Tag Archives: blocking

Dodgy Clouds

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The recent outage in the Google Cloud infrastructure has certainly revealed a fair amount of vulnerability in their cloud offerings. So many services were affected, and I heard some tales of Nest owners who couldn’t unlock their homes or control their HVAC systems because the system couldn’t function without the other side being up and running.

This has always worried me about cloud infrastructure and beyond that, into IoT designs. We have come to depend on much of this kind of technology recently, and it can be tough for those that understand how all this works to let things like HVAC controls and door lock security go off to be managed by a company without any sort of manual override.

Google Chrome and Ads

It isn’t the first time that Google has turned on us, they used to have as a company motto, “Don’t be Evil,” but then when they ran into a profit wall, they realized that they had to accept evil into their company to make more money. So now, Google is Evil. Recently, the details came to light in regards to how Google will be changing Google Chrome. They are going to disable a programming API that enables some ad-blocking software to function correctly. Honestly, I was expecting this sort of thing long ago. It was the perfect reason to look into moving ad-blocking away from the computer level and further into the network itself. At work, I use Cisco Umbrella, and that places a filter on DNS services. When I was playing around with Raspberry Pi computers a long while back, there was another GitHub project that caught my attention, and that was Pi-Hole.

Pi-Hole

The GitHub project, Pi-Hole is a very straightforward installation that provides DNS filtering for malware and adware based on community-developed blocklists. I originally used it on my Raspberry Pi until I discovered that the Pi wasn’t really all that reliable a platform. Since then I have installed Debian Linux on my original Mac Mini, and that machine, which also serves as a central entertainment hub for my household also provides Pi-Hole services. I have set my home router to refer to the Pi-Hole for it’s upstream DNS requests, so every device attached to my home network funnels all the DNS traffic through the Pi-Hole. In that installation, with all the DNS requests sent to the Pi-Hole, it has liberated my Google Chrome, and any other browser, on my computer, iPhone, iPad, or whatever without any settings to change or fuss around with. To that end, thank you, Google, for giving me the push to help eliminate ads throughout my home.

Sirius/XM Outages

In line with what happened when the Google Cloud malfunctioned, there was another event earlier today that posed a challenge for me, IT wise. I was driving into work and I often times listen to XM’s Channel 33, which is First Wave. I was enjoying all of that music, and the announcer mentioned the channel schedule. That reminded me that I have the XM app on my iPhone and I could stream the XM signal into my workplace just as easily as I can stream Spotify music. So then I tried to use the app and ran into Error 1025. What the hell is that? I eventually got into a chat with a Sirius/XM representative, and they told me that there were system level issues at Sirius/XM that was giving everyone challenges. I have to remind myself frequently that my first stop should be DownDetector.com! I browsed to that site while I was on the chat with the XM representative and there it was, Sirius/XM, with a huge complaint spike. I should have started there! Lesson learned!

The way of things, for cloud infrastructure and all these interconnected devices, will not go away anytime soon. While the settings that you have on your phone and computer might also be causing issues with connectivity, it’s important to always keep in mind that sometimes the biggest systems can also be more fragile. It’s important to keep sites like DownDetector in mind because if you are having a problem with a website, chances are so are a whole lot of other people.

Being Sick

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With my iPad and my MacBook I have to say that the classical lines of distinction of “The Workday” have blurred completely away. I find myself doing my best work at 1:30am or 3:30am, or even when inspiration strikes. I think that’s one of the hallmarks of how technology is changing our lives for the better. I don’t have to write a flurry of ideas down to process at some later time when I can do them RIGHT NOW. Then again, my work style is built on speed. Think fast, act fast, do it right the first time.

Even when I’m sick and hacking up a lung, I can create new blogs and assemble rights for users, and thanks to Apple and all the infrastructure I’ve combined around my work life and my private life I can do all of this pretty much from anywhere, even while driving 70MPH (as a passenger, of course! SCANDAL! :))

I think it’s something that the classical structure of business life will eventually have to address. The idea that if you have a salaried employee who is as mobile as I am and as technologically connected as I am, that we can really do our jobs competently from a rest stop as much as we can do it at work desktop. To that end I have to admit that I encourage my coworkers to heed the wisdom of non-blocking/non-interrupt based communications. I no longer really use a telephone and I don’t really value face to face communications. I prefer my communications to be of the type of Email, SMS, or Instant Message. I think these forms of communication are far more respectful than the intrusive nature of blocking/interrupt based forms of communication. Writing me an email means your message was received and understood and will get the attention it deserves, the same with the other non-blocking/non-interrupt forms, such as SMS and IM’ing. If more people would adopt these forms I know I’d be a far happier person.

I think a good portion of why people elect to use the blocking/interrupt model is because they believe there is a value in the personal approach. They are afraid of the non-blocking/non-interrupt forms to lead to alienation and depersonalization. I get enough personal interaction in my life and the last thing I need is “expensive context switches” where my task flow is interrupted by someone calling me on the telephone or knocking on my door. I often wish I could tell these people that I understand their need for human contact, I don’t require it of them myself and would vastly prefer the non-blocking/non-interrupt based communications styles. The only time I want to see someone in the flesh is if something has become an emergency, then fine. But here again, I make an exception that must be tempered – not everything is an emergency. Even when “emergencies” come up seven out of ten times those emergencies aren’t, they’re just wearing the garb of an emergency to provide an excuse to block/interrupt.

I think eventually more professional people will see the wisdom of this and finally understand that in an average workday the time-wasting emergency-based “humanizing” approach is just wasting money and time. This approach is just as good for the sources of these blocking/interrupt based issues as they are for us victims of their blocking/interrupt driven behaviors. By not having to get up, not having to pick up the phone, you save yourself so much time, to say nothing about the clarity of what you want to convey. You just can’t beat the low signal to noise ratio of text over voice.