Home- Remote Dad
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- Mar 10, 11
This is very cool. Engadget had a post picked up from Make, where a guy built a “Networked ‘On Air’ light” that illuminates automatically when he is live, on the air, recording his webcast.
I am intrigued by this and there are some really neat applications for this, for example, I could write a script to have the Light turn on based on my Calendar showing me on a conference call, or integrate some sort of micro switch so that the light is lit any time my handset on my phone is lifted. Not sure If I will get around to building something like this or not, but I am intrigued by the components and it fosters some creative ideas.
- Mar 07, 11
After a lot of contemplating, I have decided to try going back to school. I have been wanting to do this for quite some time and I kept putting it off, hoping for there to be a better time with work and life and such. There will never be a better time than now, I need to jump in the deep end and learn to swim (i actually cannot swim) now since I am not getting any younger.
I am not 100% sure what I want to study and I am not 100% sure where I want to go, I think with my hectic work and life schedule, online distance education is the way to go. Being the skeptic that I am, I figured I would test out a class online and see how I like it and how well it works for me. Something I have been toying with recently is developing a couple of iPad apps and by my nature, I need a formal class to learn from; if I try to just sit down with a book, I will get frustrated with the lack of feedback from an instructor, get buried in too much info on the web and give up.
I searched high and low for a class that was accessible and affordable and I found an Intro to iPhone Programming class at Maricopa.edu, it’s an instructor led, completely online, 8 week course. The text book for the course is slightly dated, (aren’t they all?), but takes a programatic approach to learning to develop iPhone apps by example. I am excited about the class yet nervous as well. Just one more thing for me to juggle between work and home, but it seems like the more you have to juggle, the easier it is.
- Feb 17, 11
As my efforts continue towards getting out of the home office a couple days a week, I decided to upgrade/replace/get a proper macbook. The “Macbook” I had been using is actually a Hackintosh, it’s a Toshiba M420 tablet/laptop that I was able to painfully make run Mac OS 10.5.2. It works, but is not optimal with a 12″ screen and no easy way to run 10.6 on it. I decided to look around for a used MacBook on craigslist.
Since I do not travel too often for work anymore (once a year), the MacBook wouldn’t be my primary workstation, so it does not have to be top of the line, something that will run 10.6 and sport 4gb of Ram should be fine. A couple of days of searching and watching on Craigslist found me a 2008 Black MacBook, 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2gb RAM and 250gb hd, with a bad battery for $500. Not too bad, a working battery while not essential would be nice to have on a laptop so I negotiated with the guy a bit and we agreed on a price of $400. We setup a place to meet, a fast food joint near the airport.
I have read about some bad encounters with people buying things on Craigslist, so I wanted to be as cautious as possible, a public place to meet during the day, an area I was familiar with an just to be sure, I took someone with me to watch my back. The youth, gusto and determination of my 3 year old would be enough to keep me safe if trouble should find me.
We met the guy, seemed like an ok fellow, gave me his name, number and all prior to the meet. He was there on time and had installed MS Office 2011 for me (Im not into pirating software and I use Open Office, but I did appreciate the gesture). Met the guy, checked out the MacBook, surfed a few minutes, looked around the HD and all looked good. There were a couple of scratches but nothing significant, the seller even told me that he had just scratched the lid of the MacBook taking it out of his backpack and knocked off $25, seemed like an honest thing to do. For the most part everything looks on the up and up, the seller seemed honest and open, the MacBook seemed solid, so we traded my money for his MacBook and went our separate ways.
As I was driving home I thought about the situation a bit. When I handed over the money, the guy wasn’t even going to count it, he shoved the money in his pocket and handed me the MacBook. At first this was no big deal, but I asked him to count it, to make sure I had given him the correct amount and he did and I had. While he was counting the money, I noticed he was wearing a USAir uniform, so I asked him “Main Line or Express”, turns out he works for USAir Main Line and works out on the ramp somewhere. We exchanged some pleasantries that I knew a few people who worked for USAir Express but he didn’t seem to know anyone; not really a big deal, it’s a large airport and USAir has many employees. Something else the seller told me as he was closing down the MacBook and handing it too me was that the Power Adapter was new, he didn’t say why, just that it was.
