Tralfaz

Blog

  • The GoDaddy outage

    Sigh, tough place to be today.  I manage a few websites, and one that is for a non-profit that I volunteer at.  My personal stuff is all hosted at MediaTemple, and they have been awesome.

    But, I “picked” GoDaddy for the big site.  It was pretty cheap, about 1/4 the cost monthly, and it seemed to have a good amount of capabilities.

    Can’t complain about the setup.  Real easy to get up and running.  I had a couple of support calls early on, but their support did a great job, and were very responsive to my queries.

    Of course, today they have been down hard.  First symptom was someone complaining about the site throwing MySQL errors, but not it is down hard.  For three hours.

    Grrrr.  I hate moving sites, but I suspect that for the greater good, I will move it all under my MEdiaTemple account.

     

  • Special ring of hell : PC manufacturers that do dumb things

    I have recently changed jobs, and as part of my standard kit when I joined was a brand new HP Elitebook 8460p.  Not a bad system, a pretty peppy Intel Core i5, and a Sandy Bridge chipset. 

    It came with 4G of Ram, and our standard Win 7 x64 image.  

    SHould be fine, right?  But from day one, the perfomance has been crappy.  Lots of weirdness, long lags, and losing responsiveness.  I was about to toss it into Support hell to complain, then I noticed an odd fact. 

    This laptop comes with 4G by default. But instead of it being two 2G SODIMMS, it is one 4G SODIMM. Anybody with half a brain knows that to effectively achieve system performance, you need both banks of memory populated.

    I can understand why they do this. Most people would just buy the second 4G SODIMM, and be done with it.  But, to save $20 (I paid $20.90 for a second SODIMM) it seems like a bad decision.  On a laptop that retails for $1500 (it is a business class system with support), this is really annoying.

    Geoff’s new rules:

    • Thou shalt not ship a computer without the SODIMMS to complete an interleaved memory bank.  Just don’t do it.
    • Thou shalt not ship an x64 OS without a minimum of 8G ram.  This really needs to become the standard.  Win 7 is MUCh happier with 8G (or even better 16G).

  • Hardware woes

    As a Product Manager for a scientific instrument, part of our system is a “controller”.  This is nothing more than asimple PC that can run our software and doesn’t have any conflicts with our system.

    Recently, the system we used went end of sales (Dell Precision T3500 workstation). I decided to look at the specs and see if there was anything I could change to meet our performance requirement, and, to possibly save a few bucks.  The Precision line is hardly inexpensive.

    Turns out that we are using Intel Xeon E5 series CPU’s.  A fine CPU, but then we hamstring it with 4G ram, and Win7 x86.  Me thinks we can go to a high end Core i5 (quad core), bump it to 8G ram, and run Win7 x64.  Yes that would work, but it only saves me $45.00.  Sigh, that is a lot of qualification headache for so little money.

    So, I will likely stick with the higher spec, the Xeon processor, up the memory (it is practically free) and drop Win7 x64 on it and move on.

    For the record, these systems are running ~ $1500.  A lot more than their Vostro consumer targeted system.  But there is a reason for it.  We build systems. We demand some stability. That means that the computer we buy next month, 6 months from now, and in a year are the same. You just can’t get that with the consumer grade systems.  There the life cycle are measured in the low single digits of months.

    But, I am in a good state with this instrument.  At least it isn’t like my other product that requires 2 full size PCI slots (not PCI-e, or PCI-x).  Groan.

  • Bad start to Monday

    I know that Windoes 7 can be ultra stable and reliable.  I have used it for mor than 2 years, and it was rock solid.

    Now I know that it can be made to be unreliable, unstable, and glitchy.

    Where I work, there are all kinds of additions. Full disk encryption, Symantec Endpoint Protection, a software lifecycle and inventory system, and some really bizarre policies that have the machine doing multiple command shell scripts at inopportune times.

