The Lone Sysadmin

I absolutely hate no-reply email. I understand why it exists (autoresponders and bounces), but to send an email with no way to respond at all using the same communications medium is ridiculous.

A good example of this is the customer satisfaction survey Red Hat just sent me. It is from a no-reply email address and there is no other email address listed. There is just some text and a URL, and clicking on the URL gets me:

$ dig rhapps.redhat.com ns1.redhat.com
[...snip...]
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;rhapps.redhat.com.             IN      A

A records are overrated.

I generally am a nice guy and let vendors know something is messed up, but there are limits, especially when I’m already on the fence about a negative experience. I’m not going to open a support case with them, because it’ll never get escalated correctly[0]. And there’s no email address to send a quick note to. So it goes unfixed, Red Hat gets added to my mental list of vendors that don’t get it, and I blog about it, which may be worse than a negative survey response.

And for heaven’s sake, if you send out a customer satisfaction survey make sure it works.[1]

——————–

[0] Here’s a test for your organization: can a customer open a support problem against your web site? Will it go to the right place, i.e. the webmasters or someone intelligent who can get things fixed? If not, why not?

[1] This also may mean you should add an external survey service to what you monitor.

“So, are you ready for the big power outage on Sunday?” a colleague asks on Thursday.

“You mean Saturday.”

“No… Sunday morning.”

“Um, I was told two months ago, and countless times between, that the outage is on Saturday, midnight to 8 AM, and they were starting to shut things down at 10 PM.”

“It’s Sunday, midnight to 8 AM. They’re going to start shutting things down on Saturday at 10 PM.”

“Did they move the outage?”

“No, I bet they were just telling you when things were going to start. On Saturday.”

Midnight is 00:00, meaning the start of a new day. Always.

If you’re in doubt, use 00:01. Assume everybody is clueless about time, because they are. For example, a lot of people think in terms of when they go to sleep, not what actual time it is, so if they’re still up at 0200 on Sunday they consider it to be Saturday. While that’s wrong, and makes visions of their painful, torturous death flash in your mind, it’s a fact of life. Deal with it.

Be precise. Use 24-hour time, because there is no AM/PM question. 24 hour time runs between 0000 and 2359 on any given day. There is no 2400[0].

Last, all times should be accompanied by days, and vice-versa. It’s like units in science classes. You didn’t just write “1.67,” you wrote “1.67 meters.” It isn’t “0800,” it is always “0800 on 4/18/2010.” Times are useless without dates. And if your team or customers are not all in the same time zone, and they rarely are[1], you need that information, too.

“The system shutdowns will commence at 2200 on 4/17/2010, the power will be disconnected at 0000 on 4/18/2010, and power-ups will occur again at 0800 on 4/18/2010. All times are in CDT (-0500).”

———————

[0] Yes, I am aware there are sometimes leap seconds, which get added to the end of a day, thus causing a 23:59:60. 99.99%+ of all outage planning does not need to take this into account.

[1] And even if they are, it doesn’t hurt to add that information.

Steve Chambers of Cisco, blogging over at ViewYonder.com, has had one of his recent blog posts censored by his employer, Cisco. This is really too bad. I don’t always agree with Steve’s opinions but I like that they’re out there. As an example, very few people would have the balls to point out that many IT failures are actually because IT people cause those failures. Very true, in my opinion. I’ve even started referring to “MTBC” in conversation.

However, I’m not at all a fan of Cisco, for a few specific reasons, and now I can add censorship to that list.  It’s obvious that Cisco doesn’t want, and cannot handle, passionate employees. Too bad. It’s people like Steve that drive innovation and change, even if they do ruffle a few feathers here and there by questioning the status quo, the assumptions people make, and the BS that exists in the world (including analyst BS).

Of course, a better approach would have been for Gartner to actually participate in the conversation, defending their point of view. But they blew it. It also would have been more effective for Cisco to quietly tell Steve to take it easy. So few people in this world know the value of playing it cool, and not attracting negative attention like this. Now Cisco seems like a bunch of fascists, and Gartner looks like a bunch of idiots that can’t defend their own arguments in a public discussion. Perhaps those arguments are undefendable, after all. Regardless, I wouldn’t listen to a thing Gartner or Cisco have to say about social software or media (or FCoE, from the looks of it).

