered. Since the problem revolved around the use of a command-line tool called rsync I wanted to get support from a team of folks that tend to be what I would call guru’s at the tool. Again, thanks to you all for emailing and even talking on the phone to me about it.

Now I’m facing a weekend with thoughts of beer swirling around and still facing two more days at work this weekend. But its at my schedule.

Finally, looks like I’ll be heading out on a trip around first week of February or so. Going to Singapore and India again to discuss products, roadmaps, new things, existing things. The life of the erstwhile product manager I guess :) .

Hope you all have a good weekend.

What Yahoo Needs to do..

January 13, 2009 in Current Events | No comments

Well first they need to earn the ! after their name again. I think that thing has become tarnished and has slipped down into three dots and not an exclamation point. Google has breezed past them with their mail, calendaring, docs platforms. Yahoo mail is sad. I left it because it will not even do IMAP and its interface is clunky and stupid. So new CEO, you have a few things to get right past mail and docs and collaboration too:

  1. You have to figure out how to do what I would call “controlled innovation”. You will not  bring back the masses with just plastering a new wall over the same shabby interior. Yahoo is dull and the ! has slipped.
  2. You need to figure out what to do next. You have this cool stuff like widgets and zimbra. But what do you do with them? How about inventing new platforms and devices? Take a risk new CEO.
  3. Finally, you need to see what went wrong and not make the same mistakes. Make different ones. Those are okay. There is a slim balancing act between point 2 and 3. You need to balance but take calculated risks.

What is Yahoo’s mission anyways? What is it that they see being their value? Being a universal home page is still true but I navigate away more now than before and I refuse to use the services. They simply have not kept pace with those on google. Too bad actually.

My designs are for them to become more and different, take calculated risks, try things. But in the end, it may be too late for some of them. People have gotten used to a better gmail, google calendar integration with third part services, and more integrated offerings now. Lets not even discuss how google does their hosting because its easier, cleaner, faster to get the service.

I miss the ! but will it come back? Don’t know and I don’t want to be mean and say “don’t care”. But its close to that. Yahoo you simply have lost relevance. What to do?

Living in Interesting Times

January 9, 2009 in Current Events | No comments

The last few weeks have been  blur of overnight shipments of systems, solving problems at real world speed, long hours and a feeling of true accomplishment. Sometimes you need a project which stretches you in new ways, makes you feel invented again, drives you. The project I am spending all my time on is with a Fortune 500 integration group which really needs me. I deliver on work everyday and they pay me for it. I’m getting some decent hourly consulting wages with them and Celestix is benefiting as well.

The main thing is I’m solving a really bad data corruption problem with them and it feels damned good. I have not had time to even think about blogging; but I think this weekend, I’ll take some time to get back to it.

Hope you all are fine and dandy. I am. Well, I will be after I eat and drink and drink and drink…

The Hearst Museum

January 5, 2009 in Anthropology, Current Events | No comments

As I’ve blogged here before, I did over 15 years of archeology mostly focused in the desert southwest; but also around the south central plains and even the Great Basin Desert. Most of my time though was spent in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. I was lucky enough to work at a few museums during my years including the Blackwater Draw Museum and the Kern County Museum in Bakersfield. I worked in most of them in an archeological or anthropological perspective; maintaining or creating displays, managing collections, and also building up materials such as narrative materials. I never was able to work at the one museum which always captured my interest at this most basic of levels. That museum would be the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Why you ask would this be important? What is so major about that place? Well, those are good questions and I have answers. For, you see, that museum was the home of Alfred Kroeber. Alfred Kroeber was this scientist who did so much for anthropology and archeological research here in California. He received his Phd from Franz Boas who I have admired for many years. Alfred and Franz go way back together and I’ve enjoyed reading and getting lectures on the important and significant advancements to anthropology in the new world that both of these fine scientists brought. Perhaps one of the most interesting things was Kroeber’s friendship and rescue of Ishi. The study of Yahi life and culture always stirred my imagination and fired my desires.

But what does all this have to do with the price of tea in San Mateo? Or pizza in Berkeley? Well, today my son who most likely will not follow in his dad’s footsteps received an internship there. My wife and son were invited to tour the collections, see Kroeber Hall, walk the floor of one of the collection sites. Of course to my son, this is just another entry in the growth and maturation process. To me, its this larger than life thing which makes me remember the stories and books and papers. Most of all it makes me remember the good days of doing the archeology. Archeology was a “doing” thing. You could not passively practice it. You had to get out there in the 125 degree heat in Barstow or the below freezing in the mountains and do it. Then you could say at the end of the day, “yes I did archeology”.

Now my son gets to see a set of prehistoric and historic relics that I have never seen but could get lost for years in. I could wander the collections halls, be lost to all reality, and gaze in wonder at the anthropology there.

I’m jealous and I’m proud of my son. He will see things far beyond my grasp.