    All this leads to weirdness in the install (note: I would never try to circumvent these things. I do live with it).

    THree times ( in three months ) the OST file has become corrupted.  Fortunately there is a utility that can fix it.  But it is a pain in the arse to run. I have to shut down several programs that “touch” the OST file, and I have to remember where they all are.  Groan.

    Twice now, it has done a forced full scan for malware and viruses. This happens on the first wednesday of the month.  Two of the three times it has run, there has been a bout a 2.5 hour delay as it barfs on a file (in an email cache in AppData). This leads the full scan to be about 9 hours. Painful, to say the least.

    This morning, I had all these issues come to a head.  An Acrobat update (forced restart), a corrupted OST (forced restart), and an update to my copy of 1Password (a third forced restart).  Here I am, roughly one hour into the day, and I finally can get some work done.  Sigh…

  • Senseless Regulations

    I rarely complain about regulations.  I know that many, if not most of them are really for the best. We know what happens when there isn’t any oversight at all.  But once in a while, I have a real WTF moment.

    RoHS, or Reduction of Hazardous Substances is in general a “good thing”. It means to not use chemicals or components that are toxic, or hazardous to the environment. Whether this is removing lead from solder in electronics, or not using hexavalent chromium (google it – nasty shit). But sometimes it goes too far.

    Case in point. Many microscope objectives fail. They use optical elements made from leaded glass.  They use these components and materials because adding lead to glass increases the refractive index, and improves the performance of the optic. Fine, I get it that there is nasty lead in these parts.

    But the risk is so low that any of this lead will ever be released into the environment. It would require that the glass be removed from the objective, vaporized, and then, and only then would a couple micrograms of lead be released into the environment.

    Common sense would tell you that this is such a small risk of exposure that microscope objectives provide would lead to an exemption. No such luck. So, you get to go to a design with crappy performance and resolution that costs nearly 2X what the standard objectives would provide.  Groan.

  • Bad UI of the week: VMWare’s “my.vmware.com”

    Continuing on the theme of bad UI, this week’s hall of shame goes to VMWare.  Sad, because they used to “get it”, or so it seemed to me.

    Background:

    I have long been a VMWare user.  I have (purchased) a license for Workstation and Fusion, the desktop products for virtualization on the PC and Mac platforms respectively.  On the PC Side, I use Workstation to segment software that seems invasive (Sales Logix, I am looking at you) from my main install.  On the Mac it is to use the (dwindling) PC only apps that I can’t live without.

    The situation:

    Two weeks ago, I took the plunge and upgraded to Mountain Lion (OS-X 10.8), and my version of Fusion wasn’t supported.  Off to the VMWare website.  In the past, I would just log in, and the option to view my licenses and download my entitled products was on the main page.

    Now they have this my.vmware.com stuff.  I can find my licenses OK, but downloads?  It seemed I could only sign up for a demo version to download.  No amount of navigation got me there.  And yes, I know that using the demo version would work, but then you get harassed by their inside sales people.  Another story for another day.

    I ended up searching, and finding the download page on the main site.  But still the my.vmware.com site kept trying to navigate me back to it.  Argh. Perhaps if I spent time on their site every week, it would make sense, but for my, the 2 or 3 visits a year, it was painful.

    I am sure this will not be the last installment in UI ridiculousness.

  • Secure communications

    So, I have recently taken a new job (it is a kick ass place to work too), and have moved.  In the process of buying a house, a lot of sensitive infomation is exchanged.  Particularly around the documentation required for a home loan.

    Email has become the de-facto standard for exchange.  Nobody seems to worry about sending things with social security numbers, EIN, and other identity information. 

    Alas, I query the mortgage broker, asking for their public key, and I get a big “huh?” in response.

    I know that email encryption is not trivial, and that it takes some effort to get your certificate (for free from comodo.com for personal use), and to distribute your public key.  But you would think that someone who handles thousands of personal financial documents daily would have it in place.