I’m hoping Steve doesn’t actually decide to shut ViewYonder down, but if Cisco is threatening his job he’s in a terrible spot. Here’s hoping that he can ultimately find a job with a company that appreciates his opinions, talent, and passion.

Continuing the Streisand Effect that PlanetVM and Rod Gabriel started:

I read a brilliant blog post by J Michael Metz today about the recent Gartner report on FCoE by Joe Skorupa.  Of the many great lines and counter arguments in the post, likening Gartner to Chicken Little was comically accurate in my humble opinion, and is a typical analyst response to anything new and innovative: remember the scare stories about virtualization?  If you listened to guys like Joe, would you ever get anything done?

Please go and read the post yourself, but here’s the general outline to give you a flavour:

• Define your terms – looks like Joe don’t know the difference between DCB and FCoE
• Learning how to count – convergence increases components!  Does Joe think that virtualization increases physical server counts too?
• Financial barriers – well, this is crap in crap out.  If you have more stuff (you don’t) then it’s more expensive (it isn’t)
• Increased complexity – because it’s new?  because the teams, tools aren’t set up for it?
• Hard to debug – crap in/out again, especially if you don’t understand DCB and FCoE.
• Sublime to surreal – don’t do it because you might not get the benefit, but don’t rule them out.  What the hell does that mean?
• Missed opportunities – when you don’t have an axe to grind, nor a hidden agenda, what’s the real opportunity?
• Myopic strawmen – what about ETS?

Don’t forget that the ten-page Gartner report can be yours for $200.  Yes, that’s $20 a page.  The good times must be back!

If Joe can sell just nine of those reports he might want to invest in this FCoE course.

Thanks, Steve, for what you’ve done so far. In a company I don’t particularly like you’ve been a bright spot, and were changing my mind about them, at least until now.

The new solution to the fact that I get 3 bars of signal in the middle of nowhere, but half a bar in my living room in Madison, WI? Femtocells. Pay $150 and get a device that turns your cell call into VoIP… From the NY Times:

Even though the calls would be offloaded to an Internet service provider, AT&T customers would be charged for the minutes of phone service in their existing wireless plans unless they pay an extra $20 a month for unlimited calling.

So AT&T wants you to pay $150 for the device, $40/month for DSL from someone else, then is going to charge you to use the DSL for your call? Unbelievable.

And why, for those prices, wouldn’t you just buy a cell repeater? Or use something like Line2/Toktumi off your iPhone?

The CDMA/Verizon iPhone cannot come too soon.

AT&T: The Nation’s Fastest 3G Network:

This is out of the Twin Cities, MN, and the best of three tests. If I’m at home in Madison, WI I don’t get 3G with my half bar of service. The day the iPhone is available on another network, legitimately, I’m gone.

I’m glad to see the iPad is announced. It looks like an interesting device, not quite a notebook, not quite an iPhone. I, however, don’t see how it’s anything beyond a portal to give Apple more money.

Please, if you see I’ve made an error here let me know in the comments. Thank you!

1. AT&T. Seriously, a “breakthrough” deal with AT&T is like being the fastest reader in remedial reading class. You’re still in remedial reading class.

2. No Flash. It’s astonishing how much stuff I watch in Flash on my laptop, and it being missing on this device is going to be a big hole. Lots of stuff is in YouTube, but not everything, and HTML5 isn’t going to solve this problem for quite a while, either.

3. You still need a desktop to dock this thing to, for anything beyond basic downloading or web browsing. Despite what some apps can do (including iWork), it really is just a standalone viewer of content.

4. The dock and keyboard setup is a kludge. It appears clunky, certainly not easily portable, and looks like it’ll fall over when you try to click on something by touching it. I’m skeptical. I think a netbook or cheap laptop will continue to smoke the iPad for anybody who needs to type anything. Heck, you can add an external USB keyboard and a mouse to a netbook.

