What's new ....

I was on blogger.com's frontpage when a link rolled past. It meant nothing to me, it still doesn't but for some reason it attracted me in. Anyway, it took me to ...

http://lcmglife.blogspot.com/

Which appears to be a very new blog and with only two posts so far but I have to say that the article on a child safe internet was a very interesting read and the second blog that it linked too was also a good read and both broadly match my views.

What else ... oh yes ...

https://anonybrowser.com/login.php looks interesting, especially in the light of the above two mentioned blogs. For a paltry $4 a month one can have unfettered access to the internet ... or is it too good to be true? I personally am not concerned enough about my privacy to need to hide behind an anoymous company who may disappear tomorrow.

The Apprentice

I have questions ....

1. Why does Alan Sugar insist on having himself called Sir Alan?

- Yes, I know he's a Sir but this smacks of having to 'Lord' it over others because you can because you have a title and a bit of money and in this case because you are looking for sycophants.

2. Was it just me, or did Badge come over as being someone who doesn't need molding or training and in which case she in no way meets the criteria for an apprentice?

3. Are all the apprentices just a little bit - ok then, a lot - anally retentive? I haven't watched the series avidly but to a person they are all totally full of themselves and in need of personalities.

Is life really a better place because we have these over ambitious self-centred achievers appearing on our TV?

For my part I will walk away from anybody who comes over this way as my life doesn't need the grief. If this makes them happy then fair enough it's their life - but you only had to look at each of their faces as they were fired to realise that not one of them are happy. Is this what they (and here they becomes more generic to represent anybody like this and in my time I've met a few) believe they are here for? Is it their sole purpose to climb the corporate ladder? come the end of the road, will they look back happy that they've made it? What is their legacy going to be?

I'm only asking these questions because I now work with somebody whom I can see has similar traits and I'm trying to work out what it is that drives them. This person - let's call him/her Z - had to go on a grad course recently and was so anti it you'd have thought that Z had already been on the course and knew it's content. Well surprisingly Z has come back from this course with an entirely different attitude and is determined to move on - that's good for Z but what I spotted as Z regaled us with stories of the course was shades of 'The Badger' - arrogance and over-confident attitude dressed up as competence and ability in a young package.

And since Z's return to work Z has done precisely nothing in terms of what they are supposed to be doing. Z has spent time eMailing new mentors (found from the course) and studying. Neither of which is a bad thing when we have nothing to do .... I'll leave it to you to figure out if we have nothing to do.

Don't any of these people realise that life is so much more than our achievements?

HDDLife - An Update

I was so wanting for the folks at BinarySense Ltd (aka HDDLife) to not respond to my post and to not supply their promised license but I was also determined not to let is slide too easily.

So I persisted, filled in their form several times and eventually - though I held no hope for an answer - sent them a personal eMail via their only locatable eMail address.

Here's the reply I received - you can excuse the English as I believe they are a Russian based company.

#00FF00<sub>Sorry for inconvenience, due to some error in configuration, posts from form don't pass in our automatic ticket system, so we don't see them.

Now all fixed and we parsing posts, your license will be send tomorrow.</sub>

And I am happy to report that I now have my license and what's more my first Whoop Whoop alert which woke me up. The alert is due to me not changing the defaults - which is perhaps one area where this little app could be improved. Default levels for different hardware platforms (laptops always work much hotter than desktops).

HDDlife.

Here is one of my rare utility promotions - it's the way my life goes but one thing is certain... if I blog about it then I like it. Anyway the heading says it all I guess. HDD, as in Hard Disk Drive and life as in, well life !!! The companies website front page tag line says it all - HDDlife is the protection of your personal information. In short, this little utility sits there using minimal resources and in it's most basic form will report on the life of your hard drve. It does this using S.M.A.R.T technology built into all modern drives be they SCSI, IDE or ATA.

What in a nutshell does it do then I hear you ask?
It advises on the 'health' of your hard drive. Using the above mentioned technology it determines the likeliness of your hard drive failing and advises you with clear simple graphs. It will also do simple benchmarking, advise on your drive filling up and so on.

What doesn't it do?
It doesn't fix your drives if they have a problem; it doesn't protect your data or back it up. All it purports to do, and so far do it well, is to give a clear graphical idea of if your hard drive is likely to fail.

So, for a simple - yes I keep saying that - utility that takes minimal resources that can give you a good indicator of your hard drives time on this earth then, for me at least, it is a no brainer to purchase. And at $29 for a single license it won't break the bank.

So give me the low down then .....
Fly over here to HDDLife and grab yourself a trial copy.