So as I am reviewing the transaction in my mind, it occurs to me that this could have been a stolen laptop. My first thought was to a Seinfeld reference,
George, seeing Jerry with a small black device: “What’s that?”
Jerry: “It’s a Wizard electronic organizer for my dad. I’m goin’ to Florida
for his birthday.”
George: “How much was it?”
Jerry: “Two hundred. But I’ll tell him it’s fifty. He doesn’t care about the
gift. He gets excited about the deal.”
George: “Where are you gettin’ a Wizard for fifty dollars?”
Jerry: “Ah, I’ll tell him I got it on the street, and maybe it’s hot. That’s
his favorite.”that I got a great deal on a Hot laptop. After a few minutes my second thought was, damn it would suck to be traveling via the airlines and at some point “lose” your laptop. I reached out to a few friends that work at the Airport to inquire about the seller, see if anyone knew him or had heard anything, no one had. I looked online at a couple of sites with Mac serial number listings of stolen MacBooks and I did not find anything. After a few days, I called the Airport police and explained the situation and asked if there had been any recent reports of stolen or missing Black MacBooks and was told there were none reported.
I waited a couple of weeks after the transaction and having not turned up anything, I put my mind at ease and made the MacBook my own. I wiped the HD, reloaded 10.6.6, loaded my apps, setup my workflow and have been very happy. I have even been out in the wild 3 or 4 times now working for a couple of hours from Panera or Salsaritata’s, even a stop at Starbucks and I have to say I like it. My yearly business trip is coming up in a month or two, so I will get to try it out for a week on the road and see how it works. Before my trip I am going to add some more Ram to it since I tend to tax the RAM on any Mac I use with far too many windows and browser tabs open at once.
Though, in the back of my mind I still can’t help but think that I might be using a “Hot” MacBook…
- Feb 10, 11
I have been fighting a losing battle lately at the home office. I am outnumbered, outgunned and as it would seem, outsmarted. My enemies are younger, faster and louder, much, much louder; my enemy is noise. I am not talking about just any noise, I am talking about the noise generated by two small children, ages 3 and 16 months.
Day by Day, my two boys seem to get louder and louder and have seemingly dialed in on what my threshold for noise is. My 3 year old does go to pre-school three days a week, but it is only for 4 hours in the morning. Afternoon tends to be my busiest time of day since many of my current projects are on the west coast and with the time difference, afternoon here is morning there.
Over the last few months, I have gradually progressed through the Kubler-Ross stages of grief. First, there was the denial, there wasn’t a problem, it was just background noise I could manage. Then came the anger, I got mad at the boys, yelled at them and threatened several different means of punishment for being too loud while daddy worked. Next came the bargaining, “Daddy will take you somewhere fun if you will play quietly and not bother daddy while he is working”. For a while I was depressed about it, my stress level increased greatly between managing the noise level in the background while I was on conference calls, toggling Mute after every sentence, sometimes during sentences; i developed an RSI and a callous on my left pointer finger. Eventually, over time, I came to accept that my boys are just boys, they make noise, they are playing, developing, learning, and sometimes intentionally pressing my buttons.
With my recently gained acceptance that boys will be boys, I have started looking into alternative places to work, outside of my home office, one or two days a week. To work, I need a computer, a phone and internet access. The first thought was to leverage the free wi-fi internet access at Starbucks, it’s only a few minutes walk away and features free wi-fi, tables and chairs and some delicious coffee. Sadly, Starbucks is too much of an enabler on my caffeine addiction, as hard as I fight that demon and as convenient as it might be, this isn’t a good solution for me.
