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Dropped home office phone line and DSL service today...

In an effort to reduce costs for me and Sun, I dropped my home office phone line and my DSL service. My cable modem is rock solid (see yesterday's entry for speed) and I realize that no computer in the house has been using DSL for at least 2 weeks now. That and I pay the extra $$ to be more highly available and it isn't needed. With my iPhone, my email is with me everywhere and my service is now unlimited.

If this becomes an issue, I'll fix and advise...

( May 13 2008, 03:12:06 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

New hardware in the office... Reviewed.

After returning my Lexmark printer due to Leopard driver difficulties (they don't exist yet), I got a HP Officejet All - In One 4315... It was quite inexpensive and I had it setup and printing in less than 5 minutes. I would certainly get another one if I had the need.

I also just got a SimpleTech 320G external harddrive as the disk for Leopard's new Time Machine feature at Best Buy for $95... That is a massive deal and the unit was simple to install/config and runs extremely quiet and cool. I had to reformat the drive using Apple's disk utility, but that was simple and explained in the SimpleTech install guide for Mac. Very pleased with this purchase as well. I have a SimpleTech 120G that must be shot. It spins a bunch and makes noises when connected to the Mac, which is only slightly annoying.

( Nov 21 2007, 09:51:47 AM EST ) Permalink Comments [1]

Got an mStand for my new MacBook Pro...

I was recently reading a Mac magazine to get smarter on my new toy, err, computer and saw an ad by RainDesignInc for their stand to pick my Mac up off the desk for a better viewing angle. The stand is also quite sleek and trendy looking, I'm trying to go that direction in my old age now.

It was $49 plus shipping and I'm quite pleased with it. Take a look look .

( Nov 07 2007, 10:24:00 AM EST ) Permalink

Why do meetings in person?

I am typical a fan of emails and SMS over phones. I do enjoy customer meetings but see internal meetings in a less favorable light. This week, we had an internal Software extended team meeting in Park City, Utah. In the past I had some work difficulties with a coworker that I had never met in person. This week, we finally met and I realized that this person actually meant well and is quite a nice but unpopular person.

I am typically binary on folks: you are helping the cause or hurting things with few folks in the middle. Maybe I am more of a people person than I realize. Either way, if I find myself working a lot of a person I don't know well I will take the time to go visit with them before we get too far down the path.

( Oct 26 2007, 10:46:56 AM EDT ) Permalink

Backup your data...

Today as the last friday of the month, and last day of the quarter, or just because it is a friday is a perfect time to back up your data if you use a laptop or home machine.

If you are lucky enough to work on a Sun Ray, the system takes care of everything. In the process of backing up my laptop now to a 120G external memory device.

( Sep 28 2007, 02:04:20 PM EDT ) Permalink

HA home office isn't...

I typically pride myself on my highly available home office. I have cable and DSL and recently posted about the dual WAN router. Yesterday I got a notice from the cable company that for the next 2 weeks, my area would undergo a systems upgrade, good news in the longer term, but not today. DSL for the first time in a long time was up and down every 5 minutes. That new router had no signal on the cable side and up and down on the DSL side, which was really tough. I would download emails and that would be fine, but then when I went to hit send on the replies, nothing.

Thank goodness for my favorite coffee shop, Cville Coffee. They make a great supersweet cup of Cafe Vietnamese and have free Wifi... Got to love that.

( Sep 19 2007, 01:22:55 PM EDT ) Permalink

New toy - Hawking Technology Blackhawk dual WAN router

I have blogged before on having both Cable and DSL modems, but the service can fail and then I am left to unhook cables and switch things around to get going again. Enter the FR24 from Hawking: I plug both services into the back of the unit and then the unit figures out the best service and provides me with an IP address. If DSL fails, it switches me to cable without an issue.

I did actually have to read the instructions to get the host machine working, but the instructions were simple and complete leaving nothing to guess. I'm digging it.

( Sep 14 2007, 04:39:56 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

Are 2 jobs better than none???

I'm not sure. For the last 3 weeks, I have been running my team, which is a great group of high caliber techies and the associated sales team. The sales folks are an awesome collection of sales talent and the beginning of any sales year is packed with "startup" activities and it is killing me. One 60 hour a week job is not bad. I would rather be busy than slow as when it is slow, I had a job 3+ years ago that was slow and I had to create projects to show that I was adding value, but two 60 hour a week job is certainly not twice as fun.

At the end of my rope. On the good side, I just had an offer letter go out to a great SE that will be joining my team in a couple of weeks. Also hiring 3 (maybe 4) sales reps as well. Looking in DC and SoCal areas for SW sales talent to Federal Government customers. Hiring bonus if you are a Sun person, otherwise a big thanks via email and maybe some beer or wine.

( Aug 24 2007, 09:41:55 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Putting things into perspective...