I guess, if I have to, there is one downside .... the trial version is for 14 days but it doesn't save any settings and after a reboot you will need to reset any choices and the popups can be very annoying. But then I guess something this simple and this good should be registered soonest to remove the annoyance. Go on, give them a try.

Learn details about HDDlife
Publish your opinion in your blog and get a license for free!

Mac AppZapper

I have a Mac - I am not a diehard PC fan ..... but them nice Mac folks forgot an App Uninstaller, so here's one that will be free if enough people link to it.

If not, it'll just be cheaper than usual .... anyway, here's my link http://maczot.com/

Oh and least I forget, don't bother after April 3rd .....

Stress Bunnies

My posting back on Nov 6th seems to have been quite accurate - I mentioned that I'd asked an innocent and genuine question and ever since it would seem that this person has been seething and probably stressing about it all. Whilst I don't agree with his work ethic I do like him as a person, so I've offered via my go-between, that if it helps him to get over my supposed insult then I'll buy him a pint - lets see if this calms him down as I know he likes his alcohol.

Digg It Man

As in Digg.com has been around since November of 2004 and is now regarded as one of the places to go for technology news. In their own words ...

Digg is a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. With digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.

So what makes this so different to other technews sites such as /.? Good question and simply put it is user power that decides what stories float to the top or in print terms make it to the front page. If a story is irrelevant, not tech based or quite simply just plain sucks then it doesn't get Dugg by its members and will not appear on the front page. There is hotly debated comments system which allows for individuals to post their opinions on the story presented and once you become a member, any story you Digg can be cross-posted to your own blog. The stories are presented as headlines with a brief snippet of the opening lines and a click on the headline takes one off to the source of the entry - usually a blog or news site that was first 'spotted' as carrying the story.

If you haven't discovered Digg yet, then I heartily recommend you wander on over and start excavating.

'ello again ....

So here I am, 5 months on from the above post and my world has gone a little mental.

I left my old job and despite my statement that I'd be able to post diatribes about my ex-bosses and their style of management I really haven't felt the interest in doing so. Still, I may yet when things quiten down around here. I'm also a tad disappointed, though I should have expected it, that only two of my old work colleagues have even bothered or attempted to stay in touch. I guess that's how life goes ... you leave and you move on. However, for me I thought it was different. I don't think I am indispensible, but I do know that the service I oversaw as a junior supervisor is now falling to pieces - and that is no blame on the poor lad they've shoved in my place. I've offered my help until I'm blue in the face but he prefers, it would seem, to go it alone and I wish him the best of British. This isn't about me being better than him .... I'm bigger and better than that sort of petty mindedness ... but it is about seeing that somebody who's ben dropped into a role they are not ready for has every advantage they can possibly get to do their job.

Met up wit my old Kiwi mucker the other day and discussed his role and how things are going. He's good, but one question about the legacy I left to his work area sent the technician he's in charge of (formerly the only tech at this place who became a total stress bunny) into fits of "I could sue you for comments like that". What did I say .... I asked how his network was these days. I say, "sue me anyway and see where it gets you" because it won't work. I have nothign to do with the cause of his stress and if he is unable to cope with being outside of his workplace and asked a question about it - THEN he shouldn't go places where people can ask him questions.

But I bet this PC nanny state would come down on his side - the lazy, work skiving, no good layabout that he is. Now, is that defamation of character if it's true? Hmmm. Whatever, he doesn't read this and neither does anyone else as I use this in a cathartic way .....

Sayonara, so long ....

No, I'm not leaving the blog - despite my long absence from it. Instead I am embarking on - probably - a new path in my career and if this happens I should then be able to more freely post diatribes about my current work place. Which, with time, will be my ex-workplace. Hah.

I have in fron of me an offer of employment. I will be accepting the job, but first I'm going to try and get some more money out of them. It's nice to be in that position.... one where I will accept the job anyway and where they have stated their need to have me asap and be able to hold out for more. We shall see what we shall see.

Office Mail

My by line reads that "maybe even a few reviews" - well here's one for you.

Office Mail by Burrotech - as far as I can work out, this is a one man band but for my pennies - he gets 100% for effort and 100% for support and 100% for a top product.

In my current role I deal with a disparate bunch of folks who need to have in house email, if not external, for teaching purposes more than anything else. I personally also have a need for a small mail server application so that my eldest can send and receive eMails BUT not access the web without supervision and even then allowing him free access to eMail might be unwise. Anyway, one of my colleagues came across this app and mentioned how the author responded to requests and support emails, so I thought why not give it a go.

