and now for a change of pace

It has been a while friends, hasn't it?
Much has changed since I last wrote - I have taken a Senior Unified Communications Engineer position in San Francisco at a little company that is responsible for the great sound and video in yoru music, movies and television. They also branched out into conference phones a while back and announced a video system add on at Enterprise Connect 2018.

The last two months have been filled with a major deployment here at work while also trying to figure out how to exist in two places. You see, since my family and I have been established in the Tacoma area and with a daughter in high school, I don't want to move everyone down to the most expensive area of the left coast just yet. So I am splitting my time about 80% in the bay and then home for the rest. It is not easy, but it is becoming more familiar.

So about the work.....
   We are a major partner with BlueJeans so I jumped into the deep end of the pool right away to move all of our conference phones straight onto a new BlueJeans software and connect all of our Cisco VCS-based video infrastructure to BlueJeans and their Relay services that enable One Button To Join on almost any standards-based-endpoint.
   The Cisco infrastructure and endpoints are in need of some TLC as well so I've started learning and exploring their configurations. It's fun to do this part because sometimes there are creative things you discover but more often I learn so much by wondering why someone did something. Manual phone books in TMS for example - I will never understand how that is a good idea!
   The cowboy in me wants to fix all the things right away but I am measuring myself because My philosophy has been throughout this blog to document all the things and leave things so the next person can pick up where you left off.

Leaving things....
    With a long story made short, I did not leave everything as I wanted at my former place of work. There simply was not time and as the sole person knowing a technology, as much as I tried to share info I was never sure if that information was received.
    I think IT Organizations should place greater emphasis on some repository of information. It doesn't have to be pretty, but that helps. One place where all passwords are stored and one place where people should keep notes about the things they do. This isn't tickets or change control... let it be free-form open notepads if that works, but start somewhere.
    At my new place, we use combinations of Sharepoint for communication outside our group, Confluence and Box (and Box Notes) for internal things and even some SmartSheets. Then a common but hard to manage online password storage tool. These seem to work but I think part of that is a constant push to keep things off your computer and to share info. Frankly, the less I keep on my computer the better but that same practice makes it easier to share data with those that need it.


I will try to expand on these more and talk about my experience with BlueJeans (short take: it is nice) in the coming days. Now that I have my own little room I should have more time to myself, but I'm also going to start on a Cisco CyberOps course next month.

The tools I use - what do you need first when you get a new computer?

Rejoice for the year is new and I get a new work computer! As I'm setting this up, I figured I might as well go over some of the most important essential tools I use to do my job. By no means is this list exhaustive or complete; instead it cover the thing I am installing on day one because I know I'll be using them tomorrow when I have to go back and fix what I couldn't touch today....

General Tools I Use:

LastPass *- Because I have a million passwords I use LastPass to manage them. It will also autofill them in Chrome and Firefox as well as on my Android phone and my Chromebook. This becomes essential as I start installing new apps and logging into new webpages. I turn off most of the "Show" notifications though as well as autofill because many admin webpages I use have password fields that would be best left unchanged. PS, I love setting the password length to crazy long - minimum 50 characters :)
SnagIt - Before I make any sort of change it is always important to make a backup but it is also helpful to screenshot things first too. SnagIt is the easiest clipping and fast editing tool I have found so far. I'll also use it to screencap and then highlight settings I'm not too fond of and then I'll email them to the responsible parties. I'm like that.
Notepad++ with Plugin Manager and Compare plugin - Simple editing of text files, but with the Compare plugin you can see why one endpoint works and the other doesn't.
KiTTY - yes PuTTY is what everyone knows, but KiTTY offers some additional features like login scripting and passwords.
Wireshark - If I have to explain this, you are in the wrong business.
7zip -  We have to work with compressed files that are not .zip files all the time, so using 7zip is quick and reliable.
Evernote *- I use Evernote for most of my documentation and note taking and the cross-device sync function is absolutely killer for people on the move. (remember - don't store confidential or proprietary info in your personal cloud service!)
FileZilla - It is infrequent that I need an FTP application but this one is still updated so here ya go....
Royal TS - I don't quite know how to describe RoyalTS; Terminal Services, Remote Desktop, SSH console, VMWare things... It's a crazy powerful connection manager and a single pane of glass to work with almost every kind of system.
Google Backup and Sync - You should never use a personal cloud service for work files so I strictly use Google Backup and Sync and a synced folder to drop PDF release notes, install and config guides and other things of that nature so I can read them from my phone on the way home or from another computer - kind of like a cloud USB key.

