“Never anthropomorphize computers; they hate that.”
We all like to joke that computers hate us. Some people find it impossible to operate a computer without it breaking down. I tease one of the scientists at work about it because technology is like water to his oil. Or is it a snake to his mongoose? Technically speaking, computers are just electrons zooming around physical pathways that we create. They have no feelings and they certainly don’t hold grudges.
Or do they?
During my freshman year of college, we discovered that the mainframe didn’t seem to like one particular student. In FORTRAN class, we all entered the same code into our terminals which was executed by the same computer, but for some reason Brian’s code always returned an error while everyone else’s code ran fine. Brian entered his code again (it was a simple program; a glorified “Hello, world!”) and consistently got the same bogus results.
So we got empirical on it. First we had Brian enter the code on a different terminal. Error. Then, back at his original terminal, we had someone else enter the same code under their account. Success. That eliminated the terminal as the issue. At this point the professor was involved and expressed a very keen interest in how it would turn out.
The next experiment was to use Brian’s terminal and logged in using his account. Another student typed in the code, but Brian entered the ‘execute’ command and hit enter. Error. We repeated the experiment but had a third student enter the execute command and hit enter. Success. By now the entire class was hovered around Brian’s terminal, looking over his shoulder like spectators watching a close game of hockey.
Through a process of elimination, we removed the terminal and the user account as a factor. We verified the code was being entered exactly the same every time (it was only three lines of code). Changing only one factor at a time, we narrowed everything down to the human element.
The last experiment involved one student typing in the code, a second student typing in the ‘execute’ command, and Brian simply pressing the ENTER key to run it.
Error.
Repeat and have the prof press the ENTER key.
Success.
The mainframe didn’t like Brian. I think he changed his major.
January 12th, 2012 in
General | tags:
computers,
FORTRAN |
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Over the holiday weekend, during the wee hours of the morning, someone broke a back office window and snuck into our building at work. They stole some computers and other various pieces of computer equipment. After tallying what is missing, we consider ourselves lucky. It was clear the thieves were after stuff they could carry and easily sell rather than targeting our data and information.
Most people consider backups to be a pain in the neck, useful only for restoring a file accidentally deleted. Creating rotating backups that are stored offsite is more trouble than it’s worth to most users.
The fact is, physical security is just as much a threat as random file deletions or the more glamorous hack attack people read about. We not only suffered the physical loss of expensive equipment, we lost the expensive time spent to generate our work product as well as potentially damaging exposure of secure information (passwords, employee data, financial data, etc.)
The value of backing up your data is only part of the picture. Keeping it physically secure through site security is critical. Encrypting sensitive data is also very important. All three go hand in hand when it comes to covering your ass, so to speak.
December 29th, 2011 in
General | tags:
backups,
security,
theft |
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As if I don’t already have enough going on in my life already, I’ve started another blog — my third. This one chronicles my journey toward writing and publishing a fantasy novel.
You can check it out here: www.ruckerworks.net/writer/
December 15th, 2011 in
General | tags:
blog,
writing |
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Scrivener is a writer’s tool made by Literature and Latte that goes beyond mere word processing. It provides features that help you stay organized and on-track during the entire writing process. They say it best: “Scrivener is a powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft.”
I am currently using it to write a novel, but Scrivener can be used by many different professions: researchers, screenwriters, playwrights, lawyers, journalists, academics and students, technical writers, and more.
Scrivener costs $45 and is available for Mac OS X. They just came out with a Windows version, too! A free trial is available so you can check it out before you buy it. It comes with a useful and informative tutorial to get you started in just a matter of minutes.
I am going to start posting various tips and tricks for computers, applications, and mobile devices. This particular post is the first in a series of tips for Evernote, a fantastic tool I use to stay organized.
Use Evernote to track vehicle maintenance. Create a notebook for each vehicle and start a new note for every maintenance event (oil change, tire rotation, etc.)