There are other similar places, that offer free wi-fi and workspace, Panera Bread, McAllister’s Deli and Just Fresh are a few of the options close by. The issue I perceive is that I tend to be on the phone a lot and depending on how crowded these locations are it may not be much better than dealing with noise at the home office.
I started researching other possible solutions online:
Regus provides both virtual offices and small managed office space all over the world. Their managed office space is available as dedicated offices as well as hot desking or day offices. I worked for a consulting company a few years ago, that when they first opened an office here in town used Regus as their office space for the first 8 months as they developed business and secured a permanent office location. There is a Regus location within walking distance to me, I will have to get some more information from them and see what the costs would be.
Jelly’s are casual meet-up’s of individuals to work and learn together, either at someone’s home, coffee shop or other public location.
Jelly started in NYC in February of 2006 when s couple of roommates realized that they loved working from home, but they missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of a traditional office. (Office politics, not so much.)
So they started inviting friends to come work from their home one day a week. They soon found that working in close proximity to new and interesting people every couple weeks resulted in new ideas and interesting conversations.
Emboldened by their early success, they made it a more regular thing. Jelly was born.
Being around other people, brainstorming, sharing, etc is not really a large issue for me, but this is an interesting concept. There was a local Jelly group, CLTJelly, but they seem to be defunct at the moment; it still warrants further investigation.
…Coworking is redefining the way we do work. The idea is simple: that independent professionals and those with workplace flexibility work better together than they do alone. Coworking answers the question that so many face when working from home: “Why isn’t this as fun as I thought it would be?…”
I like this idea, my basic research has turned up a lot of information. There are two CoWorking locations in Charlotte that I have come across so far, SouthEnd CoWorking and StartClt, unfortunately these are both on the wrong end of town for my needs, but definitely worth looking into some more, perhaps I can find something similar on my side of town.
- Oct 03, 10
I’ve been meaning to post an update to my new home office after the move. I significantly downsized some of the junk that I had been holding onto, hoping to use one day but in actuality just taking up space. I’ll do a more thorough write up another day, but for now here is a quick look at my new desk, it’s actually meant to be a Dining Room table ala Ikea, my iMac and two HP 22″ screens surrounding it, a couple of phones and a baby video monitor. I need to finish routing the cables, it annoys me to see them, but I haven’t made time to clean them up.
- Sep 14, 10
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the technology I and my coworkers use as remote workers compared to our colleagues in the corporate office. In theory there shouldn’t really not be much of a difference in the applications we use, but it’s recently come to light that when we do settle on a new company wide CRM and PM system, anyone outside the office will need vpn access to use them.
Seems like a no brainer for us tech guys, most of us already use the VPN client or in my case a hardline vpn tunnel back to one of our PoPs for corporate network access. The PM’s and the account managers do not currently use VPN to access corporate resources, the only real resources they use are email.
This got me thinking some more about how we are using the technology and what additional tools we need and how they impact the remote and mobile users. WebWorkerDaily has an article from earlier this year, Remote Workers Should Lead the Charge for New Mobile Tech, that discusses how web, mobile and remote workers should be driving these changes in the corporate network, adopting new technology, services and even new methods for collaboration and workflow.
This isn’t really a new concept, mobile users have been pushing corporations and technology service providers for new services and products that enable easier mobile access to corporate resources. What is new and interesting is that the article sugests asking local resources you use to adopt new technologies and services to enable the mobile and remote workers to work easier. Meaning, those local coffee and sandwich shops should offer better internet access, charging stations, etc. We have seen this recently where Starbucks now offers Free Wi-Fi for everyone in all of it’s retail stores; previously you had to pay for access through Boingo or AT&T.
This was a move in the right direction and we’ve seen other businesses follow this trend. Just Fresh here in town, has an area dedicated for mobile workers, there is a bar style desk that seats several people with plenty of power outlets, cable routing holes in the desk to these outlets and great wifi coverage. I am hopeful we’ll see other mobile friendly options next year as more and more workers become go the mobile or remote route.
