This Thursday is the first class for the next ED 422 semester. I'm really looking forward to teaching again. Although things tend to get busy fast (Bible study starts up at about the same time that CSUSM starts up) I think I'm ready to get rolling. At least this year I don't have band rehearsal every Monday night any longer.
The new activity that Sandy and I will have to make time for is the Podcacher recording that we typically do on Sunday night for a Monday show. Sandy and I are still working out some bugs, but the production and post production are starting to become quicker and more efficient. One thing that we did new with this last show was house in on a new server (libsyn) to try and solve the download problems that have happened with some of our listeners. We are still waiting for more feedback, but one person has already written us and said that things are much better.
We'll see.
We had a "root analysis" meeting at work today. The meeting was fascilitated by our new assistant superintendent of Businiess Services. He led us through a 4 hour discussion in an attempt to reveal the core or root causes to some of the problems that we are experiencing. In this particular case we explored the issue of technology. I was really glad that we had the opportunity to run this excercise regarding technology. I have the opinion that there are many aspects regarding the complexity of the management of technology that most people are not aware of. I'm happy to raise awareness with this important issue when possible.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Monday, August 22, 2005
A busy weekend
It started off on Friday afternoon after a long day at work. We went to go see Lee Ann Williams (my secretary's daughter) in Grease. That was somewhat of a late night. Saturday morning we slept in for just a bit, but then had to get rolling. Our nieces and nephew needed to be watched for part of that day. During that time I had to head out to Church to rehearse and play for the praise band. Things went well. I got home after church (about 8:00pm) and began working on the Logo for PodCacher.com. I finished early in the morning of Sunday. Went to bed around 2:00am and got up early to go play in the band at church for both services. Got off work and hunted for several caches in the Vista area. Headed home and went to Fry's to pick up a recorder for the phone. (to do phone interviews for Podcacher) Got home and was exhausted. Took a nap and woke up at 5:30pm. Rushed out the door to get to the geocacher pizza party. Stayed until about 9:30, then drove home. Got home and began working on the podcast show for Monday morning. Recorded the show and went to bed around 2:00am. Got up at 6:00 to try and get to work. They want directors to come in 30 minutes earlier than we have in the past from now on.
Monday, August 15, 2005
A techno-horror weekend
Technology is a great thing ... most of the time. Being a techno-geek means putting up with the unexpected and expected frustrations of using advanced, cutting-edge technology that may just decide not to do what you want it to do. If this sounds like the beginning of a rant, it is.
It's Monday at work and I have just left behind one of those weekends where you wish you had simply gone to the beach with a good book and the only technology you had was your (analog) watch. No cell phone, no MP3 player, no palm, no digital camera, no voice recorder, no LED mini light on my keychain. Yup, one of those weekends.
Technology is a double edged sword. When it functions the way in which it was designed AND meets your expectations, life is good. When it fails to do either or neither, sales of sledge hammers at Home Depot rise.
I have a pretty high tolerence for techno-frustration I would think. To be a self proclaimed techno-geek you have to develop thick skin toward things that have circuits in them. I realize that my cell phone probably has more computing power in it than the rockets of the early NASA space vehicles, but that doesn't make me feel any better. It's not the occaisional or sporadically distributed experience that really get me, it's when my technology decides to gang up on me with relentless zeal like HAL, SKY-NET, or the WOPR. (BTW if you can name the references that I just made you too are a techno-geek, live with it). It's the gremlins that get me. Bugs. Murphy's Law.
Went out to record a FTF Podcast and the MiniDisc record stopped recording. It didn't stop giving me information that it was recording mind you, it simply stopped recording the audio to the disc. A FTF is one of those experiences in audio recording that you can't duplicate. It's a "live" documentation of a one time event. So it's a real bummer when you don't get it on the first take. The recorder was passing audio to my earphones telling me everything was okay. The readout on the MD display was showing the db monitor gleefully flicking away telling me everying was okay. The timer was counting out the time passed on the recording telling me everything was okay. Not until we got home to check the reading did we find out that there was a problem. There were files there alright, several minutes long in fact, but they were blank. It was like the time jump in CONTACT. I didn't even have any static on my recordings though. The files were obviously corrupt. I couldn't fast forward through them either. So we lost all that data.
Later on the same hike, my digital camera fell over into the hard packed dirt of the trail. I had mounted it on my walking stick as I have done so many times in the past, but today a breeze came by, at the precise moment to blow it over. SMASH! I have a picture of black when the timer took a picture.