You can even track mileage. Record fuel consumed and miles driven every time you fill up the tank. Use tags to denote which vehicle it is and what event you’re recording (fuel, oil, tires, repair, etc.)
If you drive a vehicle for work, use Evernote as a trip log. Enter the starting odometer reading and the reason for your trip. When you’re done, record the ending odometer reading in the same note. The IRS requires a trip log when seeking per-mile deductions on work-related travel.
As many of you probably know by now, Steve Jobs — co-founder of Apple — passed away yesterday. He had been battling pancreatic cancer for several years and finally succumbed to that deadly disease.
Jobs had many qualities, but two stand out to me in particular. His priority was producing the best product possible rather than products that produce the best profit possible. He also stayed true to his vision. He was probably the most consistent business leader I’ve ever seen and to have the kind of belief in your vision that he exhibited is very inspirational to me.
It will be very interesting to see how Apple, Inc. [AAPL] evolves now that Jobs is gone. Tim Cook had some time working alongside Steve Jobs as co-CEO so hopefully the company continues to maintain the same Right Stuff that made it strong in the first place.
Rants and Raves
The summer of 2011 is fast coming to an unofficial close now that Labor Day Weekend is upon us. There is less sunlight each day, kids are returning to school, and geeks like me look at our pale legs and think, “I should have spent more time outdoors this summer.” It’s a great time to review some of the gadgets, services, and software that I have found helpful, useful or useless so far in 2011.
Rave: Apple iPad 2
I purchased my iPad 2 in late May and have used it at work, home, and when traveling. I ride a motorcycle and go on multi-day trips solo around the west coast every year. I used to take a 7″ Asus EEePC netbook on my trips, but the iPad changed all that. It’s fantastic for catching up on news, weather forecasts, route planning (maps!), and staying in touch via email, chat, or even video conferencing with family and work. It’s compact, easy to use, holds a charge forever, and is great for watching movies while snuggled in my tent on camping trips.
Rave: Mighty Wallet
Although it’s not related to technology, I think my Mighty Wallet is so awesome it deserves mention here. I discovered the Might Wallets from a TV commercial. They’re made out of Tyvek, that indestructible stuff under the siding on your house, it’s more or less waterproof, tear proof, and gets softer over time. They’re inexpensive, $15 plus shipping, and come in a large variety of very creative patterns. I got the kind that looks like a topographical map and it gets comments every time I pay for something. www.mightwallets.com
Rave: Parallels Desktop
I use a Mac and have since 2004. I have used every mainstream desktop operating system available since the MS-Dos 3.x days, including Linux and even OS/2, and have found that OS X is the most refined, stable, and productive operating system available today. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best of what’s available. However, Microsoft Windows, for all it’s detraction and bad reputation, serves a purpose as well. Parallels Desktop lets me run Windows inside my Mac seamlessly, safely, and smoothly. VirtualBox is a free alternative that works great for most users, and I highly recommend it, but if you have to really push the envelope with your guest OS, Parallels is the way to go.
Rave: Evernote and Dropbox
I guess this could be considered two raves, but since Evernote and Dropbox allow me to do essentially the same thing — synchronize tasks and files between multiple computers and devices — I’ve listed them together. Evernote is where I keep my to-do items, and because it quickly and seamlessly (there’s that word again) keeps them synced up between my iPad and computer, I can stay on task and ahead of schedule more easily than ever before. Dropbox helps me keep important files available regardless of which device is in hand at the moment, regardless if it’s my home computer, my laptop, my work computer, or even my iPad. To me it should be built into every OS as a part of standard functionality.
I landed my first paying client when I was only 16 years old. A local video store chain hired me to put their video collection into a computer database, then provide syncing capability between their three stores. That was in 1986.
Since then I have worked in the IT field in various capacities, both as a full-time employee and as an independent contractor. I have been interviewed for countless positions at many different types of employers. I have also conducted dozens of interviews as a hiring manager.
