Technically Speaking

Like most work, IT can be a bit of an albatross sometimes.  Even those of us who play with computers all day can get “a case of the Mondays” once in a while.  It is a curious thought to me how often these things happen.

I realize it is still work and it is a job, but I try to think of it as playing with computers to cut through the work blah aspect of it, but even that runs thin sometimes.

Change venues once in a while

Even though telecommuting is all the rage in some industries and organizations, still others haven’t gotten on the bandwagon of remote work.  It might be a good idea to spend a day or two every month working remotely or from a different desk than yours.

This can change your view and keep you able to focus on the tasks facing you.  It may not be as nice as working from the beach in your sweatpants, but a simple change of scenery might be just what the doctor ordered in terms of different perspective.

As I write this I am away from my usual desk sitting in the waiting room of a clinic.  It isn’t ideal for sure, but the windows and new things to see are nice for a change.

Reflect on the results

While working on tasks or projects there are many things going on and time for reflection may be scarce, but upon completion of the activity take a few notes about the things that were accomplished and those that were not.

Once things have been on their way for a few weeks, take a few minutes and read your notes and reflect on the outcome as well as the methods employed.  Then condense your notes and pick out the highlights and jot them down for your performance review or just your own information.

Keeping well organized notes for your performance review might be just the right thing to help your supervisor know what you have been working on.

Keep something to learn available

You need not constantly learn the latest and greatest technology, but perhaps a new style of writing or a new type of activity related to a hobby.  This should help keep your brain moving and prevent it from getting stale.

Hopefully these few tips will help keep motivation high and feeling of “ugh work” low.  Remember we in the IT area get to play with computers everyday and help others use technology. 

With new technology rolling out all the time and changes to hardware becoming faster and more frequent it seems as though companies can quickly fall behind in the race to be leading edge.

Using programs like Microsoft Software Assurance and Open Value can help your organization stay up front with both applications and their licensing which is so important for IT administrators to consider.

I am not a licensing expert – yet.  Hopefully in the near future I will get started down that path, simply to help my organization and others better understand the lengthy and very snooze worthy EULA.

Licensing seems to be the glue that either holds the IT organization together or the frustration that causes early baldness in IT pros all over.  I am not sure why the documents are so hard to comprehend (and yes I know that they really aren’t that bad, but you have to read them).

It seems to me that Microsoft (and other organizations) want to get all the possible scenarios into the license so they do not miss anything or leave any loopholes, which is understandable, but the efforts to do so seem to pull all of the trustworthy out of computing.  If you cannot trust your users and have to put huge license agreements out for all products except Bob (surely all of you have seen MS Bob), most aren’t going to read the EULA anyway.  This does two things:

1. gets the user to agree blindly to the terms laid out in the EULA

2. gets the vendor nowhere in terms of its customers understanding the agreements they put out.

One thing I would like to know is where can one go to find materials to learn about how licensing works not to mention get the EULA for a product before purchasing it?  Sure there are sites and books and blogs about licensing, but what training material is out there for the beast?

I do not have a huge issue with licensing other than trying to learn it.  Really it is there to protect the manufacturer and the user and should be followed, but when I saw the Windows Server 2008 Licensing for Dummies hand out at Tech Ed, it made me wonder why would they need to even joke about a Dummies manual for licensing?

Hopefully licensing gets more user friendly in the future, after all the word user is even in the title of the document.  They aren’t called the IT Professional License Agreement.

Have any of you found a good tactic for learning more about licensing or a way to gain from reading product EULAs?  If so, post in the comments or contact me, I would be interested in finding out how others handle it.

Update: Poll added below

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So Saturday I was one of the people who got up earlier than desired to visit my local Sprint store in the hopes of getting a Palm Pre.

I got the Pre and so far it is awesome.  This post is a review of sorts, not every feature is covered here, but the ones I use and have found thus far.

Note: The Pre speaks Exchange Active Sync, but I haven’t got the Exchange technology to get that working out of the box.  If we ever move that forward so I can add my work account, I will update this post.

