First Rule of Demos: It will Crash

The first rule of doing any live demo is that it will crash regardless of how stable the product is. That is why you will often see videos of computer demos instead of an actual live demo. Today the first rule of demos reared its ugly head at the most inopportune time.

I had a meeting with my boss and he brought up the topic of needing to delete some data from our data warehouse. Not deleting the data puts us in jeopardy of being sued and so I wanted to show him all the different areas that contained the data. I made sure I had logged into our company's virtual private network (VPN) so I could get into the data warehouse. Then I tried to bring up a virtual desktop which is required to log into the database system. It immediately crashed. I tried several more times only to have the same thing happen. Ultimately I had to describe the many different places engineers had squirreled away the information.

Fortunately I didn't need to actually do a demo as I accurately described the many copies of the data. My boss explained that because the copies of data are anonymized, meaning there is no way to associate with with specific people, they do not need to be deleted, just the non-anonymized data. That came as a relief. Ultimately nobody is using the data and so there is no need to keep it around but deleting it is not an emergency.

I finished my video call with my boss and decided to troubleshoot what went wrong. As you would expect, everything worked fine. That only shows the validity of the first rule of demos. 

Killing Time in an Airport

This morning I find myself waiting for my son and his family's flight to arrive from Columbus, Ohio. I am here with my wife so at least I am not alone, which makes waiting a little easier. We have a lot of fog today and so flights are delayed coming in. So how can you pass the time at an airport waiting? That is a question I am sure a lot of people will be asking as they travel this Holiday season.

The airport in Salt Lake does not have a lot to keep you entertained outside of security. Once through security there are a lot of different shops and restaurants, including a Lego store which has a lot of different activities to keep one entertained. The only problem is that all of those little pieces are very easy to lose if you are not careful. So I'll pass on that activity for now. The real question is how to get through security if you are not flying. The easy solution is to purchase a fully refundable plane ticket for later in the day. Once you get through security, just cancel it and your money will be back on your credit card before you leave the airport. It is a trick I have used more than once.

Another thing to keep yourself entertained is to catch up on your e-mail. That is what my wife is doing right now. You do have to be careful with the free airport WiFi as it can be very easy for a hacker to steal your e-mail password. You may be better off using your phone as a hotspot and using it instead. Then there is my favorite, using a virtual private network or VPN that hides your network connection. I have a VPN for work and use it whenever I connect to the free airport WiFi. My e-mail only took me a few minutes this morning and so what should I do for the next hour?

I could watch a movie but it is too early in the day to start watching a movie. Perhaps if it is closer to the evening I would appreciate that more. I know my grandkids don't care what time of the day it is, they are always down for watching a movie. I'm sure that is what they are doing on the plane right now.

Last year for Christmas my wife got me a kindle electronic reader. I recently loaded up a new book on it and will probably pull that out shortly. Until then I've written in my blog, something else that helps pass the time. I could also annoy my wife. Maybe I should go get myself a breakfast burrito instead.

The Internet Does Not Work the Same Internationally

Once again I find myself in Japan this week. When I travel internationally I try to keep my body as close to Mountain Standard Time (MST) as possible. That makes it easier to readjust when I get back to the States. It also means I go to bed at 8pm and wake up at 4am every morning.

This morning I started doing early-morning e-mail and got several from my son. He knows I am looking to replace my 20-year-old car and sent me listings for a few potential candidates. What he doesn't realize is that the Internet does not work the same internationally and I cannot see the listings. Some sites look at the IP address you are using and if you are not located in the United States, block traffic. This is a good way to keep malicious events from happening. Fortunately there is an easy fix. I cannot get my company e-mail without using a virtual private network (VPN). To external websites I now look like my computer is physically located in California even though I am on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Another thing that doesn't work as well is the Pandora streaming music service. I have written about this in the past and have to switch to Spotify when I am outside the US. It is not a big deal as I have my Pandora and Spotify accounts set up with similar playlists but it is something to be aware of.

Finally, there is a big difference with Google. Google and all of its consumer services such as the search engine and YouTube are giant advertising places. That means they need to know where you are physically located to serve you the correct ads. They also use your location information to do things like set the language and character set. When I am in London, that isn't a problem because I speak the language. In Japan it does become a problem because the character set is different.

