The Penns Valley clan on the hill for 4th of July fireworks at Penn State's Beaver Stadium.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Had you told me, yesterday, or even this morning, that I'd get up at 5:00 and drive to Norfolk and swap keys and meet with a realtor and drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to Annapolis and have the best steamed mussels of my life and drive through the Academy for the first time and cruise with the top down back home through beautiful neighborhoods in time for evening tea I would have said "you're nuts!"
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Troubleshooting 101
In technical troubleshooting there are two main approaches: The first is "What's changed?", and the other is "What could possibly cause this?". The distinction may seem subtle, but they are fundamentally different ways of approaching a problem.
Most IT managers will instruct their people to start with the former. After all, most trouble tickets start with something that used to work, but now doesn't. Find out when the problem started, what changed around that time, and you've probably got your culprit.
However, the successful troubleshooter will be able to strike a balance between these two ways of viewing a problem in order to arrive at the appropriate solution as quickly and efficiently as possible.
For example: We had a portable credit card machine that sat on a rolling counter for t-shirt sales. This counter was pulled out from a closet in the lobby before and after concerts, and naturally a power cord and network cable had to be snaked across the floor to connect the machine.
During the week in question we'd just had a new POE IP telephone system put in that necessitated new CAT 6e patch panels and quite a lot of changes to the basic Ethernet cabling infrastructure.
A few days after the last trip out by the cabling guys to punch down new cable runs and patch panels, the guy in charge of the t-shirt sales says 'Hey, did you know the credit card machine isn't working?'. I asked how long this had been an issue, and he replied that it might have been a few days, he wasn't sure.
OK, at this point a "What's changed?" guy is pretty sure he knows what's happened, right?...an issue with the cable run from the new patch panel. But before checking that I took a look at the machine itself. Sure enough, the RJ-45 jack on the little device was pressed in quite a bit, as if it had received a blow. I expressed concern that the unit had fallen off the table, and the sales manager replied that Yes, this was quite possible. In fact, it had happened before, requiring replacement of the unit.
So, now a "What could cause this?" guy is thinking we're looking at a damaged unit...far more likely than a sudden failure in infrastructure cabling that's worked for years, in spite of recent changes, right? After all, the cable guys had done a terrific job toning out each run, and no other connection was having any trouble.
As compelling as that argument was, luckily we had an identical power supply and Ethernet connection upstairs for a similar machine. A quick check upstairs and guess what?...yup, the 'damaged' unit worked fine.
After more troubleshooting and elimination, it was determined that the falling unit had landed squarely on the CAT5 cable end where the RJ-45 connector was crimped on, landing in just such a way that the port on the machine, although bent in, was not damaged electrically, but the fine wires in the connector were. New cable end and we're all set.
So, who was right? Well, I think a purely “What's changed?” approach could have taken the tech down the wrong road for quite a while as he toned out and tested a cable through the building. On the other hand, without checking the unit at another station we'd have been without a machine for weeks while it was 'repaired' at the factory. In the end it was a combination of troubleshooting techniques that had the unit back at work making money that same evening!
Most IT managers will instruct their people to start with the former. After all, most trouble tickets start with something that used to work, but now doesn't. Find out when the problem started, what changed around that time, and you've probably got your culprit.
However, the successful troubleshooter will be able to strike a balance between these two ways of viewing a problem in order to arrive at the appropriate solution as quickly and efficiently as possible.
For example: We had a portable credit card machine that sat on a rolling counter for t-shirt sales. This counter was pulled out from a closet in the lobby before and after concerts, and naturally a power cord and network cable had to be snaked across the floor to connect the machine.
During the week in question we'd just had a new POE IP telephone system put in that necessitated new CAT 6e patch panels and quite a lot of changes to the basic Ethernet cabling infrastructure.
A few days after the last trip out by the cabling guys to punch down new cable runs and patch panels, the guy in charge of the t-shirt sales says 'Hey, did you know the credit card machine isn't working?'. I asked how long this had been an issue, and he replied that it might have been a few days, he wasn't sure.
OK, at this point a "What's changed?" guy is pretty sure he knows what's happened, right?...an issue with the cable run from the new patch panel. But before checking that I took a look at the machine itself. Sure enough, the RJ-45 jack on the little device was pressed in quite a bit, as if it had received a blow. I expressed concern that the unit had fallen off the table, and the sales manager replied that Yes, this was quite possible. In fact, it had happened before, requiring replacement of the unit.
