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By coscooper
It’s a computerized, digital, connected world… and yet, we still accept mediocrity in our computing systems. Yes, I’m talking about the one, the only, crappy Operating System that exists on a lot of systems, mostly about 91.7% of the worlds personal computers, in fact, according to current market share statistics. And… this is a sad commentary on how much the masses accept such mediocrity. I have to admit, I gave up on the us versus them operating systems wars along time ago. However, truth be told, I never really completely gave up my bigotry for, yes, dare I say, the Macintosh operating system.
My disgust and frustration with Windoze came rushing back to me in spades over the past few months. You see, with my old position, I was able to use what ever system I wanted, which meant that I decided to purchase my own MacBook Pro so I could control what I installed and did with my system. Then, I went on a 6 month sabbatical from any corporate environment and back again most recently. Well, not so much true corporate life per se, but I went back to work for a great company. And… you guessed it, their standard issue for Systems Engineers is, yep, a Windows Laptop. IBM errr… Lenovo T61 running Windows XP Professional to be more exact.
That’s when it all began to unravel. Sure, I’ve always copped to the adage, “they’re just tools, use what works for you”, but I think I’m beginning to go back to my elitist attitude of “what rubbish”. Over the course of the past 3 years, I’ve not had to deal with Windows other than manage a server infrastructure, install enterprise solutions and trouble-shoot issues in that environment. However, I always retreated back to my trusted, reliable, all-encompassing MacBook, where I just got shit done, sans any Windows dependencies.
Now, it’s all changed and I have to beg, conjole and wish with all my might to stay productive. In a nut-shell, here’s a few items that Windoze users just have to “deal” with and yes, I’m going to say it with my nose in the air, Mac users just don’t have to deal with such crap. We just get things done.
Fist, I’ve used a laptop as my primary work tool for so long, I don’t recall my last desktop model or even what I did on it. Just about everyone uses a laptop now because of their flexibility and modern speed.
It’s all in the details, dummies!!!
- Expectation: To be able to work up to the point of having to jump on a jet, go to a meeting, leave the office, or any other activity that requires “sleeping” er… putting your laptop in “stand-by”, so it’s right there where you left it and ready to go the next time you need it.
Reality: Not so much on the ole Winoze OS. “stand-by” is hit or miss and usually, 4 out of 10 tries, its a hit. I actually tracked this over a recent trip to St Louis and yes, 60% of the time, the freakin thing wouldn’t wake up, wouldn’t connect to a network, operate with any stability or other “normal” expectation. Usually, had to reboot and it would be ok. So, stand-by is something I just don’t bother with any more. Full shut-down and reboot. Each process stealing 5 minutes of my productive life and over the course of a week, that equates to several hours.
Mac: slam the lid, put in bag, leave. Open lid, start working. Every time. The end.
- Expectation: Plug in any USB device, say, a wireless mouse. That’s it, just plug it in and work.
Reality: again, hit-miss. Fortunatey, it’s mostly a hit, but not without some anxiety involved, knowing little yellow pop up bubbles would bug me and/or tell me it’s ready, but on occasion, it’d have trouble and a “replug” would ensue.
Mac: yep, plug it in and go. No boinks, beeps, yellow bubbles or otherwise. Done. No fuss, no muss.
- Expectation: get your software updates and have it all go smoothly.
Reality: well, you guessed it, not always with good results. Mostly, it’s okay, but they all mostly break-stuff. In 3 months, I’ve had several patches and hot-fixes popup, get installed and I’ve had to reload my printer drivers and other dependancies. Some, I don’t find out about until I need them, which usually means, lost productivity going to the web site, downloading the software, installing it, rebooting, getting al kinds of annoying windoids on the update blah, blah, blah…
Mac: in 3 years, I’ve had 1 serious incident, which royally pissed me off, but after redownloading the install/update an NOT going through the auto-update, it fixed itself. Besides that, I typically have little to no issue with their updates and they’re infrequent.
