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My morning article was late today because I’m still recovering.

The seahawks lost, again, and it was bad.  They could have won, but
they didn’t.  Senaca Wallace started strong, even had a decent day, but the defense allowed two quick touch downs in the 2nd and 3rd quarters and from there it was downhill.

Olindo Mare kicked 4 fieldgoals.  He missed two others.  If a single one of those drives had ended with a touch down the seahawks would have won.  Instead, they botched drive after drive and got stuck losing.

By and large the defense flopped.  They gave up a 1st and 40?  How!  To be fair, half their team is injured, but that was Seattle’s excuse last year.  How long is going to take before Seattle has a team that can actually stay on the field?

Grr.  Revised prediction: 6 wins, however many losses afterwards, 3rd in the division, 5th or 6th round draft pick.

Rolling out a new piece of software, or a new policy, or a new and exciting piece of technology usually tends to wind up being something of a disaster.  Rarely are all the players working together to make for a smooth transition and the result is a debacle that usually falls in the lap of someone like me: the generic network admin.  As a front line for complaints and questions, the botched rollout leads to an endless source of long, tedious busy work, stressed phone calls, and general annoyance.

Recently I took the point on the rollout and I’m happy to say it  came together.  During the two to three weeks it took to get everything in place I jotted down a few notes, so the next time I do this I know ducks I need to line up before the product goes live.

1. Test the Product

In the past, half the issues that have arisen are due to unexpected behaviors, not on the part of the users, but from the software itself.  Not every single thing can be fixed, but making sure the people that will be supporting the new device are solid with its workings is vital.

2. Dodge the Creep

The first, biggest, and highest commandment with any rollout is minimizing the surface area for problems.  Roll out as little as possible while still retaining the core functionality.  Roll the product or software out to as few as possible, while making sure the key players are all included.  Don’t stretch too far, don’t turn a small task into a big one.

3. Prep the Field

Drop hints that changes are coming.  A prepared staff is better than an unprepared staff.  Even if the users in questions are pleased by the changes, they’ll appreciate the advanced knowledge.  This is especially true with the people in crux positions.  This obviously includes certain managers, but also the more charismatic employees and the individuals most likely to cause problems.

4. Get Everyone on Board

Sadly, this is never truly possible and it’s really just addendum to the note above, but it’s an important thing to attempt.  People on the top need to support the decision and people on the bottom need to be given the tools to accept it.  Receiving feedback prior to a final rollout, offering up training, and getting a few strong voices of supporting in the ranks before the rollout makes the whole process go a lot smoother.

5. Plan the Rollout

All the preparation in the world can dissolve into nothing if the last day becomes chaos.  The steps need to be outlined long before the final day.  An introductory email should be written and tested, a process for manually introducing the software should be in place, a response network to complaints and questions has to be ready for the first day.

6. Back it Up

The final thing and the most important for an extended project is holding the line.  There will almost always be complaints and they have to be dealt with, without compromising the original project.  A person prefers to use the old software-response: we’ll train you on the new software, but you still have to use it.  Allowing for loopholes and cracks turns into a support nightmare, undermines the new product, and makes a mess of the whole process.  A strong line has to be taken and held in order to have a successful rollout.

My rollout (of spiceworks and a few other things) have gone smoothly.  The best thing was dropping hints and giving small contained demonstrations long before I was ready to push the thing.  I showed a handful of people I knew would likely to either use the software or have some leverage over those who would or would simply be responsive.  In the end, when the big day came, the process was smooth and pretty damn well flawless.  Result: I get to sick back and let out a big sigh of relief.

I did a little hiking and birding at Hawk Mountain, PA.  I didn’t take too many pictures, but we did see a Bald Eagle.  Note to all the world’s less than in shape hikers, the river of rocks travel is a a hike over a river of rocks.  It’s 100% rock scrambling with a thousand foot elevation change thrown in.  Fun times, but not exactly the easiest trail.  When they warn you about rock scrambling…they mean it.

Oh to be a Seahawks fan.  It’s only been a week, so I’m deadset against revising my season expectations for last week, but well…we’re doomed.

Hasselback out.  He wasn’t getting much done before he left, but something tells me Seneca Wallace isn’t going to get us to the Super Bowl.  He’s a good backup actually, but a franchise quarterback?  Yeah, we’ll see.

