Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be IT Managers

Posted: 6:44 pm
March 25, 2008
Vladville
9 Comments

I never blog about what I actually do for living because I am convinced that nobody believe me. And even when I do give you all a glimpse of what I do, the line of people lining up to kick me in the balls and punch me when I’m down wraps around the block. So, if you pardon me, I am about to let you into the world of Vlad Mazek. Watch out, its pretty vulgar.

The Hills

It’s 9 PM and I’m done coding for the day. I just submitted my changes, assigned a test and figured the day was offer. My mind is still going at full pace and I’m laying back in the bed waiting for The Hills to start – if you need to kill your brain there is nothing like the mindshare between Lauren and Audrina. MTV is doing some sort of a pre-The Hills-premiere and for some reason the TV is not muted. I get to hear Lauren talk about her new clothes line. Brain out! Time of death, 9:25.

Catalina, Catalina

Something, somewhere, in the depth of my awesome code is leaking memory. To a really spectacular degree. To sum it up, my catalina.out blew up on my personal server and filled a 500GB partition in the space of about 40 minutes. Server down. Shockey Monkey Alert. SMS. Latin Conga ringtone at a level loud enough to bring Jesus back.

Of course my German Shepherd dog is trained to jump on me when he hears the RAZR beep. Trying to grab the phone and the laptop with a 100lb dog sitting on top of you requires certain skills.

Oh good, nothing important. Ooo, a new w00t is out.

Prometheus came down to Los Angeles

It’s roughy 11:50, I am still up trying to figure this code out. Temperature alarm in Los Angeles goes off, temperature went from 60 to 70 degrees in the span of 30 minutes. That is not one of those normal things. Emails start to fly around, what do we do, should we go into the protected mode (shut down equipment, throttle down ExchangeDefender nodes, etc). Vlad, What should we do?

I don’t care. Call me if the fucking place burns to the ground.

We’re defending, trust us

Brought in to do a SQL audit, roughly 1:30 AM. Apparently, some tables in the reports database went corrupt when we added the extra replication slaves. Did you run myisamchk? No? Ok, let me try.

Ok, so here is how SQL works kids… Two hours later… FMR.

Ask and ye shall receive

We’re shutting down LA DC 1, temperature is at 80.

Minute after that IM came through the alerts went up – three out of four cooling towers went down in the data center and they were shutting down the fourth and cutting power to the entire floor to prevent damage. Vaaaaaagtastic.

Few minutes later, facilities is working on it, A/C guy will be on site within an hour or so.

I write an email to the new hire that was supposed to start today, tell him that I will be spending the day apologizing to the SharePoint and Virtual Server customers in UK and Australia and cutting SLA refund checks.

Within the hour, the power to their network room comes back, connectivity is back up and our systems still had plenty of juice so none of the stuff (aside from a few hundred ExchangeDefender nodes went down). Two minutes later, all ExchangeDefender nodes are up. We’re back boss!

Ok, I’m done, it’s 5:40 and I am going to sleep damnit!

Make me money, ho

Katie’s alarm rings promptly, 20 minutes later. Dazed and confused, I roll out of bed, mute it for 20 minutes. Katie wakes up, complains about not sleeping. I put my slickest lines in, convince her that we should go to sleep for 2 more hours. Fourty minutes later, I get smacked on the ass and told to go out there and make her some money. Darnit.

Feelin’ Orange

At about nine or so, I make it to work. I look at my list of tasks, and people just start piling on.

Two requests to confirm employment, one for a car lease, other for an apartment. Paperwork city, all sent on a Fax from 1980’s, you know, one dot per inch. Try to make out if they are asking for a zip code or a year since employed, either way, if I fuck up someone becomes homeless or has to walk to work. Focus Vlad.

Send that livestock

Spent an hour on the phone with UPS. I filled out 3,000 forms to send servers to UK and Australia. While their computers were down. And when the UPS guy came, he didn’t have International Claim paperwork seethrough evenlope. Fun.

If an RBL dies two years ago, and you still use it, what happens?

