Archive for the 'Work' Category

We used to have batteries at work available freely to everyone who needed them. The drawer still says they are there, but the box is now empty. This is the request I wrote for 2 AA batteries.

I tried to get 2 AA batteries from the supply room on the east side of the 4th floor, but the drawer marked batteries only has an empty box with the words “See Mary” written on the inside. I tried really hard to see you, but I couldn’t, so I thought I might have better luck if I walked out of the supply room. I even went all the way to the 6th floor, but I still couldn’t see you. I walked over to your desk, and I still couldn’t see you. Although I would like to see you, what I really need are 2 AA batteries for my wireless mouse. I would even be willing to walk up two whole flights of stairs to get them! Next time I should probably ask for them when the low battery indicator first comes on rather than when the mouse completely dies.

Will I ever learn?

UPDATE: This also works on Snow Leopard if you are having the same problem accsessing any preference panes.

I have a work-issued MacBook Pro with Leopard, specifically Mac OS X 10.5.8, installed. It is a test image that was installed to test ideas about ways to administer systems for users without Administrative rights. At the end of the test, my access was changed to grant my user administrative rights on the laptop, but it still has many problems. I am waiting for the new Snow Leopard image to be completed to have my laptop reimaged. In the mean time, I have been struggling with a few issues.

The system blocks access to certain preference panes in System Preferences. This was probably an oversight or the leftovers of some experiment, because it does not block access to some of the more sensitive preferences. I can add new users to the laptop and do all sorts of things that I should probably not do on the network. The preferences I could not access were not too important for me to change, like Growl, for instance. Then I tried to use Apple’s Magic Mouse. When I installed the system update that enables its advanced features, I could not access the new Mouse preference pane. When I hover over it, the tooltip says “Your access to this preference has been restricted.” If you try to open the pane directly the error says “You cannot open “[name of preference pane]” preferences pane because it is not available to you at this time. You might need to connect a device to your computer to see this preferences pane.” It looks like this:

Here’s how you do it:

1. Open the Applications folder and find the System Preferences.app file.
2. Right click or ^-click System Preferences.app and choose Create Duplicate.
3. Right click or ^-click the new System Preferences copy.app and choose Show Package Contents.
   
4. Navigate to Contents > Resources and find the NSPrefPaneGroups.xml file.
   
5. Move NSPrefPaneGroups.xml to the Trash.
6. Make sure System Preferences is not running and double click System Preferences copy.app to run it. All the preference panes appear to be gone!

   

7. In the System Preferences application click the View menu at the top of the screen. All the preference panes are now accessible from the View menu.

   

8. When you have changed the preferences you need to change, close System Preferences.

Any time you need to access the disabled system preferences, just use System Preferences copy.app, otherwise you can still use the original System Preferences.app for changing system preferences normally.

I have been working on getting my LinkedIn profile up to date so I can feel comfortable inviting more people to link to me. I have included new functionality to have relevant blog posts included on my LinkedIn profile. I was struggling with how to enter my freelance web design and Linux consulting while I was a student, treat but I think I came up with a solution, so the gaps in my employment history are gone. Excellent!

I am looking for a good way to be able to map multiple IT governance and compliance frameworks (like COBIT, SOX, TOGAF, ISO 20000, etc.) to one another and be able to interactively browse through them. A week ago I came across Moritz Stefaner and his Relation Browser indirectly through an article called A Cosmological Approach to IT Governance about how the UN put together called some software called 6 Degrees to do something similar. Mr. Stefaner responded to my email within a few hours while the author of the article working at the UN hasn’t responded yet.

The only real problem is that the software is written using Flash and Actionscript. I know nothing about either so I’m working from the ground floor trying to get a grasp on what’s going on. Both Relation Browser and 6 Degrees are reportedly open source, but I can’t find 6 Degrees anywhere and the source for Relation Browser is not directly linked to anywhere that I could find (I had to ask Mr. Stefaner for the link).

Moritz Stefaner is a master of visual representation of data using newer technologies. I hold him in high regard and consult his work for inspiration much as I do Edward Tufte and his work.