So I've been testing it - at home but mainly at work - for the best part of a month or more. It is very easy to setup and if you follow the basic introduction you will be up and running in no time at all. Some of its benefits are:

• can be internal mail only
• can be external only
• can be a mixture of both
• does webmail - though not attachments yet
• has a built-in spam thrasher
• allows each user to be linked to their own individual POP3 account
• limited to one smtp account - and here I recommend an Authenticated SMTP service.
• plus much more ....
• allows you to use any mail app you like
• POP and SMTP ports are easily changed to avoid conflicts and relay issues
  

Anyway - I've got it working at work with no problems. I set up an Authenticated SMTP account for testing as my current ISP has "been considering just such since 2001" and it is still on their maybe list and none of the other accounts I have allow relaying either - quite rightly. Also, gmail might have helped except that OM doesn't yet support SSL - I say yet because "he is considering it".

Onto the support issues - well for whatever reason I could not get it to work at home for SMTP. This whether I used my ISP settings or the authenticated SMTP ones, which also allow for port changes in case of problems. So eMails on the support forum have been back and forth to the point where I can now claim to currently have the longest thread on the forum - go spot it if you dare. But, Burrotech have persevered and last night I installed the latest version, at their suggestion and lo and behold it has fixed my problems with the software. So my hat is off to Mr Burrotech and this is one piece of software I will register. At just £39 it is well worth it and allows a few extra goodies.

The best bit I think, is that as far as my eldest is concerned I can keep tabs on him. He knows this and he also knows that I won't be checking every day or even every week - but I just may drop in at anytime. OM allows me to make copies of eMails sent to a particular user and have them forwarded to a.n.other user. Also my authenticated SMTP service will forward (if I tick the box, and I did) any eMails I send via their service to an eMail address that I nominate. Which is very handy for keeping copies of emails sent whilst on the road, but it also means I can find out what my son is up to - if I need to.

Big Daddy is watching ..... hmmm.

Management 101 pt3

I should add, latest part of management dictat is; well first a tiny bit of history ...

We have countless jobs up for grabs at the moment and two of the guys I supervise are applying for some of them. That's the history ... the dictat is:

"They can't ask you to be their referee, it has to be the head of the building they work for."

Oh right - so if I want a reference, I'm allegedly not allowed to go to the people who ...

• know me best
• know my work best and
  
• will definitely be on my side

but then I've come to expect this kind of crap and guess what, I'm not paying it any attention. I didn't sign up for this, it isn't in my contract and they can't make me.

It's been a while since

...............................................................................last I posted.

Why? Well things have been kind of nuts. The family have been ill - one after the other, one of my wife's reli's died and in general I've been very busy with work, two job interviews and other things.

This doesn't stop work being the usual randomn chaos I've grown used to, but enough of them, I have no desire to talk about them right now. What I will say is that they have pushed me too far, which has caused me to decide that enough is enough. It's time I moved on. I'm 41, I have no real desire to change my career direction - again - but when one gets to the point where stress starts to affect what you do, or should I say the idea of stress as I'm not 100% sure I know that I have experienced stress yet, close though. Anyway, I digress, it has come to the point where instead of just looking at the jobs, I have actually begun to apply for them.

So, just over a month ago I go for this interview. It wasn't billed that way and I was told a pre-requisite would be an MCSE, I don't have that but I do have a few MCP's, but they still wanted to "have a chat with me". Anyhow - weird part is that the owner of this company used to be one of my clients way back when I still worked for Computacenter which was weird. She hasn't changed - still the same air of superiority and way too much makeup, but I still like her and used to get on with her. End result is I have "this chat" for an hour or so and she says I shall leave it up to my technical man to decide. Well he walks in and does a "When Harry met Sally" over my CV and the fact that what I do meets all their needs and they can see a use for the extra stuff in the future.

I walk away thinking the job is as good as mine. However, the wife has a gut feeling - usually this is wind - but after a few days thinking I come to the same conclusion. For better or worse I'll stick it out at my current place as this job doesn't seem quite right. Two weeks later I enquire as to the outcome and get told they are doing a round of interviews and I'll know sometime soon. After another two weeks I get the "Dear John" letter - yup, they turned me down because "I didn't meet one of their prerequisites", namely the MCSE. So I fire off a polite thank you via eMail and wonder why I was put through a wasted two hours and 60 miles journey when they knew I didn't meet this prerequisite.

No surprises that they haven't bothered to reply. Seems my wife's gut feeling was right all along - she didn't want me doing a 60 mile daily commute.