Our defense was supposed to be good this year too.  Lofa Tatupu, Arron Curry, Kearny, Mebane, Hill.  How did Frank Gore run through the defense…twice?  If the defense had stopped Frank Gore we’d have won the game, maybe, but of course, that’s assuming the Seahawks somehow managed to score.  After Seneca Wallace tossed an interception in the third-quarter I put us down as doomed for the year.  Maybe a high draft pick will set us straight for next year…

Side note: I’m in three fantasy football leagues this year.  My first league is already a disaster.  I’ve lost the last two weeks with the fewest points.  In my other two leagues I’m the #1 person with the most points.  That shows you how important the initial draft is.  I’m especially pleased with my 2nd league.  I’m playing with people I haven’t played against before and I’m riding a nice streak of 2 games with over 30 points that my opponent.  Thanks Frank Gore…

Cheers Seahawks fans!  We’re going to have to put with another 15 weeks of this…

Why even bother writing science fiction…

In my own novel I allow the protagonist and other citizens to provide passive scans.  These scans reveal names and other, mostly innocuous information, but colonists, basically super-citizens, are able to pull out more interesting information from the global database.  Similarly, these credentials allow access to different parts of the city, queue in to the transportation network with saved preferences, and reference all manner of banking and authentication services.

Luckily, in my world, these tools are used rather infrequently and their misuse, while possible, is considered relatively rare and insignificant.  I’m not so sure our own world is on such a benign track.   The rules regarding large corporate database’s are especially arcane.  How much information does Facebook actually have?  How easily can that be connected with other publicly accessible information?  Given the nearly endless supply of personal details that pass through the system, often without an individual’s knowledge, the potential for mischief is staggering.  It would be an interesting study to find out how completely a person who was not a member of Facebook or Myspace or another social networking service could be constructed through implied data.

Even more interesting is the possibilty of collisions or orphaned data.  Will two people appear merged in a database?  With a certain level of skill and luck, could a person construct an entire digital persona so completely that they, for all intents and purposes, actually exist?  In time could this profile, meticulously crafted for years, be translated into a real life identity?  Currently a person can’t apply for a driver’s license using a Myspace profile, but newscorp doesn’t own the DMV yet.  That’s maybe excessive…but I have to wonder how much.

Almost Monday, have a good week everyone!

Wake up
Check Websites-(Email,Digg,Word of the Day)
Maybe write an article-(Usually I get these done in the morning and schedule them for the future. Today I’m really tired…)
Window-(Open the window for my baby tomatoes)
Shower-
Shave-
CheckFantasyTeam-(I took 2nd in baseball last year)
Seahawks-(Check the team page. Make sure they’re still the best team in football. (They always are)) GeorgeRRMartin-(Check his website for any updates on The Song of Fire and Ice)
French-(Practice french for 20 minutes. I usually watch the news online @ http://multilingualbooks.com/online-tv-french.html)
Twitter-(Twitter something)
Go to Work-(The network admin’s life for me)
–Check Work Email
–Check Backups
–Check Logs
–Answer Phone Calls
–Anonymous Work tasks
Walk around for lunch-(I usually take a stroll. It’s about two miles.)
–Anonymous Work tasks
Finish up work-
Go to salad bar-(Pick up food from the salad bar at the grocerys store)
Eat-
CheckMail-
[[Free Time]]
Free times usually involves editing for a few hours, occasionally watching a movie, eating out, playing tennis, reading, or hitting up a video game for a few hours.  Writing normally involves a lengthy setup process of checking my notes, skimming my previous work, watching youtube videos for ten minutes, and then finally settling down to do things.
Sleep-

And then the process repeats.

First weekend of NFL games!  I’m not the biggest football person, but I’ve been a Seahawk fan since time immemorial.  Each year I think they might finally win something.  That time they got to the Super Bowl, I thought my time had finally come…

Of course, they lost and badly.  The last few years have hardly been better.  Last year was an injury-filled debacle, the only upshot being a top draft pick.  They got Curry, a good outside linebacker and then got Max Ungar in the 2^nd round, making for a phenomenal offseason.  Once again, I’m thinking this might be the year.

Yesterday started off shaky.  Two interceptions, no points.  If Josh Brown hadn’t fubbed the field goal, they would have been down by three.  It sure seemed this was going to be a ‘rebuilding year’.

Rest of the game though, very awesome.  3 passing TDs, a nice long run by Julius Jones, some productive defense.  I always thought that the Seahawks needed a good Tight End to take the pressure off of their wide receivers.  They also needed some good wide receivers to take pressure off their running game.  With Houshmandzadeh as their big WR threat and John Carlson finally a good catching TE, they’ve got a team that can win something.  At least that’s my prediction.

The NFC West is such a weak division (49ers, Rams, Cardinals) that they are usually guaranteed a playoff spot, but the Cardinals are supposedly a good team these days.  On Sunday Arizona struggled against the 49ers, so I’m thinking the Seahawks are the team to beat in the division once again.  I’ve been wrong before, but I’m cautiously optimistic about this year.  Put me down as a believer, at least as far as taking the Division.  My current prediction, out in the 2^nd round of the playoffs against an NFC East team, but a decent showing.  That’s not quite calling us a Super Bowl lock, but c’mon, this is the Seahawks, they’ve been a bad team always.  I’ll take what I can get.