A group of not so like-minded individuals at work have decided to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and then go out to lunch to discuss it. I really wish I were a faster reader because one month is just not enough time for me to make it through a tome of that magnitude. Next on the list looks to be Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. I guess we wanted to get polar opposites and see how much they overlap.

A week ago I got a FranklinCovey planner as part of a course I attended on time management. A week before that I found Toodledo (a friend of mine showed it to me). Now I’ve got this dilemma. I find that Toodledo does a great job of managing my tasks for me. At work we use Outlook for email and meeting planning. I am not terribly mobile. I spend most of the day sitting at my own desk at work. I’m struggling to find a use for the FranklinCovey planner. I tried to use it, but so far it just feels redundant. It duplicates all my electronic planning and to-do lists, but it doesn’t update automatically. I feel like it’s doubled the work it takes for me to stay up to date and on top of my projects.

GTD says I’m supposed to have one bucket, one place to collect my stuff that comes in. I have found that there are way too many buckets as it stands now, and FranklinCovey isn’t making things easier.

If there’s a good way to integrate GTD with FranklinCovey, I’d sure like to find it. For now, I’ll just have to stick with what I’ve got, I suppose.

UPDATE: I took the second half of the FranklinCovey class today, so now I know how I’m supposed to use the planner. I’ll report on my progress integrating this with Toodledo and Outlook.

My boss came in to the office with a little birthday present for me. He’s taking our group at work out to lunch for my birthday. He wants me to wear at least the eye patch when we go out since it’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

UPDATE: We went out to the Olive Garden. I wore the eye patch and scared a little girl with a teddy bear while waiting in the lobby. I wore the eye patch up until after we ordered drinks. When the waitress came back and I didn’t have the eye patch on she told me that she thought there was really something wrong with my eye! I felt a little bad for having unintentionally deceived her, but she seemed to think it was all right, and she gave me extra ice cream for dessert. Of course, I was so stuffed after the ravioli, breadsticks, and 2 bowls of Zuppa Toscana that I couldn’t have eaten a regular portion of the chocolate-caramel goodness.

Overall, we didn’t do too well when it came to talking like pirates. I guess there’s always next year!

I have been using Firefox for my normal browsing at work, but found it useless for browsing the company intranet because it asked me repeatedly for my network user name and password. There were other annoyances, as well. Many sites using SSL certificates made Firefox flash multiple warning messages because our proxy issues certificates instead of passing them through unchanged. I decided today was the day to fix these annoyances. The Single Sign-on fix only works with the Windows version of Firefox, unfortunately.

To fix the Single Sign-on problem:

• Type about:config in the Navigation Bar.
• Type ntlm in the Filter box.
• Right-click on network.automatic-ntlm-auth.trusted-uris and choose Modify.
• Type in the domains you want to have access to without typing in your password over and over again. This could include a list like the following: home,portal,service,hr. The format of this list is each domain is seperated by a comma without a space.
• Click OK.

These changes take effect immediately, so go ahead and navigate to another web site and test out your intranet. If the site asks for your user name and password enter it and try to keep navigating. If any more pages start asking for your user name and password and they are part of your intranet, note the domains and add them to the list using the directions above.

To fix the SSL certificates problem you need to export the certificate your intranet uses with SSL encrypted traffic. To export the certificate in Internet Explorer:

• Open IE, go to Tools -> Internet Options.
• Click the Content tab.
• Click Certificates.
• Click the Trusted Root Certification Authorities tab.
• Select the certificate issued by your intranet (look for your company name).
• Click Export.
• Click Next, Next.
• Save the file somewhere and give it a good name.
• Click Yes, Next, and OK until you get back to the main IE window.

To import the certificate into Firefox:

• Open Firefox, go to Tools -> Options.
• Click the Advanced tab.
• Click the Encryption tab within the Advanced section.
• Click View Certificates.
• Click the Authorities tab.
• Click Import.
• Choose the file you exported above.

If all goes well you should be able to use your intranet and browse the Internet using Firefox as long as your intranet doesn’t use ActiveX controls.