I'm on a "diet". I must refrain from posting as much as I'd like until I have finished my taxes.
This seems like a nice opportunity to procrastinate a bit and put off working on assembling data for my taxes.
As I mentioned earlier, I acquired my DROID, my Macbook Pro laptop, and my iPod Touch all within a few weeks of each other.
For years I would sit down at other people's Macs to solve specific problems and often struggled to figure out how to find applications or settings. And yet at the same time, my family and friends just raved about how great and easy to use. Not being technically unsavvy, I figured I just wasn't familiar enough.
After a couple of weeks, I decided that Apple does do an amazing number of things right. So many, in fact, that it is rather astounding to me when I come across things where they definitely don't.
No new news: It does start with the packaging. For the first time that I could recall, I really wanted to hold onto the boxes and wraps for my Macbook and the iPod Touch.
Then there are lots of little touches that really grab me. For me, having magnetic connectors for things like power are really brilliant. Spending a lot more for equivalent hardware begins to feel less painful.
Gradually, I'm overcoming most of my issues with familiarity but:
- File systems. Yikes. I have a hard time finding documents and then saving in the right places. It often makes little sense to me. Under places, for example, I have my "home directory" and then I have a Desktop, and then I have Documents.
- That application bar across the top. Even now, I have to remind myself to look up there. It seems to be an antiquated mechanism to me. Also, you can click various places and not actually see the application on the bar. For example, click on the background and you'll get Finder but Finder doesn't open.
- Why do somethings get installed and you see them in the Applications folder but then others hover around as "disks" on my screen?
- Some plug-ins like Shockwave just don't work right. I have to disable Shockwave for Director for a number of sites, even in Firefox. There are other sites where I just cannot figure out what the problem is and so I go find my Windows device. I'm going to load VMware soon and solve that. I've resisted running Windows applications to date, but I can see that is going to change.
- Knowing that there really is UNIX and X11 under there is both amazing and frustrating. I'm gradually figuring out how to get to those, but it increases the feeling that Apple is thwarting aspects.
- "Ejecting" devices. Windows figured this out 10 years ago. Why should I have to eject a device? OK, I know why on some level, but it's time for Apple to figure this out. Also, I have some devices that just reconnect. For example, I like listening to NPR while I work out in the early morning or at the end of the day. The best, cheapest, and most compact way to do this is with a basic MP3 player for $25-$50. I can charge this with the USB connection but when I "eject" this on the MacBook, the MacBook just reconnects to it. Stupid. No big deal to ignore it, but...
Next: the Touch
Saturday, February 27, 2010
A Further Clarification on extending Google Wifi
This is a further clarification on extending Google wifi that I composed but did not send to the Old Mountain View Yahoo Group.
++++++
Since I have received a number of direct emails asking questions about the security issues with extending Google Wifi using the Buffalo Converter, I thought I would explain a little further.
First it helps to understand how the BC is normally used / marketed.
Let's say that you have internet service already and have a wireless network in your house.
Now you find you have several devices in a corner of the house that do support a wired (LAN) connection, but not wireless, e.g. a Blueray DVD player, an Xbox...
You have a number of options, but they may be expensive or limited: you can extend your LAN wiring to that corner of the house back to the main router, you can look to powerline ethernet (I have used this very nicely), and so forth.
Or you can buy one of these "converters". The converter connects to your existing wireless router and brings the wireless signal to this box and then you can plug your devices (up to 4) into this box. For $60-$90, that's not a bad tradeoff, particularly since the BC has a number of features particularly targeted for this scenario.
The security risks in this case are minimal assuming that the central wireless router / SSID that you are connecting to has been properly secured to begin with. In fact, the BC has an automated utility that might work with your existing wireless signal.
In this case with the Google WiFi, we use the BC a little differently in that the converter is connecting to a wireless source that is not secure (Google does have a secure version). Therefore you are only as safe connecting to this unit as you are to connecting to DSL or Comcast without a router (and maybe less) or using Google WiFi out on the street: make sure your computing device is properly protected.
Therefore, if you are using the BC to connect to the normal Google WiFi and bring it into your house, I would strongly recommend plugging in separate router (wireless or not) into one of the ports on the BC and only using those LAN ports or the wireless network that you set up on that router. Even the "wired" / LAN ports on that router will typically have good, basic security enabled. And of course if it has its own wireless capabilities, you can set up that properly as well.
++++++
Since I have received a number of direct emails asking questions about the security issues with extending Google Wifi using the Buffalo Converter, I thought I would explain a little further.
First it helps to understand how the BC is normally used / marketed.
Let's say that you have internet service already and have a wireless network in your house.
Now you find you have several devices in a corner of the house that do support a wired (LAN) connection, but not wireless, e.g. a Blueray DVD player, an Xbox...
You have a number of options, but they may be expensive or limited: you can extend your LAN wiring to that corner of the house back to the main router, you can look to powerline ethernet (I have used this very nicely), and so forth.
Or you can buy one of these "converters". The converter connects to your existing wireless router and brings the wireless signal to this box and then you can plug your devices (up to 4) into this box. For $60-$90, that's not a bad tradeoff, particularly since the BC has a number of features particularly targeted for this scenario.
The security risks in this case are minimal assuming that the central wireless router / SSID that you are connecting to has been properly secured to begin with. In fact, the BC has an automated utility that might work with your existing wireless signal.
In this case with the Google WiFi, we use the BC a little differently in that the converter is connecting to a wireless source that is not secure (Google does have a secure version). Therefore you are only as safe connecting to this unit as you are to connecting to DSL or Comcast without a router (and maybe less) or using Google WiFi out on the street: make sure your computing device is properly protected.
Therefore, if you are using the BC to connect to the normal Google WiFi and bring it into your house, I would strongly recommend plugging in separate router (wireless or not) into one of the ports on the BC and only using those LAN ports or the wireless network that you set up on that router. Even the "wired" / LAN ports on that router will typically have good, basic security enabled. And of course if it has its own wireless capabilities, you can set up that properly as well.
Extending Google Wifi
This is another aside, but entirely unrelated.
I live in Mountain View, CA, home to Google. Google provides free wifi internet access and coverage is generally good outside but not reliable inside for most. In my case, I have good connectivity on one side of my house and decided to try an experiment to bring it inside.
This is a posting I sent to the Old Mountain View Yahoo Group about that.
++++++
Several weeks ago, we had a discussion thread that started out about alternatives to DSL or cable. I suggested using Google WiFi with one of the devices out there that bring the signal inside. And here is the update.
I have a somewhat similar problem at our family vacation location, so I decided I wouldn't mind spending a some money to see if I could make things work here and then ship the equipment and reconfigure there.
Several people had sent me email directly saying that they had picked up a Pepwave or Ruckus wifi modem. You cannot buy these directly. When I went in search of places selling them locally, I couldn't find them. Or in the case of Expressnets, no one was in the office, no one answered the phone, no one returned calls and on their website all the wifi modems were listed as Out Of Stock. Plus the prices seemed higher than what I wanted ($150 and up).
Digging around a bit more, I found that Buffalo makes a Converter that is recommended. I picked one up at Frys for about $90 (seen from other sources starting at ~$60). Note that it has to be the Buffalo wifi converter, not a router.