Mail stops. ORDB died 2 years ago!!! And people are STILL using it. Phone floods.

It’s about 7PM and I can’t wait to faint.

The best part of my day!

When I get tired, I get inappropriate. Far more so than usual. This guy made my day. Let me explain. Guy calls in (ORDB problem) and starts to introduce himself, where he is calling from, etc. The name sounds familiar.

Vlad: Netsys? Oh, so you work with Raymond?

Guy: Yes, he is right behind me.

Vlad: Wow. I hope you’re getting paid extra for that!!!!

It took the dude about two minutes to compose himself and get back to why he was calling. 🙂 I also floored my buddy Rich who called in the middle of me trying to hack some IKEA furniture… Long story short: “Hold on Rich, I can’t talk to you with my shirt on.“

Just another day in the office….  How would you like to be me for a day? 🙁

Aw damn

The day ends by watching the space shuttle depart ISS with the naked eye. Amazing.

Then, while watching American Idol… and I said it would be vulgar, so I am going to let you bail now:

Vlad: Wow, Michael Jackson would flip over in his grave over this one.

Katie: And right onto the little kid?

Vlad: Whoaaaaa

Who would marry me? 🙂 Well, there you go. 10:30 PM, bedtime. Life in a day of Vlad.

Mail bouncing due to ORDB failures?

Posted: 3:10 pm
March 25, 2008
Exchange, ExchangeDefender
6 Comments

Check your mail server configuration and make sure you aren’t trying to query the ORDB (Open Relay Database RBL) that went offline two years ago.

I’m sitting here in the OWN Atomic Tangerine room filling out some livestock export forms for Australia and UK and the usually light phone has been lit up with customers complaining about ORDB connections. These disappeared two years ago, if you’re seeing the rejections with that label you need to get back on the ball 🙂

If everything is broken and you ignore the software that fixes it so you can continue to whine, does that just make you a little bitch?

Posted: 8:24 am
March 24, 2008
Microsoft
3 Comments

Dear friends, it has started.

The wave of press coverage and blogging pundits trying to dismiss Vista SP1:

You can’t trust Vista SP1.

You have no idea what SP1 is going to do.

We’re going to ignore it until SP2.

So far very little has been said about SP1.

I am not going to link to the unsubstantiated trash above just to drive traffic to them, but it is becoming apparent that Vista’s shortcomings have been a goldmine for the journalist hacks and Adsense whores trying to milk every ounce of pain, suffering, blood and tears that the Vista eXPerience has been.

Now that Microsoft has addressed the outstanding issues, now that the performance has been boosted up to 50%, that 64bit support has been firmed up, that application compatibility has been improved, that reliability, performance, power consumption, security, desktop and management and a ton of other things have been enhanced and fixed, what is left for the pessimists to cling on?

Nothing bad has been said yet. So, if there is no negative coverage of SP1, what in the world will drive traffic to my site? Uh oh. Ok, how about a cover story about how the public confidence in Microsoft has been eroded and we ought to just ignore the SP1 changes and hopefully ride the wave of any tiny complaints all the way to the speculation over Windows 7? Back to the fear machine.

Seriously folks, if you want to complain about Vista at least substantiate it with something other than sap stories of how you can’t trust Microsoft that has fixed all the stuff you’re complaining about.

In the meantime Steve……….. Can you hire a marketing agency?

Indifferent Outrage

Posted: 11:34 pm
March 23, 2008
Microsoft
Comments Off on Indifferent Outrage

Got a moment to catch up on my thousand unread blog posts and apparently the big deal this Easter weekend is the Apple Safari invasion of the Pristine Microsoft platform. As consumers, we just don’t know how to unclick the box that tries to offer us software we don’t want to use. That’s what brought on the entire spyware nightmares, isn’t it? Yet, we haven’t learned a thing in the past decade.

How dare a monopolistic company in control of online MP3 stores, MP3 players, computer platform use it’s muscle to force the users to install the software they don’t need, how dare they bundle it!?!? How dare they force me to install iTunes just to play Quicktime movies? How… dare… they treat us poor Microsoft users like this!?