- Expectation: take a good screen grab/shot anywhere, anytime of anything.
Reality: well, you of can do this, but it just takes the entire screen, sends it to the paste buffer, then what? Well, you could also send it straight to a printer wasting paper and not very useful. Oh, once on the paste buffer, you have to open some paint program, paste it in the window, crop it, sorta, then save it… and remember to save it as a JPEG or GIF rather than the default BMP (huge unusable file) and then your ready to go. Whew… now to take another shot for that presentation. Oh, screw it, I’ll go buy Snaggit for $39 bucks.
Mac: Command shift 3 – JPEG of entire screen on desktop for use where ever. Command shift 4, gives you a cursor to specify an area of the screen and then a JPEG is sitting on your desktop ready to go. Free. Done. Going onto getting work done.
- Expectation: To be able to print or generate a PDF from any application, bar none.
Reality: Yeah, riiight. You have to go download a freebie that only works with office, buy Acrobat Pro, if you happen to have Snaggit or something, you can print to Snaggit, then save as a PDF. DOH.
Mac: Yep, you’re figuring it out, print anything anywhere and get a print-to-PDF option, which, you can actually send to a printer, or have it save to your desktop somehwere. Oh, and it’s free, built in, just works.
- Expectation: light weight and easy to use keyboard. After years and years of ergonomic studies, you’d think that Wintel boxes would figure out how to make powerful laptops lighter and more ergonomic.
Reality: guess again. The T61 still has clunky, chunky keys, is about 2 inches thick, has clunky lid buttons, on/off buttons, locks and all kinds of other minuturized desktop features that just looks like they put a desktop into a vise and squeezed. No ingenuity.
Mac: completely redesign years ago. Is less than 1 inch thick, light keyboard, illuminating keys and of course, the screen is probably one of the best around.
- Expectation: In this world of virtualization and heterogeneous environments, you’d think you could run a lot on an Intel box. Well, there are some hacks out there and of course VM Ware and other virtualization tools have helped the cause, but…
Reality: so, so on Windows and it’s very slow for the most part. I have a VMWare demo I run of a Win2003 server runnign MSSQL, SQL Reporting and IIS that takes nearly 5 minutes to load and restore to usefulness. Same for any
Mac: VMWare has a product called Fusion that’s workstation for the Mac. Same demo as above takes about 30 seconds to load and go. Even snap-shots only take about 1 minute compared to the Windows Workstation version that takes about 10 minutes some times.
- Expectation: drive fragmentation should be non-existant. You’d think.
Reality: Lots of fragmentation on a well used laptop. Slows down, memory gets slow, everything just slows down… oh, yeah, gotta go defrag. Soooooo 80′s.
Mac: One word. Journaling. Nuff said.
Done… i could go on, but this is enough to show that productivity on a Wintel system just isn’t that great. The time savings and other cost reducing affects of using a MacBook or any Apple product is just staggering and seems to only be recognized by a few. Oh well.
Everyone can pick on Apple and the Macintosh all they want, but the reality is, they put so much thought into the details that many things become so ubiquitous that you don’t even notice how productive and stable the system is until you’re forced to dink what 91.7% of the world deals with daily. And the cost of ownership doesn’t even start to compute. Most WIndoze users/purchasers are being penny-wise and pound-foolish. But, of course, if Win products weren’t around, we’d all be more productive, IT would be run by about 5 guys and they’d just sit around playing Texas Holdem or “hoping” for a breakage. So, I guess all-in-all, Windoze is a good thing, right?
This is why I drive a Mercedes, it’s all in the details, dummy.
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By coscooper
One full month. I’m now past the first month on the new job, Sales Engineer for a software company focused on data governance solutions. I have to admit, working from home is, for those who remember what a “valley girl” is, TOTALLY AWESOME!