Retrospective – 2008 in Review

January 3, 2009 in Current Events | 1 comment

I just noticed my good friend Dave posted an interesting and positive weblog post regarding his 2008. I think a weblog, because of how its arranged, makes an interesting platform to post a thing which recalls a year in the life. It toggles the screen at the top and then slowly makes its way down as the days flow by. I don’t know that I did one for the few years in the past. Many events were troubling and I lost a work colleague and friend that meant more to me than many people I’ve known longer. But that was the year of has beens and wannabe’s when I went back to a place I should not have. But if I had not, I would have never met DaveR; got to know his infectious jubilation, his amazing intellect, and the downright funny times we had discussing Seinfeld. But it started as a rollercoaster.

I digress and that was a few years ago. The year 2008 was very good for me and thanks to Setuid for reminding me to post a few things I found, left, or otherwise dealt with.

@Work

In 2008, I was in the middle of one of the most satisfying consulting jobs for this small financial services company. They hired me the year before and it was the truth that I never spent a day there that I hated. It made the difference for me that I got a job like that given my past severance and the echoing words of one malcontent telling me I would never get a decent job again. But I did, so I won and you lost. Then I left the little financial services company that could and went to Celestix Networks.

Celestix is another great story in workplace life. It challenges, makes me do more, see more horizons and I dearly love working with the Linux platforms and owning them at a product level. I feel I’ve brought something there that was missing. I’ve been with Celestix for about 9 months now and its been a good thing. I’m with people I’ve known before and worked with; so its even better.

@Life

Life seems a different pattern overall. I miss some things I had. Particularly archeology. I still feel that I am a servant of the anthropological union; but there are people that I’ve left behind that I either love or hate. Perhaps that’s okay. I’m traveling on to some other horizon.

Solitude versus Loneliness has bothered me. I feel the need to go “into the wild” or to be alone without being lonely. To see a personal horizon that I deal with on a personal level. What is it about me that needs or wants a life personal? I have never been a social creature and perhaps that’s why I chose archeology.

Finally, I’ve fell in love with some personal organizational skills around Getting things Done which have meant more study and involvement in the how and why of things that I do.

@Someday or @Waiting For

I’m still waiting for Someday :)

It will come and I’ll face it. There could be a career change because I cannot see just doing technology for some number of years more. There is a boundary to it. Simply put, I need more. Someday there will be more and I’ll know it. Perhaps I’ll spend a year in Desert Solitaire again like once or twice before.

The year 2009 promises a mix for me of goods and bads. I’m seriously hopeful but at the same time I want change. One of the great things I’ve maintained is personal health. I lost 90 pounds in over a year and its stayed off. I’m very proud of the differences I’ve made in my life there. Its a thing I never thought I could do that came about in 2008. I still look at my stomach in the mirror and remember that fat boy that was with the pulsing blood pressure, borderline this and that. If I have one recommendation is that you humans out there should take care of yourself.

Wrapping up the Hard Landscape, the Soft Actions, the Contexts

January 2, 2009 in Ideas | No comments

I’ve posted here a few times now on what my landscape is with Zen to Done. I think I’ve gotten a bit better at collecting and processing and I’ve endured the temptation to find new GTD tools. Here is the overall workflow and its simple enough to give me a 30 minute weekly walk through of projects and a daily collection attempt. I’ll try to spell out the tools as well.

Collection Tool – This varies but often includes a smartphone running PhatNotes, paper, and Microsoft OneNote 2007. I tend to get the urge to purge at different places but most often I have a computer or device with me so the phone I have works very well. It helps to have a company exchange server. I write quick or not so quick entries that I then process in the next step. Often the entries are complex definitions of how to fix a problem with a project at work so it takes me awhile longer to do the “brim of consciousness” stuff.

Processing Tool – You need something you trust for this. There are probably hundreds of applications for Mac, Linux, Windows that will work. I’m not particularly fond of Office applications; but for me Outlook 2007 just works. I spend hours every day in Outlook for work. I do my work email in it. I synchronize using our exchange server to my smartphone. Its the almost perfect tool. I have learned a few small things with the sets of tasks I’ve defined in Outlook. You can create a set of keywords that will let you see a nice pattern of search results across all the tasks. This creates a chain of events for your projects, tasks, and shows you the actions. It lets me see those big tasks I do on a daily basis and the big weekly things that rock my Zen.

Review Tool – I schedule the collection and review but often the collection is this brainstorming thing which takes me off into the project landscapes.

Passion, Commitment, Focus – I wanted to build a thing that was simple, that had no more moving parts and that let me be the geek that I am. Paper is not good for me. Writing is difficult. But I need a template, a tool, a place to record. The phone, OneNote, and other things let me do that. I also need to commit to the process and let it take its course.

Finally, Durability – Durability of use means that my tool enables me to learn my hard landscapes, my soft actions, my plans. I’m learning to not want a truly complex inter-linking GTD application. Yet I still try them.

So, I feel I’ve reached an interesting first zenith with the approach. I feel more balanced; but I still seem to charge off and try things. Doing Geek to Done (GTD) perhaps means we use computer/software tools because we can or want to, or need to. Perhaps it comes down to that.

I don’t like Outlook specifically and would use evolution; but I cannot. So I am a habilis and use what I use. I’ve bastardized Zen to Done to something else. Perhaps its Geek to Done.

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