- Sep 03, 10
There’s a commercial on television that comes on occasionally, it’s for a company called JG Edwards which I am not that familiar with, I believe they provide a service where they buy out your annuity or structured settlement for a fee and give you the lump sum of the money you would otherwise get incrementally. The tag line of the advertisements is “It’s my Money! And I Want it Now!”
I often think of this line when dealing with the stresses of incorrectly set timelines for customer installation. Mileage varies per project, based on location, time of year, phase of the moon, etc as to how quickly we can get an T1 circuit ordered and installed for a new customer. There are a lot of variable that make the timeline, well variable. The party line is that it typically takes 45 – 60 business days to install a new circuit from order to turn-up. This is a published timeline, our Account Management team is trained on this. Our reseller partners are trained on this. Our Project Management team is well versed in this and we have to retrain/remind the Account Management and Reseller teams on this almost weekly.
For such a well stated and well documented time line, it is difficult to fathom why we are constantly resetting the expectations on when a T1 will be installed; this tends to be a high stress trigger for myself and my team as well and every few months we blow up and have a heart to heart with the Sales organization.
This week the T1 installation time line was challenged on two separate occasions, on two separate projects. I decided through why it is so challenging to set such a simple expectation. Our sales cycle varies but usually runs through several months from initial contact on a sales lead to discussing the solution, quoting and eventually contract execution. Often the topic of timelines is brought up in the early stages of the sales cycle, customers want to know how quickly they could be brought up on our service. This is a fair question and for most people the answer of a month to two months is fair, especially for tech companies. Some customers may be using POTS lines and DSL or Cable Modem service which they had installed in 7 – 14 days, so to these customers two months is a long time.
Customers are made aware of the time lines ahead of time, any semi-intelligent business owner or manager is going to ask how long it takes to get their service installed and live. But there is often a disconnect which is compounded by ignorance and oversight. If the Account Manager starts talking with a customer in April about their move in the fall to a new facility and providing telephone and data service to that new location from us, they hear 45-60 days and think no problem, our new office is still being built and won’t be finished until August, we have 4 months. But the sales process drags on, the customer isn’t sure if they will be taking all of their current workforce to the new office, they may scale back some redundant positions, so the quantities of phones and the number of services is in limbo for a couple of weeks while they decide. Then the CEO doesn’t like some verbiage in our contract and we have to get the lawyers involved and the back and forth takes a few more weeks.
By now it’s late June, everything is solidified with the contract, it gets executed and turned in to accounting for approval. The customer casually mentions to the account team that their construction efforts finished sooner than expected and they want to move in on August 21st; the account manager replies that, that is an agressive time line and he’ll inform the project team and they will see what they can do. Let’s say the contract is turned in on June 26th, a Friday. It’s the last week of the month, the accounting office is busy closing out the month before the July 4th Holiday weekend and doesn’t approve the contract until the following tuesday, June 29th and turns it over to the Project Team for assignment to a project manager. It’s a holiday week, the key contacts at the customer and partner are out of town, so the project team waits until the following tuesday, July 6th to schedule a kick off call.
During the kick off call, the question is asked of when the customer is expecting to be installed and go live, it was noted in the contract that the customer is moving to a new facility. Thats when the customer drops the bomb, “We need to be live on August 21st, that is the day we are moving.” This is about the time when the Project Manager starts leaking hot steam out through their ears, but before she has a chance to respond, the partner adds some comments.
The partner says that their plan is to move all of the users over the weekend, on a Saturday afternoon, they will move their PC’s and existing phones from the old office to the new office. They want to seamlessly move the existing 250 telephone numbers the customer has from their old location to the new location on Saturday afternoon; the numbers should ring into the old location until they noon on Saturday and then start ringing into the new location by 1pm. This is about the time when the PM’s eye’s start emitting green lazer beams, the hot steam turns to smoke and gibberish starts coming out of her mouth.
