Work

Hint: When you want your sysadmin to do something for you, I would suggest not sending a snarky email about it to two large distribution lists.

We have a wiki at work. It's a MoinMoin WikiWiki. It was installed a few years ago, mainly for the sysadmin team to use. It's been upgraded once, so it's not way behind, but it's starting to get more use, since other teams in the company have started to use it.

However it's slow. It uses a flat-file system to store the data and searches really crawl. And some people think that wiki markup is difficult. So a certain web programmer (we'll call him "Ralph" to protect the guilty) has been bugging me to upgrade it or replace it.

But what they wanted was both better performance and WYSIWYG editing. The wiki comparison that I was looking at didn't show any with both of those features.

So I sent an email to the sysadmin and content distribution lists (both pretty big lists) with a survey. It looked like this:

Subject: Wiki Survey

I know people are unhappy with the performance of the Wiki.

I also know that people would like a WYSIWYG interface for adding content (which I think is silly - Wiki markup is not that hard.)

Unfortunately, it would appear that the two are mutually exclusive.

We can get performance by changing to a DB backend, but the Wikis that I have found that use a DB backend don't have a WYSIWYG plug-in.

So here is a survey.

What is more important to you:

Performance - Faster searching, faster page loads
WYSIWYG editing - ease of content addition

Please use the voting buttons.

And if you know of a Wiki that uses a DB backend AND supports WYSIWYG editing, PLEASE let me know.

Simple enough, and I got some votes.

Then Ralph sent me an email that really put a twist in my knickers.

You can read it (and my responses) after the jump.

Today I have a nice list of moronic encounters - and it's not even lunchtime yet.

We can start off with one of our customers. Three days ago they decided to change ISPs at 8:00 PM. They didn't bother to tell us about it, so of course all our firewalls started blocking them because they are now coming from a new IP address range.

How is this our fault?

I got that all fixed up, but it's three days later and we are still seeing fallout. I got a call this morning saying that none of the computers in their building could resolve our DNS domain. A little chat revealed that the people could work from home and resolve us, and a little work on my part revealed that all the rest of the Intarweb could resolve us. So I suggested that perhaps he should look at his firewall.

Again, not our fault.

Then we can proceed to our sales people who use BlackBerries.

We are using RSA SecurID to provide authentication to our SSL VPN servers. Most employees have the standard key fob RSA tokens, but since the sales people didn't want to carry extra stuff, we got the software tokens for their BlackBerries.

This stuff isn't rocket science, yet we have a couple of users who just can't figure out how to log in with this system. Out of 20 or so people, there are two or three who just can't get it.

Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot?

After that we can proceed to the user who states that when she logs into the SSL VPN she doesn't get any bookmarks. She's in the exact same group as her Manager who is saying that this needs to get fixed. There are bookmarks in that group, I checked.

I don't blog about work too often, as I know that my managers (some of them anyway) and quite a few of my co-workers read this.

But I got caught up on an ex-co-workers blog today where he was talking about business managment.

He had read a book called "Finding and Keeping the Best Talent in the World" by Richard Leider and says:

His contention is that talented people want "purpose driven" workplaces. How do you build a purpose driven workplace? You answer the following four employee questions over and over.

1. Where are we going?
2. What are we doing to get there?
3. What do you want me to do?
4. What's in it for me when I do?

Good pay is essential, he says, but there needs to be more than that. If a company can't answer those four questions, the talented people, looking for "purposeful, challenging work" and the chance "to express and develop their strongest talents" will quit.

I was going to write about appreciation today and thought a lot about what I really liked from my management. Is it the thank yous and occasional bonuses that make a difference to me? Nope, what I really want is those four questions answered because then I know what we're doing and what my part of the effort is and how the company will show their appreciation. If someone answers those questions for me they're showing me that they respect and appreciate me and they need me to be part of the effort.

I have to say that out of these four simple questions, I don't usually have clear answers to any of them.

Dilbert was pretty good on Sunday.

Good one today.



There is a Dilbert Blog now too. I have not read any of it yet.

Perfect...

There are days that I feel like this...

We use RSA SecurID where I work. We just bought some software token seeds to use with some Blackberry devices.

When you buy these seed records, you don't get the software to load on the Blackberries. You have to download that from RSA's website.

Fair enough.

The seed records came with a letter enclosed that told me I could download the software at a certain URL. This URL is no longer valid!

So I sent the following email to the RSA Security Webmaster:

Subject: Color Me Unimpressed

I just received a set of software token seed records. In the package is a letter telling me that I can download the client software at this URL:

http://www.rsasecurity.com/products/securid/software_token.html

When I visit this URL, I get a page that says this:

---- Begin Text ----

We're sorry, but due to a recent renovation of the RSA Security site, many of our page URLs have changed. In a few seconds, you will be redirected to the new URL for the page you requested. If you have arrived at this page via a bookmark in your web browser, please take a moment to update it to the new URL.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.

We could not find a record of this URL. You might find what you’re looking for here: RSA Home

---- End Text ----

Not very useful. Now I have to go digging around on the web site to try and figure out where the client software is.

It is not obvious (to me at least) where to download this software. I finally found it, but it's not in a very intuitive location. I don't want to "Evaluate" this software (which is where I found it), I want to use it with seed records I have already purchased.

Updated on 09/06/05: I got a response to my email today:

Hi,

Sorry about that! Thank you so much for taking the time to notify us about this issue so that we can fix it for people in the future. You can find the link to the software authenticator downloads here: http://www.rsasecurity.com/node.asp?id=1081

I have created a redirect for the old URL which will bring folks to the new page.

Again, our apologies...

Regards,

Alex.

Today's Dilbert is soooo good. Reminds me of Despair.com

It is a beautiful day outside this morning. Mid-50s, not a cloud in the sky.

So I decided to take the long way in to work today.

I've never gone this way to work before, but I came home this way a few days ago.

Usually I head down 28th Street to Blaisdell Avenue, then turn onto 31st Street to get on I-35W Southbound at 2nd Avenue. Then I head East on Hwy 62 until it turns into Hwy 55 and then over the Mendota Bridge and to work.

But today I decided to take the much more scenic route.

I headed down Lyndale Avenue to East Minnehaha Parkway. Then I had some decisions to make:

Do I turn South on Portland down to Hwy 62? Nah.

Do I turn South on Cedar Avenue down to Hwy 62? Nah.

Do I turn South on 24th Avenue down to Hwy 62? Nah.

Do I stop at the Mello-Glaze bakery? Tempting, but not today.

Do I turn South on 34th Avenue down to Hwy 62? Nah.

I took the parkway all the way over Hiawatha Avenue and then South to where it intersects Hiawatha Avenue. Then I take Hwy 55 across the Mendota Bridge and into work.

That pesky river is always in the way.

It was a beautiful ride on a beautiful day. I love Minnehaha Parkway.

And I don't think it added any more than 10 minutes to my commute.