This blog site is maintained by Google and so when I log in from Japan to create an entry, all of the instructions and buttons are in Japanese. Fortunately the placement is the same for all of the buttons in both English and Japanese so that I know what buttons mean even if I can't read the language. Google also allows you to set your language. To do so, just go to https://google.com. If you have a Google account, you will see your avatar in the upper-right corner of the webpage. Click on it and you will be able to manage your account settings. Simply click on "Manage Your Google Account" and you will find the language setting under "Data & Personalization." Now it doesn't matter what country you are in, Google won't try to translate everything into the language of the country you are visiting.

Most of the time, the differences you will experience with the Internet while traveling internationally are easily surmountable given a bit of preparation. Hopefully this little post helps.

The Internet is Down

This week I have changed my regular routine and am flying to California on Tuesday instead of Monday. That is because I will be flying home on Friday so I can attend my company's winter hackathon. That means I spent Monday working from home instead of being at the office. Things were going well and I got a lot done until all of a sudden the Internet stopped working. I had a virtual private network (VPN) into my office and it immediately told me about the problem. Then I checked on my personal computer, which is not connected to the VPN and it had a problem too.

Having my home Internet down really cut into my immediate productivity. Rather than worry about troubleshooting the problem, I just turned my work phone into an Internet hotspot and kept working. Unfortunately that meant the rest of the house still couldn't use the Internet but I was the only one home and so it didn't matter. When my wife got home from work, I let her know that we had a problem and she remarked that we had a Comcast truck in the neighborhood and he must be working on it.

I headed up to dinner and we still didn't have an Internet connection. At this point I felt an obligation to troubleshoot the problem as it was irresponsible to head to California without fixing the issue. The first thing I checked was to make sure our signal booster had power. Not all Internet connections require a signal boosters but ours does (thanks Comcast). A tripped circuit breaker has caused problems in the past. Then I reset the cable modem. That didn't change anything. Ultimately I just needed to wait for the Comcast technician to finish his work as that really turned out to be the problem.

Sometimes there is nothing that you can do when your Internet is not working. You should be proactive about solving the problem though. One more thing I could have done is to call my Internet service provider and asked about an outage in the area. If you do end up calling and a technician comes out, don't be surprised if you get charged for the service call should it be determined that you are at fault.

Another Apple Mistake

I think Steve Jobs would die he wasn't already dead and if he knew what his successors were doing to his company. I used to be a big fan of Apple and their products. That is changing at an alarming rate. This last week was the crowning moment that has me avoiding everything and anything to do with Apple. I even had a pear for breakfast this morning instead of the usual red fruit.

Last week I was in a meeting when a coworker walked in and asked me to try and log into our company's virtual private network or VPN. While other coworkers could accomplish the task on their Window's-based laptops, I couldn't on my Mac. I logged a support ticket with our IT's help desk. They got back to me and said that Apple turned off Java. Our IT department had a workaround that solved the problem but it left me with a few questions.

I did a quick search on the Internet and discovered that the Department of Homeland Security sent out a warning that running Java in your browser could open you up to potential security threats. Apple then decided to turn off Java running in browsers on every Mac computer connected to the Internet. My first question is: How did they do that? A good second question is: If Apple could screw up my computer, doesn't that mean someone else could? If I was an unscrupulous hacker and found out about Apple's little trick, I would be looking for a way to exploit it.

Frankly it scares me knowing that a company can reach into my computer and make modifications without my consent. While I have been happy with Apple in the past, I'm not any more. It is time to start looking for another laptop, tablet, and phone supplier. At least it gives me something to write about.

No VPN Access

This morning I got up early and immediately went to work in my office at home. I got through my e-mail in a hurry and was feeling like I had a great start on the day. Then I had to run a quick errand. Rather than remain logged into my company's virtual private network (VPN), I logged out. My errand only took 20 minutes and when I got back in front of my computer, I tried to log in again. I got an error saying: "Your primary account has been disabled." Gee, I hope I didn't get fired. I like my job.

