General

In case you hadn’t noticed, some of my virtualization-related content is now being aggregated by Doug Brown over at DABCC.com. I’m honored that Doug is including my content. So, if you haven’t visited DABCC.com recently, hop over there right now. I’m confident you’ll find it as useful a resource as I do.

RSS is handy, but not everyone likes RSS. Some people prefer to receive updates about this site via e-mail, and to help accommodate that I’ve enabled e-mail subscriptions to the site. To subscribe to receive updates about this weblog via e-mail, just follow these simple instructions:

1. From your web browser, open the feed URL for the site. I’ve hyperlinked it for your convenience.
2. An HTML interpretation of the RSS feed will be displayed. In the upper right hand corner, there will be a box titled “Subscribe Now!” In that box, there’s a hyperlink labeled “Get blog.scottlowe.org delivered by email”. Click that link.
3. The next screen will prompt you to enter your e-mail address and enter a verification code that is displayed on the screen. Provide that information and then click the button labeled “Complete Subscription Request.”
4. Soon thereafter, you’ll receive an e-mail in your Inbox. In that e-mail will be a link—which you should NOT click on, but should instead copy and paste into your browser—to complete and verify the subscription.

That’s it, you’re all set! Please note that the “Reply-To” address on the e-mails you receive from the site is not valid, so don’t be surprised if you reply to a message and get a non-delivery report back. If you need to contact me via e-mail, my information is available here on the site.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and I hope that this new service will be helpful to some of you!

I discovered another ePlus blogger today.  Last week I mentioned that fellow ePlus engineer Aaron Delp has launched his site, The Blade Blog (now called BladeVault.info); today I discovered that Colin McNamara also runs his own blog as well.  Colin is a CCIE whose blog, quite naturally, focuses on networking and Cisco equipment.  Most of his technical stuff is, frankly, over my head; I only know enough to get myself into trouble.

Colin’s RSS feed is here.

UPDATE: I’ve updated Aaron’s URL above to reflect the site’s new location.

As part of transitioning into my new role at ePlus, I’ve been having to change some of the ways that I track my responsibilities and outstanding tasks.  For many, many years I’ve been driven by customer-facing projects, and I centered my organization—document filing strategies, keywords, e-mail folders, tasks, etc.—around these projects.  It was pretty easy to know what needed to be done when you’re implementing a farm of ESX Servers, or installing a new storage area network.

Now, however, my role is not customer-facing, and my responsibilities and deliverables are—at first glance—not quite so clear cut.  In addition, the sphere of individuals with whom I am working has broadened.  So I find that my old way of doing things just isn’t effective any longer.

So I began casting about for a “new way” of doing things, something that might help me be more efficient (doing things right) and effective (doing the right things).  Of course, the whole “Getting Things Done,” or GTD, mantra popped up as I began looking for applications designed to help track tasks and responsibilities.  Not being a GTD expert, I decided to give it a semi-whirl and experiment with some of the applications based upon the GTD principles.  So far, it hasn’t gone so well.

<aside>It will probably be stated by more than a few readers who are GTD experts that giving it a “semi-whirl” is the root of the problems that I go on to describe below.  Many of the instructional articles I’ve read so far indicate that you have to use a trusted system that you can trust to capture all the things you need to do, or else you’ll worry about what you might have missed.  That’s all well and good, but what if you can’t find the trusted system that you need?</aside>

I started with OmniFocus.  Actually, that’s not true; I actually experimented with iGTD a while back and just couldn’t stand the UI quirks.  OmniFocus (hereafter just OF) is a great application, but I was having a really hard time reshaping my mind around how I was supposed to get data into OF.  I liked the Clippings support, especially from Mail (and MailTags), as most of my tasks are generated from an e-mail.  Something still didn’t feel quite right, though, so after a few days I removed the trial copy and decided to try Things.

Things is still in beta, and while I like some of the features about Things there are parts that don’t make any sense.  For example, what’s the point behind the “People” section of Things if it doesn’t do anything?  Why should I add team mates?  Sure, I can create actions that are linked/assigned to a team mate, but for what purpose?  I’m trying to organize myself, not my co-workers!  The interface is a bit odd, too, and lacks contextual menus.  Things also lacks one feature that OF had, which was Quicksilver integration.  Believe it or not, the Quicksilver integration makes it so much easier to get actions into the application without disrupting what you’re currently doing, and isn’t that all part of GTD and contexts?

Anyway, I’m still using Things but haven’t yet decided whether I’ll stick with it or try something new.  What is everyone else out there using?  Are there others in similar roles and what applications, processes, procedures, etc., do you use to help keep track of your various responsibilities, actions, and deliverables?  I’d love to hear everyone’s feedback.

