Sometimes I think I would rather go toe to toe with the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal than handle a large pile of paperwork.

Handling paper?  Massive amounts?  I found myself in that situation today.  In addition to a boatload of other miscellaneous items that I had to deal with.

I was going through my things.  I have some important folders.  I found them at the bottom of a stack of other papers.  They got mixed in.

Do you know the way when something is overwhelming your eyes just sort of glaze over?  A dull expression comes over the face?  Ice cream suddenly sounds like a good idea?  Or even a quick root canal?

I hate paperwork.  Can you tell?

A kickstart.  I needed a kickstart and a method.  No.  More than that.  I needed a shortcut.

So I started looking at groups of papers.  What to know what I found out?  If you want to get through a stack of paper as quickly as possible and still get everything you need out of it without missing anything or forgetting something important — here is what I did.
Firstly, every piece of advice I had ever heard about productivity from any of the masters out there — Covey, Robbins,  Allen.  I threw it out.  Instead, I did this:

I asked three questions.

• Is this something that’s important right now?
• Is this something that will be important sometime pretty soon?
• Is this something that will ever be important (meaning I don’t even want it for reference later).

Things started moving.  Things really started moving.

What was important right now? It found it’s way to the left hand side of my computer at my desk.  Stuff that wasn’t important right now but would be, well, pretty soon?  Pile. A pile not to far away from me.

Stuff that wasn’t that important, maybe ever, but I needed for reference?  Like insurance documentation or maybe a magazine with an article in it that I want?  Another pile.  A hidden one.

Stuff that will never be important?  Well.  You can be imaginative there.  Kindling, for instance.  Or maybe for stuffing glasses when you move someday.

And receipts?  Unless it’s something that you purchased in the past year (or is a big purchase),  your’e not going to need it.  ATM receipts?  Credit card receipts from convenience stores, gas stations, the grocery store — GARBAGE.  One big satisfying wad of SEEYA left my fingertips and hit the barrel.

Let’s face it.  The carbon paper this stuff is printed with?  Unless you are going to replicate something like the Vatican Archives it can just go.

What’s important right now is with me.  What will be important pretty soon is a little farther way.  Stuff that might never be important goes over there somewhere.

It may not be the end-all, be-all of systems.  I may not be able to brag to my coworkers, and my family and loved ones that I only touched a piece of paper just once.  I may not have made a great list that I can rely on.   But what I did do was get rid of the anxiety associated with that big pile.

I got out of that pile of paperwork what was important, I’m more organized, and I didn’t have to follow any set of complex rules in order to get things where I needed them so I could act on them when I needed to.

When I think about it, I also gave myself three questions that I might be able to ask again about paperwork.  Or things I have in storage.  Or even the dreams I’ve had since I was young.

For me, it isn’t a matter of deciding what’s more important, but what’s the most important right now.

Right now, soon, probably sometime, and never.  Those are the four answers I came up with.

And those four piles?  They’re pretty manageable compared to everything else I’ve tried.

It’s not just a matter of requesting the three IP addresses that are included with the $99/month plan.

Adding the IP address to the server is in fact pretty easy.  There is a button for it in the upper-right hand corner of Godaddy management interface and when I requested them, Godaddy added the new IP address in a matter of minutes.  Where you may get stuck is actually hosting a website on a new ip address.  I only say that because I got stuck there.

You see, they add the IP address to the ethernet interfaces for you, and they set up the routing.  That’s all well and good.  But what the control panel doesn’t do is add the Listen directive to the Apache httpd.conf file, so no matter what domains you put on the new IP addresses, they aren’t going to work.  You simply won’t be able to load the newly added domain/IP.

In addition to make the correct changes in the control panel, there is another step you have to take.  You have to edit the httpd.conf file.

To do this, you will need to connect to the server via SSH using one of the SSH accounts for the domains.  If you’ve never used SSH and you have a windows computer, download and use a program called Putty.

Once you’re connected, you need to switch the user context by typing “su -”.  The dash is important.  If you don’t use the dash, the system will not know that you want to switch to the root user.  If you don’t switch to the root user, you won’t be able to edit the file.

The directory that the configuration file is located in is  /etc/http/conf/httpd.conf

After moving to the directory, open the file using vi (a text editor).

Locate the Listen command in the file by using the arrow keys.  It will look like “Listen XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX” where the XXX’s represent the main IP address you are already using.

Enter a new line and add an additional Listen command, using the new IP address you want Apache to listen for.

Save the file.

Go into Godaddy’s Simple Control Panel, find the www/web services and restart it (should take about six seconds to restart the service).

After that, you’re in business.

I plan to flesh out this article more with screenshots, more in-depth directions and links.  With a little googling, this should get anyone severely stuck going in the right direction.

