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Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Building web sites? Magic, mystery or work?

05 May

Web site building is technical work and something that comes easy to me. However, I’ve noticed a trend amongst clients.

“Make me a web site, have all of the content magically show up and have it do exactly what I want all with very little input or work from me.”

This client ideology is both frustrating and can lead to lengthy deployments. Every client so far has some notion that if they “pay” me to build a web site that I will magically understand everything they want and to somehow come up with the exact message and content that makes sense.

Truth is, it just doesn’t happen that way. I’m a technician, not a mind-reader, nor do I fully understand every detail and nuance of my clients business. While I do get things rather quickly and do grasp the high level overview of a given business, I am by no means an expert. So, I have to rely on the client to actually communicate and review the site(s) for content and appropriateness.

Well, this tends to drag-on and by extension, makes the process really drag on. Therefore, I DO NOT do it full time. If I built sites full time, my family and I would die of starvation.

Enough ranting… I have to finish another site for a “family member”…

 
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Posted in Personal, Rants, Technology, Web Site

 

My Cave!

03 Apr

The corner

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.

My own private bath room

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!

 
2 Comments

Posted in Business, Hardware, Personal

 

Sales? Yes, I’m now in Sales…

01 Apr

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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Posted in Business, Hardware, Software, Technology

 

Web Surfing!

30 Mar

StumbleUpon LogoI’m sure there are a ton of great sites out there. However, if you have time to just surf and don’t really want to “think”, then the best tool out there is StumbleUpon. You may or may not have heard about this really cool technology. If you haven’t go get it, NOW.

What does it do? If you’ve not heard about StumbleUpon, then here’s what it does. Once you’ve setup a profile and selected general categories of things you like or are interested your set. Next, install the Firefox extension, where it’ll add a set of tools in the bar above the tabs area. I believe they also have an IE installer for those still using that browser.

Once everything is installed, it’s as simple as clicking a button. It’ll automatically jump to a given site that fits the interest level from your profile.

Why is it cool? Well, simply speaking, it’s a great way to find new sites to check out. If you happen upon a site you really like, there’s a “I like it” button as well. This triggers a flag on your profile and others who like similar categories will find the site next time they’ve “stumbled” through their list. So, you help others and they help you. It’s really a cool win-win.

 
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Posted in Software, Technology

 

Big upgrade?

30 Mar

Word Press BadgeWordPress is probably one of the best Blogging tools available. There are several other software tools available to be sure, but WordPress has always made very fast, efficient and elegant software for blogging, that in my opinion, it’s one of the best.

So, big upgrade? Well, I’ve been running a 2.x variant for some time. I’m not a full time blogger as I still just do it for personal reasons and for the “old fashion” reason some started theirs back when. As a personal journal. That’s it.

While I do have some people stop by every once in a while, it’s mostly friends and family members. I’m also sure that if someone is looking for me, they’ll do a Google search. My intent was for anyone interested to find this blog. That way, a) you could contact me if you’re an old friend, b) just looking to learn more about me and/or c) just looking to see who else has this name or uses the name Shane.

There’s really nothing complicated here.

Oh… back to the upgrade. Well, I jumped right into the newest WordPress 2.5. The upgrade was, well, uneventful as upgrades go. This is my first post under the 2.5 admin tool set.

 
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Posted in Blogging, Technology

 

Over there, over there…

28 Aug

We were on the brink of a new chapter.

Our development team, QA, Support, Deployment etc… that is only 35 strong here in Colorado was about to become “Project Managers”. Unfortunately we answer to a higher power in Baltimore and was on the brink of moving our main “grunt” development “over-there”. That was the story anyway, we’ll keep the creativity here and communicate the daily drudge to an out-source off-shore.

Well, that was two weeks ago and last friday those powers made a reversal announcement. Our VP who’s originally from “India” fought hard to keep the work here and well, won. At least we have a years repreive. Deep down I know there’s intellegence and competence over-seas, but feel that our 10 years of effort would suffer in the end and eventually would be dissolved had we continued with the plan.

However, while our engineers may be over-paid, some-times appear lazy, keep odd hours and generally dispise process and planning are still THE MOST CREATIVE at solving problems and when the chips are down and deadlines are looming, they step-up and solve problems. The process working with development engineers can be grueling, nerve racking and some times down-right frustrating, but they get it done.

I was concerned the original plan was doomed for so many of the reasons I’ve read about in every tech rag. Everyone wants process documented and standardized to predictability, but truth is, it’s not part of the fabric of the US spirit. We’re mavericks and seat-of-pants folks regardless of how much “process” we try to put in place. I’ve been doing consulting and deployments for years and while I attempt to put in predictability, I prefer the “make-it-up-as-I-go-along” process. I’m also a bit of an entreprenuer caught in a corporate life. I’ve been thinking alot about both the private business process and how I can harness that ideal while staying where I am. I recently read several blogs related to this ideal of Intraprenuer and think that it’s often over-looked.

I’m all for the success of other countries and frankly with a more global economy, I wish them well, but I agree on creativity, design and spirit. Americans solve problems through these maverick efforts and to dissolve such efforts is a travesty.

I think so many in management have lost site of some of the most important traits in American and have concentrated so much on the bottom-line, while important, get caught up in the latest “trend” and think it’s going to be a saving solution.

