May 2008 Archives

Common Craft has produced another of their great explanation videos. If you are still wondering what all this social media means, give it a watch. I have a number of conversations about this stuff at work. Instead of trying to do them all, I suggest picking one and see how it goes. The hardest part is keeping at it. You really have to hit a critical mass with this stuff before it starts making sense.

Start a blog, join Twitter, or try out Facebook. Look me up. I will be your first social media friend to get you started. For Twitter, I am zorp75ck, and for Facebook, I use my Penn State email (cxk287@psu.edu).

It's a holiday so we can't be expected to have something terribly thought provoking. Although, if this happens to you, it will provoke something.

It is Wednesday which is day 2 for our class here at the Penn Stater. In the morning we continued the general survey of tools that can help us get the job done. I realized that after I got to about 20 links in two chapters, it was time for Del.icio.us tags. To see the links on delicious look for the following tag: psult433. The "l" is a lowercase "L".

This afternoon we finally got into the doing of some security tools. After years of tinkering, I am finally starting to understand how Linux and UNIX work internally. It's relatively simple, but that is the double-edged sword. All those plain text configurations give me a headache. It's definitely time for bed.

I am spending this week at the Penn Stater taking a SOS for subsidizing the training. $250 for a Learning Tree class is a steal. So Day 1 as you might expect included introductions and the first couple of chapters. I have already learned about a few tools that I need to look up. Tripwire, Bastille, and some introductory cryptography material. For old school *nix admins, these tools might be old hat, but I am an old school Windows guy who is still relatively new to Linux. As with all classes like this one, I realize how far we have to go for our own security of VoIP systems. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we have a lot of work to do. Job security anyone?

The other day, I wrote about things being more complicated than they need to be. I ran across this post on the A.P. Lawrence blog that talks about another aspect of this subject. How much does it cost people and companies when something because we have to deal with requests or support issues in a very prescribed and regimented way. My point is not to sell non-Windows solutions. I think Microsoft makes some great stuff as does Apple and the Linux community. The part of the anonymous post on Tony Lawrence's blog that is most interesting to me is that large for-profit companies don't routinely track lost work-time due to computer troubles. My recent loss of time was about 4 days until all was said and done. How much did that cost Penn State? Between my salary and projects that depend upon my activities, it was most likely a significant number of dollars. If we extend that to a small percentage of computer failures across the University, that number gets ever larger and more significant.

As IT, we have a responsibility to think about the consequences of our acceptable procedures and processes. The needs of our customers are changing. If they aren't already, the old-school authoritarian IT attitudes need to just go away. IT needs to learn that customers are what will allow us to flourish. Build relationships with people with whom you work, but who aren't in your department. Learn what those people need and want. Keeping people happy is a great way to get more productivity out of them. If we don't provide these services, or at least help select those services as part of the team, we will start to have less and less to do. I for one hate being bored (and unemployed)!

For most of my professional career, I have been the person responsible for fixing things when they break. This responsibility has been mostly in the realm of IT stuff. A warning before reading further. Language may be coarser than usual Recently, I had the opportunity to be on the receiving end of the IT support chain. What I experienced is consistent with what I have been thinking for quite awhile. In terms of customer service, IT has a reputation for sucking. Mostly, this reputation is deserved. Let me explain.

Two weeks ago, the "X" key on my MacBook Pro's keyboard broke. There are little clips that hold it in place. These keys easily press back in place when they come off from time to time, if the clips are intact. Basically, I needed a new key top replace the broken one. Having spent years dissecting computers and servers of various sizes and shapes, completing this repair would have taken approximately 3 minutes to complete with a suitable replacement part. (I estimate three minutes because it takes forever to open electronics packaging.) The worst part of sending my computer back was protecting proprietary designs and NDA information that is contained on the hard drive. Apple's warranty terms prohibit the removal of the hard drive, so to protect the data, I had to erase a perfectly working Mac OS X install. So after one day to erase and ship the computer, one day for the repair, and one more day to receive the computer and restore it. Three days! This is more difficult than it really needs to be.

Sometimes, I feel like we are doing the same thing here at Penn State. IT pursues a very DIY strategy for things. Is it always better to build than buy? I say, "No". Let me explain. How many times have you attended a meeting with IT where you were told no for any number of reasons? Allow me to list some that may feel familiar. Feel free to imagine your resident Alpha Geek's voice while reading this list. I have added my own translations in italics.

• That solution won't scale. Gosh, it sounds like a lot of work...
• Is it standards based? How much work will I have to do to integrate this?
• Security isn't tight enough. Gosh, it sounds like a lot of work...
• We don't have enough resources to do that. That sounds like a lot of work, and we are already busy.
• and so on...

I feel sometimes that we are defending ourselves from customers just because they are not us. One of the things that I am trying to encourage peers and superiors to do, is saying yes instead of no. Anecdotally, I feel like I spend too much time discussing why we can't or won't. Instead of spending our time and energy saying no, let's just say take that same amount of effort to make things happen. For those who get asked the questions, try not saying no immediately. Listen first, think about it. It's alright to say, "I don't know" for today. Do a little research and then maybe say yes. Maybe you can meet the customer halfway.