I was worried about disrupting an active install of SQL server and wasn’t sure where the installation file was for the management studio on the disk.

Many other blogs, help files, and forums said to look in a Tools folder of the installation disk.  No such luck for me.  The company I’m working at is subscribed to the Action Pack which is why, I’m guessing, the disks were a bit different.  No tools folder.

If you’re subscribed to the Action Pack, there is a two disk set.  Simply pop in disk 2.  You won’t see an individual installation file for the management studio, but no worries.  The setup program will let you choose which components you wish to install.

It’s likely that when someone was installing your SQL Server that they didn’t bother with the second disk.  If you’re looking to add a new Maintenance Option (for say, making automated backups), Management Studio Express isn’t going to help you.  When you right click, the only option you get is ‘refresh’.

After installing the real mccoy (and starting the Agent XP service by right-clicking on it), the New Maintenance Option was available when selecting the Maintenance Plans folder in the object explorer.ex

Hooray for the full version of Management Studio and automated daily backups.

And also a big thank you for the backup scripts located here: http://www.sql-server-performance.com/2007/creating-backup-jobs/

If you’ve Googled but found no useful information other than to delete the program folder, here is the trick. The entry to remove it from Add/Remove Programs (or Programs and Features in Windows 7) doesn’t start with Red Alert or EA. Look under C for Command & Conquer Red Alert 3.

Additionally, you will want to deactivate the game using the free utility (or CD menu) so you can play it elsewhere. Using the Support folder “Red Alert 3_uninst.exe” file is something else I did and all went well.

I was borrowing my friend’s CD (don’t tell EA), and after purchasing my own copy I wanted to be using my serial since EA only allows you so many installations before it refuses to work on new machines.

My new copy is now installing without a problem, thank goodness.

Happy New Year.

I play flash games on facebook and sometimes review browser-based web games.  I watch Hulu.  Primarily I have been using these flash apps within the Firefox browser.

I noticed a few months back (and consistently thereafter) that the performance of these flash applications was unruly — as in they would slow to a crawl, animations would studder, sometimes the browser would just lock up and become unusable.  Really annoying to have Firefox lock up like that.  To have it become frozen and lose twelve tabs worth of half-read web pages?

Usually they would recover but the waiting is a pain.

In the task manager was an entry for “plugin-container.exe” — where I’m assuming Firefox dumps flash application data and cache while it is processing the flash app.  The memory load for firefox.exe would be 300-500 meg while the plugin-container was around 20-35 meg.  A case of inefficient memory swapping?  Possibly.

I can’t say if that plugin container or the memory management in firefox is specifically to blame.  It could be that the Firefox crew didn’t reserve enough room for the more robust uses of flash these days, or it could be more of a matter of the number of plugins I have installed in Firefox in order to assist with web development.  JQuery or heavily use of Javascript like Google Docs and facebook might not have helped either.

In any case, the sure fire workaround was to let Google Chrome have a shot at the workload.

It’s been working like a charm.  No browser hang-ups.  Chrome is not only fast as they say, but it is handling the flash apps like a hero.

But lose firebug and all those handy apps?  No way.  Firefox is still open in my system tray, and ready to help me with all those awesome plugins.

My cousin installed a game on her new copy of Windows 7, 64 bit edition and her son’s favorite game refused to play on it.

They spent some hours trying to get it to operate without much luck.

I’m mentioning this  because I’ve seen time and time again the issue of a problem being solved by the key bit of data.

In this case the key piece of data was that the game worked once before it stopped working.  An unasked question by me, this was the deciding factor in getting things in shape so that the game was playable.

I tried running the program as administrator and tested each of the compatibility modes.  I looked for both recent and fall-back drivers for the video card.  I tried reinstalling.

What I didn’t take into account was that there was a folder brought over from a 32bit operating system with the saved data in it.  Unfortunately there was 32 bit dll file that was gumming it up.  Once deleted (what a uninstall/reinstall didn’t manage), the game worked fine.  But not hearing that the game did indeed run successfully at *some point* was what I was missing.

Time and time again when troubleshooting problems with networks and computers this simple fact of the missing piece of information usually fixes the issue.

Looking over facts again.  Asking different questions.  Re-evaluating assumptions and guesses.

In order to troubleshoot, you have to ask questions and you have to have a theory about the situation.  And going on that theory isn’t a bad thing to do, but often headstrong folks like myself will overlook some of the interview details, leaving a key piece of information unused or un-found and head off in search of answers that lead down dead-end roads.

No one likes to waste their time.

From my experience it is the history of the problem that reveals the key information, and gathering the history may sometimes seem like a waste of time when you can get right to work testing out different theories.