As an aside, I noticed while I was there that there was a Frys.com G router for less than $20. Interesting.
Setting up the converter took about 30 minutes - a little longer than I had hoped. Once I'd figured out the IP address of the converter, I logged into the web interface and it went faster. Connecting through to the internet, Google WiFi does require a login and once I had done that - click the Keep Me Logged In box - through the converter I was pretty much set.
However, this is a wired connection from the computer to the converter (4 ports) and Google WiFi is open (never had any luck with the Secure version).
So I plugged in a small wireless G travel router that I rarely use. Once I'd figured out that it needed to be in router mode, not Access Point mode, all was well and I set security on that.
Connecting directly to the converter, I got 3.4Mb down. In the current position and with the wireless router, it seems to be about 1Mb (the converter says that I get about 40-60% strength to Google wifi directly on that side of the house). And of course the whole house sees the wire router ssid as 100%.
Pros: If you have a reliable, modest strength connection to Google Wifi, a one time investment of ~$150 for the converter and a wireless router, you can have free wireless throughout your house. Not hard to set up if you have similar experience with routers, etc. Connection strength is fine for the basics.
Cons: Not hard technically but perhaps more fiddling than many people would care for. Then you need to find the best position for the converter to maximize the signal from the nearest pole. And of course, a number of people don't seem to get a good signal to begin with. If you want wireless and / or a secure connection, you'll need a router - a bit more fiddling. Connection strength (based on distance from Google WiFi pole) may be too slow for high performance usage.
I live in Mountain View, CA, home to Google. Google provides free wifi internet access and coverage is generally good outside but not reliable inside for most. In my case, I have good connectivity on one side of my house and decided to try an experiment to bring it inside.
This is a posting I sent to the Old Mountain View Yahoo Group about that.
++++++
Several weeks ago, we had a discussion thread that started out about alternatives to DSL or cable. I suggested using Google WiFi with one of the devices out there that bring the signal inside. And here is the update.
I have a somewhat similar problem at our family vacation location, so I decided I wouldn't mind spending a some money to see if I could make things work here and then ship the equipment and reconfigure there.
Several people had sent me email directly saying that they had picked up a Pepwave or Ruckus wifi modem. You cannot buy these directly. When I went in search of places selling them locally, I couldn't find them. Or in the case of Expressnets, no one was in the office, no one answered the phone, no one returned calls and on their website all the wifi modems were listed as Out Of Stock. Plus the prices seemed higher than what I wanted ($150 and up).
Digging around a bit more, I found that Buffalo makes a Converter that is recommended. I picked one up at Frys for about $90 (seen from other sources starting at ~$60). Note that it has to be the Buffalo wifi converter, not a router.
As an aside, I noticed while I was there that there was a Frys.com G router for less than $20. Interesting.
Setting up the converter took about 30 minutes - a little longer than I had hoped. Once I'd figured out the IP address of the converter, I logged into the web interface and it went faster. Connecting through to the internet, Google WiFi does require a login and once I had done that - click the Keep Me Logged In box - through the converter I was pretty much set.
However, this is a wired connection from the computer to the converter (4 ports) and Google WiFi is open (never had any luck with the Secure version).
So I plugged in a small wireless G travel router that I rarely use. Once I'd figured out that it needed to be in router mode, not Access Point mode, all was well and I set security on that.
Connecting directly to the converter, I got 3.4Mb down. In the current position and with the wireless router, it seems to be about 1Mb (the converter says that I get about 40-60% strength to Google wifi directly on that side of the house). And of course the whole house sees the wire router ssid as 100%.
Pros: If you have a reliable, modest strength connection to Google Wifi, a one time investment of ~$150 for the converter and a wireless router, you can have free wireless throughout your house. Not hard to set up if you have similar experience with routers, etc. Connection strength is fine for the basics.
Cons: Not hard technically but perhaps more fiddling than many people would care for. Then you need to find the best position for the converter to maximize the signal from the nearest pole. And of course, a number of people don't seem to get a good signal to begin with. If you want wireless and / or a secure connection, you'll need a router - a bit more fiddling. Connection strength (based on distance from Google WiFi pole) may be too slow for high performance usage.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
You Want Me to Do WHAT to My SD Card???
As you might be able to tell from Episode 1 with the calendar, dealing with the DROID can be a bit geeky.
This was confirmed the first time I saw that to access my SD card that I had to "mount" it. Looking over various DROID / Android forums, questions as to what this means are quite common.
As a long-time UNIX / Linux person, I knew exactly what it meant but it clearly confused numerous others and brought to mind little jokes that Spanish-speaking people from different countries use to tease each other. For example, a verb that means "to take / catch" when used in Argentina means a very explicit sexual act. So if an outsider asks where to "catch" a taxi, this leads to some giggles or raised eyebrows. And there are more cases like that.Even though I was now firmly in like-very-much with my DROID, I was more motivated than ever to experience Apple's vaunted reputation for ease of use and whatnot.
I was finally committed to have a separate cell phone when an old issue came bubbling back: Skype.
As I mentioned previously, Skype had been a bit of a lifesaver while working and tele-living from Vermont. Unfortunately, my Skype experience on the DROID was very disappointing.
The disappointing part was that the Skype app for the Android platform makes a cell phone call on my behalf when I place a call, even when I have a wireless connection and not at all with only a wireless connection. The problem with this is that I already have paid for SkypeOut minutes! This would mean paying more than double.
What's with that? Not good.
Two points:
1. I solved this in the short term by using Fring (and I believe there are other solutions). Fring will use a wireless connection and can transparently frontend a number of services like Skype. Very impressive, IMHO.
2. Just last week, Verizon and Skype announced a new alliance where Verizon will allow Skype calls to be placed over it's 3G network at Skype rates. This definitely applies for Skype-to-Skype calls and in some way will apply to SkypeOut calls. I'm waiting for the details and not deleting Fring yet but I believe that Verizon has shown some standout foresight with this agreement. Bravo Verizon!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/16/verizon-to-allow-unlimited-skype-calling-over-3g-starting-next-m/
However, several months ago all this was still under wraps and it definitely made me rethink what I really needed from a device. Did I need another cell phone? No, not really in the traditional sense. Did I need another camera / video recorder? No. I barely use the one I had.
And then there was the aha moment when I remembered the iPod Touch. The Skype app worked on the iPod Touch so it certainly worked on wireless only.
I did a little bit of research. Not being in the - ahem - typical iPod demographic, I wasn't sure that I would be downloading a lot of video (although I'm now rethinking this signficantly). But it did appear that there were good reasons to go for the 32 GB iPod Touch rather than the 8 GB.
For approximately $100 more the 32 GB provided the current generation internals that were significantly better than the 8 GB particularly for voice. The 32GB also ships with a headset that includes a mic while the 8 GB does not. Having to buy an additional headset with mic cut the price difference still more. On the other hand, for me the 64 GB hit the diminishing returns curve.
I picked up the iPod Touch 32GB at CostCo (my second favorite place to express the shopping gene) and moved into Apple world.
Next up: Surprise! Apple doesn't do everything perfectly.