A friend and colleague of mine recently launched a blog of his own, The Blade Blog.  If the useful information that’s been posted there so far is any indication, this will be a definite addition to your RSS subscriptions.  Keep up the good work, Aaron!

UPDATE:  After some great feedback on the launch of his site, Aaron’s moved away from Blogger to a hosted WordPress solution and has gotten a new domain name.  You can now find Aaron at the Blade Vault.  More information and updated URLs available here and here.

The past couple of weeks have been very eventful, but things have finally sorted themselves out and I wanted to share the events with readers here.  A few weeks ago, I was approached by a well-respected individual in the storage industry about joining a major storage vendor.  I guess it’s OK to mention who it was: Network Appliance.

As you probably know, NetApp is a great place to work—voted #6 on the “Best Places to Work” list last year, if I recall correctly.  NetApp has a great environment, great people, an awesome benefits package…it’s a great opportunity all the way around.  I initially accepted the offer, but my current employer—ePlus Technology—then put forth a counter-offer and I was faced with choosing between two great organizations.  It was a difficult position to be in because I have a great deal of respect for both Network Appliance as well as ePlus.

In the end, I selected to remain with ePlus, but to move into a new role within the organization.  I won’t be spending as much time in the field with customers, although I will still be involved with some projects.  I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on and serving as a technical lead for virtualization technologies and related products.  This is very similar to what I would have been doing at Network Appliance, but by staying with ePlus I’ll get to include other technologies such as HP VirtualConnect, Ardence (oops, Citrix Provisioning Server), and eventually other virtualization platforms like Virtual Iron, Citrix/Xen, and Microsoft Hyper-V.  For a technology geek like me, it’s a great opportunity to get my hands on all kinds of different products and get to know them really well.  I also enjoy teaching—I was a Microsoft Certified Trainer in a past life—and there will be some of that involved as well.

All in all, I’m excited about the opportunity before me.  I strongly suspect that this new role will mean even more technical content here than in the past.

One final note to those at Network Appliance with whom I spoke during this process: You guys are a great group of people building a fantastic team.  If there is anything I can do for any of you, please don’t hesitate to let me know.  You know how to get in touch with me!

Apparently my site was compromised and some offensive ads were placed at the top of the site.  I’ve removed the ads and the code that placed them there and have taken steps to ensure that we don’t have an issue like this again.  Additional steps may be necessary, so be patient with me as I work this out.

If you were offended by the unwanted ads, please accept my apologies!

Up until now, I haven’t really messed around with listening to podcasts.  I know all about them, what they are, how they work, and all that wonderful jazz.  But I typically have not listened to podcasts at all.

I’m not really sure why, although I suppose it could be due to not having some podcasts that I really find useful or enjoyable.

So I’ll toss it back to you, the readers, for your feedback.  Are there podcasts out there that you find useful?  What podcasts would you recommend for a guy like me?

I wanted to take just a brief moment and let everyone know about a few articles that I’ve got “in the pipeline” for the site.  If there is one—or more—of these articles that looks particularly interesting, speak up in the comments.

Here are the articles that are currently under development:

• An update to the Solaris-AD integration instructions:  Last time I ran through these instructions I came across a number of discrepancies and little “gotchas.”  I need to incorporate the workarounds into the integration instructions and publish a new version.
• A brief blurb on NetApp OSSV:  NetApp’s Open Systems SnapVault (OSSV) is a pretty cool technology, so I want to take a quick look at setting it up.  I’m also exploring to see what kind of unique synergies may arise from using OSSV in a VMware environment.
• Restricting access to ESX Server when using AD integration:  As reader Scott Garrett points out in this comment to an earlier article, ESX Server’s version of sshd doesn’t support the UsePAM directive.  This prevents us from using group membership in Active Directory to control access to ESX Server’s Service Console.  Or does it?  I have a hunch that there may be at least one workaround for this problem; once I’ve tested it, I’ll document it here.
• New iSCSI functionality in ESX Server 3.5:  VMware appears to have refreshed the software iSCSI initiator in ESX Server 3.5, so I want to take a closer look at and discuss here some of this new functionality.

That’s it for now, although I’m certainly open to other items that pique reader interest.  Feel free to submit your suggestions in the comments.  Thanks!

There will be a short break in blogging here while I enjoy some vacation time out of town with my family.

I appreciate all the readers who visit the site (or read the feed) on a regular basis.  I’d like to take this time to thank each and every one of you for reading.  According to FeedBurner, we’re now up to about 800 readers subscribed to the feed!  Please continue to share the site with others who may also find it useful.

I’ll be back with more content following the Christmas holiday.

Until then, I hope that God’s blessings are upon everyone this coming Christmas season.  Merry Christmas!