The real pain came later Sunday night. Sandy and I planned and then began recording for our Monday podcast. One thing after another went wrong. Too many to describe or explain here. But VERY strange quirky things happened. Again and again. By 2:00 am we called it quits.
It's Monday at work and I have just left behind one of those weekends where you wish you had simply gone to the beach with a good book and the only technology you had was your (analog) watch. No cell phone, no MP3 player, no palm, no digital camera, no voice recorder, no LED mini light on my keychain. Yup, one of those weekends.
Technology is a double edged sword. When it functions the way in which it was designed AND meets your expectations, life is good. When it fails to do either or neither, sales of sledge hammers at Home Depot rise.
I have a pretty high tolerence for techno-frustration I would think. To be a self proclaimed techno-geek you have to develop thick skin toward things that have circuits in them. I realize that my cell phone probably has more computing power in it than the rockets of the early NASA space vehicles, but that doesn't make me feel any better. It's not the occaisional or sporadically distributed experience that really get me, it's when my technology decides to gang up on me with relentless zeal like HAL, SKY-NET, or the WOPR. (BTW if you can name the references that I just made you too are a techno-geek, live with it). It's the gremlins that get me. Bugs. Murphy's Law.
Went out to record a FTF Podcast and the MiniDisc record stopped recording. It didn't stop giving me information that it was recording mind you, it simply stopped recording the audio to the disc. A FTF is one of those experiences in audio recording that you can't duplicate. It's a "live" documentation of a one time event. So it's a real bummer when you don't get it on the first take. The recorder was passing audio to my earphones telling me everything was okay. The readout on the MD display was showing the db monitor gleefully flicking away telling me everying was okay. The timer was counting out the time passed on the recording telling me everything was okay. Not until we got home to check the reading did we find out that there was a problem. There were files there alright, several minutes long in fact, but they were blank. It was like the time jump in CONTACT. I didn't even have any static on my recordings though. The files were obviously corrupt. I couldn't fast forward through them either. So we lost all that data.
Later on the same hike, my digital camera fell over into the hard packed dirt of the trail. I had mounted it on my walking stick as I have done so many times in the past, but today a breeze came by, at the precise moment to blow it over. SMASH! I have a picture of black when the timer took a picture.
The real pain came later Sunday night. Sandy and I planned and then began recording for our Monday podcast. One thing after another went wrong. Too many to describe or explain here. But VERY strange quirky things happened. Again and again. By 2:00 am we called it quits.
Friday, August 12, 2005
I've become a flickr junkie
The photo on the right takes you to one pic of my photo sets, but the thing that I've begun to get hooked on is checking out other people's photos. Some of these are GREAT! With the advent of digital cameras, there are a LOT of blossoming professional looking pics out there. On the main page of flickr they put links to random new photos. Very cool and geeky indeed!!!
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Podcacher.com is starting to grow
An endeavor that Sandy and I have begun to see grow is our site: http://www.podcacher.com. Currently we jumped from around 120 listeners to about 180. The main reason for this is because we have begun to ask other podcaster to post our "promo" on their shows. In particular a show called MacCast (one of the top 10 shows) ran our promo. This caused the leap in our listenership. We'll see where this goes. Right now Sandy is learning a great deal regarding PHP and MySQL. This is something that I don't have time to learn AND Sandy is brilliant at picking stuff up like this.
If you haven't already check out the site get on over there and sign up!
If you haven't already check out the site get on over there and sign up!
Friday, August 05, 2005
The week before things get rolling
It's a Friday here at the School District and we are ramping up for a new school year. There will be many changes this year . We have a new superintendent: Ed Nelson. Ed will be taking over the position from Dr. David Hughes who has been our leader for the last 5 years. Steve Boyle, formerly principal at EHS will be the new Asst. Supt of Human Resources. Bob Calkins the Asst Supt of Business Services will be replaced by Barry Dragon.
I'm really hoping that we can make some positive stride and progress this year. There is currently rumor that we will have a approval to hire another technician. Currently we support approximately 2,500 computers with 6 technicians and 1 supervisor, a very challenging task. Each technician is responsible to maintain and support his local area network and approximately 600 computers. Many of the the computers were purchased in 2000 and are deteriorating.
I'm really hoping that we can make some positive stride and progress this year. There is currently rumor that we will have a approval to hire another technician. Currently we support approximately 2,500 computers with 6 technicians and 1 supervisor, a very challenging task. Each technician is responsible to maintain and support his local area network and approximately 600 computers. Many of the the computers were purchased in 2000 and are deteriorating.
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