So, now a "What could cause this?" guy is thinking we're looking at a damaged unit...far more likely than a sudden failure in infrastructure cabling that's worked for years, in spite of recent changes, right? After all, the cable guys had done a terrific job toning out each run, and no other connection was having any trouble.
As compelling as that argument was, luckily we had an identical power supply and Ethernet connection upstairs for a similar machine. A quick check upstairs and guess what?...yup, the 'damaged' unit worked fine.
After more troubleshooting and elimination, it was determined that the falling unit had landed squarely on the CAT5 cable end where the RJ-45 connector was crimped on, landing in just such a way that the port on the machine, although bent in, was not damaged electrically, but the fine wires in the connector were. New cable end and we're all set.
So, who was right? Well, I think a purely “What's changed?” approach could have taken the tech down the wrong road for quite a while as he toned out and tested a cable through the building. On the other hand, without checking the unit at another station we'd have been without a machine for weeks while it was 'repaired' at the factory. In the end it was a combination of troubleshooting techniques that had the unit back at work making money that same evening!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Talkshow
"If television has produced anything worse than the talkshow in its long history of lousy formats and hateful ideas, I'd like to know what it is. As a format, the talkshow actively works to purge everything it touches of sincerity or spontaneity, life or human joy. The tone of engagement is one of mirthless bonhomie, a pantomimed five-minute friendship designed to fool neither guest, nor host, nor audience into imagining that the host has the slightest interest in what the guest is saying, or the guest the faintest interest in the questions.
It's often pointed out, with either ruefulness or weird pride, that the US talkshow doesn't work in Britain. The last attempt to do a wholesale Letterman – with house band and all – was Channel 5's The Jack Docherty Show, and it died a death. I'm not sure even Jack Docherty remembers it very well.
But it's not as if we've been short of awful chatshows of our own. Think of Terry Wogan in the 1980s, bringing his beige guests on to his beige set, twitching his trousers up over his knees as he sat down and prepared to be avuncular. Or Gloria Hunniford, her face an oasis of orange in a desert of pastels. And Parky, a man who never asked a question that ended in a question mark when he could simply cue up a tinned anecdote with a statement: "You worked with Burton in the 60s. And you drank with him, too. Heh heh. Interesting times." Or think of Jonathan Ross, the current king of the format, with his guests looking politely pained as he asks them about what they get up to in bed.
Ross is a talented broadcaster, Wogan a brilliant raconteur, and I'm sure Parky is very nice in person. (Actually, I'm not sure Parky is very nice in person but let that slide; I bet Gloria is lovely.) Chatshows still blow – and if the media landscape in which the chatshow was king is vanishing, that's to the best. If this puts paid to a world in which hardcore punks Hüsker Dü can find themselves being interviewed by Joan Rivers, we can all die that little bit happier."
--Sam Leith , guardian.co.uk
It's often pointed out, with either ruefulness or weird pride, that the US talkshow doesn't work in Britain. The last attempt to do a wholesale Letterman – with house band and all – was Channel 5's The Jack Docherty Show, and it died a death. I'm not sure even Jack Docherty remembers it very well.
But it's not as if we've been short of awful chatshows of our own. Think of Terry Wogan in the 1980s, bringing his beige guests on to his beige set, twitching his trousers up over his knees as he sat down and prepared to be avuncular. Or Gloria Hunniford, her face an oasis of orange in a desert of pastels. And Parky, a man who never asked a question that ended in a question mark when he could simply cue up a tinned anecdote with a statement: "You worked with Burton in the 60s. And you drank with him, too. Heh heh. Interesting times." Or think of Jonathan Ross, the current king of the format, with his guests looking politely pained as he asks them about what they get up to in bed.
Ross is a talented broadcaster, Wogan a brilliant raconteur, and I'm sure Parky is very nice in person. (Actually, I'm not sure Parky is very nice in person but let that slide; I bet Gloria is lovely.) Chatshows still blow – and if the media landscape in which the chatshow was king is vanishing, that's to the best. If this puts paid to a world in which hardcore punks Hüsker Dü can find themselves being interviewed by Joan Rivers, we can all die that little bit happier."
--Sam Leith , guardian.co.uk
Saturday, April 10, 2010
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