This was confirmed the first time I saw that to access my SD card that I had to "mount" it. Looking over various DROID / Android forums, questions as to what this means are quite common.
As a long-time UNIX / Linux person, I knew exactly what it meant but it clearly confused numerous others and brought to mind little jokes that Spanish-speaking people from different countries use to tease each other. For example, a verb that means "to take / catch" when used in Argentina means a very explicit sexual act. So if an outsider asks where to "catch" a taxi, this leads to some giggles or raised eyebrows. And there are more cases like that.Even though I was now firmly in like-very-much with my DROID, I was more motivated than ever to experience Apple's vaunted reputation for ease of use and whatnot.
I was finally committed to have a separate cell phone when an old issue came bubbling back: Skype.
As I mentioned previously, Skype had been a bit of a lifesaver while working and tele-living from Vermont. Unfortunately, my Skype experience on the DROID was very disappointing.
The disappointing part was that the Skype app for the Android platform makes a cell phone call on my behalf when I place a call, even when I have a wireless connection and not at all with only a wireless connection. The problem with this is that I already have paid for SkypeOut minutes! This would mean paying more than double.
What's with that? Not good.
Two points:
1. I solved this in the short term by using Fring (and I believe there are other solutions). Fring will use a wireless connection and can transparently frontend a number of services like Skype. Very impressive, IMHO.
2. Just last week, Verizon and Skype announced a new alliance where Verizon will allow Skype calls to be placed over it's 3G network at Skype rates. This definitely applies for Skype-to-Skype calls and in some way will apply to SkypeOut calls. I'm waiting for the details and not deleting Fring yet but I believe that Verizon has shown some standout foresight with this agreement. Bravo Verizon!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/16/verizon-to-allow-unlimited-skype-calling-over-3g-starting-next-m/
However, several months ago all this was still under wraps and it definitely made me rethink what I really needed from a device. Did I need another cell phone? No, not really in the traditional sense. Did I need another camera / video recorder? No. I barely use the one I had.
And then there was the aha moment when I remembered the iPod Touch. The Skype app worked on the iPod Touch so it certainly worked on wireless only.
I did a little bit of research. Not being in the - ahem - typical iPod demographic, I wasn't sure that I would be downloading a lot of video (although I'm now rethinking this signficantly). But it did appear that there were good reasons to go for the 32 GB iPod Touch rather than the 8 GB.
For approximately $100 more the 32 GB provided the current generation internals that were significantly better than the 8 GB particularly for voice. The 32GB also ships with a headset that includes a mic while the 8 GB does not. Having to buy an additional headset with mic cut the price difference still more. On the other hand, for me the 64 GB hit the diminishing returns curve.
I picked up the iPod Touch 32GB at CostCo (my second favorite place to express the shopping gene) and moved into Apple world.
Next up: Surprise! Apple doesn't do everything perfectly.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Calendar trials and the DROID
I do know that there are other types of phones besides the iPhone and the Android.
Blackberry comes to mind.
But as my friend Richard says, "I hear lots of people saying they like the Blackberry and couldn't live without it, but I LOVE my iPhone. I can't imagine living without it."
Having heard that over and over again, I was finally ready to make the leap but then at the last second chose the DROID.
I set my expectations low. I figured that if I could just get to "really like" with the DROID, that would be fine and then I'd go get an iPhone as well. That was an extravagant plan but I figured that I would view this as a professional investment.
First things first meant figuring out how to manage the DROID.
Even before I made the choice of the reasons I was attracted to the Android model was that the entire platform is truly internet based. Despite what platform(s) win in the short term, I am convinced that the "cloud" approach for data, synchronization, and more will all be "out there" and not constrained by passing information back and forth on cables to other devices.
I'm using the term "cloud" very loosely here as I don't want to digress into specific implementations and visions of how that would work.
In the case of the Android (the Verizon DROID for me), you can plug into your computer / laptop with a USB cable to charge and even to exchange data if you want to, but all the real work takes place over internet connections.
Initial startup of the phone requires having a Google gmail account. This also automatically provides a Google calendar, contacts, and so forth.
When you start the phone for the first time, it asks for your gmail account and password. After that, you're off and toddling along.
I've had a gmail account for over 4 years and had played around with a few other services like calendar but working full time as a consultant at Cisco meant that I had become quite anchored to Exchange. I rarely used my gmail account to send email. Instead, I used it as my backup system for personal email and my own consulting company email by bcc'ing my gmail account. That has proved to be a life saver several times.
Once the first baby steps of connecting and making the first call had passed came the significant challenge of synchronizing calendars and - to a lesser extent - contacts.
For me the calendar was the biggest thing that separated me from being OK to like to love with the DROID.
Everything went quite well with getting to the market, downloading some apps (all Free), trying out the camera, making calls... But calendar syncing remained a problem for about a week and reading the various postings on this were not providing insights.
Specifically, I was trying to sync my Outlook calendar at Cisco to the Google calendar. There is a built-in app for both direct Exchange email and calendar sync-ing, but as a consultant at Cisco I am not allowed an externally-facing Exchange account to do this. That's OK, it should have been possible to do this to the Android / Google calendar.
The Google calendar web site provides a sync client that can be downloaded to your Microsoft unit to handle synchronization with Outlook. It's very simplistic, rudimentary, and limited. It only wants to synchronize one Google calendar even though you might have several sub-calendars set up. It tends to die / hang every week or so, requiring a de-install and re-install on a regular basis. I'm told that Google has a professional version for corporate accounts. All I can say is: I should hope so.
That said, once I finally worked out the kinks - aside from the hanging and re-installations - it works rather well.
But those kinks!!
Part of the initial problem was that my Google calendar already had a few things in it. As it turns out the first sync is critical. After a few tries, I had quadruple and more duplicates in my calendar for every entry and the Google calendar had choked (no response from tech support on that either). I had so many entries in the Google calendar that I could even delete them.
1. Make sure that either your Google calendar or your Outlook calendar is empty. I finally got the nerve to go into "Settings" for the Google calendar and "Delete" it. I had worried that this would completely remove the calendar (another complaint: the term Delete isn't clear), but it only removed all the entries.
2. Next I had to manually clean out billions (so it seemed) duplicated and re-duplicated entries in my Outlook calendar. Hopefully you won't have to do this, but if you do, there are a number of little tricks with Outlook that can help.
3. Be sure to save your Outlook calendar locally in your My Documents. Just in case :-)
4. Now download the Google calendar sync client.
5. Set your first sync to be 1-way, Outlook to the Google calendar. Provide your gmail login information. DO NOT SET THE SYNC TO BE BOTH DIRECTIONS FIRST TIME.
6. Sync. That's to the Google servers. You should see the information appear on your "normal" browser view of your Google calendar right away. An additional sync will happen automatically from there to the phone.
7. In general, be very careful of messages that say things like "You have just removed [added / changed] 2,000 calendar entries. Do you want to proceed?" Unfortunately the answer might be either yes or no.
After a few minutes, check your Android / DROID. It might take 30 minutes or so the first time as there is probably a lot of data for the first sync.
Now you can set the sync to be both directions. And be sure to make sure the sync client hasn't gone belly up every couple of days.
