Dammit Wednesday: Get it done.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 06/11/08 at 09:06:00 pm

What a week. I’ve been completely disconnected from most everything to ensure I’m getting stuff done at work. After going on almost 2 years of pushing the need for a new company website I have gotten a full green light on the project. The new website is something I want to work on but because we need it online in such a short amount of time I’ve essentially spent every free moment coding and designing the company’s brand new web presence. Even as I’m typing this on my bed, at 10:45 PM, with my hands falling asleep — I’m flipping back and forth between Word, Photoshop, FTP, and the bombing of IMs I’m getting from the people I haven’t spoke to in a week.

So my work related rant this Dammit Wednesday is projects and their tendency to consume life.

Dammit Wednesday: Your Compliance Is Required

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 05/14/08 at 12:05:40 pm

Software Error

Is it too much to ask for compliance from our tools? Shouldn’t they work the way they were designed and advertised to work? It’s one thing to be overloaded with things to do but even with the stresses of being overwhelmed aside, when you have the tools (in my case software) to work on a project you should be able to eventually get it done, provided the application works as well as you do.

My day job is in an environment where we often times need to get information very quickly and we need to do things quickly so we can move on to the next task, when stuff is slow or isn’t working it can be very frustrating. Last week was a perfect example of a simple issue causing a ripple effect through our everyday workload. We’re currently in the process of changing partners for our VoIP telephone service and part of that process is getting our existing software integrated with the new system. As of this past winter our billing software is fully integrated with our provisioning system, when a change is made in the billing system it is instantly reflected in the provisioning system eliminating the need for double entry. Last week that synchronization broke and it took a couple days of troubleshooting just to find the problem and a few more days of intermittent BS before everything was back to normal. Ironically the problem was related to the new changes that were done in preparation of the VoIP provider switch.

Where is this rant going? Well if all of our tools magically worked the way they should without a hitch our lives could be so much easier, and uncomprehendable amounts of time would be saved. But unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world. The truth is, often times these software glitches end up being some Monday detail that was missed when the system was created or put in place. Which means because someone didn’t do their job or guaranteed something that isn’t there the end user gets to pay the consequences.

Sure, mistakes are made. But spending additional time installing expensive SNMP cards because every other one is bad, or getting excited about a new feature in an application only to find that it doesn’t work, or experiencing repetitive downtime with a leading web host to the point where they don’t bother apologizing for my inconveniences anymore – it’s all starting to get on my nerves.

Dammit Wednesday: Being Sick at Work.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 04/09/08 at 11:04:48 am

I’m normally fairly healthy when it comes to illnesses, in a typical year I might get a nasty cold once or twice maybe a stomach bug every once in a while but overall I wouldn’t be considered a sickly person. Right now I’m working on getting over my 3rd cold in about 60 days. The symptoms are essentially the same each time, minor throat irritation in the morning and nasal congestion throughout the day. Naturally, I’m just sick enough to disrupt things at work but I’m not showing any out-of-the-ordinary symptoms that warrant real concern. Some people say it’s just this elusive ‘bug’ that’s going around; others are blaming it on our never-ending 7 month winter. Either way, it sucks.

Being sick at work always sucks, especially being sick with a ‘bug’ that refuses to go away. Like most people, when I’m sick I really don’t want to do anything which means my overall productivity in the workplace is poorer then it could be. In the end I just have more work to do when I’m not sick because I need to get caught up. Also, it’s a pain when you have to talk a lot when you’re sick especially with nasal congestion. It seems like I’m constantly on the phone and people can always tell when I’m sick, they point it out almost immediately. I’m not sure what tips them off either; perhaps it’s when I answer the phone with “Good Afternoon, This is Bark.”

I think we can all agree that having to endure a few days at the workplace with a nasty cold is the worst.

Dammit Wednesday: Systems Consistency

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 03/12/08 at 02:03:26 pm

Working in the IT industry means constant updates and changes. One of the hassles at my job comes with the various worksheets, paperwork, emails and diagrams on how the systems are supposed to be set up can fall out of date near instantly.

An example of this is the worksheet that goes with connectivity diagnostics targets. We run a software application called PingPlotter in all of our cable systems along with a handful of other servers and workstations. PingPlotter is a very simple yet extremely powerful application that has quickly become a 1st response to common network troubleshooting. It simply pings a target over and over and graphs the connectivity, but there’s more to it than just the pinging itself. Everything in the software is customizable, I’m talking detailed specifications down to the packet size, the response time, time between tests, loss thresholds, Jitter, it’s essentially endless.

Once your test specifications are set up, the software will run and graph out the network performance over time. So we have this software and we have the ‘targets’ within it which can be up in the 50’s depending on the location and size of the system, all of the targets are organized by which segment of the network the actual piece of hardware resides it whether it’s a router, switch, CMTS, power supply, UPS, modem, whatever and that’s only half the consistency problem, keeping these tests organized and keeping the specifications uniform across all of the systems. The other half is the worksheet that aides in the organization process, the worksheet is the database of all of the main workspaces for each system (a workspace is a set of targets) but since we’re constantly adding new equipment especially in our larger cable systems the worksheet falls out of date shortly after it’s updated.

This is only one example of a systems consistency problem that applies to a single application. Now just take this example and times it by 10 and you can get an idea of the organization that’s needed in this line of work.

Patch Tuesday, Meet Dammit Wednesday.

Posted by Markus Langenfeld - 02/13/08 at 10:02:12 pm

Over the years Microsoft’s ‘Patch Tuesday’ has become a familiar menace for geeks and IT professionals alike. Ever since the days of Windows 98, Patch Tuesday has been Microsoft’s opportunity to unleash the latest security updates into the wild for millions upon millions of Windows PC’s to download, at the same time.

Today I have coined a new name that from now on will be forever stained on my Outlook calendar and that’s “Dammit Wednesday”. Dammit Wednesday is when I come into the office to find all of our Windows based servers magically rebooted and I have to clean up the mess and cope with the analytical data loss. Dammit Wednesday is when I can open up bandwidth graphs and actually see the traffic spike when the 1000’s of subscriber PC’s go online simultaneously to download these updates. Dammit Wednesday is like having a 2nd Monday in the same week.

Sure I could configure our machines to wait for manual updates to be done, but going through each server and babysitting as it downloads a couple more-than-likely insignificant security patches takes a lot of time, time that I don’t have. The worst part about Patch Tuesday however is that it always manages to catch everyone off guard every month, hence the new Outlook reminder.

Dammit Wednesday, something we can all relate to.

Much like Courtney’s Top Secret Tuesday idea (except not as often) I’m introducing Dammit Wednesday, on the 2nd Wednesday of every month I will post a new information technology woe that I hope many of my readers will read and enjoy (or at least share my pain).

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