Ok, I have to stop before the flood of insincerity drowns me.

This is not a matter of who started it first. That is called a precedent, a principle that is used to judge cases based on how they were ruled on in the past given similar circumstances.

When Microsoft pulled all of the above, and far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far worse they got away with the slap on the wrist. US DOJ had a chance to split Microsoft like a 80 pound tremor patient working a chainsaw. But they did not.

Microsofties, at least the ones I work with, do not quite see it that way. They feel that their prosecution was uncalled for, that it did not do anything for the consumer. What it did do was create the concept of Untrustworthy Computing, with millions of paranoid computer users that won’t even do so much as click on a button to install Windows updates. The same users that clicked on every popup and virus offered up are now so paralyzed with prompt fear that they don’t even keep their computers patched, resist new versions, ignore prompts and generally do not even read the screen anymore. It is primary Microsoft’s fault, the champion of “You don’t own the OS, you just lease the right to use it and you better like it how we tell you to use it or it’s going to cost you.” – why should Apple, or any other software publisher, behave any better if there is no penalty for disrespecting your customers?

Welcome to Untrustworthy Computing, which software update do you want to dodge today?

Microsoft’s official reply will be posted here in a few hours. Enjoy the fireworks kids!

What would Vlad say?

Posted: 6:23 pm
March 23, 2008
Vladville
9 Comments

So you come here every now and then and read (or listen, or watch) what I have to say. But here is your opportunity to ask whatever you’d like: Karl has invited me to his SMB Books conference call and you get a chance to set the conversation. The conference call is this Wednesday:

Wednesday, March 26th
9:00 AM Pacific Time Zone
– Dial (319) 279-1000 (U.S. phone number)
– Your participant passcode is 1024518.
– This call is limited to the first 300 attendees.

There will be a relatively big announcement on this call, but the other 30-40 minutes are all yours. If you got to have lunch with me, what would you like me to talk about? Best answer gets an iPod (comments only) and I’ll give another iPod away during the call… get creative.

Oh, and happy Easter folks, like only Vladville could celebrate it:

unknown

SBSC Crashes, Burns and brings out the yellow flag

Posted: 8:10 pm
March 22, 2008
Microsoft
1 Comment

And you get to see it this Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

Camry Microsoft Full Rear_2

Ok, now this is dope! Microsoft Small Business (ie, Eric Ligman) is sponsoring Nascar car #49 and giving SBSC’s an opportunity to put their logo right into the middle of the bump zone.  

How much SPAM is OK?

Posted: 12:52 am
March 22, 2008
IT Culture, SMB
Comments Off on How much SPAM is OK?

This blog is brought to you by Bud Light.

I don’t care what you sell, the last person on the Internet you want to mess with is the guy that runs one of the largest message hygiene networks around. I receive well over a thousand legitimate business messages a day, excluding monitoring, reports, newsletters, mailing lists or commercial junk. I have the non-business mailings down to a science, before I ever read anything I look if it came as a SPAM newsletter or an actual communication. I build an adequate rule. Between all our vendors, suppliers, partners and associates I receive well over a thousand junk messages a day that are automatically filtered into a Newsletters public folder.

Simply put, you have to write a heck of a memorable message for me to remember you.

God help you if you SPAM me, and I remember your company name the second time your SPAM comes in. You are never (ever, ever, ever) getting my business again.

I buy a lot of stuff online. What can I say, I’m a busy guy and I live in a tourist city so the smell of Coppertone and burned british folks who haven’t yet discovered deodorant makes going to the mall a very unpleasant experience. I recently purchased two items online, from two different vendors. Here are their messages:

Vendor A: Blah

Monday: Vladimir: Your Exclusive BLAH 10% Member Discount
Tuesay: Another Chance for Sweet Savings – 20% off any purchase
Friday: Preseason Sandal Sale – 20% off!
Friday: Spring Fashion Sale – $15 off all Fashion Shoes $50
Friday: Your recent BLAH order

I have intentionally left out the single legitimate communication on this list: my tracking number for the purchase I made on Monday, which according to UPS still has not shipped. What does this tell me about Vendor A? Well, first that they are incompetent and that they can’t fill the order in 4+ business days. Second, that they likely have financial problems if they stoop to such a pushy marketing campaign to get sales.