That isn’t a bad thing to do.  Test away.  Just be sure not to shut off your ears to new information.  Because that’s usually when the key piece of information pops out at you, just waiting to be snatched up and used to clear the roadblock.

The entire troubleshooting process (like many things) isn’t set in stone.  Approximation, testing and revision.  Approximation, testing and revision.  This is what will get you to the finish line without it being a terribly bumpy ride.

It’s also a little less embarrassing (and more honest) than the cycle of “certainty and ouch”.

Issue: A drop down menu only displays sub-menus on the page it links to.

Solution: If there are no JavaScript errors and the arrow next to the drop down menu is  not displaying except for the page that menu item directs to, be sure to visit the menu section in the Drupal settings and check of “expanded” next to that menu item.

Not that I’m sure this is needed, but clearing the menu cache (using the admin menu module) might be a good step to take as well.

The single most annoying part of being an information technologist is struggling over where to draw the line when it comes to customers who are trying to get their technology needs met either for the absolute cheapest price by questioning you to death or asking you questions that are outside of what you do for money (making your job a living nightmare to manage).

Where this problem plagued me the most was when I worked for an ISP. Why this was troubling was because my job on the phone was to determine whether or not there was a problem with our service but the customers were, I’d say perhaps forty percent of the time, looking for me to troubleshoot problems with their PC. Even though it wasn’t done on purpose these situations became more of an issue of who was at fault for the situation rather than an exercise of cooperative investigation (a place I don’t like to be).

A problem, for sure – one that every single member of the staff had to deal with, sometimes on a daily basis.

When you work in the computer field people who don’t work in the computer field are going to ask you questions. When this takes you away from making money doing what it is you are good at it, it can be frustrating to continue to look for a point of failure (when this is not your duty as an employee or consultant).

At multiple places I’ve worked this would generate friction between not only customer and employee, but between other employees and even management.

During the time I was self employed it was my job to look at these problems. I got paid to look at situations, diagnose what I thought the problem was, formulate potential solutions, and then pitch those options to the client for approval.

The distinction here between what I did as a freelance tech and the job I had at the ISP is getting paid for doing the looking.

A friend of mine used to jest, “Sure. Let me look at that for you.” He ponied up and looked at the problem when he could swing time away from his real duties. Most of us did our best to walk that line of making sure the customer was satisfied by giving them the most we could (so they wouldn’t leave us) and telling them to kick rocks.

It was a stressful and draining experience which sometimes led to confrontations that never needed to happen. The truth was that our negotiation power was stripped of us without that one answer to how to address the situation: here is where you start looking otherwise you’re going to paying me or this other person we have lined up for it.

When I was on the phone with these customers, knowing that I had to draw a line somewhere, I was often confused and dismayed. I wanted to explain why I could not go the extra mile to help solve their technology problem without coming right out and saying, “you pay us for the Internet connection, not for technical support of your computer”. I was used to going this extra mile. Most techs are. But as a support tech at an ISP, we simply didn’t do that. Plain and simple.

Only it wasn’t plain and simple because not only would we have to do it over and over again in different situations with different people but it could take hours and span fifteen phone calls for a single customer to get it. “We don’t do that. Get it? No? Okay. We really just don’t do that. We do this. I can do this simple thing if you like but that’s as far as it goes. No? But we don’t do that.” Like talking to wall.

The customer has a hunch, smells that the person the phone is competent enough to address their problem and they want it addressed, not thinking that we aren’t getting paid to look at their problem that isn’t related to what we do. We’re getting paid to 1.) Find any problems with our infrastructure and get it repaired as soon as possible, 2.) Identify faulty equipment that might be at the customer premises that we’ve provided, 3.) Make sure that the customer has any applicable settings that we need to provide them with, and 4.) Process any adds, moves or changes that will ensure their service continues to be useful.

It was as if my only recourse was to insinuate that the customer was unintelligent and that they should know better than to ask such questions. That isn’t because that was what I was told to say or wanted to do, it was simply the only reaction I had available to me given the circumstances. We didn’t do what they would continually ask us to do.

Non-techie’s have a tough enough time understanding what I do for a living without having to explain it to them every time I need to draw the line. Explaining to a customer what I did and why I needed to stay away from his or her particular problem would not only take time but begin a debate of whether or not I should be looking at the problem.

What a drag.

It wasn’t just me that felt this pain. Some people were so fed up with dealing with these situations they would outright laugh at the accusations the customers were making over the phone. The customers would become demanding and accusing, even arrogant. Some of them were elderly and needed someone to hold their hand to perform a series of steps in order to complete a task. Those were the ones I had the most sympathy for but the fact remained. I simply wasn’t paid to give step-by-step instructions to people for how to email their loved ones.