First things first, the welcome video and screens the Pre has for waiting out the activation process are nice.  Because the product was launched on Saturday, activations likely took longer than they would take on your average Tuesday afternoon.

I also like the keyboard.  I know it is small, but the idea of a full size fold-out/roll up/etc keyboard is ridiculous.  It isn’t that much smaller than the Treo keyboard although it is recessed a bit, see below.

I have also seen some reports of sharp edges when the keyboard is open, but haven’t noticed it so much when using the phone.  Sure it isn’t polished and shiny, but the Pre does not need to be that similar to the competition.

Phone calls

Even though the OS has web in its name, the idea is to make calls on the Pre.  I have made a few calls and noticed that the quality is better than my last phone.  The bluetooth supported by the Pre is outstanding with my Jawbone headset.  No dropped calls or choppy calls while using the jawbone.

Multi-touch Multi-tasking

The touch screen is nice.  No stylus required, just slide your fingers around on the screen to get where you need to go.  Zooming in and out employs a two finger pinch, multi-touch which is a great feature as not all sites on the web are optimized for the screen size, zooming helps with that quite a bit.

Apps

The app catalog is not as impressive as the app store in iTunes, but the device has only been on sale for 5 days or so.  I think the dozen or so apps available today are very well done and the integration of GPS is just plain cool.  There are tons of apps coming when the SDK hits the streets (hopefully soon).  Once the calling card style app or Google Voice app is out for the Pre (assuming they make one) I will be all set. *Hint Hint*

Integration

I am a Google Apps user, for mail and calendar and things like that.  All of these applications pull right into the Pre.  Simply enter the mail information and calendar login and give it a minute to sync and all your calendars and IMAP mail will be there waiting.  Oh and speaking of IMAP, the Pre uses background push which will allow you to go do other things (multitasking remember) and when mail arrives (or on a schedule of your choosing) it is on your Pre.

Update – 6-12-2009

I discovered that the Pre can take screenshots of whatever I happen to be looking at with a simple key press rather ambitious key press.  The grabs are stored in an album in the photo viewer app and the user is not told warned about the screenshot being taken.  I am not sure how useful this will be, but the idea is pretty cool.  Check it out…

There are also new apps coming just about every other day… it seems this phone is more to my liking the longer I have it.

Consensus

I know that I haven’t looked at every nook cranny and code nugget on the Pre, but other sites have done that and then some.  Over all I like this phone a lot and am looking forward to the things coming in software and surely other things from Palm.  WebOS is excellent so far and will only get better.

Go play with the phone at a Sprint store as they should now have demo units and give it a test.  Although I recommend it highly as my first week with the phone has been stellar, try it and see if it is the phone for you. 

For those of you who remember the 8 bit NES, the Pre even allows use of the Konami code.  Look it up on Bing (or as my wife said this morning, Just Bing It!).

I am glad I got in line to get a Pre and cannot imagine what Mr. Rubinstein and Palm have coming in WebOS.  Keep up the good and excitingly innovative work.

Storage is a premium in the enterprise today.  Making the most efficient use of the disk space in your organization can be a great way to do more with less.

In an article for Experts-Exchange.com I look at Windows Server 2003 R2’s Windows Storage Server and Microsoft’s Single Instance Storage implementation.

Using a background service and idle processor time, the system can ensure one original copy and links back to it to reclaim space wasted by storing multiple copies of files.

Click here to read the full article

I have posted about OneNote before, and how it can be a great asset for IT staff and Managers to help keep notes and ideas together in one place, but in my search for a good personal knowledgebase I have again come back to OneNote.

With a little help from the Windows Live team.

Keeping my notebook for knowledgebase content updated all the time is the biggest reason for selecting OneNote as the platform.  I do not need to save, I can use the application across computers and share information with colleagues as needed.

Syncing across computers is the ticket

My new discovery, from the Live team, is Sync.  The application is installed on any computers you wish to share files between.  Then selected directories can be synced between these computers and the Sync service.

Where this gets handy is if I setup a sync’d folder and put a OneNote Notebook in the folder.  Set it to sync with the web and then anytime I am online, my notebook is backed up for use on any PC I have.