Interviewing for an IT job is an interesting experience. You can be asked a very wide range of questions, some of which have nothing to do with technology, e.g. “Why are man-hole covers round?” Some of these questions are meant to determine the candidates ability to creatively solve problems. Others are meant to make the interviewer look clever.
When interviewing candidates, I seek to learn two things: can they perform the job, and will they fit into the team. Both are fairly easy to determine if you ask the right questions and pick up on subtle clues in their responses. Below is a list of several questions I used when seeking interns to cover basic technical support duties while I was away on an extended vacation. This was for a temporary position that would be responsible for resolving general technical support issues as they came up. Most questions address common scenarios specifically while generally seeking to determine the candidate’s ability to prioritize and solve problem. The career goals section evaluates the candidate’s long-term plans in the event that demand grows and the internship turns into a full-time position.
Technical Scenarios
1. A user says they are unable to print a PDF document. What questions do you ask to diagnose the problem?
2. A user says they sent an email to an outside recipient over 30 minutes ago, but the recipient says they still have not received the email. What questions do you ask the sender to diagnose the problem?
3. A user says they are unable to navigate to a particular web site. What steps do you take to diagnose the problem?
4. A user borrowed a loaner laptop running Windows XP and has returned it. What do you do with it before returning it to the loaner inventory?
5. You have several users complaining about a particular problem that is preventing them from getting their work done. You have two solutions: one that will take an hour to implement but will fix the problem permanently, and another that will take 10 minutes up front but will require two hours to implement a permanent fix within 24 hours. Which approach do you take and why?
Philosophy
1. Is it better to have a strong password that is seldom changed or a weak password that is changed often?
2. Briefly list 2-3 pros and 2-3 cons each of Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X:
3. Would you rather assist a total newbie user that is nearly 100% computer illiterate or a ‘power user’ that tends to think they already know it all? Explain why.
4. Which of the following areas of IT — hardware, software, or networking — interests you the most and why?
5. Do you work best by yourself or with other people around?
6. What are some pros and cons (each) of open-source and proprietary software?
7. Would you rather be adequately skilled in many areas but excel at none of them? Or would you rather be especially skilled in one or two areas but very weak in all others? Explain Why.
Workplace
1. Everyone has skill areas that have room for improvement. What are yours and why do you feel it is important to improve in those areas?
2. Everyone has areas of their personality in a work environment that have room for improvement. What are yours and why do you feel it is important to improve in those areas?
3. What are some of the reasons employers establish formal IT policies with their employees?
4. You discover evidence that an employee has been violating company IT policies (e.g. surfing inappropriate web sites, logging on using someone else’s account, etc.). Do you…
a. Ignore it for now and wait to see if they do it again
b. Discuss the IT policy violation with the employee directly
c. Report it to your immediate supervisor
d. Report it to the employee’s immediate supervisor
5. In your opinion, which characteristic is better for someone working in IT support: people skills or technical ability? Explain why.
Career Goals
1. What are your career goals in the IT field?
2. What are your goals for this position? What do you want to gain from this experience?
3. What specific skills would you like to obtain or enhance during your internship?
4. Do your friends and family turn to you for technical support? Why do you think they do so?
My 20” PowerPC iMac at home, after nearly 8 years of reliable and enjoyable service, finally died. Well, the power supply died, actually. It’s replaceable but the part is getting more difficult to find. Because of its age I decided to retire the computer and get a new Mac mini instead.
A quick visit to my local Mac store, The Macpac [www.macpac.com], and $599 later, I had one of the powerful yet diminutive devices in-hand. I don’t have a current monitor at home so I used the 32” LCD HDTV in the guest bedroom via an HDMI connection. The contrast between that giant screen and the tiny computer is hilarious.