You might think that after all of that that I hate my DROID. I don't. It came very, very close when I saw 10 duplicates of all my appointments appear. But after I had crossed this Rubicon, I felt it was functional and I could deal with it.
And then I remembered: Plaxo!!!!
Plaxo is another networking site but as far as I am concerned, it's biggest plus is excellent multi-calendar and contacts synchronization. It wasn't particularly great when I started using it. I wanted a network-based calendar and was sort of torn between Google and Plaxo. Over time, Plaxo has developed into a really solid tool for synchronizing. It isn't perfect, but it is head and shoulders over the Google calendar sync tool.
I now have a Plaxo client on my Mac which then syncs to my iPod touch. Meanwhile, the Mac updates with Plaxo, which in turn will sync with multiple Google calendars and my Outlook calendar and put that all into separate personal calendars in Outlook. Every so once in a while, I have to remove a device / calendar endpoint and then set it up again, but lately that has been rare.
And Plaxo has a little utility to remove duplicates. Great feature. And of course this all includes contacts as well.
My only complaint about Plaxo is that it tends to put the birthdays of people in my contacts into my calendar. Sorry. I am not a birthday type of person. Unless you are a blood relative, I don't care.
I even got good technical support from Plaxo when they had a screen painting glitch.
After a struggle for a week or so, I finally settled in and started to really enjoy my DROID. I'm not sure I could LOVE any of these devices, but this definitely works for me.
Next up: iPhone / Touch and next steps on the DROID
Blackberry comes to mind.
But as my friend Richard says, "I hear lots of people saying they like the Blackberry and couldn't live without it, but I LOVE my iPhone. I can't imagine living without it."
Having heard that over and over again, I was finally ready to make the leap but then at the last second chose the DROID.
I set my expectations low. I figured that if I could just get to "really like" with the DROID, that would be fine and then I'd go get an iPhone as well. That was an extravagant plan but I figured that I would view this as a professional investment.
First things first meant figuring out how to manage the DROID.
Even before I made the choice of the reasons I was attracted to the Android model was that the entire platform is truly internet based. Despite what platform(s) win in the short term, I am convinced that the "cloud" approach for data, synchronization, and more will all be "out there" and not constrained by passing information back and forth on cables to other devices.
I'm using the term "cloud" very loosely here as I don't want to digress into specific implementations and visions of how that would work.
In the case of the Android (the Verizon DROID for me), you can plug into your computer / laptop with a USB cable to charge and even to exchange data if you want to, but all the real work takes place over internet connections.
Initial startup of the phone requires having a Google gmail account. This also automatically provides a Google calendar, contacts, and so forth.
When you start the phone for the first time, it asks for your gmail account and password. After that, you're off and toddling along.
I've had a gmail account for over 4 years and had played around with a few other services like calendar but working full time as a consultant at Cisco meant that I had become quite anchored to Exchange. I rarely used my gmail account to send email. Instead, I used it as my backup system for personal email and my own consulting company email by bcc'ing my gmail account. That has proved to be a life saver several times.
Once the first baby steps of connecting and making the first call had passed came the significant challenge of synchronizing calendars and - to a lesser extent - contacts.
For me the calendar was the biggest thing that separated me from being OK to like to love with the DROID.
Everything went quite well with getting to the market, downloading some apps (all Free), trying out the camera, making calls... But calendar syncing remained a problem for about a week and reading the various postings on this were not providing insights.
Specifically, I was trying to sync my Outlook calendar at Cisco to the Google calendar. There is a built-in app for both direct Exchange email and calendar sync-ing, but as a consultant at Cisco I am not allowed an externally-facing Exchange account to do this. That's OK, it should have been possible to do this to the Android / Google calendar.
The Google calendar web site provides a sync client that can be downloaded to your Microsoft unit to handle synchronization with Outlook. It's very simplistic, rudimentary, and limited. It only wants to synchronize one Google calendar even though you might have several sub-calendars set up. It tends to die / hang every week or so, requiring a de-install and re-install on a regular basis. I'm told that Google has a professional version for corporate accounts. All I can say is: I should hope so.
That said, once I finally worked out the kinks - aside from the hanging and re-installations - it works rather well.
But those kinks!!
Part of the initial problem was that my Google calendar already had a few things in it. As it turns out the first sync is critical. After a few tries, I had quadruple and more duplicates in my calendar for every entry and the Google calendar had choked (no response from tech support on that either). I had so many entries in the Google calendar that I could even delete them.
1. Make sure that either your Google calendar or your Outlook calendar is empty. I finally got the nerve to go into "Settings" for the Google calendar and "Delete" it. I had worried that this would completely remove the calendar (another complaint: the term Delete isn't clear), but it only removed all the entries.
2. Next I had to manually clean out billions (so it seemed) duplicated and re-duplicated entries in my Outlook calendar. Hopefully you won't have to do this, but if you do, there are a number of little tricks with Outlook that can help.
3. Be sure to save your Outlook calendar locally in your My Documents. Just in case :-)
4. Now download the Google calendar sync client.
5. Set your first sync to be 1-way, Outlook to the Google calendar. Provide your gmail login information. DO NOT SET THE SYNC TO BE BOTH DIRECTIONS FIRST TIME.
6. Sync. That's to the Google servers. You should see the information appear on your "normal" browser view of your Google calendar right away. An additional sync will happen automatically from there to the phone.
7. In general, be very careful of messages that say things like "You have just removed [added / changed] 2,000 calendar entries. Do you want to proceed?" Unfortunately the answer might be either yes or no.
After a few minutes, check your Android / DROID. It might take 30 minutes or so the first time as there is probably a lot of data for the first sync.
Now you can set the sync to be both directions. And be sure to make sure the sync client hasn't gone belly up every couple of days.
You might think that after all of that that I hate my DROID. I don't. It came very, very close when I saw 10 duplicates of all my appointments appear. But after I had crossed this Rubicon, I felt it was functional and I could deal with it.
And then I remembered: Plaxo!!!!
Plaxo is another networking site but as far as I am concerned, it's biggest plus is excellent multi-calendar and contacts synchronization. It wasn't particularly great when I started using it. I wanted a network-based calendar and was sort of torn between Google and Plaxo. Over time, Plaxo has developed into a really solid tool for synchronizing. It isn't perfect, but it is head and shoulders over the Google calendar sync tool.
I now have a Plaxo client on my Mac which then syncs to my iPod touch. Meanwhile, the Mac updates with Plaxo, which in turn will sync with multiple Google calendars and my Outlook calendar and put that all into separate personal calendars in Outlook. Every so once in a while, I have to remove a device / calendar endpoint and then set it up again, but lately that has been rare.
And Plaxo has a little utility to remove duplicates. Great feature. And of course this all includes contacts as well.
My only complaint about Plaxo is that it tends to put the birthdays of people in my contacts into my calendar. Sorry. I am not a birthday type of person. Unless you are a blood relative, I don't care.
I even got good technical support from Plaxo when they had a screen painting glitch.
After a struggle for a week or so, I finally settled in and started to really enjoy my DROID. I'm not sure I could LOVE any of these devices, but this definitely works for me.