It seemed unfair that I knew that I could address the problem that these people faced but lacked the ability to help them resolve their other problems. My hands were tied because my job was my job. I was to make sure the customers were getting the services that we provided them and process any changes that they needed so the service remained useful to them. But the problem was always that dividing line and the need to pull away from the customer’s needs (often in a manner that might make them not want to be our customer anymore).

From the management and ownership side of the situation, I could completely understand that more time on the phone that wasn’t related to what we actually did meant that money and knowledge was leaking out of the phone lines without compensation for it. We became less profitable with every minute spent serving needs other than the ones that supported what we provided these customers.

The business does what it does, and that boat has to stay afloat by responding to situations that are related to that specific enterprise. That is a more than reasonable expectation for everyone in the business to follow. If the business can’t make money, the business is going to die. We lose our jobs. Probably the reverse order.

One approach was to start thinking that the customers are mean, to blame them for the situation of “we have the knowledge to fix that problem, so why not just do part of it?” They aren’t really. They typically just don’t understand the difference between where their efforts end and the support technician’s start.

I find that that’s the key to a workable solution. How does the technician draw the line in a manner that is both friendly and reasonable so the time and knowledge sucking doesn’t occur?

I recommend drawing the line with this simple phrase: “Start looking here”. As a technologist I know where resources are to be found and I have experiences with computers and web sites that are probably related to the issues that they are having. When a customer asks a question I can quickly find (or already know where to find) the resources to alleviate the problems that the customer is facing.

The resource that I give them might not fix the problem immediately, but a few things are definitely going to happen. First the customer is going to understand that looking at a problem is work (shattering the illusion that us looking at it isn’t work for us and should be offered on a complimentary basis). Secondly they are going to come to grips with the fact that people who are experts in a particular field get paid to do what they do for a reason – because they are the ones who have learned the knowledge, built the skills and learned the tricks of the trade. Thirdly the choice of whether or not they are going to be looking at it or you are going to be looking at it for a fee is brought to a head.

“Sir, I can tell you where I would start looking to solve your problem, but if I have to walk down that road for you I’ll need to charge you for it.” It gives the customer the benefit of your knowledge (which they very much want) without giving them any of your time (which they should be paying for if it is unrelated to your current duties as a support person).

That one phrase should be crystal clear for both the support technician and the customer. It is both fair and an accurate description of the situation and how events should proceed from that point. The customer isn’t left being treated as if they are unimportant as a customer and the technician who in most cases has the knowledge to fix the issue if given time enough hasn’t left them feeling as if they’ve run over their dog and left the scene of the crime (how I felt most times when I had to explain firmly and repetitively that I was paid to support the infrastructure of my company).

Of course starting points may vary depending on customers and what their questions are. The point is that it takes about the same amount of time to tell a customer where to start troubleshooting an issue on their own than it does to repeat what I do and don’t do (which does nothing but damage the business relationship as the customer is forced into coming to no other conclusion than saying “I must have been a dumb-ass for forcing the issue, apparently.” Or worse, “these people are dumb-asses for treating me this way and as soon as I find another provider I’m going to switch.”)

Telling customers where to start looking makes it crystal clear that looking into the problem IS the work when it comes to information technology. Are you an information technologist? If you have to look at yet another problem that isn’t specifically your job, does a growl want to rise from your throat?

Solutions abound. They’re everywhere. That’s one of the great things about the Internet (and Leo Laporte’s radio show, clearly), the sharing that happens when people figure out how to solve problems. Looking into the problem is where the work and headaches (and eurekas!) are found. If a customer doesn’t understand that, telling them where to start looking should help them to figure that out pretty quickly. Perhaps just one step past “You could start by Googling it” would be enough to help them feel like they haven’t been stranded.

You can bet that 90% of the time they don’t want to do the looking.  When you help them realize that fact (without being condescending) they are a prime candidate to pitch an up-sell service or be referred to a prepared business partner.

Given that I am (and you probably are) an experienced computer tech or engineer, providing a ready resource for them to begin their investigation and sticking to that as your answer to their unrelated (or unpaid) problem is my vote for drawing that line where the knowledge and time-suck begins without damaging relationships: with increased employee angst and the customer feeling their needs haven’t been met on a hunch a half hour of your time would fix their problem.

Do you support customers over the phone and want to quickly find out which option to have them click without remote access?

Here is the first in a series of interactive screenshots to help technical phone support operators get a few clicks ahead of their customers.

Norton 360 Screenshots

Getawayfun.com is live. The site features great finds in the Bristol, Cape Cod, and the surrounding areas for use in help planning local and semi-distant excursions.  At the time of launch there are not many articles, but there are many in the works.

The site is based on the WordPress Blogging platform, resplendent in a free (and thoroughly customized) theme, and will be filled with the richest content for finding all those getaway ideas that you’re looking for.