Actually I have a pretty good idea what the problem is. When I first started this job almost 2 and a half years ago, I was given 2 different accounts. On some of the computers at work, I log in using a mix of several characters from my first name with my complete last name. On the rest, I just use my first initial with my last name. It can be confusing at times and I ran into a problem a few weeks ago. Now our IT department is making an effort to unify all of my accounts and I am sure this is a temporary side-effect. It is a good thing Snowbird is open as I know how I am going to spend the rest of my day while they get this resolved.

Virtual Private Networks

Recently I worked a deal with my current employer that allows me to work from my home in Utah one week a month. While my home is in the Salt Lake area, my office is in the San Francisco area and requires that I travel every Monday and Friday. This is the week I am home and I have to say it is a welcome change.

Computers greatly facilitate working from home. Since I spend most of my time in front of a screen in the office, it only stands to reason that I could just as easily spend that time at home in front of a similar screen. The only thing missing is the interaction with my co-workers. Fortunately for this week, that is a bonus as I have some software development to do and really don't want to be bothered by anyone.

Security is a key part of my job and so one of the technologies that allows me to work from home is a virtual private network or VPN. When I first start my computer in the morning, I have to run a simple program that asks for 3 different passwords. One is the usual password I use to log into the network when I am in the office. The other two are groups of numbers. The first number is a personal identification number that I have memorized and the second comes from a small electronic device I keep on my key chain. It generates a predictable-random number every 30 seconds. Once everything is entered, I click the connect button and my computer looks like it is part of my work network. My connection is only good for 8 hours. At the end of that time period, I get automatically logged off.

I like being able to work from home one week a month. It gives me more time to do those things that are normally done in the evening, like playing catch with my son, or replacing the fog light bulbs in my car. However there is a weak link with my VPN configuration, if I ever forget any of my passwords or lose my key chain FOB, I won't be able to work. OK, I don't really worry about my passwords, but I do worry about that little FOB. So far it seems fairly indestructible as I have accidentally taken it swimming and discovered it is waterproof. For the record, it wasn't an accident that the FOB was in my pocket, it was an accident that I went swimming wearing my street clothes. Sometimes that happens when you live part time on a boat.

Sneakernet

Yesterday I had both of the computers on my desk going at the same time and it was great. One of my computers has two monitors and so I hardly ever run out of screen real-estate making it a rarity that I actually need to use both computers. However yesterday was one of those unique times where I actually needed both machines.

My primary desktop is a Linux machine and is good for about 90% of the work I do. That other 10% is relegated to my MacBook laptop due to software being unavailable for Linux or for when I am traveling. Yesterday I was using Remote Desktop Connection on my Mac to work on a Windows machine located in San Francisco. I was putting together some documentation that required me to take some screen shots and include them in a technical paper. Since I like to do all of my image editing on Linux but word processing on the Mac, it required a lot of transferring of files.

To complicate things, My Mac was using Juniper Networks software to create a virtual private network (VPN) with the office in the Bay Area. Sometimes that means I can't access any of the computers in my home office without turning off the VPN. Since that slows things down a lot, I decided to resort to an tried and true method of networking: sneakernet.

Sneakernet is basically copying files to a removable medium and walking to the computer where you wish to copy that file. When sneakernet first got its name, people used floppy disks to transfer data. Now we use flash drives, CDs, or DVDs. If anyone ever needs to sneakernet data from here to Hawaii, I'm more than willing to be the one carrying the data.

Since my desktop and laptop are within easy reach of eachother, using sneakernet to transfer files didn't involve using my sneakers at all. I could copy from one computer to the other without even getting out of my chair. I transfered files all afternoon and was thinking I had an elegant solution and was rather smug. I didn't quite dislocate my shoulder patting myself on the back, but probably came close.

At the end of the day I decided to try a little experiment. I had been using sneakernet because I though the VPN would make it impossible for my Mac to see my Linux desktop. I thought I would give the network connection a try anyways. I assumed it was going to give me an error and wanted to know what that looked like in case anybody ever asked me, "What does this error mean?" Much to my surprise it actually worked. It turns out that both myself and the office in San Francisco had configured our networks in such a way that computer IP addresses remained unique.

My smugness quickly disappeared and I regretted not making the simple test earlier in the day. Now I know and can put away my sneakernet until the next time it is needed.