You can configure folders as personal, available only to you, or shared, seen by others you specify.  So if I had a team notebook, I would put it in a shared folder, publish the folder to those who I want to access the notebook, and start using it. 

Yes other users (or computers) would need to have Sync installed on their computers, and to get it, a live account, but both are free and with the number of places wifi is available (there is a gas station near my house with free wireless Internet for customer – wow.. at the gas station?) there are really no places changes to the file cannot be shared.

As with any notebook, it will OneNote will store the notebook on your PC, so it will be seen as always in sync by OneNote.  Sync runs automatically (or on demand if you choose) and will sync changes to the web service anytime a connection is detected.

One more bonus…

Since OneNote keeps the file on your computer locally, sync does not require OneNote to be running to share the folder with the web.  In most cases you would need OneNote to be running to use the synchronization features.

I just discovered this today and will be using it for my own personal knowledge base notebook, things that will help me solve problems that may require a bit of digging, and will update this post if my opinions changes, but for now, it is the sweetest use of the Internet for an application I have seen yet.  Surely the next thing is right around the corner.

Give it a whirl and let me know what you think of OneNote with Sync in the comments.

So the scheduled goal provided at Tech Ed 2009 in Los Angeles last month of Holiday 2009 shipment for Windows 7 is more than doable, or at least that’s the latest info leaked form announced by Microsoft.

October 22 2009 is the date Microsoft wants the new OS to be out in the wild for customers to purchase either in a box or on a box.

This should be a good plan for consumers and IT shops everywhere, OEM boxes shipping just in time for the 2010 budgeting season (at least where I work). 

As much as I am looking forward to Windows 7 being on every desktop imaginable (and even some Macs) I have to wonder just how many businesses will make the jump to Win 7 and how many will hold off based on the fun we all had with Windows Vista (or didn’t have).

I am going to push very hard to pilot Windows 7 in my organization and hopefully build enough user adoption to quickly show the benefits and begin a rollout.

Features like

Problem steps recorder – the screen capture tool for end users

Direct Access – access to corporate resources without a VPN from any connection

Better resource usage -  better memory management and longer lasting hardware

These are all reasons that Windows 7 will be good for business.  Pilot with a small group of users from all over the spectrum, those who love, like, and loathe technology to get a feeling for what supporting 7 will entail.  I think it will be a good experience for everyone.

Click here for more details from the Windows 7 team blog.

Welcome to June.  Today Microsoft launched Bing, it’s new approach to search and so far, I think it is pretty slick.

Suggested links based on your query are placed along the side of the page, offering a list of additional items. 

For example, searching for Green Bay produced a list of popular Green Bay related sites as expected, but the list on the left provided other things I might like to know about Green Bay such as restaurants, weather, airport information and other things.

Figure A below shows some of the results returned for Green Bay.

Figure 1

The site also includes related search terms in the left column to help find other resources based on what is entered.

I have also noticed that Bing is location aware.  For example, when I searched for Star Trek, the movie listings for the area I am currently in appeared.  Helpful when travelling and looking for things near by for sure.  Figure B shows my current results for Star Trek.

Figure B

Surely I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface on the features brought out in Bing, but I will give it a shot and see if Microsoft can catch the competition.

So what does this have to do with IT Management?

The answer to that question depends on how you look at it.  Taylored results and additional suggestions, beyond sponsored links, can be very helpful.  It seems to me that the search engine is smarter in calculating results and delivers more useful content.

Imagine attending a conference for your company and being able to rely on your search engine to check flight status, get a cab, find reasonable dinner choices, and get the baseball scores for the game of the local baseball team.  Saving time in looking for local results based on your IP address.

Giving your users and staff a predictive search tool could be a huge benefit if the technology Microsoft is using is well maintained and stays afloat.  Predictive search results might be a boost to the productivity of employees because they will spend less time searching for results and more time actually using found information.

I am excited to give Bing! its due.  Check it out at http://www.bing.com and leave your thoughts or usage suggestions in the comments.