Vendor B: Finish Line

This order was mine, pair of Adidas shoes. Same industry as the above. Bought on Tuesday morning: Order was filled by noon and an invoice was sent to me immediately with another $15 off $75 purchase in the same email. Smart. I am going to nuke an advertisement right away, but I am not nuking the invoice – and chances are I will see it again and more likely to come back. End of day, UPS tracking number with the package already picked up from the shippers facility. Since then, no SPAM.

The frequency of your communication is equivalent to the extent of your desperation

I have a very simple rule, direct non-business mail should come in with at least a seven day interval, unless it is an urgent notification that the previous communication was incorrect (change of venue, change of time, change of offer, corrections, etc)

Anything not directly related to a business transaction is SPAM. I do not need an invitation Monday, a reminder on Tuesday, a peer review promo on Wednesday, an incentive email on Thursday night and a last minute fire sale email on Monday morning alerting me that the earth may fall off its axis if I don’t attend.

It’s in poor taste, poor form, and it cheapens anything valuable you may have to say otherwise. It clearly communicates that last ditch of desperation, where one more email may lead to one more sale.

Today’s consumer is more like a hot girl at the club trying to avoid the perverts hitting on her. Yes, she will fake interest in the conversation. Maybe she will even smile politely. She may even give you a fake phone number. This is far too connected to the online behavior. We use aliases to get the information that requests our identity. We give out voicemail only numbers to sales people because we do not want to be interrupted. We sometimes even have polite conversations with sales people just to convey the fact that we are not interested and we hope to find those magic words that make them delete our profiles from their CRM with utter disgust.

Let go of your preconceived notions of what outbound marketing should look like and come to terms that conformity to signup/checkout forms does not extend to limitless permission to SPAM, SPAM, SPAM. Let go of the bad advice you got from some marketing reject who hasn’t had a real marketing job since the 80’s, it’s no longer about the volume of the people you reach (or the repetitiveness at which you reach the same person) it is about quality of your communications and the fit with my expectations.

Frankly, even the illegitimate pharmaceutical spammers seem have more candor and tact when compared to the so called marketing professionals. Marketing needs to be valuable to be considered, otherwise its just an unwelcome interruption. Deal with it.

How desperate are you for attention?

Posted: 10:42 am
March 21, 2008
Web 2.0
2 Comments

I am not exactly “beloved” for my opinion of my IT brotherin, the antisocial and borderline sociopath behavior that comes as a result of spending fourty hours a week staring at the monitor and conducting more than half of the “conversations” over the wire instead of face to face or even voice. I don’t mean to sound like I am judging here, I am very much in this crowd as I have previously texted and even IMed people that were just a few feet away from me. This type of communication, and lack of need for a social experience, explains why most communication written by IT staffers sounds like the fire & brimstone from some relatively mellow individuals. It explains why people tend to hang out by themselves at IT conferences, why they never grow significantly when they go into a consulting (people service) business, why IT culture in general tends to be skeptical and introverted.

It also explains why services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Friendfeed, and thousand other services happen to be so successful: Introductions are easy, you can enter a conversation at any point and end it whenever you get distracted by the next thing.

Now Sarah started this whole fire, but Larry Dignan flared it up by trying to figure out the value in the conversation. That is very, very, easy to figure out: there is no value to the extended conversations happening outside of the source (blog post, conference). Here is the basis of my argument: translate the conversation into an actual human interaction – people talk all the time. Can you be in every person-to-person exchange, at all times, in all the subjects that interest you? No. Sure, the Web 2.0 makes it easy, but the expense of being involved in all the conversations is usually far higher than the benefit, which can be reduced to simply the personal satisfaction of having a discussion. There is a value in having something thoughtful to say (blogging, to external audience) and direct exchange of ideas by people who are interested in what you have to say (comments, from the external audience to you). You’re providing something valuable, and in return you are getting something valuable back, that you may not have considered.