Next up: iPhone / Touch and next steps on the DROID
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Me and MYLO
Now back to gadgets and phones.
I do have the shopping gene, it just doesn't express itself very often for clothes, more often for shoes, and never for jewelry. Gadgets on, the other hand, are a very different story. That's where the gene kicks in.
When I tell my (male) friends that I have picked up this or that at Fry's or similar spots, they frequently pooh pooh this. I could get the same thing on line, through EBay or other places and this is true.
But they miss the point! Trying to browse for interesting discoveries on the internet is very unsatisfying for the most part. If I know what I want or need to do comparisons or other research, or watch for various announcements - that's another issue.
But for the thrill of discovery, there's nothing more satisfying than wandering the aisles of a big, chaotic store like Fry's.
What I love about Fry's is its disorganize nature. You can often find the same type of item in multiple areas of the store, at very different prices.
For example, a number of years ago I was looking into bluetooth USB fobs. In the section of the Palo Alto store closest to the computers, I found several and then found another cluster over by the wireless routers and memory cards for $20-30 less. Headsets in the Apple / iPhone section are quite pricy but the equivalent selections can be found in the audio aisle for less. And so on.
That was how I found the MYLO.
Connectivity in the Northeast Kingdom
I had a problem to solve at our place in Vermont. My family (both sides) come from there and both sides set up summer "camps" in Greensboro, in the Northeast Kingdom. I only spent summers there, but then my father moved back to live there permanently in the mid-90's and in 2000, my sister and her husband and I bought a "village house" suitable for living in during the non-summer months (September-May). The combination of wanting to spend more time with my father and being able to avoid freezing to death doing so, made the option of working from there very appealing.
But there was a problem. Actually, there were two problems: no high speed internet and no cell phone coverage.
As late as 1990, we still had a party line at the cottage. AT&T was the only long distance carrier and there was no direct long distance dial for us until the 1990s. This originally meant dialing 0 to place a call and then upleveled to allow us to dial the remote number but then required operator manual intervention to place the final connection. That has been remedied, but given that history, it should be no surprise that that there is still no cell phone coverage in this part of Vermont due to enormous local resistance to placing unsightly towers on the lovely hills.
This was a very understandable reaction, particularly when cell phones were viewed as the extravagant toys for part-time "Summer People" like me. But as time has gone on, cell phones have been come a critical part of business, safety, and communication for most people.
Someday this will be solved in our wonderful corner of the NE Kingdom. I can appreciate the issues and I'm still only a part-time resident. Meanwhile, I needed to figure out something else.
Unfortunately, we had no broadband either. No surprises there if you know the area. TV and radio reception are generally terrible with most channels coming from Quebec (keeps the French in shape). Satellite TV is more or less available but due to the rural environment, hills and trees sometimes make that unfeasible as well. DSL was only enabled very recently.
But finally, in 2005, a broadband carrier set up line-of-sight systems and we had broadband.
Some of the time.
A strong storm or wind would knock out service for days and even weeks at a time. The notion of technical service hadn't quite penetrated the mentality of this small, altruistic company. Calls went to voice mail and were rarely returned. Same for email, usually from home after you could send it.
Finally, Verizon provided DSL in 2008! Hurray!!! Even so, Verizon wasn't entire sure if we were covered or not. The previous system was faster but only when it was up. DSL has been as solid as a rock, if a good bit slower.
Meanwhile, I had been trying to solve the phone problem ever since we had first gotten our sporadic, unreliable broadband.
My sister works for IBM and I had started consulting for Cisco. We both needed telephone connections regularly and if my brother showed up or anyone wanted to call - like our father from his separate cottage - this became untenable.
Both Cisco and IBM provided VoIP options, but the connections were not (and still aren't) great running over DSL with VPN on top.
And remember - no cell phone coverage. Still no cell phone coverage.
I had already started using Skype, including Skype Out, in 2004 or so. And in Vermont, I found this worked better than Cisco's VoIP for clarity.
That was when I found the MYLO at Fry's where a returned package was on sale for under $200.
MY Life Online is another fascinating almost-ran technology from Sony. Think of it as an iPod Touch without many apps. It has a nice screen, a slideout keyboard, and a built in 802.11b capability along with web browsing, video, and music built in. And it has "communications" apps, including Skype.
Finally I had the equivalent of a cell phone in our cottage and our village house.
Subsequently, I bought several Skype phones (discovered at Fry's). One from Linksys connects via a bluetooth device to my computer and works great on my home computers where I have a faster network, but not as well in Vermont on DSL with VPN. The Belkin connects directly to the router and when I talk on this device I've been told I sound like I'm on a landline phone. But the volume is so low on my end that I can barely hear it even with amplification and it will not accept additional keypad entries after the initial call is connected, making it useless for work-related calls requiring navigation.
The MYLO remained my traveling friend right up to November, 2009. As far as I'm concerned, it's still a great little device that saved my working life for at least 4 years.
But all along, I wanted to just glue that thing to the back of my cell phone.
I also knew that the iPhone had a Skype app. The problem was that with Verizon, I could at least have cell coverage in Vermont right through Danville (historic home of my line of Bickfords, btw. There are a lot of my ancestors who ventured "west" from New Hampshire at the end of the Revolution buried in North Danville) only about 20-30 minutes away. AT&T dropped off somewhere in the White Mountains.
But my will power was waning. I soooo tired of hearing my friends say they LOVED their iPhones and I was tired of carrying at least two devices when I traveled to Vermont.
The crowning blow came with my trip to the UK. I couldn't use my Motorola Q there, even at $2 / minute or whatever outrageous fee Verizon would have charged. I looked into all sorts of unlocked and ToGo phones. Jonathan's lecture aside, I was so impressed by the voice quality of the simple phone I had with the ability to reload the ToGo SIM with minutes, that I knew the time had come.
Next Up: Susan gets a DROID AND an iPhone (OK, an iPod Touch).
I do have the shopping gene, it just doesn't express itself very often for clothes, more often for shoes, and never for jewelry. Gadgets on, the other hand, are a very different story. That's where the gene kicks in.
When I tell my (male) friends that I have picked up this or that at Fry's or similar spots, they frequently pooh pooh this. I could get the same thing on line, through EBay or other places and this is true.
But they miss the point! Trying to browse for interesting discoveries on the internet is very unsatisfying for the most part. If I know what I want or need to do comparisons or other research, or watch for various announcements - that's another issue.
But for the thrill of discovery, there's nothing more satisfying than wandering the aisles of a big, chaotic store like Fry's.
What I love about Fry's is its disorganize nature. You can often find the same type of item in multiple areas of the store, at very different prices.
For example, a number of years ago I was looking into bluetooth USB fobs. In the section of the Palo Alto store closest to the computers, I found several and then found another cluster over by the wireless routers and memory cards for $20-30 less. Headsets in the Apple / iPhone section are quite pricy but the equivalent selections can be found in the audio aisle for less. And so on.
That was how I found the MYLO.
Connectivity in the Northeast Kingdom
I had a problem to solve at our place in Vermont. My family (both sides) come from there and both sides set up summer "camps" in Greensboro, in the Northeast Kingdom. I only spent summers there, but then my father moved back to live there permanently in the mid-90's and in 2000, my sister and her husband and I bought a "village house" suitable for living in during the non-summer months (September-May). The combination of wanting to spend more time with my father and being able to avoid freezing to death doing so, made the option of working from there very appealing.