Flexibility is the word that bubbles up in our conversation a lot. Jodi and I both work at home and it’s great being able to balance work and life needs. Some things just have to be taken care of during the day, business hours and is more convenient. Setting your own hours and schedule really helps.
Being able to work from my home office and still provide great value to both my company and customers is something that I never thought was possible. In my previous position, there was “telecommuting” available, but it basically meant, providing remote customer service at 10pm when someone was panicking, usually my old boss. It meant upgrading servers on Saturday nights from 11pm to 5am. It never meant, I’m going to sit at my home office desk for 9 to 10 hours on such-n-such day and actually get work done. No, my old boss had to “see the whites of your eyes and see you sitting at a desk in his office space” to feel like you were doing something. He was paranoid that if people worked from their home office, they weren’t focused on their work, were goofing off, not focused on him, can’t drop what ever their doing to go to an ad-hoc, unscheduled meeting to hear him drone on about how smart he was and/or sit there waiting for him to finish his “all-important” call, all the while mulling over the work you need to get done wasting valuable time starring at your colleagues waiting, waiting on him to pontificate and show everyone how he’s the smartest man in the room. However, what he didn’t realize is that paranoia drove others crazy and actually produced the opposite. Resentment and really lack of interest in actually wanting to help the cause and ultimately him succeed. His old school mentality was, well, OLD-SCHOOL.
Now, it’s nice to be treated like an adult with respect and dignity knowing that you’re putting in a good days work for the value. Because of that respect and treatment, people who are self-motivated really want to work harder and provide on-going value to the company and ultimately to their customer.
Working from home is AWESOME!
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By coscooper
Well, today was my first day with my new company. I woke up this morning with the Jitters. Mostly, my head was swimming on all of the things I had to get done. I was also wondering if I was going to find everything okay, how was the new office space going to work out and if everyone was going to be nice to me. I wasn’t so sure about the commute and how quickly I’d be able to make it. All those thoughts quickly went “poof” standing in front of the coffee pot sipping on that first “wake up” cup.
Smiling, I realized, none of that would matter. My commute was down one flight of stairs to my new basement office. I didn’t have to wonder much about people in the meetings as they would be done via conference call and webex meetings. I wouldn’t even have to figure out where the kitchen and restroom was. That, I know by heart and can run around here in pitch dark, most of the time.
First day was, well, easy as they come. I actually felt like I got more done than any time in the past. Not that I’ve started a lot of new jobs. However, even with my old company, I had actually moved to different divisions and/or started working with new people/teams or even in a different office on several occasions. It took days and weeks to get it all down on what you could/couldn’t do and where everything was.
Working from home is AWESOME!!! Okay, now the reality will eventually set in and I’ve been around the block enough to know that there’s the “Honeymoon” period. Still, I’m in it now, it’s good and if I play my cards right, it’ll be great even after the newness wears off. Hey, I did stay at my last company 16 years and I’ve been happily married for over 20 years. So, hopefully that pattern continues.
First day Jitters, first day smitters….Forget about it!! I’m off to the races.
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By coscooper
Well, I know Jodi, my LOVELY wife, posted an Office story on her blog, however, I have my own story.
After nearly 20 years of having a private office at my old company(s) I’ve always done what I wanted and never had to answer to anyone “breathing” down my back. Most recently, my office in Boulder was in the corner with lots of windows where I could watch the wild life prance by. I could also stare off into the distance looking over the mountains or Flat Irons looming along the horizon just south of Boulder. I’d get my binoculars out and watch climbers take the face of Flat Iron Number 1. Never saw anyone take a plunge. They must all have been experienced.
Anyway, last year I started working from home and shared the home office in our spare bedroom.
This wasn’t working….
So, I decided to kick Dylan and his drum set out of the basement and build my own space. Jodi “JUMPED” at the thought when I brought it up. Actually, she was reluctant, only because she didn’t want to spend a dime. Bean counters.