After a few long, awkward minutes of silence. The PM asks, in a forcibly calm voice, “I’m sorry, did you say August 21st? I see, we may have an issue. Who committed to us having service installed by that date?” And the customer and partner reply in a heavenly harmony, “the account manager. he told us you would have us installed in 45 to 60 days and it’s been well over 60 days since he told us that…” The PM is great, she retains her cool on the surface and multitasks discussing the time lines, documentation required and other info for the project, while firing off emails and IM’s to the account team and executive management with colorful expletives that would make even the most seasoned Navy Chief blush. The kick off call ends with the PM promising that we will do our very best to meet their agressive time line although we are at the mercy of our carriers and other service providers.
Unfortunately, I am only exaggerating slightly here. There are a few disconnects with the expectations that are being set. First, due to the long and often delayed sales process, the time line may be set initially, but it is never reinforced when the contract is signed and turned in. This is on the account team, the business partners and on the customers themselves. The clock doesn’t start ticking until the contract is signed, the ink dry and the contract approved. This can often take up to a week, depending on when the contract is turned in and if there are any issues or missing info. Once the contract is approved and turned over to the Project Management team, it needs to be assigned to a PM and then the necessary kick-off calls scheduled and conducted. We currently have two or three kick off calls per project depending on the level of involvement by the business partner and can usually take several days to coordinate everyones schedules. Often the customer and business partner are made aware of these added delays by the account managers; unfortunately due to the way account managers are typically rewarded for their efforts, they toss the signed contract over the fence for approval and then ride off into the sunset sipping margaritas and working on the next deal. There’s very little effort put into repeat business with the customers or making sure the customers are taken care of and can then be leveraged for referral business, this is a major issue, but a topic for another rant on another friday afternoon.
- Aug 01, 10
If you read the news papers (do people read these anymore?), watch the news or browse the interwebs, it should be no surprise to you that many businesses are struggling. Many businesses are laying off workers, trimming costs or even closing their doors as they fight to make profit and be successful.
In my situation, my employer is stable and although we have been strategically cutting costs, renegotiating rates and services with our upstream carriers and removing redundancies, we continue to be profitable and successful. So, why am I being downsized?I’m not, my office is.
Over the last several months, I have been reevaluating my costs and trimming things wherever possible. As part of a grandiose plan to lower my expenses, improve my savings and the quality of my family’s life, I am downsizing my housing. We are in the process of moving out of our 2700 sq ft single family home to a 1300 sq ft apartment. This is a huge change as I am essentially cutting our living space in half, however the gains are great (once I sell the house); my housing costs will be slashed by close to 40%. However, one of the big casualties to this downsizing event is my home office.
My current home office is 170 sq ft, at the back of the house, and somewhat out of sight and out of mind of the rest of the house. The home office in the new apartment is a bit smaller at 110 sq ft and in between the boys bedroom and the family room.
In the end I think the move will be worth it and although I will have to get rid of some of the junk in my office and change my work habits to accommodate the change in noise level and smaller work area. I will post more about the effects of the change to my office venue, workflow and sanity in the coming months.
- Jun 29, 10
I stumbled on an interesting article recently about a woman’s experience transitioning into working at home as a remote employee. It highlights many of the challenges of working at home, the isolation, distractions and obstacles that come along with working in the same place that you live.
It is a good primer for anyone thinking about or starting to work from home.
I like the idea of a “closed-door” policy,
“There’s also the “closed-door” policy, in which your family understands not to bother you if the door to your office is closed. James Higginbotham’s policy means, “If the door is closed, please don’t interrupt unless [there is] a fire or loss of limb,” which says a lot to his five year-old, as it does to my own. You may still want to have a lock on the door, just in case.”