That is the value of conversations: the exchange of ideas.

As for trying to interact with angry villagers with pitchforks out in the streets (Twitter), or time investment equivalent of NSA’s wiretap program (FriendFeed)… if thats the extent you need to go to in order to get attention its probably a good indication that your life/work are not fulfilling enough so it might be a better idea to invest in those, instead of the poor online substitutes for them.

How many times should you activate a legitimate copy of Vista?

Posted: 1:50 pm
March 20, 2008
Microsoft
1 Comment

Ok, it’s a trick question. Take a look at the following exchange.

You should activate an operating system once. Due to the OEM scandals and widespread piracy, Microsoft came up with WGA which has done little to prevent piracy, but a lot to annoy legitimate users. You can see Susan’s discussion above and you should be aware of it too:

When you install Vista SP1 and it patches certain drivers (change in hardware) it will require a new activation.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947519/en-us

Which is OK, fair enough, making sure the OS hasn’t hopped from box to box. Click on the link, activate over the Internet, back to business. Unless you use MAK or OEM – in that case you get a warning that your copy of Vista is not legitimate and you’re given a three day Window during which you must convince an IVR and some sweatshop blue badge that you indeed are a legitimate customer. So if you manage Vista deployments, get ready to annunciate installation GUIDs over the phone for all your Vista deployments.

This may be the first time in recorded history that a pirated copy of an operating system is actually less of a hassle than the legitimate version.

TwitterFox: Finally, a good Twitter client

Posted: 9:14 am
March 20, 2008
Web 2.0
2 Comments

Ok, so I said that the day I meet a decent twitter client I will actually blog about it. This day has come. For the past week or so, I have been using TwitterFox extension for Firefox and I must admit I like it quite a bit. I use FireFox as my main browsing and development platform (Greasemonkey, nuff said) and now I can use it to keep up with twitter.com friends as well. 

Twitter: The Worlds Biggest Waste

twitterfox There is absolutely no way to rationalize twitter. It is a spectacular waste of time, it is unreliable, it is annoying and impressively useless. But I have started to use it more as I’ve gotten progressively more busy and trying to fit 20 hours of work into 6 comes with certain sacrifices – no IM on the work PC, no b/s newsgroups, no forums, basically getting work done means having to give up all the social stuff that makes working in IT so much fun. I know, woe is me, but soon enough you’ll all get your monkey and we’ll hire enough staff to deal with the rest and allow me to spend more time on freeones. Umm, freeones.

[ continuing roughly 20 minutes later ] Oh, right, twitter.com. Ok, so here is what I like about it. It is like a permanently-offline instant messenger client. My Mac at work is used primarily for social business, and I hit it up once a day, between 1-2 PM, and clear through all the mail, instant messages, etc. It is what I use to let people know I am indeed alive. Now, Audium generally has anywhere from 50-80 tabs of IMs that got collected overnight, and three out of four people are not online. This is where twitter serves a purpose. I can see what everyone is up to without looking at their status on MSN messenger. People tend to be just as open on twitter.com as they are on IM, except there is no expectation of instant response (or a response at all) so its a very good way to see what everyone is up to. It also has a lot of content that you would otherwise not see anywhere else, since all the cool kids are using it. For example, keeping up with WordPress development, Seth Godin’s thoughts… clear, concise. I can continue redneck jokes with Tim Barrett for hanging out at Fox & Hound (Tim runs the Vladville PR department). And then there is Robert Scoble and 18,000 worthless updates a day on the flavor of his farts.

So you take the good with the bad, and TwitterFox lets me stay tuned without the hassle. (I dumped the Vista sidebar widget because it crashed and fell apart so often).

If you’d like to follow me, I’m http://www.twitter.com/vladmazek but I also syndicate the updates on www.vladville.com (look at the right hand side, under Newsletter)