Category: Technology

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Business Life Technology

Fending Off Stagnation

This isn’t another post about how I’m not living up to my plans (I actually did some certification work last night … imagine that), but a longer-term look into the future than just what I am working on right now.

There was a post being tossed around on Twitter recently titled Why your previous developer was terrible, and I recommend that you take a look. It speaks mostly of how a new developer can come into a situation and seem like they have all of the answers because they need to deal only with the current knowns, not with the inherit unknowns of starting a new project.

However, it think it is also a tale of stagnation in some sense. It is easy to get bogged down in the past and present and leave the future to, just that, the future. Solutions you HAVE made in the past tend to stick around longer than they should because … they are a decision we don’t have to make today (and who around us is needing to make fewer decisions).

The prevailing thought from many people is that you shouldn’t stick around the same place for too long so that things don’t stagnate. I can understand that, but I happen to think that there are downsides to the opposite as well … moving around constantly or a constantly shifting group of workers as well. Knowledge is lost. Decisions are having to continually be made over, and over, and over … it can be maddening on the other side as well.

So the question becomes: how can a person fend off stagnation at the place they are at?

That’s the question I want to talk about. Usually they’ll just toss out “move to somewhere else”, but that’s not what I want an answer to. I want to talk about how to fend it off when you are dedicated to staying where you are.

Let’s talk about that.

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Technology

Pulled Back to Linux

This is a follow-up to my last piece so at least you understand the title better.

I was able to work a little on getting openSUSE setup well-enough that I can use it as my training machine as I work toward some certifications from SUSE. It took a little work and a lot of trial-and-error, but I have a working machine going right now that will serve my needs. Here is how I’ve handled the problems I was having.

  • Pidgin and Google, for whatever reason, do not seem to like it when I set an avatar within Pidgin. That’s an easy-enough fix … I just don’t set an avatar within Pidgin. I would prefer to be able to set one, but I am more interested in having access to Google Talk consistently right now. I might file a bug against this because it is quite annoying.
  • VPN was only a single option away after setting all of the certificates correctly and other settings. Make sure you check the Use this connection only for resources on its network setting within the IPv4 settings of the VPN and things will work a little better. I’m not sure why I missed it in the past.
  • I have Thunderbird setup with my iCloud email so that I am able to check my personal email easily. I did have work’s Google Apps account setup as well, but it was more of a pain (and IMAP + Google is still annoying) so I’ll just use the web interface for that. Not ideal, but it will work.

There really isn’t too much else to it. That will get me by for now. I still need to work out how to apply theme settings to GNOME Terminal, but that is minor.

So I’m back. While I won’t use this Lenovo ThinkPad X220 with openSUSE as my primary machine, I am happy that I have something with a proper CLI to work with again.

Categories
Technology

Pushed Away from Linux

I do prefer Apple’s hardware and software, but sometimes Linux just pushes me away.

Take tonight for example.

This isn’t a new issue for me, but it is something I had hoped to finally figure out a workaround for this evening, but I just ended up more frustrated. I want to be able to do the following:

  • Connect to a personal Google Talk account (old Gmail account)
  • Connect to my work’s Google Apps account

I try Pidgin because that is what I have had the most success with. This is what I get:

  • Looks like both initially connect but then the personal Gmail account drops with an input/output error
  • Try to reconnect, and the same thing happens … over, and over, and over again

This was happening for both accounts, but work’s account was working tonight. Alright, why not try Empathy. That is built into GNOME so I should be able to use it easily. Here is what happens there:

  • You can log into the accounts in the system panel, but when you go into Empathy it says that my work account is listed as disconnected
  • Try to make self available, and the same thing happens
  • Turn account off and then back on again … same thing

Frustrated, I log into my account on my wife’s MacBook Pro and I have access to everything that I need. This is on top of the issues with our OpenVPN settings I have had for months (with no end in sight). Here are some symptoms:

  • I can connect when I manually pull apart of the certificates and add them separately
  • I can access the internal servers via IP addresses, but I cannot access any outside site
  • Try to set DNS settings so that it works … but no luck

Frustrated, I usually log into my account on my wife’s MacBook Pro and then connect using Tunnelblick and everything is fine with the world.

Neither of these are a deal-breaker, but it is a “death by a thousand cuts” sort of thing. If what I need to do is easier when I use OS X, then I have no incentive to try to learn how to really use the power of Linux on the desktop.

For now, for me, Linux continues to be my server OS of choice.

Categories
Business Technology

Changing Focus

I have many interests, too many to be certain. As I try to satiate my innate desire to know everything that I can, I end up knowing nothing because I can’t commit my mind to working on a single things for more than an even, or maybe (just maybe) a week.

So, starting April 1, 2014, I am going to take the next quarter of the year to focus on sysadmin stuff. I’m setting aside my iOS books and picking up system and network administration material instead.

This will also include working through my SUSE CLA material as well. If that goes well, I’ll start planning on the next step of my certification journey by looking at CLP and CLE certifications as well. By the time I get to that step I’m hoping that the training resources will be rewritten for the upcoming SUSE Linux Enterprise 12 (currently in private beta) and not be tied to Flash either (which makes using an iPad particularly difficult).

The change is really pushed by professional needs at the moment. Linux and system administration is something I do every day and I want to be able to do that better. It helps that I also tend to enjoy doing it quite a bit as well.

I’m sure I’ll have more to write about this in the future.

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Technology

My Sysadmin Tool of Choice

The title might be a little facetious, but stay with me.

We recently underwent a semi-invasive project here on campus. It involved replacing the backbone switch for the entire campus and replacing it with a larger chassis which allowed us to consolidate some switches into the new chassis along with adding some 10G switching capacity (which we are now using for our VM storage systems).

What tool was the most important during that project? My iPad.

When a student was stating that their router was not connecting properly with the network, I needed the ability to easily check whether my changes were having an effect. Easiest way to do that? Use my iPad and OpenVPN.

We have a metric ton of projects sitting in the pipeline right now which range from pulling out the last of our Novell NetWare servers and replacing them with OES 11.2 to continuing the migration and consolidation of current services onto smaller VMs and SLES 11. That all comes with a lot of documentation I need to wade through and also using Trello to try to keep track of the moving parts.

What is with me for that? The iPad!

When my family and I recently took a vacation to visit my wife’s family in Milwaukee I wanted to bring along the minimal amount of technology so that we could also pack in a half-hog for my brother-in-law. I still needed to have access to the office and the ability to troubleshoot machines while I was on the road.

What made the cut? My iPad, complete with cellular internet connection, OpenVPN, and Prompt for working with my servers.

I did not originally imagine that this is how I would end up using the iPad.

The idea really stemmed around using the iPad to carry around documentation, and that was pretty much about it. Couple that with some email and web browsing capabilities I was going to be happy using it as my daily-carry machine. However, as I dug into the new iPad Air it became apparent that it could be used for so much  more (and in some cases, be better).

So as it stands right now, the iPad is my sysadmin tool of choice in many situations. Of course, there are many tools that I use in a given day, but I have been pleasantly surprised with how well my iPad Air has transitioned into more than just a daily-carry documentation tool.