While my boys are are still toddlers, it’s not too soon to reinforce to them, that if the office door is closed, they should be quiet and stay away; though a strategically placed baby gate doesn’t hurt either. I have thought about finding a way to rig up an “on air” light outside my office door as a visual alert that I am on the phone and to not bother me…I haven’t found the right solution yet.
- Jun 14, 10
Inspired by a post on one of the blogs I frequently read, I have been working on cleaning out my home office, de-cluttering and minimalising my home office. I couldn’t come up with 100 items, so this is a work in progress.
25 Things I do not have in my office
- Stapler – I try not to have a lot of paper, so I have nothing to staple
- Fridge – At one time I wanted a small dorm ridge in my office, but finally I realized it was just a waste, theres a fridge in the kitchen.
- Wall Clock – Theres a clock on my mac, on my iPhone, both office phones, and the iPad.
- Filing Cabinet – I try to stay paperless in the office, so theres no need to file any papers
- Desk Calendar – I used to have a witty desk calendar, theres just no need, my calendar is on my mac and it gets synced to my iPhone, iPad, Google, etc.
- Books – As part of trying to de-clutter the house, I have been getting rid of books. Any technical books I need to reference for work, I can search online, no need to have hard books anymore.
- Bookshelves – I have a bookshelf, its where the TV in my office sits, eventually it will go away as I will mount the TV on a wall once I am clear with where I want to mount it.
- Paperclips – see staple
- Highlighters – got rid of them, as I have no paperwork to highlight and I didn’t want to accidently write on a white board with one.
- Fax machine – I have an all-in-one printer that has a fax machine built in. However, my AIO printer is unplugged and I cannot remember the last time I printed anything. I have been toying with the idea of getting rid of it. If needed I can send/receive faxes electronicly, but I seldom fax.
- Coffee Maker – I love coffee, but usually don’t drink a lot of it. When I do, I splurge and get Starbucks. Theres a coffee maker in the kitchen but I seldom use it.
- Copier – what do I need to copy?
- Water cooler – no one to stand around and gossip with, so no need.
- Wires – While my mac and my phones are all wired into the LAN, you won’t see the wires, they are neatly routed behind my desk, hidden from sight.
- Lamps – I have an overhead light that i rarely turn on and some underdesk LED lights that are more for show than actual use. Theres plenty of sunlight coming through my window and at night the light rom both monitors provides plenty of ambient light.
- Speakers – I do rock some iTunes while working but I find the built in speakers just fine for my use.
- Webcam – Theres one built into my Mac, but I seldom use it as no one wants to see my ugly mug.
- Conference Table – While I do engage in a lot of conference calls, I do them from my desk.
- Art work/Pictures of the kids – I know what my kids look like and they are just a stroll down the hall if I am ever feeling forgetful.
- Plants – I can see trees and plants and my poorly kept lawn just outside the window.
- Mousepad – Don’t need one, my lazer mouse works on glass without a pad.
- Paper Shredder – Nothing really important to shred.
- Chairmat – I have laminate floor in my office, so my office chair rolls around easily.
- Telephone Book – Thats hat the internet is for and my office phone has a directory on it listing everyone in the company.
- Receptionist – no one comes to visit me, but I often wouldn’t mind having an assistant.
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Posts
- Jul 21, 10
We all seem to have it, some of us more than others. Recently (last 2-3 months) I have been on a rampage about clutter, junk, crap, stuff and slowly but surely I have been trying to rid myself of as much clutter as I can. I am a bit of a movie buff, I love [...]
- Jun 15, 09
I’m ready for a vacation, things have been so hectic lately, I just want to go sit and curl up under a rock for a couple of days. We are trying to come up with an amicable place to take a short vacation while there are still three of us…. We’re not sure exactly where [...]
- Jun 15, 09
I had some recent issues with my godaddy account and not only did I lose my email account but my web hosting account mysteriously disappeared as well, so I lost my old blog and all of the content. I decided instead of recreating everything, I would just start fresh and I am being lazy so [...]