Well, I’m now in my own little corner with no one huffing, waving arms aren’t being thrashed at me when I’m on the phone, not hearing the SHUSHING or punching the back of my chair when I’ve tried to zone out with the head-phones on.
Now, my office has everything I really need. Privacy, great lighting, dart board, electric guitar, it’s own Gym & private restroom just 5 steps away, (coffee can be a bitch in the morning when you’re, uh, 40 something.)
It’s not without it’s issues though.
1 – My cell phone doesn’t work very well unless I stand cheek pressed up against the window. Could be good or bad depending on the point of view and needs
2 – The stereo speakers have an annoying buzz when I use my wireless mouse for some reason. This wasn’t an issue upstairs. Tried everything, but it’s not getting any better. Headphones are best. However, I have noticed I don’t hear the local airport radio anymore
3 – I’m too close to the treadmill and Jodi’s been “hinting” all morning. However, I keep my back to the beast.
4 – The desk I bought is “ok”, but a bit flimsy and shakes when I type. Hm..
5 – I’m 3 feet from our basement bar. Beer 30 and after work cocktails are going to be WAY too convenient. I stare at the bottles all day.
Well, regardless of those little “annoyances”, I’m content knowing I can breath, listen to music, take phone calls, chat without worrying she’s looking over my shoulder and well, I’m free to let things “loose” as I see fit. It only affects me
Another perk, it’s next to the entertainment center, with a nice 8′ couch and the leather lazy boy recliner. Next, a nice nap is order and I wont get caught!
My Cave!
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By coscooper
Well, after several weeks of interviews and submitting resumes, I just accepted a position as a “Sales Engineer” for a software company that provides solutions for enterprise server systems. They are extremely unique in the Unix world in offering a management tool for managing data access.
My new company, is based in New York and their sales teams are “virtually” spread across the country. So, I’ll be working frommy home office and supporting the local sales opportunities here in the Denver area along with several other near by major metropolitan areas. Additionally, I’ll be responsible for facilitating the installations and implementation process for new customers and their projects.
I don’t officially start until Monday April the 7th. However, in the mean time, I’ve been slowly getting setup to hit the ground running and gaining access to all of the important company systems. I’m basically in that “getting all of the paperwork together” stage. So far, I’ve found the company to be VERY communicative, responsive and forthright. Looks like a great bunch of people to be working with.
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By coscooper
Detailing business is coming together. Not as quickly as I’d hoped, but it’s still coming along. We’ve spent most of October going over the business aspects and we’ve reviewed our credit card processing. We purchased a wireless credit card machine that can be used anywhere and in fact, it can be used for the car rental business as well and save us money by changing our merchant account category from “card not present” to “card present”. Apparantly, it makes a huge difference.
Besides preparing for credit card processing, we formalized the business under our LLC as a DBA: Altitude Detailing. I also have the web site up and running. www.AltitudeDetailing.com
Initially, I planned on primarily doing shop details. However, after talking to several friends and reviewing several professional detailer web sites, it became obvious that I’d have to offer both shop work and mobile work. So, since I already have the truck and trailer, all that was required was getting everything I need to be self sufficient for mobile work. My trailer is a fully enclosed 22′ car transport trailer and is designed for just that. I wanted to utilize it, but not modify it. Everything had to be portable and be able to roll up the back ramp.
I started by looking at auto detailing supply sites reviewing what they offered. At first glance, I was shocked at the costs to have a tank, sprayer and some hose outfitted to a trailer and/or rig to go into the back of a truck. Being that I’m an engineer and huge DIYer, I decided to do it myself.
- First I trudged off to my favorite farm and ranch supply store, which are plentiful here in Colorado, and purchased a 65 gallon water tank for half of what the detail supply companies were gouging, err charging.
- Next I fitted it to a steel cart, purchased at Home Depot for $80. Purchased some PVC piping, a few valves, a water filter and some straps to hold it onto the cart, and voila’ I had mobile water on wheels to roll up into my trailer.