 
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Posted in Personal, Rants, Technology

 

Web site work

03 Jul

I’ve been feverishly working on several web site concepts and am finding the process of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) a bit complex. Not that I don’t understand it, but that while attempting to sort out all of the articles, density and keywords, search engines seem to take for ever to crawl the sites. I’ve read tons of information about “Content Is King”. Well, that’s fine except that it’s kind of hard to write content specifically targeting keywords and trying to keep “density” in mind.

I’ve also noticed that on some sites, namely my own personal blog, here, that it moves all over the place on Google. One day, it’s top 5, then a few days later, I can’t find it to save my life. I’ve found that if I slack off and don’t post anything for a few days, it drops like a stone in water. Go figure. But, then there’s a few “Shane” sites that haven’t been updated in months and it stays on top. It’s kind of hard to figure out frankly.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted in Software, Software, Technology, Web Site

 

Laptop HELL!!!

07 May

I’m killing laptops faster than I can get a post on my blog. After getting my old “faithful” PowerBook back from the shop where it’s sporting a nice new monitor screen, it decides to start acting up on me. One week of crashes, lockups and weird behaviour. Then, on the Sunday before a business trip, it decides to just stop booting up. I get the you’re F’d in 5 languages screen and attempted to boot it 10-15 time and the you’re F’d continued in different places during the boot process.

Unfortunately, I had my DELL Lattitude D800, big as a Mac truck, and decided to take it and the PowerBook on the trip. At the Hotel the first night, the PowerBook finally had one successful boot, YEAH!!! USB flash drive saved the day by copying all the “relevant” or “current” files I needed over to the DELL. Whew…

Resolved myself once again to have to rely on the old DELL to try and keep up with my work, all 9 POUNDS of it.

It lasted… a Week. The very next Friday it started over again. After finally giving up on the PowerBook, as Tad so elequently put it, it’s Toast Man, I’d decided to just try and get something done and had most of my backup files either on an old Mac or on a the old D800 from the last fiasco.

It BEGAN!!! Got home Friday night after shutting it down, the D800 decided to just not power up. Nothing, no lights, no chimes, no even attempting to do anything. Power must be completely dead. The Battery is fully charged, tried different power cords, different battery, everything. So, after refraining from taking it out into the street and smashing it into a million peices, I calmed down and went to a Bar Mitzvah. Yep, more interesting than my laptop saga, I can tell you that. Of course, that’s another blog by itself.

So… here I sit, Sunday morning, once again using one of our old faithful, hardly used iBooks trying to decide what to do. Plead my case to my boss that I need a new MacBook Pro, or just go get one myself because, cause if I finagle a new machine, probably reluctantly from my boss, it’ll be the lowest end because of “Cost Containment”… What to do, what to do.

 
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Posted in Hardware, Personal, theMac

 

Cool Blog Tech

16 Apr

This is freakin cool. After reading a blog by a tech guy, Phil I think, over at Conversant, I stumbled on this blog posting tool he suggested trying out. It has built-in spell checking and is a lot like an email client.

Mars EditOne feature is that you can write posts and save them as a draft. This is my first post with this tool. Way cool for offline editing

I’ve also found it helpful for quickly editing posted blogs as well.

Get a demo at: MarsEditor

The only issue is, it’s Mac only.

 
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Posted in Personal, Software, Technology

 

Linux for Dummies

17 Jan

SUSE 10.0: yes, I know the dinosaur Novell purchased it, but I took another look. Several years ago I had purchased SUSE 8.x and played with 9.x on a local workstation, but just didn’t feel compelled enough to use it on a daily basis. So, I stuck to the MacOS 10 and Windows XP flavors of OS’s for daily chores.

So, then a colleague of mine, Tad, catches me in the hallway and says, man Shane, have you seen the new SUSE 10.0 distro? Well, of course I hadn’t and beings that he is a hard-core Win user, but slowly converting to the Mac or at least using them both interchangeably, I figured I’d take another look.

Install download ISO disks are huge, but worth the wait. I did them over night one night as I tend to get more bandwidth at night (around 3mb or greater w/Mesa). The ISO’s make either several CD installers or one large DVD installer. I burned the DVD installer and gave it a go on my DELL 4700 workstation with a 150gb drive and WinXP Pro already installed.

The installation took about 45 minutes, but the coolest thing is that it has a built-in reformatting tool that took a chunk of the NTFS volume allocated to WinXP and shrunk it to make room for the Linux install. Way cool and didn’t even have to think about dual boot, which I installed first etc… Linux for dummies. Each step of the installation was very similar to Apples installer asking all of the basic questions. Will you connect to the internet, what user name/password and preset the ‘root’ password, etc… Once installed, it jumped right into the desktop and ran the YaST application, which basically ran out to their live update server and updated several patches and security fixes that had come out since the ISO burns.

Voila’ I’m now running a modern Linux desktop with the Gnome UI. You can choose between KDE and GNOME during install. Previously I’d used the KDE UI and found it a bit klunky. So, I decided to give GNOME a go. So far, so good.

Next, I popped open FireFox, pre-installed, and updated the theme and a few extensions I like to use. Jumped over to my blog site, gmail account and several web haunts to see if it looks and/or worked any different. Nope, all the same. Last, I downloaded the current PDF reader. The one thing I noticed was, the Acrobat installer was very Wind/Mac like. Double click an installer application and it was done. No package to install, no command line to run, no shell script etc… All things I’m familiar with, but my goal was to imitate the average Joe.

Now, I’m attempting to use it along with the WinXP and MacOS I’m familiar with and attempt to become as virtual as possible. No more OS dependencies! Maybe.

8-)

 
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Posted in Reviews, Software, Software, Technology

 
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