If you run Linux a lot, like me, no doubt you’ve encountered one of the scourges of closed systems: Windows only BIOS flash utilities. That’s right. We’ll sell you hardware, and technically you can run whatever you like on it. Except if you choose anything other than Windows, you can’t… Read More
I often work with clients remotely, so I spend a lot of time on conference calls. Here are my top 5 tips for making them better for everyone. 1. Speak up Nothing is more frustrating than straining to hear someone mumbling quietly to the room. If you’re talking, presumably you… Read More
Last week I had quite a shock: The Australian domestic air travel experience is dramatically better than the US experience. I’ve heard various people complain about it, and it seemed to be much the same stuff as we get here: the security theatre, queuing, delayed flights, hassles and pain. Well… Read More
This is part of a series on the NetApp Dynamic Data Center. If you grabbed the document from my last post about the NetApp Dynamic Data Center, you’ll have noticed the concept of a Project. Figuring out what exactly a Project is can be one of the hardest parts of… Read More
Chargeback has been on my mind a lot in recent months. It’s an important part of shared services, Service Oriented Architecture, cloud computing, etc. But IT suck at it, and it doesn’t work the way they do it. I’m going to tell you why, and give you a solution. IT… Read More
Who Cares? You don’t have to care about the difference. No one is forcing you to. The thing is, if you don’t care about the difference between a screwdriver and a paintbrush, you may find painting your house quite a challenge. I’ve seen plenty of examples of clients treating solutions… Read More
Lately I’ve been doing a bunch of work with people who use the Agile software development methods. They had a bunch of success with it in one part of their company, so they decided to extend its use across the rest of IT. Now everything is Agile. Those who’ve been… Read More
I am now the proud owner of a shiny new Apple iPhone 3GS. My impressions so far are overwhelmingly positive, but it does have some significant flaws. Long Journey I’ve looked longingly at other people’s iPhone’s for some time. When they first came out 2 years ago (remember the lines?),… Read More
NetApp provide a Linux version of their DFM/Operations Manager product, but they only support certain versions of Suse and RedHat distros. I run Ubuntu, but I figured could port the installation across. How hard could it be? Not too hard, as it turns out. Here’s how to do it. Getting… Read More
I’m a bit of a documentation nerd. Writing technical documentation is a boring, but often necessary, job that other people hate doing. I’m good at it. I also care about it, for some unfathomable reason. This combination means that I’m usually the guy who ends up doing it. Now I… Read More