- I then purchased a portable generator from Lowes. They had a sale on large 3,500 watt units with dual 110 plugs and a 220 plug for welding if necessary. This one is pretty self explanatory. I was thinking about a power converter, but with needing to run a polisher, a vacuum, lights and possibly a carpet shampooer, I felt a full scale generator was in order.
- Since I already own the power sprayer and everything else, the two main purchases was the water tank and generator.
- Not wanting to remodel the trailer, I simply added 8 large eye-bolts to the frame for tie-downs to secure all of the portable equipment.
Everything works great. I loaded it all into the trailer today, tied it all down and drove home with out any incidents. All was right where I left it and it took all of 10 minutes to load and go. Pretty nice to say the least.
The only thing I need to add to the trailer at this point is another cabinet to store products, towels and anything needed for detailing.
I purchased a 12′ x 20′ fully enclosed canopy earlier and am waiting for it to arrive. My intent is to be able to incorporate it onto the back of the trailer as an extension. Then, cars can be placed into the canopy and all of my needs are right there in the trailer. Fully self contained.
Now, I’m ready for mobile detailing.
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By coscooper
This past weekend was awesome both weather wise and with regards to our detailing project. Dylan skipped going skiing and decided to help me out all weekend. Saturday we hung out downtown Denver stopping by many of Denver’s finest hotels. We also decided to swing by The Motorsports Gallery, where we hung out with several Porsches, BMW 740i, Range Rover and the best looking Aston Martin I’ve seen in person. Dylan’s favorite by far.
Our last stop downtown was Detailers Paradise. Nick and Heather were kind enough to share their product line with us discussing the ins & outs of detailing cars to a showroom shine. We discussed business in the Denver area in general and of course, I purchased a few recommended products to get us started. Epic and Slick.
Sunday was the day to start trying them out. Dylan and I focused first on completely cleaning both the Lotus and the Mercedes. Once they were cleaned to perfection, Dylan took on the task of applying Epic to the Lotus. After the 30-45 minute wait period, he began the buffing portion and WOW! It made a HUGE difference. He was so excited he couldn’t wait to start on the Mercedes. Beings that it was black, we knew it needed some pop and Epic didn’t disappoint. We’re now hooked.
Thanks Heather and Nick!!! Check out their product line at: Detailers Paradise.
Shane
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By coscooper
After two years, we decided to basically kick our guests down to the basement. From day one, we’ve had the third bedroom setup as a “guest” room. After 6 years, we figured, it’s been used maybe 4 times. So, since it basically sits there in the dark and frankly has the best westerly view of the mountains, we decided to gut the furniture, put it all in storage and move the office up to the third floor.
We’re now kicking ourselves wondering why we didn’t do this sooner. We have a lot more room to stretch out and the “cave” feeling is gone. Don’t get me wrong, the basement is awesome in it’s own right, however, for hours of work on our computers, it was just getting old. It was located in the corner of the basement between the “entertainment” area and the exercise equipment. Of course, having the office down there computers near the work-out area was more convenient, but then again, it was annoying when Jodi was running on the treadmill and I was trying to work.
Needless to say, the office being upstairs and having a window with a view is much, much more pleasant and enjoyable for long work sessions, writing, surfing or anything related to spending time on my laptop.
Scoop – AKA Shane Cooper
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By coscooper
Okay… so, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Trying to keep my “day” job going and trying to start an internet based business I can run from home. To start, I’ve incorporated a business name and have several ideas on marque web sites as revenue streams. To kick start the venture, I’ve been focusing on “Pre-made” or “TurnKey” web sites.
So, now I have several prototypes ready and am now working on the marketing site to distribute or sell these premade-turnkey sites. I”m stumped trying to figure out a name. Of course, it has to have a cooresponding Domain name. So, I’m stuck…
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