But there was a problem. Actually, there were two problems: no high speed internet and no cell phone coverage.
As late as 1990, we still had a party line at the cottage. AT&T was the only long distance carrier and there was no direct long distance dial for us until the 1990s. This originally meant dialing 0 to place a call and then upleveled to allow us to dial the remote number but then required operator manual intervention to place the final connection. That has been remedied, but given that history, it should be no surprise that that there is still no cell phone coverage in this part of Vermont due to enormous local resistance to placing unsightly towers on the lovely hills.
This was a very understandable reaction, particularly when cell phones were viewed as the extravagant toys for part-time "Summer People" like me. But as time has gone on, cell phones have been come a critical part of business, safety, and communication for most people.
Someday this will be solved in our wonderful corner of the NE Kingdom. I can appreciate the issues and I'm still only a part-time resident. Meanwhile, I needed to figure out something else.
Unfortunately, we had no broadband either. No surprises there if you know the area. TV and radio reception are generally terrible with most channels coming from Quebec (keeps the French in shape). Satellite TV is more or less available but due to the rural environment, hills and trees sometimes make that unfeasible as well. DSL was only enabled very recently.
But finally, in 2005, a broadband carrier set up line-of-sight systems and we had broadband.
Some of the time.
A strong storm or wind would knock out service for days and even weeks at a time. The notion of technical service hadn't quite penetrated the mentality of this small, altruistic company. Calls went to voice mail and were rarely returned. Same for email, usually from home after you could send it.
Finally, Verizon provided DSL in 2008! Hurray!!! Even so, Verizon wasn't entire sure if we were covered or not. The previous system was faster but only when it was up. DSL has been as solid as a rock, if a good bit slower.
Meanwhile, I had been trying to solve the phone problem ever since we had first gotten our sporadic, unreliable broadband.
My sister works for IBM and I had started consulting for Cisco. We both needed telephone connections regularly and if my brother showed up or anyone wanted to call - like our father from his separate cottage - this became untenable.
Both Cisco and IBM provided VoIP options, but the connections were not (and still aren't) great running over DSL with VPN on top.
And remember - no cell phone coverage. Still no cell phone coverage.
I had already started using Skype, including Skype Out, in 2004 or so. And in Vermont, I found this worked better than Cisco's VoIP for clarity.
That was when I found the MYLO at Fry's where a returned package was on sale for under $200.
MY Life Online is another fascinating almost-ran technology from Sony. Think of it as an iPod Touch without many apps. It has a nice screen, a slideout keyboard, and a built in 802.11b capability along with web browsing, video, and music built in. And it has "communications" apps, including Skype.
Finally I had the equivalent of a cell phone in our cottage and our village house.
Subsequently, I bought several Skype phones (discovered at Fry's). One from Linksys connects via a bluetooth device to my computer and works great on my home computers where I have a faster network, but not as well in Vermont on DSL with VPN. The Belkin connects directly to the router and when I talk on this device I've been told I sound like I'm on a landline phone. But the volume is so low on my end that I can barely hear it even with amplification and it will not accept additional keypad entries after the initial call is connected, making it useless for work-related calls requiring navigation.
The MYLO remained my traveling friend right up to November, 2009. As far as I'm concerned, it's still a great little device that saved my working life for at least 4 years.
But all along, I wanted to just glue that thing to the back of my cell phone.
I also knew that the iPhone had a Skype app. The problem was that with Verizon, I could at least have cell coverage in Vermont right through Danville (historic home of my line of Bickfords, btw. There are a lot of my ancestors who ventured "west" from New Hampshire at the end of the Revolution buried in North Danville) only about 20-30 minutes away. AT&T dropped off somewhere in the White Mountains.
But my will power was waning. I soooo tired of hearing my friends say they LOVED their iPhones and I was tired of carrying at least two devices when I traveled to Vermont.
The crowning blow came with my trip to the UK. I couldn't use my Motorola Q there, even at $2 / minute or whatever outrageous fee Verizon would have charged. I looked into all sorts of unlocked and ToGo phones. Jonathan's lecture aside, I was so impressed by the voice quality of the simple phone I had with the ability to reload the ToGo SIM with minutes, that I knew the time had come.
Next Up: Susan gets a DROID AND an iPhone (OK, an iPod Touch).
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Phases of the Moon: Time at Sun
Over 16+ years at Sun, 1988-2005, I spent roughly equivalent amounts of time in Sales & Marketing, Product Engineering, and IT.
In sales, I learned to see through the customers' eyes and I developed the ability to simultaneously see from Sun'sperspective . From this came the capacity to uplevel, focus and frame issues differently and find answers. I learned to tap dance and not be afraid when I didn't understand things completely (this is a skill that cuts both ways, however). I learned to swear and I learned a lot of jokes.
Working as an SE, I had a ringside seat to observe how the 99% male "sales pukes" (a Peter Young term) could deliver amazing results. As SEs, we were serfs in Puke hierarchy, but it did have its moments.
The Sun sales guys, at least in NYC, were extroverted, highly intuitive, extremely profane, ruthless, and wildly entertaining. They also knew great jokes.
Moving to California for a short stint in SoftSoft Corporate Marketing was rather similar, albeit a little less profane. I did learn by observation that once you become a VP, you are allowed to forget all the behaviors you were forced to adopt in kindergarten. Fortunately, not everyone took advantage of that.
In Product Engineering, I learned (over time) to stop swearing so much, how to become a manager of people and teams, the design center for building products (not just point solutions), and how to turn the crank (PLC). All these are asymptotic goals. You never quite get there.
In IT, I learned the great satisfaction in being able to solve a genuine business problem with technology. It was actually possible to transform how the company did some critical aspect of the business within a relatively short period of time.
I also learned about ubiquitous computing and security and those became my passions.
Managing through adversity was the bigger lesson. I learned that being in a part of the business that is a cost center and does not bring in revenue is a very precarious place, even in the best of times. And in the worst of times, it can be heart-breaking. Figuring out to transform, keep moving, deliver anyway, and try to keep up team cohesion was invaluable, if not always perfectly executed.
SunIT had an interesting relationship with various product groups, particularly enterprise software.
First of all, there was a general attitude that all the really good technical minds did not work in IT. Of course this is overly simplistic, but that was still the general attitude on the product side (and I knew because I'd been there).
Secondly, I saw the seeds of what I perceived as a problem for Sun that might prove fatal.
Sun's products had traditionally been successful because engineers (including former engineers now VPs) ran the show and they were designing workstations and operating systems and capabilities for people like themselves.
That success factor began to change with enterprise software. Suddenly we had extremely smart people who had never worked in an enterprise IT organization, but were now designing and developing enterprise IT applications. They also had a attitude problem when it came to valuing the issues raised by Sun's captive IT experts and for the most part they weren't used to looking to (or valuing) marketing or product management to help solve that problem.
The upper management chain did seem to understand this and there were even some notable successes, but the culture was deeply ingrained and overall the ship was too big to turn quickly.
