Kevin Stone’s Weblog

I had two recent experiences with Motorola products that brought me back a little faith in the company… I got an original Motorola Razr shortly after it came out and paid an unreasonable amount of money for it. Not long after that I began to realize it was just a pretty face. It’s served me decently for several years now but after it stopped notifying of text messages and voicemails, the keys stopped lighting, and the battery life went to just a few hours it was time for a replacement.

I wanted to finally consolidate my PDA and phone but you can’t get a PalmOS based PDA from Cingular that has 3G data access. I looked at several phones and ended up with the Motorola RAZR V3xx. While it says RAZR and has a similar form factor it is a whole new phone. It’s been a week so we’ll see. I am enjoying the 3G data with Opera Mini!

Last weekend I accidentally washed and dried my Motorola H700 Bluetooth headset. I expected the worst as I pulled it, still very warm, from the dryer. I flipped it on and the light blinked. Could it really have some life left in it? I got my phone and, sure enough, they connected and I completed a call. In the days since the only thing I’ve noticed is that the volume is slightly lower than it was before the cleaning.

It’s definitely been a different experience between the two products….

I went to my first CapBug meeting last night and had a blast. The turnout was great, the attendees were a phenomenal group of people and the presentation was incredible. Matt Fisher from SPI Dynamics spoke about web application security. I knew pieces of this but some of what is going on amazed me. If you ever get to hear Matt or one of his co-workers from SPI speak listen carefully. Thanks to Jason and Mike for putting this together.

I’ve struggled with the traditional workplace most of my career. I don’t keep normal hours, I do my best work late at night and never feel productive until 10-11am. I also work best when allowed time to ponder a need, situation, or issue. This runs counter to almost every workplace except, it seems, Best Buy of all places. Story in BusinessWeek. Best Buy has been rolling out ROWE(Results Oriented Work Environment) since 2003. No schedules, no mandatory days in the office, no scheduled work from home days. Performance is based on measurable indicators not by how well you get along with your boss and what perceptions there may be about your performance. I remember reading about this a year or two ago just as it took hold. Even the way it started was subversive to the traditional workplace. It bubbled up from the middle. The CEO didn’t know until two years after it started!

In this day and age of multiple tethers(Blackberries, mobile phones, email, IM, computers, laptops, etc) what is the real value of 9 to 5 in some generic office somewhere for the average worker? With a laptop and a VPN connection I can perform my job functions from anywhere. I am a network administrator and it comes with the territory but I’ve still been forced into the production line mentality. If I can’t be seen doing the work I must not be productive. Why does the person in accounting need to be in the office when all that is needed to do the job is a computer and a phone? Or the executive, the HR people, or anyone?

It isn’t about productivity, it’s about control or at least the illusion of control. It’s about the way it’s always been done. No change means no risk and no harm. That’s the line anyway. It’s dogma. In reality the status quo has kept most workers of the Information Age from taking advantage of new ways and being really productive.

Organizations today can be virtual. The employees can be anywhere. In some companies many employees have never met face to face. I know of two companies that follow this model with great success, one is a small consulting firm in the Mid-Atlantic area and the other is more widely known - MySQL AB. Others have virtualized some job functions such as call centers whose “operators standing by” may be at home watching Oprah or Sportscenter. With the forward thinking that has been allowed to flourish at Best Buy they too will start down this path.

Where do I apply?

Laughing Colors, my favorite band, is back! Not full time but they are playing together again. After 9 months apart they played like they never stopped. The sound was awesome, the guys(Dave, Dan, Corey and Will) were great, and the show rocked. The only way to tell that they hadn’t been playing were the short discussions in between song sets to decide what to play next and the guys shaking the cramps out of their hands. They played the Rams Head Live in Baltimore with The Mayan Factor and The Cheaters. The guys from Mayan Factor were a surprise. Great sound and low key performers. The Cheaters I thought were hit or miss. Some good songs but overdone and the singer tried too hard to be Jim Morrison.

The Rams Head Live is a great venue, my only complaint was the sound was overamped. I’ve been to many concerts but this one really left my ears ringing. It was my first concert there but definitely not the last.

All we can hope for is a few shows a year and maybe another album. I’m crossing my fingers for both!