The mini came with OS X Lion installed, the latest operating system upgrade from Apple. A few days earlier I had upgraded a 4 year old Macbook Pro from Snow Leopard to Lion and had mixed feelings about the new OS. Some apps failed to work, which I anticipated, while most worked fine. The interface seems a bit more refined, especially Finder, but one thing really bothered me. Spaces, the virtual desktop tool built into OS X, no longer allows you to organize your desktops in a grid. In Lion they are all linear. This may sound trivial but I rely on Spaces a lot to jump between apps and I now have to press CTRL-right or CTRL-left several times to get to the desktop I want, instead of a single CTRL-down or CTRL-up. The reasoning behind removing grid capability is Spaces is beyond me. Judging by the latest Lion forums, I’m far from being the only one that is unhappy with this change.
Lion has some new features that may prove to be useful. Mission Control allows a user to organize and jump to the various applications they have running in an efficient way. It also provides a single-click method to jump to different Spaces desktops. They are still organized in a linear fashion, however. Launch Pad provides an iOS-like interface for running new applications. They appear as icons in a grid, with multiple pages of icons available by swiping (with the mouse or your fingers if you have a trackpad) from side to side.
A big part of my job is providing technical support to company employees. Although some use Macs, most use Windows XP, and in increasing numbers, Windows 7. I use a Mac, so in order to keep fresh on Microsoft’s operating systems, I use Parallels Desktop for Mac. I can fire up Windows XP or Windows 7 within Parallels in about a minute. Parallels gives me the best of both worlds, all in a single computer.
The Mac users in our company all use VirtualBox to run Windows in OS X while I use Parallels. I needed to test both in Lion to make sure they were solid before I would recommend that our Mac users upgrade from Snow Leopard.
Prior to upgrading to Lion, I grabbed the latest update from the Parallels web site. Their notes indicated that the latest version ran successfully in Lion (the update is required, in fact). Once Parallels was updated to the latest version, I fired up the App Store on the Macbook Pro, paid the $29.99 upgrade fee, and began the Lion upgrade process.
For the first hour after upgrading to Lion, the Macbook Pro was dog slow. I assumed it needed to reindex the hard drive’s contents. I let it do its thing, then began poking around. Although some things were visibly different or enhanced, most things looked and acted the same. Mail probably had the most interface changes. I won’t go into the main differences between Snow Leopard and Lion as they are covered quite extensively elsewhere on the Interwebs.
The next thing I tried was running Parallels. And so the frustration began. The virtual machines I had installed before all failed to run at all. Parallels would crash and want me to send in an error report. I did some Googling for resolutions and learned that Parallels may actually be running but was attempting to display itself on a non-existent Spaces desktop. My previous habit was to create four Spaces desktops in a 2×2 grid, and I would run my Parallels VMs in the lower-left desktop. Since all new Spaces desktops were aligned in a linear left-right pattern, without any up-down available, that may have been the issue. I followed directions on the Parallels web site to exit Parallels, remove all but the primary Spaces desktop, then fire it back up again.
Parallels continued to crash. I uninstalled it, deleted my VMs, and reinstalled the program but continued getting the same results. Now, when I attempt to run Parallels, the main program crashes but soon I hear the Windows start up sound — but without any window visible. I have to run it a second time to see the Windows desktop that apparently was there but hidden (it ‘shows up’ without having to boot).
So far, Parallels Desktop v6 for Mac doesn’t seem to like Lion on this computer.
VirtualBox, however, has run without a hitch in Lion. I have not run into any other application-level compatibility issues since upgrading. The one downside to Lion that I can see is it seems to run out of RAM faster. My MBP has 3 GB of RAM available. I would consider 4 GB to be a minimum at this point.