I am not claiming that this was why Sun ultimately failed. That list could go on and on and I don't have enough insight into all of them. But for me this was significant because it was the first time I saw a situation where Sun couldn't seem to nimbly adapt to critical changes and that did not bode well.
I voluntarily left Sun in May of 2005. The final straw was that IT was going to outsource most of IT which they did a number of months later to CDC. I had no way of knowing whether I would be part of the group staying or going, but pragmatically I knew that I risked being sent to a company I'd never emotionally signed up for and then left with a 2-week notification period if I were laid off vs what I would get from having been a director with 16 years at Sun.
More importantly, it was time for me to go. I had learned what I needed to know and it was time to go re-invent another phase in my career plus it was very clear to me that Sun was not going in a healthy direction. It still felt like divorce because I had been so invested emotionally with Sun.
I don't think of myself as an emotional risk-taking type of person. I think things through.
But when I look at the amazing leaps of faith I have taken over the course of my career I realize that there might be a side to me that I don't fully appreciate.
I'm sorry Sun had to end and I greatly miss the place that it used to be, but that company was gone a long time ago. I hope the remnants find a good spot at Oracle.
In sales, I learned to see through the customers' eyes and I developed the ability to simultaneously see from Sun's
Working as an SE, I had a ringside seat to observe how the 99% male "sales pukes" (a Peter Young term) could deliver amazing results. As SEs, we were serfs in Puke hierarchy, but it did have its moments.
The Sun sales guys, at least in NYC, were extroverted, highly intuitive, extremely profane, ruthless, and wildly entertaining. They also knew great jokes.
Moving to California for a short stint in SoftSoft Corporate Marketing was rather similar, albeit a little less profane. I did learn by observation that once you become a VP, you are allowed to forget all the behaviors you were forced to adopt in kindergarten. Fortunately, not everyone took advantage of that.
In Product Engineering, I learned (over time) to stop swearing so much, how to become a manager of people and teams, the design center for building products (not just point solutions), and how to turn the crank (PLC). All these are asymptotic goals. You never quite get there.
In IT, I learned the great satisfaction in being able to solve a genuine business problem with technology. It was actually possible to transform how the company did some critical aspect of the business within a relatively short period of time.
I also learned about ubiquitous computing and security and those became my passions.
Managing through adversity was the bigger lesson. I learned that being in a part of the business that is a cost center and does not bring in revenue is a very precarious place, even in the best of times. And in the worst of times, it can be heart-breaking. Figuring out to transform, keep moving, deliver anyway, and try to keep up team cohesion was invaluable, if not always perfectly executed.
SunIT had an interesting relationship with various product groups, particularly enterprise software.
First of all, there was a general attitude that all the really good technical minds did not work in IT. Of course this is overly simplistic, but that was still the general attitude on the product side (and I knew because I'd been there).
Secondly, I saw the seeds of what I perceived as a problem for Sun that might prove fatal.
Sun's products had traditionally been successful because engineers (including former engineers now VPs) ran the show and they were designing workstations and operating systems and capabilities for people like themselves.
That success factor began to change with enterprise software. Suddenly we had extremely smart people who had never worked in an enterprise IT organization, but were now designing and developing enterprise IT applications. They also had a attitude problem when it came to valuing the issues raised by Sun's captive IT experts and for the most part they weren't used to looking to (or valuing) marketing or product management to help solve that problem.
The upper management chain did seem to understand this and there were even some notable successes, but the culture was deeply ingrained and overall the ship was too big to turn quickly.
I am not claiming that this was why Sun ultimately failed. That list could go on and on and I don't have enough insight into all of them. But for me this was significant because it was the first time I saw a situation where Sun couldn't seem to nimbly adapt to critical changes and that did not bode well.
I voluntarily left Sun in May of 2005. The final straw was that IT was going to outsource most of IT which they did a number of months later to CDC. I had no way of knowing whether I would be part of the group staying or going, but pragmatically I knew that I risked being sent to a company I'd never emotionally signed up for and then left with a 2-week notification period if I were laid off vs what I would get from having been a director with 16 years at Sun.
More importantly, it was time for me to go. I had learned what I needed to know and it was time to go re-invent another phase in my career plus it was very clear to me that Sun was not going in a healthy direction. It still felt like divorce because I had been so invested emotionally with Sun.
I don't think of myself as an emotional risk-taking type of person. I think things through.
But when I look at the amazing leaps of faith I have taken over the course of my career I realize that there might be a side to me that I don't fully appreciate.
I'm sorry Sun had to end and I greatly miss the place that it used to be, but that company was gone a long time ago. I hope the remnants find a good spot at Oracle.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Storage Wells
My personal observation is that if I had to identify one thing that separates men from women in the workplace, I'd have to say "pranks".
I hardly know any women at all who are into pranks. I'm sure I'll hear from people out there who know differently, but it has been my experience.
On the other hand, I know a lot of guys who are into pranks, encourage pranks, think up elaborate pranks, and even carry them out (see previous post).
It's neither better nor worse, just different. BTW, I even tried a prank of my own in college but it flopped.
I'm also not sure if this just a North American trait (some of the best pranksters I know are Canadian), or a more universal tendency.
Storage Wells
Stuart Wells was a fellow manager when I joined the Windows group but within a few months, Bill Crane left as senior manager and Stuart replaced him, starting his steady rise at Sun to director, VP, and beyond.
There was a lot going on in Windows Engineering at that point. After a lot of angst, we were abandoning NeWS - the brainchild of James Gosling - with X11 tacked on as an emulation to real X11 with a Adobe DPS. Shortly we would also leave OpenLook behind and move to integrate Motif (and subsequently CDE).
Stuart was (and still is) brilliant, driven, and passionate about everything. He is also Scottish with a classic Scots temper, thick brogue and a competitive streak a mile long.
He liked to manage by walking around. In those days, of course, we were all co-located and we all came into the office every day. Everyone learned that if you got an email from Stuart, you had about 30 seconds to jump up and head in the opposite direction from his office unless you wanted a talking to about the issue at hand.
His work ethics was infamous.
At one point a woman joined my group and she tended to come in earlier than most of us.
Eager to make a good impression with Stuart, she noticed that when she arrived at 8:00, he was already in the office. So the next day she came in at 7:30. He was already there. So she came in at 7:00. He was already there. She arrived at 6:30 and he was already there. I'm can't recall at what point she gave up. It may have been even earlier.
Needless to say, he was also still at work when most of us left as well.
I've never worked for a manager / director / VP who engendered so much conversation across theteam as Stuart. It seemed like every lunch conversation or party lull was soon filled by some discussion of something that Stuart had said or done. Even though the comments were not derogatory, as a first-time manager, I worried. Were my reports talking about me like that??
The answer, for better or worse, was No, they weren't.
According to the instigators, there was something about Stuart that was just too tempting when it came to pranks. He was just too big a target to ignore. In fact he is the only manager I remember being pranked regularly even when it wasn't April 1.
Storage Wells
Just after the group had moved to MTV21, Stuart went on a trip (reasons forgotten - business or vacation).
