Sc@-tt3r-ed Thoughts

For the past few weeks, I have been pondering the usefulness of the existence of meetings. I’m talking about meetings where you go into a room, and sit for an hour and talk about random stuff, or have an agenda, then end up talking about random stuff anyway, and partially what’s on the agenda.

With every meeting that I’ve been attending, and the hours I feel like I’ve been wasting sitting in meetings that mostly have nothing to do with me, I couldn’t help but ask the question: Isn’t there a better alternative to inviting everyone to a meeting that may not even concern them?

Being very connected online, I can’t help but easily think of Forums, Wikis, Blogs, Sharepoint, Google Wave, etc… to name a few.

So what is stopping us from moving to a solution that is much more efficient, productive, and potentially more fun? I think for the most part, it relies on 2 factors:

1- The person who is considered the leader within a department, the one who calls the meetings, and create their agendas.

2- The willingness (or unwillingness) of the participants to get involved in online forums.

I am not by any means suggesting that meetings shouldn’t exist. I think that direct human interaction is quite crucial, and there are situations where it is more beneficial to meet face to face to discuss a topic than to do it via technology means. For instance:

- Having a brainstorming session about a very specific topic could be beneficial with a whiteboard and participants to whom it may be relevant.

- Meeting in person to discuss a particularly heated topic online, which would be more productive at this point to discuss in person.

- In the absence of adoption of IM or corporate chat rooms as an acceptable method of communication, a meeting would be beneficial to have a quick decision about a particular issue or topic. Though, in my opinion, this point can be easily resolved with the chat room option.

So, why am I suggesting less meetings and more online collaboration? well, there are a few reasons:

1- A meeting is very likely to exclude quite a few attendees in its topics. Though, it’s understandable that sometimes, only a couple of items within the meeting could be relevant to a particular attendee. In an online collaboration system, people can feel free to skip on items that do not concern them, and concentrate on the items of interest. This will save the individuals potentially wasted time, and allow them to have more focused contribution on topics of interest to them.

2- An online collaboration system would allow potentials attendees to read, participate and contribute within their own timeline. (within reason of course, to maintain business continuity). This means, no more wasting time trying to find common times for meetings, scheduling, and bumping other priorities around to accommodate a “more important” meeting.

3- An online collaboration tool would allow the meetings to be, well, self-recorded, this will eliminate the job of the person whose sole purpose in the meeting is to “keep meeting minutes”, which, in most meeting, that person isn’t even there, and therefore, a lot of the data simply evaporates right after the meeting.

4- Unless notes are being taken (see point #3), a meeting is not and will not be searchable. Re-visiting action items, plans, or brainstorming ideas, will be hard, or relying solely on the participant capacity to recall what was discussed.

I’m sure there are tons of other reasons to prefer online collaboration over actual meetings, as I’m also sure that there will be tons of people who will disagree with me on this whole topic.

Whatever the case may be, I’m interested in hearing what you have to say about this. Am I going overboard with boycotting our currently useless meeting habits?

Do you ever get emails from people who have a long confidentiality notice that looks something like this:

“CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This communication and any documents, files, or previous e-mail messages attached to it, constitute an electronic communication within the scope of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, 18 USCA 2510. This communication may contain non-public, confidential, or legally privileged information intended for the sole use of the designated recipient(s). The unlawful interception, use, or disclosure of such information is strictly prohibited under 18 USCA 2511 and any applicable laws.”

Does anyone else believe this is just a waste of space in the bottom of emails? I mean really. Some of those messages say something to the effect of: If you receive this message in error, immediately discard it, or we will sue you”. Right…  what else am I going to do with it? and if I had bad intentions in the first place, is a small disclaimer on the bottom of the message going to make me shake in my boots and change my mind? I don’t think so …

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I know I know, this is not a techy blog, but I had to share this!!

I walked into Subway today to grab some lunch, so I ordered a combo of a 1’ Spicy Italian sandwich. As I was at the register, and after she rang me, I remember that I had a discount card for subway.

You probably can’t see what this says, ( you can blame the crappy iPhone camera ), but it says Buy One 6” Sub & a Med Drink and Get One 6” Sub FREE.

Well, here’s what I bought:

As I gave the lady the card to apply the discount, she fumbled, and goes, oh, you can’t use this. you need to purchase them separately, so I said, well, how about you just bill them separately, and apply the discount? She says, (literally), “but sir, you need to purchase a 6 inch and a drink to get the discount, maybe next time”.

I don’t know about you, but this picture, sure does look like there are 2 6” subs, a drink, and a bag of chips. I even exceeded the requirement for getting the discount. Alas for me, I decided to run into a lazy ass employee who doesn’t want to help a customer.

Give me the discount sister, it’s not like it’s coming out of your pocket!!!

Anyway, I decided that I’m not in the mood to start an argument, and paid the $7 for the combo, but at least I got a kick out of it by bashing lazy people, worth my potentially saved $3

I felt compelled to create this post on my blog due a recent experience I had with Mimosa Systems: An email-archiving solution that I had the misfortune of getting involved with for my school district.

Before I continue with this account, let me qualify myself, as to not risk the possibility of losing your attention, under the pretext of being “just another disgruntled customer”.

I am an IT professional for 12 years now, and have been specifically involved in system administration, engineering, architecture and design, for most of that period. I have implemented quite a few robust products and infrastructures: i.e: Exchange 2000, 2003, migration from Active Directory to 2000 to 2003, full implementation of VMWare vSphere  4.0, VMWare View 3.5 and 4.0, multiple SANs, Digital Imaging solutions (Viatron), Desktop Management solutions (LANDesk) to name a few. I have done most of those, either on my own, or with the assistance of an implementation company, or working directly with a manufacturer. All this to say that I have had enough experience to know the difference between a professional service, well designed product, efficient implementation, and the polar opposite of the former.