Speaking of RAM, the Mac mini I just bought is the bottom-of-the-line model, with only 2 GB of RAM installed. The Macpac wanted $150 to upgrade it to 4 GB, the same price Apple charges when you buy from their web site. I purchased the Mini with 2 GB and ordered an 8 GB upgrade from Other World Computing [www.macsales.com] for $80 with expedited shipping. The new Mac mini has an easily accessible bottom panel that is removed with a simple twist of the wrist, giving immediate and easy access to the memory modules. OWC claims even the 2.3 GHz minis can be upgraded all the way up to 16 GB of RAM, despite Apple’s claim that 4 GB is the limit for that model of processor.
The next thing on my mini’s to-do list is get my data and files off of my Snow Leopard Time Machine backup. I’ll post more after that process is completed.
[Update 8/8/2011]
Over the weekend I was successfully — and easily — able to migrate my Snow Leopard Time Machine backups into the new Mac mini running Lion. Using the included Migration Assistant, in less than hour two user accounts and their files were migrated into Lion. Applications didn’t get moved, however, and I’m not sure if that’s because I didn’t backup applications in Snow Leopard, or if Lion didn’t want to do so (even though I checked the Applications option within Migration Assistant).
[Update 8/10/2011]
Using a RAM upgrade kit from Other World Computing, I easily and successfully upgraded my 2 GB Mac mini to 8 GB. It’s nice and zippy now, and cost $80 with shipping versus the $150 Apple charges.
When one door closes, a window opens. I needed to upgrade a laptop that was used by a departing employee from Windows XP to Windows 7 so it could be used by the new guy. The original laptop came with a Windows 7 Professional license, but was downgraded to XP at the factory per our request. The Windows 7 product key was on the usual sticker on the underside of the laptop.
I used a Windows 7 Professional full version disc I had bought off the store shelf for a different computer for the upgrade since the laptop didn’t come with an OS recovery or reinstallation disc. The install went well until the part where I had to provide the product key. One complaint: an operating system manufacturer shouldn’t make you go through the entire installation process before you enter your product key. Ask for it up front to save time and perhaps a catastrophic hard drive format that may not have been necessary.
Not the real product key sticker
Anyway, the product key was invalid. I went to great pains to make sure I transcribed the product key from the sticker correctly, paying attention to potentially ambiguous characters like G/6, O/0, L/1, etc. I tried entering the product key several times and it kept coming back as invalid.
I disconnected the machine from the Internet, then tried it again so that I would get the toll-free number option for a phone validation. I called and got a nice gentleman with a central Asian accent. He confirmed that the product key was invalid and said he’d have to refer me to customer service (isn’t that who I was talking to?) He gave me a toll-free number, then transferred me to that same number. Shortly after I got disconnected. Dial tone.
I called the toll-free number he gave me and got bogged down into a labyrinthine menu system, but all options had one thing in common: Thou Shalt Pay For This Support Call. I disconnected and tried the phone validation process again. So far I’m an hour into the process.
The second tech, also with some kind of foreign accent, would ask me a question and then keep talking, never really letting me provide an answer without having to interrupt her. She eventually came to the same conclusion, that the product key was invalid, and attempted to transfer me to customer service. She had a rep lined up but he failed to stay on the conference call, so she had to try again. Eventually I got a guy named Chris, with an American accent, who began the customer service process.
He asked me to validate the product key several times, admonishing me to make sure I was reading the sticker correctly. I tried several times and continued getting validation failures. He then asked about ambiguous characters. I looked at the sticker and felt the characters were solid and obvious. There was a letter B, and he asked me if it could potentially be an 8 instead. Nope, the left edge of the character had a solid, vertical line. It was a B. To his credit, he said, “I’m going to plug it into the database with an 8 just in case…” Yep, lo and behold, the product key with an 8 instead of a B was valid and available for use. He was the first support rep to suggest looking up alternative product keys. It validated and I moved on with my installation. The sticker was simply printed incorrectly.
During my call with Chris I asked where he was calling from. He said he was in the Philippines. My phone calls truly spanned the globe, yet I don’t think I ever reached anyone within the United States. Two hours later, I got my Windows 7 installation completed, all because a B was really an 8.
