Archive for 2010

I know I have been pretty silent for a while, what can I say it has been busy. I did want to drop this little tip though. I use vim and gnome-terminal a LOT, so I hit ESC quite frequently. Being so close to the F1 key can be hazardous as I tend to mash the ESC key several times. I have no idea where I picked up the habbit of hitting ESC multiple times but its something I have done for a long time and I don’t see me retraining myself any time soon.

At any rate, if I miss the mark and mash F1 I get a slew of gnome-help windows, which is quite annoying to go around closing. Gnome-terminal has the ability to set (or disable) keyboard shortcuts just for gnome-terminal by navigating to Edit -> Keyboard Shortcuts. You can find the help shortcut pretty easily and clicking on it allows you to remap the keyboard shortcut but what is not so obvious at least to me was how to disable the shortcut. Well a bit of searching finally turned up the solution. Use backspace to remap the key to “Disabled”.

Happy Holiday, hopefully ill be more present in the near future.

Singing with the stars is a reality show where the famous and not so famous SysAdmins strut their stuff and show off their skillz.

Guest appearances by: Brian Atkisson, Brandi-Jvonne Mortimer, Matt Simmons, Joseph Kern, Ian Paredes, and Nick Anderson

These are clips from the pilot show:



An odyssey of a typical email thread using the top posting style that most email clients default to these days.

Subject: Provide Satan VPN access
To: Frank, Jane, Bill, Zoe, John, Matt

I'm not sure. Nick, do you have any ideas?

-Franky

On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Jane wrote:
>
> Great idea!.
>
> - Jane
> "Jannies got a gun"
>
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:15 PM, Frank wrote:
>>
>> Oh, I dont know. I think we should ask somone else. I'll email Nick,
>> give
>> him no context, asking to decipher our previous conversation
>> backwards, and
>> ask for an answer.
>>
>> - Franky
>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Zoe wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks Bill!
>>>
>>> - Zoe
>>>
>>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Bill wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hey Zoe,
>>>> I heard you had your baby! Thats great! I saw all the pictures on
>>>> facebook
>>>> What a cutie! You will have to keep a close eye on her when she
>>>> gets
>>>> older!
>>>>
>>>> - Bill Bong
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Matt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I will be out of the office Friday Oct 15 between 1:29 PM and 1:31
>>>>> PM for
>>>>> a potty break.
>>>>>
>>>>> - Matt
>>>>> MCSE
>>>>> RHCE
>>>>> Minister ULC
>>>>> Certified Vet Tech
>>>>> Certified Matt
>>>>> linkedin.com/mattsocool
>>>>> 555-555-1234
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Jane wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I didn't get that last meeting invite, I
>>>>>> think something is busted with my calendar. When try to access
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> webserver
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I get precussion defiled "/". I think my ISP is having problems
>>>>>> again.
>>>>>> I couldnt log into facebok or twiterr ethr!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> - Jane
>>>>>> Sent from my super cool mobile device
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Matt wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> OK I created Satan's vpn account.
>>>>>>> username: satan
>>>>>>> password: isevil
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> - Matt
>>>>>>> MCSE
>>>>>>> RHCE
>>>>>>> Minister ULC
>>>>>>> Certified Vet Tech
>>>>>>> Certified Matt
>>>>>>> linkedin.com/mattsocool
>>>>>>> 555-555-1234
>>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 1:00 PM, John wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Thats, not something I have access to but Matt does.
>>>>>>>> Adding Matt, Matt can you create this
>>>>>>>> account?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> - John
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 12:30 PM, Frank wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> John, can you create a VPN account for Satan? Jane needs to
>>>>>>>>> run some
>>>>>>>>> tests
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> against the
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> new demo webserver before the client demo at 12:45. I realize
>>>>>>>>> this is
>>>>>>>>> your lunch our but I'm hoping you can get this done before
>>>>>>>>> then.
>>>>>>>>> Thanks! You're a life saver.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 9:45 AM, Jane wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Hey Frank, hope
>>>>>>>>>> you had a good weekend. Satan
>>>>>>>>>> needs a vpn account so
>>>>>>>>>> he can make some changes to permissions on that demo server.
>>>>>>>>>> Can you
>>>>>>>>>> create an account for
>>>>>>>>>> him? I have a
>>>>>>>>>> demo with
>>>>>>>>>> the customer
>>>>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>>>>> friday at 12:45 PM.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> -Jane
>>>>>>>>>>

What was it that I was supposed to have an idea on? Obviously there are several things from this fictitious email that are bothersome.

• long signatures with superfluous information
• credentials sent in email
• reply all on personal notes

just to name a few.

Things can get even more frustrating as threads diverge (when multiple people reply to the same email and people reply to those emails). One of the most common reasons I hear about people preserving message history like that is to give context to later conversations. But once your thread has diverged  no email contains all of the necessary information. So you are relegated to looking through multiple sub threads looking for something that may be only in one of multiple threads or may be in each of the threads depending on when the thread diverged.

Perhaps I have never learned how to read these emails. one or two words per line as you go back further and further in an email I find exceedingly difficult to decipher.  I try not to rant about top posting too frequently, I just try to trim emails to only the specific information needed and email only those who need to be involved in a conversation.

Whats your take on top posting? Does it drive you nutty? Have you ever found a successful method to help sway users to a more polite email etiquette?

At $work we are in the process of migrating to Google Apps. Of course I am an early adopter to work out bugs and be a resource for others as they make the migration. One of the issues identified is mailto links pointing to google apps. Its not hard to make the change in firefox.

First you need to set gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost to true in about:config (type about:config into your address bar).

Then login to your Google Apps account and paste the following into your address bar.

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/a/example.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Example Google Apps")

Just be sure to swap out example.com with your domain, and Example with your company.

When you get started as a SysAdmin you typically fall into one of 10 categories. You either had a mentor to show you the ropes, or you dredged through it on your on. It seems more and more the group that had or has a mentor is shrinking. I never had a mentor for the things I was most interested in, but my first boss did give good advice, and his words seem to ring in my head often. Every time I crack a case open a voice says “Don’t button it up until you know it works”. If I ever have a question of what to wear a voice says “If you dress professional, they will think your professional”.

It’s not free consulting. It’s not free training. It’s not free technical support. It is free guidance. Mentors are there to answer questions and coach, not provide dedicated training or technical support. It is important that proteges learn to learn.

Yes, its FREE. You do not have to be a member to be a protege. Everyone can benefit from having or being a mentor.

Get all the details at the LOPSA mentorship page.