While he was gone, a select (male) crew gathered all the recently emptied moving boxes and packed up Stuart's entire office. Everything went into a box, including the telephone, his monitor, his pizza box... Then all the boxes were stacked along with empty ones to fill up his office wall to wall, floor to ceiling. And someone ordered a new name plate: Storage Wells.
Stuart showed up on his first day back. His phone was ringing. That box was way at the back ofthe office . Some calls would have to wait.
S'uar'
My father and I once played golf with Stuart. After we finished and were driving home, my Dad said, "He seems very nice but I can't understand a word he says."
In fact, for some reason Scottish accents seemed to dominate in the extended Windows group, including the toolkits at that time. There were no fewer than 6 Scotsmen roaming the halls. That might not seem like much but most were BIG personalities.
Stuart's accent seemed to involve a lot of dropped consonants with glottal stop substitutes. T's were in particularly short supply. There were also many long ooooooo's (book becomes buuuuuk) and other sources of confusion from time to time.
Stuart's good-natured explanation was that the Scots had perfected the science of compression and as masters of the English language, they had figured out how to drop out all unnecessary consonants.
This was Windows Engineering after all and we owned the fonts. Every day the engineers would crank out another daily release and then there were the weeklies, and then the handoffs and so forth. All of us were required to run the dailies which were mounted automatically for us overnight.
One night, our font guy Jim arranged for a special daily. All the T's / t's in all the fonts would instead be replaced with an apostrophe [ ' ] representing a glottal stop.
Needless 'o say, S'uar' did no' disappoin' with his reac'ion.
My Best Manager
In my 16+ years at Sun, I had at least 16 managers and Stuart was my manager for close to 5 of those years so he is without question the manager I got to know the best.
I had once inadvertently said in Stuart's presence that Peter Young was the best manager I'd ever had. Stuart - the consumate competitor - never let me forget that. No amount of backpedaling would let me wiggle out of that one.
But I'm glad I didn't back-pedal too hard. At that point, I'd only had about 6 managers at Sun and not many before that.
Now as I look back, I am blown away by the quality of the managers I had at Sun.
A couple - mercifully short - were not very good. But the funny thing about bad managers is that it is actually easier to learn from them because their flaws are so obvious. With good managers, it is usually harder to figure out how and why they are successful because what they do well seems so seamless and integrated into their personalities.
And I'm happy to say that the vast majority of my managers at Sun were much, much better than merely good.
I hear many complaints about managers but based on my personal experience at Sun I'd have to say that I'd be thrilled to be half the manager of most the people I reported to and worked with and that definitely includes Stuart.
Next up: Back to gadgets
I hardly know any women at all who are into pranks. I'm sure I'll hear from people out there who know differently, but it has been my experience.
On the other hand, I know a lot of guys who are into pranks, encourage pranks, think up elaborate pranks, and even carry them out (see previous post).
It's neither better nor worse, just different. BTW, I even tried a prank of my own in college but it flopped.
I'm also not sure if this just a North American trait (some of the best pranksters I know are Canadian), or a more universal tendency.
Storage Wells
Stuart Wells was a fellow manager when I joined the Windows group but within a few months, Bill Crane left as senior manager and Stuart replaced him, starting his steady rise at Sun to director, VP, and beyond.
There was a lot going on in Windows Engineering at that point. After a lot of angst, we were abandoning NeWS - the brainchild of James Gosling - with X11 tacked on as an emulation to real X11 with a Adobe DPS. Shortly we would also leave OpenLook behind and move to integrate Motif (and subsequently CDE).
Stuart was (and still is) brilliant, driven, and passionate about everything. He is also Scottish with a classic Scots temper, thick brogue and a competitive streak a mile long.
He liked to manage by walking around. In those days, of course, we were all co-located and we all came into the office every day. Everyone learned that if you got an email from Stuart, you had about 30 seconds to jump up and head in the opposite direction from his office unless you wanted a talking to about the issue at hand.
His work ethics was infamous.
At one point a woman joined my group and she tended to come in earlier than most of us.
Eager to make a good impression with Stuart, she noticed that when she arrived at 8:00, he was already in the office. So the next day she came in at 7:30. He was already there. So she came in at 7:00. He was already there. She arrived at 6:30 and he was already there. I'm can't recall at what point she gave up. It may have been even earlier.
Needless to say, he was also still at work when most of us left as well.
I've never worked for a manager / director / VP who engendered so much conversation across the
The answer, for better or worse, was No, they weren't.
According to the instigators, there was something about Stuart that was just too tempting when it came to pranks. He was just too big a target to ignore. In fact he is the only manager I remember being pranked regularly even when it wasn't April 1.
Storage Wells
Just after the group had moved to MTV21, Stuart went on a trip (reasons forgotten - business or vacation).
While he was gone, a select (male) crew gathered all the recently emptied moving boxes and packed up Stuart's entire office. Everything went into a box, including the telephone, his monitor, his pizza box... Then all the boxes were stacked along with empty ones to fill up his office wall to wall, floor to ceiling. And someone ordered a new name plate: Storage Wells.
Stuart showed up on his first day back. His phone was ringing. That box was way at the back of
S'uar'
My father and I once played golf with Stuart. After we finished and were driving home, my Dad said, "He seems very nice but I can't understand a word he says."
In fact, for some reason Scottish accents seemed to dominate in the extended Windows group, including the toolkits at that time. There were no fewer than 6 Scotsmen roaming the halls. That might not seem like much but most were BIG personalities.
Stuart's accent seemed to involve a lot of dropped consonants with glottal stop substitutes. T's were in particularly short supply. There were also many long ooooooo's (book becomes buuuuuk) and other sources of confusion from time to time.
Stuart's good-natured explanation was that the Scots had perfected the science of compression and as masters of the English language, they had figured out how to drop out all unnecessary consonants.
This was Windows Engineering after all and we owned the fonts. Every day the engineers would crank out another daily release and then there were the weeklies, and then the handoffs and so forth. All of us were required to run the dailies which were mounted automatically for us overnight.
One night, our font guy Jim arranged for a special daily. All the T's / t's in all the fonts would instead be replaced with an apostrophe [ ' ] representing a glottal stop.
Needless 'o say, S'uar' did no' disappoin' with his reac'ion.
My Best Manager
In my 16+ years at Sun, I had at least 16 managers and Stuart was my manager for close to 5 of those years so he is without question the manager I got to know the best.
I had once inadvertently said in Stuart's presence that Peter Young was the best manager I'd ever had. Stuart - the consumate competitor - never let me forget that. No amount of backpedaling would let me wiggle out of that one.
But I'm glad I didn't back-pedal too hard. At that point, I'd only had about 6 managers at Sun and not many before that.
Now as I look back, I am blown away by the quality of the managers I had at Sun.
A couple - mercifully short - were not very good. But the funny thing about bad managers is that it is actually easier to learn from them because their flaws are so obvious. With good managers, it is usually harder to figure out how and why they are successful because what they do well seems so seamless and integrated into their personalities.
And I'm happy to say that the vast majority of my managers at Sun were much, much better than merely good.
I hear many complaints about managers but based on my personal experience at Sun I'd have to say that I'd be thrilled to be half the manager of most the people I reported to and worked with and that definitely includes Stuart.
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