David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Lifehacker suggests writing e-mail backwards. That’s not exactly what I do, but the effect is about the same.
Most people get way too much e-mail, and working in shops where that wasn’t true got me in some bad habits. In my current job, I quickly learned that I needed to put what I’m asking for right up front. Read more
I’ve been after this guy to patch his server for a few weeks. He keeps getting sidetracked, which is understandable, but there are ways to deal with that.
Last week, we started getting close to getting it done. On Friday, the plan was together and it was almost ready to go. All we needed was to get final approval on the plan, get a change control in place, and then the work would be scheduled and we’d have a commitment and a set date where the work would be done. And that would end the sidetracks.
Then, on Monday, someone asked me if he was out of the office. He hadn’t said anything about going on vacation, but, indeed, he had an out-of-office autoreply set. Among other things, it said that super heroes need vacations too, and if the Legions of Doom are attacking, to contact this other guy. Read more
Since questions occasionally come up, and I remember well what it was like owning a Commodore in the 1980s in the United States, I’ll share my recollections of it.
It was very different from computing today. It was still interesting, but it was different. Technology moved fast in the 1980s, so if you blinked, you missed stuff.
Growing up in Missouri, a lot of my Christmas gifts when I was young came from a catalog showroom called Dolgin’s. One of my earliest memories is going to Dolgin’s with my mom and aunt, who showed me some Tonka trucks and asked me which ones I liked best.
I know a lot of people remember going through Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, but I remember Dolgin’s catalogs the best. Read more
The Digital Public Library of America celebrated its first birthday this year. Their archive boasts more than 7 million public domain works.
In this era of over-extended copyrights, it’s good to see a massive collection that demonstrates the value of an active public domain.
If there’s one thing I’ve heard this week, it’s that people can’t imagine what it’s like being a Royals fan through their 29-year drought without playing in a postseason. I can tell you what it’s like. We’ve had some highlights, but mostly we’ve put up with endless parades of really bad players and really bad managers.
Those of you who enjoy looking at gruesome things, keep reading. These are the players we’ve spent 2.9 decades trying to forget. But keep this in mind: My hair started going prematurely gray in 1986, the same year Dick Howser died and the Royals started fading.
I find little, if anything, to disagree with in this tough-love post from Mr. Money Mustache from February: Why the middle-class keeps giving itself the shaft.
I find several takeaways from it. Read more
I had a discussion at work the other day after some WordPress plugin vulnerabilities came up. “Why not use Dreamweaver?” my coworker asked.
For a site that changes a lot like a blog, you need a content management system with a database backend. Otherwise the site gets unmanageable in a matter of months, if you’re updating it with any regularity. Read more
After talking about LEDs last week, a friend asked what my favorite LED bulbs today are. I’m not sure I would say I dislike any of the bulbs that are widely available today, but I do have two favorites.
In the heat of the moment, I searched my blog this weekend for quotes that could potentially be taken out of context and found something rather prophetic that I wrote in the heat of the moment 11 1/2 years ago:
Keeping up on Microsoft security patches is becoming a full-time job. I don’t know if we can afford a full-time employee who does nothing but read Microsoft security bulletins and regression-test patches to make sure they can be safely deployed. I also don’t know who would want that job.
Who ended up with that job? Me, about a year after I left that gig. It actually turned out I was pretty good at it, once I landed in a shop that realized it needed someone to do that job, and utilized that position as part of an overall IT governance model.