Onto interview number 2. This one so different. A colleague initially found the advert, then the company contacted me anyway because they "had my CV on file" - I've never believed that line until now though :) Long story short, I attend and there's a panel of 4 (should have been 5, but one was sick) as they have 16 jobs up for grabs this time around ..... I thought the interview was pretty weak by my own standards but I ended up having to return the following day with my passport, as employment law now requires employers to determine your right to work in the UK

Main contact says thanks for dropping in and can he give me some feedback - sure .... tells me I had "an excellent interview" and that they are considering me for one of two posts and which one would I prefer. I think I managed to fudge that enough without burning my boats on either ..... still, should find out today, tomorrow or Monday at the latest.

One thing I have remembered though - is that how very different private business is to public. Here I am, barely two weeks after initially writing in waiting to hear if I get the job or not. Were this my current employer, they'd not even have got an advert to HR yet .......... Anyway - the post is local, so still only a 6 mile commute in total and if I get the job I really want, I'll be able to climb back on my bike and restore my health as well as save the planet a little.

I'll let you know .................

Musings ....

I've been toying with the idea of creating a newsletter with techy stuff in it. Things like neat gadgets, cool finds on the web, reviews of products and even the odd bit of tech support.

Why, well in very short NNT has decided to end its 'free' edition. Now I disagree with the owners assertion that "It is patently unfair to ask a minority of subscribers to the Premium issue to continue to subsidize publication of the Standard issue to a much larger subscriber database." as this is the way the majority of web based products such as theirs work. And, may I add, continue to work. See LangaList and Support Alert as two examples of fine writing and content that provide a free and a subbed version.

Also NNT's owners state "As Bob Dylan’s music aptly sings “These Times They Are A-Changin’.” Nothing is free – someone always pays." Well, I have to agree here but the point is that you need something to draw the subscribers in. And I've been a free member (ah ha I hear you say, here's his whinge as he's no longer getting the freebie) for 2 or 3 years and in all that time it has never excited me or encouraged me enough to want to pay up. The other two examples I offer above - Langa List and Support Alert are excellent - free or paid. As it happens I pay for both of these and the reason I do is because their free content was enough to entice me to wonder what I was missing out on. Plus they have their attitude to life better balanced in that they realise they have to attract new members somehow. Tell me .... who's going to be attracted to NNT at $12 a year when they don't know what they are getting. I've been sent a sample copy and frankly it adds a fw more words to the free version and an editorial. Well gee.


If you want to spend $12 - then spend it at Langa. Or for $10 Gizmo's Support Alert is excellent. Both newsletters have different markets they appeal to but both are excellent value whereas NNT has been consigned, sadly, to my bit bucket. It could have been a great read but in all that time I think I clicked on one link directly from the newsletter.



All that said - I wish them well and hope they continue to see it work for them. So, this has prompted me to think ...

• Can I do the same?
  
• Do I want to do the same?
• How often?
• How do I do teh research?
• Do I offer a "premium" version as well?
• and so on .....

But these are my issues and ones I shall investigate thoroughly over the coming weeks. Until next time I scribble.

Somebody like me .... revisited.

Hmm. After the 'dressing down' of two weeks back I've had to attend the source of my discomfort - a particular place of work .... so I followed this up a week afterwards with my immediate line manager and asked him had he "heard anything". Yes he says with a laugh ...... they said you were a' very nice person and that technically I knew my stuff' - well knock me down with a Juggernaut ..... but and here's the crucial bit as far as I am concerned. I haven't changed my attitude or the way I treat this particular place - I guess I was ever so slightly more careful with the words I used butonly marginally so.

Long time work colleague and not o long time friend, Little G, left for pastures anew yesterday. I wish him all the best as he's a young man on the edge of his career taking off - he could and should go far. What was weird is that whilst the most folks I've ever seen turned up for the traditional farewell speech from the manager - even the top dog himself was there - it was very muted. By that I mean it had a surreal atmosphere as if it wasn't happening and instead it was yet another bizarre dream. Once again though, the top dog declined to say a word and left it to the big boss. But then this is what I've come to expect of our management - no direction, no guidance and we only find things out by accident. When I challenge this I'm told that "all management team minutes are available to all". Well exscuse me, but I simply don't have the luxury of time to go and look at minutes of a meeting that, on the whole, don't affect me.

What ever happened to managers disseminating information? I realise it is up to me to drive my career and training desires but when they don't tell me something to the expense of my current role - is that my fault? Perhaps I see management in this rosy view of the top dog tells his immediate juniors their tasks and passes on all info they receive and then these immediate juniors do likewise and so on ...... plus we have an internal mail system which gets clogged up with other management stuff, so why not a bit more?

Somebody like me ....

It takes all sorts and I really thought there was only one. My big manager .... as I tend to refer to him. Big in that he is physically quite large and big in that he's deputy in charge of IT .... anyway, my xml feed today produced this gem - I quit - and I have to say that apart from the specifics of the industries, the location and the sex then this article so rang true for me.

