The Triangle of Power

One of my former managers (who was also a good mentor) taught me a little about resource management.  I eventually phrased what he taught me as the Triangle of Power.  A triangle has no weak point or side.  The same theory applies for having a set of 3 resources that know how to do a specific task.  In my realm of Configuration Management and Infrastructure that would apply to having 3 DBA's, 3 Configuration Engineers and 3 System Engineers/IT Administrators.  Titles don't have to always match the skill or task.

Why?  Well for starters if you have valuable IT employees then they will be courted by numerous headhunters and recruiters.  Turnover whether from recruitment or from those looking to leave a company are generally higher in IT than other fields.  If one person leaves the company then at least you have 2 other resources to pick up the load.  If you only had 2 and 1 left you are more likely to burn out the last man standing.

This could also be seen as having a business continuity plan for your resources.  As people leave the company or even go on vacation the company doesn't stop.  As a good leader part of your job is to ensure that the services you provide don't take a hit.  There was a gentleman who left a company I have worked for.  He specialized in a technology and was the only one trained to do the job  He had a back log of work with no end in site.  When he left the work stopped and there were a 'few' unhappy customers.  Management scrambled to fill the void that should not have been there in the first place.

I understand that sometimes smaller companies have budget constraints.  When that is a case you should look at hiring IT generalists that can do a little of everything.  They won't be as good as a specialist or get things done as fast but tasks will at least get done.  Better to always be moving forward than to be stopped dead in your (companies) tracks.

Which Tax Software

Being a former employee of Intuit I would always buy Turbo Tax each year.  My information would easily transfer from one year to the next and I never had any problems with the software.  This year I have been tracking the price of it and various sales and the price stayed relatively high.  I realize I can deduct the software but I don't like paying for something when I can achieve the same results for less.  All I want is software with free Federal e-file and the State (to mail in).  Plus I have investments so that usually lands in the  deluxe additions.  Shopped around and ended up going with H&R Block on Amazon.  It was almost half the cost.  For that I figured I would give it a shot.  I will post some updates on how it compares after I get my taxes done.

Redirecting your domain while using HTTPS

Problem

We have a client that wants to use their own domain for one of our products.  I was asked if this was possible given our setup of our site.  I have in our F5 LTM setup to do a permanent redirect (301) to HTTPS from HTTP.  For whatever reason the whole site is encrypted even though you haven't logged in yet to it.  This will probably put load on my LTM but that is for another day.  Most domain offering sites have 3 types you can pick from.  They also asked if they could just do a CNAME.

1. Permanent redirect - 301
2. Temporary redirect - 302
3. Masked forwarding

Permanent redirect - 301

I started off by refreshing what the difference is between #1 and #2.  Found a good article on www.stepforth.com.  A permanent redirect works but that is not what the client wants.  They want to drive traffic and business to their domain.

CName

First I created a new zone, customer.com and set a CNAME for www.customer.com to point to myapp.com.  Going to https://www.customer.com did not work.  Got the usually security message in Chrome since the domain name, www.customer.com, doesn't match the certificate, *.myapp.com, I have in the LTM where I am offloading SSL.

Temporary redirect - 302

Same as a permanent with the domain changing over to my companies.  Not what the client wanted either.

Masked Forwarding

Now reading up on this it looks about as promising as you can get.  I talked to a UI developer friend of mine and basically this is just an iFrame with no border.  You won't be able to book mark the page and the back and forward browser buttons won't work.  You have to right click in the iFrame and do Back/Forward that way.  So this is the option we ended up recommending to our client.

Teamwork or not?

When we asked for help with a project only one leader helped us.  Is it fair for the rest to be upset to the point of yelling when things didn't go as expected?  The old saying we hear at weddings probably applies to this scenario.  Speak now or for ever hold your peace!

Microsoft Visio 2010 keeps crashing

I was trying to create a drawing on my new work laptop today and Visio 2010 kept crashing.  A quick search led me to instructions on how to disable the dreaded Send to Bluetooth Add-In.  That worked!  Below are some screenshots I took.

Setting up a build machine

We are setting up a build machine to do CI (Continuous Integration) builds using BuildMaster.  Some of our code is 4.0 .NET and we kept getting MSBuild errors.  Installed various SDK's, etc. with no luck.  Turns out Microsoft still hasn't fixed this as I saw it many years ago with other frameworks.
The error is:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Common.targets(2836,5): error MSB3086: Task could not find "AL.exe" using the SdkToolsPath "" or the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0A\WinSDK-NetFx40Tools-x86". Make sure the SdkToolsPath is set and the tool exists in the correct processor specific location under the SdkToolsPath and that the Microsoft Windows SDK is installed
A coworker of mine did some digging and found a cleaner way to get this setup instead of hacking the registry by hand.

Changing sdk version

1. Go to "Microsoft Windows SDK v7.1" from the Start menu
2. Select "Windows SDK 7.1 Command Prompt" and enter
3. > cd Setup
4. > WindowsSdkVer -version:v7.1

Career Tips from a friend

I love coffee!

Career guidance from a friend and mentor:

1. Always keep your resume up to date.
2. Treat everyday at work like your first and possibly last day (he didn't keep any personal items at work).  I do as my family keeps me going.
3. Even if you aren't really looking try to do a couple of interviews a year.  So that when you are looking for a job you aren't as nervous and have lots of practice.
4. You leave companies not jobs.
5. Do your best everyday even if those around you aren't.

I know there are a few more lurking in my memory.  If they come up I will do tips #2.  Additional tips always welcome.

When a server dies

There are many companies out there with old servers still chugging along.  If left long enough and with enough turnover of IT staff they sometime are forgotten.  Some things to keep in mind when one day your server decides to stop working.

• When your hosting provider is bought by another company make sure you contact the new regional representative and go over the NEW service agreement with them
• Make sure it clearly states who manages what and who is responsible for addressing hardware failures
• Refresh your hardware every 3 years or when the model is older then 3 generations back.  That is called budgeting
• Don't have single points of failure like 1 server
• Consider virtualizing servers
• Have a plan for when a server goes down.  Random calls to the entire team in the middle of the night usually doesn't go over very well
• Last but not least thank the guys who are up all night getting it fixed

Not sure why a pumpkin is in the picture  I found

Motivation

Step up to the plate, if not move aside because I want to play.  - Rasky

Prioritizing Life

I can't recall where I picked this up but I have tried to live by it for a few years now.  I believe it has helped me be a better person and yes even a more productive person.  I will explain more later.  Here it is:

1. God
2. Spouse
3. Family
4. Work
5. Friends

So the more I choose to do things for #1 the better my relationship with #2.  Mostly because love, honor, respect, caring, etc all lead to a better marriage.  Now if my wife is happy that means I am happy.  When we are both happy then spending time with your family becomes more enjoyable.  Once all that is in place it makes dealing with the stress of work easier to deal with.  I also find when I am not worrying about what is going on in my home life as much I get more work done (focus).  When your life is good then you have more energy  to share with your friends.

I am not saying any of this is easy or that I follow it everyday.  Everyone has bad days and sometimes I fail on #1-5.  But I just go to sleep at night and start the next day trying my best.