I’m almost done editing my story or rather, I’m almost done editing it for the first time.  I only have a few chapters left before I can say that all of it has been looked at, at least once.  Whew!

I think editing might be more time-consuming and exhausting than the writing itself.  Writing is, by and large, quite fun.  I get to translate a few disparate ideas into a cohensive story.  Toss in some dialog, describe something cool I saw on television, conjure up some funny names.  Stories practically write themselves on the best days.

Editing, however, what a plodding, boring, experience!  Each chapter is apprixmately two thousand words.  I spend a good twenty minutes just making sure the grammar falls in line with ‘standard written english’.  From there I read over the thing, change out words, add specifics, straighten out any continuity problems, and tidy the language up.  Step three normally involves picking the whole thing apart, sentence by sentence, trying to find ambiguity, remove wordiness, and get a picture of what makes this chapter important.  The last step, or what should be the last step, is a matter of propping up the style, making it fun to read.  Sadly, that last step takes me hours on hours on hours.  I’ve yet to get through a chapter in less than three hours and a few have put me out at least five.

And once I finish, I start the whole thing again.  I have to say, I’m getting bored with my characters.  They keep running through the same plot over and over and over again.  Just another few weeks though, or maybe a few months, and than I can put the whole thing down, nicely arranged, and say, “My novel is done.”

I cannot wait!

Opera 10 was released last week!  I was using the beta so the release didn’t bring any surprises, but now that the new version is ready for primetime I can plug it to the masses.

Opera 10 is an ultra light full-featured web browser.  There are faster browsers out there and there are browsers with more plugin support, but as a simple, fast, secure web browser that’s fun to use and requires few tweaks, Opera is at the top of the game.

Linkity Link to the Download!

Opera is significantly faster than the notoriously bloated Internet Explorer, is less annoying with updates than Firefox, follows the CSS and HTML standards very closer, and comes with a handful of standard features the other browsers only have as plugins or outside additions.  Opera’s Dragonfly is a built in firebug.  Speed Dial is a standard feature with Chrome, but Opera has a better interface.  Opera has a built in torrent client, which isn’t standard fare on any major browser.  Opera also comes with a poorly named turbo mode that routes traffic through Opera’s servers.  They condense the data for better access on slow networks.  It’s not that big of a deal on a home network, but trapped on a slow public wireless connection that’s great.

The Opera 10.10 update is going to be really exciting.  They are building a small web server (called Opera Unite) into each browser that developers can take advantage of to make even more expansive and useful updates.  That update isn’t available yet, but now is a perfect time to get into Opera with the newest 10 release.

I’m a network administrator by day.  (Batman by night.)  Network Administration, like pretty much everything else, follows the 80-20 rule.  80% of the my daily tasks take 20% of my time.  20% of my tasks take up the rest.

Some things just take a long time.  Checking logs is and always will be a moderately time consuming task.  Sure, there are monitoring programs to keep an eye on each computer (and I use many of them, Nagios most of all), but I prefer to do it manually, just to keep myself honest.

Printers are only branch of tasks that inevitably take longer than they should.  Setting them up, fixing them, buying ink, adding new paper, giving users access.  Printers suck.  It’s a fact of life.

Until recently I assumed that managing inventory would fall on the same list.  It’s something that has to be done, but it always takes forever…always.

And, I lie.  I’ve started using Spiceworks at the office.  It’s a help desk ticket system / inventory list / network management / unified IT portal destination that takes all of thirty minutes to set up and works like a charm.  I don’t need to pass along the sales pitch, but here at my office, we’re using Spiceworks for two things: help desk ticketing and inventory.

Spiceworks runs a web browser with a web form that users can fill out.  A ticket is then generated and the relevant department workers are notified.  From here we can respond to the ticket at our leisure and the user can keep an eye on the item’s status through the web interface.  No more lost ‘my mouse is broke’ emails or long forgotten repair requests.  Best of all, I can run reports to see who is having the most issues, what tasks are reoccuring, and where the department needs to improve.

Inventory is performed using SSH for Mac/Linux computers and WMI for Windows machines.  Our network had some difficulty in getting all the windows machines to get recognized, primarily because we do not use windows domains.  Being unable to push policy to turn on WMI services, I was forced to travel to machines individually to get them working.  Mostly though it worked and the small tweaks involved didn’t take half as long as doing manual inventory.  With everything setup I can get computer names, ip addresses, model numbers, hard drive space, mac addresses, software versions, and dozens of other facts within seconds.  Inventory isn’t quite fire and forget, but it’s no longer drudge and drudgery.