Today I was torn the proverbial new one! But it was just a re-hash of an incorrect assumption made by said boss almost two years ago. What made it worse was that my line manager stuck the blade in and twisted a bit as well. I guess the difference between the article and myself is that I have long since given up trying to win anyone in management over ... instead, I do my job, I do it well and I enjoy it. However, today has re-confirmed a lingering thought at the back of my head .... time to get up and get looking. There are jobs out there that are better and I just need to start the process rolling.

Enough said ......

Staff happenings ....

It would seem churlish for me to go on criticising my management when in excess of 150,000 people have losy their lives in a disaster the likes that none of us have probably ever seen before ...

However, it does make me wonder at the minds of some folks .... 150,000 plus dead and some of us continue as if nothing has happened. I guess in some way most of us have been affected in one way or another or know somebody who knows somebody ... but lets bereal. We are OK, we are safe .... the only the real thing to think about is what can I do to help? When I say "I" that includes anyone who may read this blog.

I applaud the 7 BT engineers who have freely offered to go and help rebuild communications infrastructures as they will have to live rough for weeks ... I too want to go, but whilst I could offer my physical self I don't have any unusual skills that are required. Yes I am a good network engineer, but I do believe they are a long way from worrying about "surfing the web" or somesuch.

I am appalled though at the fact that a lot of Americans are trying to draw some form of comparison bewteen their self-stylised 9/11 and the devastating earthquake in Asia. Get a grip people, and here I realise the ire of Americans will bear down on me, the two happenings are miles apart in experience and bear no resemblance other than the tragic loss of life in both cases.

On the flip side, work has been interesting in that I mostly have not been there. Took a few days off for Christmas and after having slipped on teh ice that has turned into a few more - which is why this journal has been quiet for so long ... so new managers (if you like the title then who am I to argue) and old members of staff finally getting out .... so long G, I will miss you despite your moods at times :)

Management 101.b

It seems they don't learn. Job advertised internally only and to a closed circle of 5 personnel. 1 immediately decides no way he'll get the job, another decides he doesn't want the hassle (apart from other stuff) and tells big boss this, only to get a diatribe about making "the biggest mistake of his career". I, being one of said 'closed circle', also decide I don't want the grief - plus I have a job at that salary grade and more opportunities in it so why the need to interview for less prestige?

Do management call it off? Do they also advertise more widely, or even external? Hah - what do you think? Anyway, job has now gone to one of the two remaining "candidates" who, we all know, is the least qualified and least capable of doing the job ...... hmmmm, interesting times ahead!

gMail

What did we ever do without gMail? Well me anyway.

The little competition I ran last month to win my last "gMail invite"attracted precisely zero entries which doesn't surprise me as this is a fledgeling blog and I haven't advertised it anywhere. So I awarded the invite to .... [FX:trumpets fade] ... myself ... Yay!

OK, time to get on and do the things that must be done.

Looking for a job?

Then join the queue. I want a new job but I don't need one. The one I have serves me well and has provided me opportunities I wouldn't normally have got - however its longevity is never something I envisaged. Which brings me to my point .... I always believe (and may be totally wrong) that employers look suspiciously upon people who "job jump". Put it this way, were I an employer then I'd be suspicious of someone who changed their job, say every two years. My first thought would be .... we'll get two years and then they'll be gone. Plus I've always been brought up to be loyal but loyalty can be stretched to the point where the relationship breaks down - that happened with my first employer in the world of computing. Since my 5years with them, I have done 9 with my next, 6 and a bit with my current and a blip for 18month between them. That one was the single biggest mistake of my career - I went on promises that simply never came true and consequently I didn't have any guilt breaking my contract or the T&C's of it.

What say you? Is job jumping every two years or so OK? Or is the long term "stick it out no matter what" the preferred route? Or lastly, does the current employment climate negate both of these and it's every man or woman to themselves?

Management - How not to 101

The BIG boss has been at it again ... if anybody, ever, wants a lesson in how not to do it then please contact me and we can discuss my fee for passing on my knowledge .

Myself, I never wanted to be a manager and have fallen into supervisory work more by default than by anything else and currently have 7 people that I am "responsible" for. It's actually quite fun as these 7 guys are good eggs who work hard and want to get on in life .... or maybe I'm just blessed?

Just a short note tonight ... but my trusty Psion 5mx is on its way to being sold ... just over 5hrs left for it on eBay and it is doing well. It's replacement - a palmone tungsten T2 is proving to have a high fun quotient as well as being very useful (of course).

Anyway - just enough time to say Happy Anniversary Dad.