5. E-books with DRM. There is no mention of being able to use anything but EPUB format books. I’d like to be able to read things from Project Gutenberg, for example, or anything that an independent party might like to push out. Furthermore, it looks as if EPUB doesn’t work well for technical books or books that need precision graphics placement (comic books, for example).

6. No user-replaceable batteries, though it’s not a huge deal because you can charge just about anywhere. If their battery life figures aren’t inflated it should be enough for a day’s use. Plus, with a tablet I’m anticipating third-party form-fitting add-ons that boost battery life. I worry about wear on the battery, though — after a year or so of daily charging batteries lose significant capacity.

7. It is still tied to the draconian App Store policies. Apple still controls who can put what on this device, and their policies are not consumer-friendly. Take Google Voice as an example. Maybe Apple should watch their first commercial, “1984,” and see what their message was then.

8. No multitasking. On a real computing device you can switch between apps and not lose your place. I understand the implications for battery life and whatnot, but I’d like the option to quickly switch between apps, like an SSH client and a web browser, and keep my sessions.

Looking at Apple’s list of things they think the iPad can do better:

Browsing: netbooks for the win. A netbook has Flash and can run any web browser, not just the Apple-prescribed browser and technologies.

Email: netbooks for the win. The external keyboard is a kludge, not portable, and I’m guessing they added it because typing on the screen sucks.

Photos: I’ve changed this based on new information in the comments. I didn’t realize that the iPad had a camera connector, so I’ll dub this a tie. Netbooks are more flexible and can run more software packages, but the display & interface on the iPad will likely smoke a netbook’s. What does remain to be seen is if iPhoto or something like it will be ported to Windows. If that happens it’s iPad FTW.

Video: netbooks for the win. Aside from the lack of Flash on the iPad, which disables most Internet video players, you are only able to watch video encoded with Apple-prescribed codecs.

Music: iPad. The iPod is the standard, and the iPad will draw on that heritage.

Games: iPad. The games for the iPhone and iPad are so-so, but netbooks really don’t have the ability or interface to play anything.

eBooks: libraries for the win. A paperback book doesn’t take any power, can be read in many differing conditions, isn’t made of toxic waste, isn’t locked to a carrier, doesn’t have a monthly fee (though one would argue your library has a fee in the form of taxes), can be loaned to your cousin, is available at millions of locations, has an easy-to-use interface, can be dropped on the floor or crushed in your luggage, and can be donated to or borrowed from a library or a book swap when you’re done with it.

I think, for now, I’ll stick with a netbook and a paperback.

“I’m filling out a survey. Can you tell me if we have a cloud?”

“Yes, we do,” I reply.

“We do?”

“Absolutely.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’d know — I built it.”

“You built it? No, I think the survey wants to know if we have a real cloud.” Well, thanks a lot.

“We do have a real cloud, and it’s the same one I’m talking about. In fact, we have two clouds, in two different locations. They’d probably be best described as ‘private clouds.’”

“Well, there isn’t an option for private clouds, so I’ll just say no.”

ARGGGH. Ten minutes pass…

“Hey, I’ve got another question. Do we use virtualization software?”

Dear people using the term “Y2K10,”

Please realize it’s actually one character longer and significantly more confusing than just typing “2010.” Yes, yes, I know it’s not nearly as hip and cool, but I’m sure you will survive. You may even come to appreciate using these commonly-understood terms when you notice an increase in your readership, due to suddenly being understandable.

Also, while we’re talking about years, please be aware that a new decade started on 1/1/2010, despite what you might have heard from people who don’t regularly remember that some numbering starts at zero. We may not have wanted, or remembered, them to be, but years 2000 to 2009 were actually ten (10) distinct years. Hence the ‘dec’ part of the word “decade.”

Lastly, Dave Hayden of Panic has a very informative post on blue moons and calendaring systems. Turns out that December 2009 did not have a blue moon, which was news to me.

Thank you for your attention to these matters.

:-)