    Sigh.

  • Things that drive a “car guy” crazy

    I am a tech head, and I do have a thing for cars.  I drive a pretty sweet Honda S2000, and I have ridden performance motorcycles for most of my life.  So I know a thing or two about a well running car. 

    This morning, while walking my dogs, I walked by a house where someone was leaving for work. He gets into a 2010 BMW M3.  Just about every M3 I have ever been near or in is a supremely functioning machine.  Fast, functional, and about as well tuned as you will fine.  The perfectly balanced inline 6 cylinder, mated to a 5 or 6 speed Getrag transmission equals a butter smooth ride, and more than a little “go”.

    This car however ran ratty.  It would barely idle (usually an indication of someone screwing with the program of the ECU), and it had a loud exhaust.  Nothing wrong with increasing the breathing of the engine, but on something as highly tuned as an M3, you need to balance intake and exhaust modifications to keep the fine balance.

    Alas, this example was poorly executed.  It ran about as rough as a 396CI 1969 Ford Mustang fastback.  Barely idled, and popped and backfired a lot as he (barely) got it away from the curb.

    Sad really.  At least it wasn’t an automatic…

  • UX, an example of lousy design and usability

    While I am no longer in a realm that has to integrate with MFP (multi-function peripherals), I now use them more than ever.

    For the record, I am talking about the upper end HP office printer/scanner/facsimile machines.  The ones that integrate with an AD domain, and provide user based functionality.  So keep that in mind.

    First, the 1990’s want their processors and their displays back.  All of these devices run on a few different “engine” models.  All of them were originally designed in the early to mid 1990s (think RAM at $400 a megabyte).  The screen resolution is probably 50ppi – state of the art for LCD touch displays in 1998, and to add insult to injury, they are monochrome.  Ugh.  Ugly.

    The processor choice is important too.  The UI is largely event driven (I know this from my time in the realm of building connectors), and the processor has trouble keeping up even when a user is manually entering information.

    Second, the API’s are all littered with legacy calls and widgets.  This is tp provide backwards capability, so that a connector designed in 2002 has a fighting chance to still work, albeit as lousy as it did in 2002.  That this is a curse is not immediately obvious.  Who wouldn’t want to keep a wide range of legacy products alive?  But, it cripples what can be done.  Often connectors, and widgets are run slowly  on purpose to match the timing the device expects. … and this leads to users havng longish delays to respond to soft buttons pushed.  Which leads me to point 3

    Third, none of the major device makers has found a good tactile indication to signal to the user that their input was recognized.  If the user can’t see a state change, hear a “click” or feel a button change (a tactamorphic touchscreen, how cool would that be?), they are all to liable to “double push” the soft button, and then unintended consequences that often require a signtout/signin process again.  Groan.

    While I don’t expect the visual experience of Android or iOS, some significant improvements are needed. On a device that can cost $35,000 it seems like a reasonable expectation.

  • Using the wrong tool – Excel

    Few things make me scratch my head more than people who insist upon using lousy tools way outside their envelope.

    Case in point:

    Product Requirements Document done in Excel.  While there are a few positives, like easy to prioritize, and re-order lists, it is too constraining.  Not enough space in a cell to really explain what is needed (I know, you should break them into smaller pieces, but sometimes, something is so fundamental, it can’t)

    Competitive Analysis in Excel.  Again, there are pro’s:  Easy to create lists.  Easy to match across a row features that are related.  Can be formatted into a pretty table for insertion into a PowerPoint presentation.

    Meeting minutes captured in Powerpoint.  There is nothing worse than a 2K text file being blown up into a 2 megabyte presentation to capture the minutes and actions, then sent to the team.  Really, Microsoft OneNote is a perfect vehicle to do this.  Or Notepad. Or, if you are a Mac-phile, TextWrangler or BBEDIT.  Sigh.

    I wonder if anyone reads these posterous posts anymore.