The reason I felt the need to write this review is because I (my school district) has been robbed close to a $100,000 from  Mimosa Systems, with not so much as an apology, ok, not a sincere one at least.

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In the past few days, I’ve been seeing quite a buzz on the TweeterGetter site. There’s also been a lot of talk about its existence, and whether it is a good idea to subscribe to. I have thought about it for a while, and finally decided not to sign up for it, and here are my reasons: .. continue reading ..

I went to Restaurant Omakase with 9 people for my friend’s birthday. It was a suggestion from my friend initially, and I had some reservations at first due to the $$$$. Before I say anything else about this place, let me get the cost piece out of the way. It’s expensive. For a minimal satisfactory experience, don’t think about spending less than about $70 / person, with wine pairing, about $110 / person. That being said, if you have reservations about the cost, but are really in it for a culinary experience, then I promise you that this will be a well spent $70!

Decor and atmosphere: The decoration was very modern, it gives you a warm feeling when you enter. it’s very simplistic, yet makes a statement. It’s pretty quiet, all candle lit, could be great for a party, or a tête à tête evening with your loved one.

Service: The service was excellent. at the door we were greeted by the Maitre D, and our party was seated at the table. During the meal, there were 2 waitresses for our party, and they were literally waiting on us the whole night. Granted, there was almost only us in the restaurant at the time (We went at around 6:00pm) , but with our party of 10, we literally almost filled 1/3 of the total capacity of the restaurant.

The Menu: the menu was not very long, it’s categories into 5 sections, Salad, Appetizers, and Entrées, desserts and drinks. They also have a full wine list, though we didn’t really look at that. Their specialty is the Chef tasting menu, which consists of a salad, 2 appetizers, 1 entrée and a dessert. I wouldn’t recommend anything but this, even though the other individuals may sound appealing, if nothing else, price-wise. You would need at least 2 of the items to even fill you up. The Chef’s tasting menu is portioned perfectly, and you will leave with a beautiful rich taste in your mouth.

The Food: That was the highlight of this experience. I have to be honest, when I went in to this place, I had no idea what to expect. But when I started, I started seeing the worth of this place. All their food is home grown, they have their own gardens to grow their greens/herbs, etc … They have their chicken for the eggs and other things. the food is delightful. One thing I HAVE to recommend, it’s going to sound silly, but you will know exactly what I mean, is the croutons in the salad. pay special attention to those, and I promise they will be the best croutons you have ever eaten in your life. we had 10 people in our party, and every single one of us commented on these croutons. This must tell you something about it.

Overall, the experience at restaurant Omakase has exceeded all expectations I’ve had. my girlfriend is a professional chef, and after going there, she was really wanting to see if she can get a job there. from a Chef, that is saying a lot. Forget about the price, it’s a priceless experience, and the $70 you’ll spend will be the best one you’ve spent for a fantastic culinary experience.

This post is a bit more of a technical nature…so if you casually read my blog, this may fly over your head

I was at work today, and a very interesting question came up from one of my colleagues… here’s the scenario:

We have a couple of laptop carts in some labs in the schools, and these laptops are to be used by students who have their individual Active Directory logins. These laptops connect primarily with a Wireless connection.

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Texter is a sweet little utility that allows the text expansion.  There are many other products that do the same thing, though the cool thing about Texter is that it’s absolutely free, it has virtually no foot print and works like a charm. ok, almost like a charm. This app has been published by our friends at Lifehacker. you can find some more information about it, and download it from here.

Now to my problem, and to anyone that has seen this, and may have a solution for it, for some reason, every so often, especially when I’m using some Remote Desktop software, i.e: vRD 2009, I get a sweet little error message that looks like this:

Hmm, so perhaps it’s some variable that vRD is setting that is conflicting with the %Bank% variable. I’m not sure. when this error happens, Texter is still alive, though not really functional, I’d have to relaunch it.

So, what’s the solution to that, if any? ideas? thoughts? comments?

I was just about to leave work today, and one of the helpdesk ladies brought over an old iBook for repair. she put it on the table and left, I didn’t pay any attention to it, until I was packing up to leave work, and I glanced at the power supply, only to see the cable wrapped in something I had never seen before. well… I had seen it, just not in this context. It’s either that I’m way behind the times, and most people already know this, or, I’m sharing a new idea with someone who’s always frustrated with their laptop cable being all over the place in your laptop bag.

As I looked closer at the concoction, I noticed that it’s the toilet paper roll cardboard holder. you can tell it’s a lady that created that one, since it has some girly design on it, but your imagination is the limit on what you could print out and stick on the roll, to make it look uber cool!

I’m not sure how sturdy it is, and how long it’ll last before it starts tearing apart, but honestly, who cares, when you print the first design for the first roll, print 5 more copies, and I’m sure you won’t have a problem finding the toilet paper roll thingies

For as long as I remember, I have had some sort of TV at my house. Most of the time, it was cable, but even when I was a college student, and couldn’t afford cable, I still had regular broadcast TV.

For the past 5 or 6 years now, I’ve had Cable, DirecTV, you name it, I had it. In the recent months, I’ve been looking at TV, and wondering why I pay close to $65 / month for programming that I rarely watch. Then I thought back, and realized that I only had TV for a few shows that I watch on a regular basis. Could not justify the cost. So I went on the hunt for my TV shows online to see if it’s possible to make the switch.

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