Technorati Profile

In the 08/28/2006 edition of ComputerWorld John D. Halamka shows that sometimes a simple solution is all you need. Too often we look for the wow factor and overlook the real need. In his article he talks about implementing a solution to provide guest access to the wireless network at the Harvard Medical School.

I recently left a similar school at a similar institution and, surprise, was in a similar situation. In our case, however management never took that step back and reviewed what the real need was. Instead we went for the “glamour” solutions and one tool to solve all our needs. As a result the solution is still a work in progress. The proposed solution was very similar to the one used at Harvard and with two of the three major pieces in already in place could have been implemented in, hang on, 2 days. Instead more than a year has passed.

To paraphrase a comment from Mr. Halamka - sometimes it just has to be good enough. In seeking the perfect solution you can end up getting in the way of getting it done at all. Make it good enough then see what needs to be improved.

Thanks to Mike at Erdelynet.com I’ve finally been able to upgrade WP to 2.04. He was able to find the one post that had the answer. With the failed upgrades my database version was higher than expected. Once I dropped that number by 1k everything happened as it was supposed to.

I tried to upgrade to Wordpress 2.04 and it failed. Less miserably than my attempt at 2.0 but it didn’t fully work. The last time I installed all the files and ran upgrade.php and nothing happened. Fortunately restoring is just a matter of copying the old file back.

This time the update “worked”. When I logged in I was presented with the nice shiny 2.0x admin dashboard. No other page was accessible, they would all report an insufficient permissions error. After various attempts at research and changing permissions I simply deleted the files, copied the previous version back in and have an old but working Wordpress weblog again.

I’m quite disappointed in my numerous failed attempts. At first I thought it was me and after viewing the Wordpress support site I see that it is a larger issue. I like WP but can’t stay at this version forever and can’t get an upgrade to work. There are two other options - delete everything and reinstall the import the old posts or move to another software and import the old posts. I’m wondering which is less painful?

After a long search and some bad experiences we’ve bought a new car. Last night we picked up our new 2006 Honda Element LX 2WD.

The process started about 6 weeks ago with the realization that we needed another car with a back seat to put Lilli’s car seat in. The search started with small inexpensive commuter cars like the Toyota Corrolla and the Honda Civic. Being the end of the model year I didn’t expect a great selection but should get a good deal. The baseline Honda was out immediately as it does not have A/C or a radio. To get those you need to move up a level. The Corrolla with the same options cost about the same but had to be special ordered. That raised the cost a bit and extended the delivery time.

Then we looked at minivans. This led to my worst experience in car buying. I knew it was going to be bad when the salesperson said they put door molding, mudflaps and wheel locks on “to protect your investment” on all their cars. Several hours was then spent trying to get them to match an advertised price and getting a run in with “the closer”. This guy was the prototypical car salesman. He was the 3rd person to “help” us get the deal we wanted. Pink button down with several buttons open, gold chain and bracelet, and slicked back hair. I’m surprised he fit through the door his ego was so inflated. When he had finished his speech and told me that he didn’t know where we stood since he didn’t like to come in with info that could bias he we decided to leave and never look back.

After a week of discussion we decided that the Honda Element was the vehicle that most fit our need. I got online found the model I wanted, we chose a color and decided to get it. I went to the website of every dealer in the area until I found one that had the exect vehicle. This was a challenge as some dealers don’t list actual inventory but list one of every available trim level/color combination. Finally I found one and it was nearby. I stopped over a lunch, it was on the lot and what we wanted. I emailed the dealer got a price quote and told them we would be there that night. We stopped in, took a test drive, and started the paperwork. 2.5 hours later we were done. Total time spent buying this car 4 hours. Less time than it took to NOT get the price we wanted at the other dealer.

There were several differences in customer service that made all the difference. The dealer we left was a classic bait and switch shop. Plus, they wanted to push dealer addons by putting them on the whether the customer wanted them or not. Then the very obvious bias against women was a turnoff. The salesforce there all greeted me first and started all negotiating with me even when I pushed the conversation to my wife. The dealer we bought from, while still being salespeople, were genuine, listened to both my wife and I, treated us equally, and only offered - not pushed addons.

If you live in the Baltimore area and are looking for a Honda visit Norris Honda.

These folks have been through everyone’s nightmare and it’s still going on… After reading the story it is almost criminal and I hope the courts will go after these idiots.

Via Talking Out Loud