Draw a circle. Draw a pie chart of how much energy/time you give to work, family, yourself... Step back and decide if the current truth is what you would describe as healthy. My time for me has dropped to next to nothing. No biking, running, or swimming lately. Just work and secondarily family.

I need to work hard to balance and be smarter in my work and get back to having some fun for me. I'll make a plan and work the plan.

( Aug 13 2007, 01:28:25 PM EDT ) Permalink

Why I work at Sun - one of many reasons - Sun's ethics...

Sun is always trying to do the right thing. I certainly shows inside of Sun and apparently, others have noticed as well. See article on 2007 Top Ethical Companies Click here How cool this that? I was also pleased to have the UN Director for Sports join the Java One stage and work with Sun on making the world a better place.

Congrats to Sr. Mgmt and my fellow employees.

( May 11 2007, 08:16:40 AM EDT ) Permalink

As you read this, backup your data on your machine...

As a work from home employee, I need to handle my own backups. In the office using SunRays, I never have to worry about that. If you are reading this, grab a CD or DVD and think about the data you would need if you lost your laptop. Your local email folders, presentations that you haven't shared with peers (why not?), any reviews, your resume (I won't tell), spreadsheets and other seldom used but important documents.

I have a high level directory for home stuff: volunteer activities, kid stuff, photos, music, etc and a work directory , one for my old job and one for my current job and back it up to a CD about twice a month. Most other work is regularly sent to someone, so worst case I would have to bug them for a copy or ask SunIT to find an email or two for me. Again, backups take a few minutes and you will feel a sense of relief when done.

( Apr 19 2007, 11:17:57 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [3]

Email - server side filters and when you should use them...

I have blogged before on using my Treo 650 for email. I love it. That said, I was only getting some of my mail on the Treo. Let me explain.

Like everyone, I get tons of emails. I use mail filters in Thinderbird to move most of my emails into mail folders OTHER than my inbox. Only junk mail ends up in my inbox. I have a folder for mail where I'm the TO or the CC of the note and then other aliases that are important to my hour by hour work as well as interesting technology items that I can skip for a few days if crushed. When using thunderbird, life is good. But I'm mobile a ton and can't bring up the laptop and go for it.

This is where the Treo comes in. I was getting mail on the Treo but realized (while on vacation) that some of my now important aliases weren't in folders that the Treo's Snappermail was scanning. Here comes the server side filters. So, I went into the webmail console in the Sun Java Systems Mail Server for my account and edited and created new server side filters, so I could place most of my emails into the correct folder ON THE SERVER so Snappermail could find the mail in the correct folders.

It only took a few minutes and now I can see everything important from the Treo without looking at the inbox, which can be huge... Get it a try if you work for a company smart enough to run our mail server. :)

( Apr 12 2007, 03:04:42 PM EDT ) Permalink

New Plantronics headset review

My old plantronics headset was 7 years old and was done... Given the working of my old one and the price compared to others, I chose the Plantronics S11 at $79. The instructions were a bit light on getting the volume and tone just right and I didn't feel like getting the squawk in my ear while testing, so I called the 800 number and they immediately helped me to the correct setting. I highly recommend Plantronics S11 to anyone looking for a new headset (my "time life operator look").

( Nov 07 2006, 11:11:00 AM EST ) Permalink

Speed test on Cable versus DSL

As a home based worker, I have chosen to pay for both DSL and Cable, from Embarq and Adelphia respectively. In tests this morning on computers within feet of each other, I found that DSL was 4805/623 up and down and Cable was 2093/841... While both are awesome, I think I'll stay hardwired to DSL and connect wirelessly to Cable if DSL is down.

Thought I would share the results. It used to be that Cable was faster but less reliable, but now both are pretty solid. If I need to drop one of them, this makes it easy.

( Nov 03 2006, 07:58:44 AM EST ) Permalink

Working from Home and personality types (it isn't right for everyone...)

I have worked from home for years now. I love it. I honestly work way more than anyone in an office and gets 150% more done as well. As far as needing interaction with others, I'm an introvert. Some of you are now laughing. But I am sort of a hermit and was never part of the 8 person mobile party, err work lunch where everyone stood around waiting for that eighth person to get off the phone and then the daily "I don't know, where do you want to go".

My wife started working from home in the last month and hates not leaving the house doing all the running around that she used to do... She LOVED the work environment, going to lunch with teammates, and all the office fun stuff. She is NOT getting that on the other end of the phone or via email. I'm not sure that it is going to work for her to work and do it from the quiet of our home.

So if you are considering fulltime employment from home, I would encourage you to think about if you get your energy from other folks or if you recharge your batteries when no one is around and bugging you. I'm a peace and quiet kind of person and love working remotely so the flexibility and power to work remotely that Sun provides me.

( Sep 15 2006, 11:19:17 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [3]