What do you use or need?

Toilets, Lightbulbs and TelePresence

My primary job is managing the Cisco TelePresence environment but it is never that simple. I think more than any other IT field, we have to work with other non-IT departments and deal with things that are not traditional IT all the time. When things break at work people are going to point at IT or at facilities. If the sink doesn't run, they know who to call and usually call IT for anything else that even remotely smells of technology.

Of course I'm always amazed at the technology behind a flushable toilet and it is astounding how much "technology" is involved with lighting these days.

So when you go into a conference room and push the button to turn the light on you expect the light turns on. When it doesn't you push it again. If it still doesn't work, you pretty much leave and find another room, right? But when you walk in the room and push a button to turn on a video system and ......      do I need to go on?

The truth is after a century we instinctively know there is a relation between the physical utilities like a toilet and a light and "Facilities" but even after a quarter century of use the line is blurred with "technology." Turn it off and then back on works too well for things we do but has no equivalent in anything else. When the blender doesn't work and you unplug it then plug it back it it isn't to "initialize" the blender it is to confirm you plugged it in in the first place. Then you might check another plug but that is to see if maybe the outlet is dead.

Keep pushing that button to power on the TV... just like the elevator button makes the elevator get there faster when you push it more ;)

But really, the things people look to us for help with might be simple for us but so much friction and apprehension is instilled in people that when something doesn't immediately react, doesn't react at all or just goes plain bonkers we don't always know what to do.

We as IT and technology people can always do more and do better to explain and assist.  Edison and Tesla went on big road shows and conducted grand public displays so the public could understand that the little light bulb was going to turn on and should replace their cherished whale oil lamp. The genius inventor of the toilet had a harder time demonstrating so but thankfully that work made our lives less shitty.

So what am I doing about this all?

Instructions. For now.

Getting Started instructions

When you tap the button on the main screen of a Cisco Touch Panel, you get some basic instructions. This screen is explaining the controls on the wall and I give some other helpful this. I'm trying to keep it short and simple. This is only on the main home panel so nothing in here should be needed during a meeting since it it is not nearly as discoverable during a call.

AV Controls help

No matter where you are on the Cisco Touch Panel, there is a little help button in the upper right of the screen (it's a lightbulb here but in real life it's a question mark).
I am using these panels to give the most basic of instructions to users for how to use the controls on the wall to turn screens on or off, select the different modes of the room and change volume levels.

VTC Controls help

While I find the Cisco Touch to be really simple, some people wanted more help. Again, I kept it simple and just the basics.

HELP!

After reviewing feedback and looking at support tickets I added some of the top issues here and most importantly how to get more help. A single unified service desk to call when they have issues. There are ways I could even add a button to call them, but if the system is broken then that is not a call they can make, right?

This was pretty simple to do. I utilized the Room Integration tools for Cisco endpoints. Ideally they could interface with the butt things on the wall for AV control but that is not an option yet with all of our audio video equipment. So they are just text fields  that I built in the Cisco provided tool and uploaded to every endpoint.

Hopefully they will reduce calls and let people use the rooms faster and easier.

As tie goes on, I will improve these. I will have training and maybe I'll record it. But really I'm going to try to remember that no matter how simple and easy I think it is, It still isn't that magic lever that makes it all go down the drain.

Coming back from vacation and Cisco's Collaboration Solutions Analyzer

I spent the last week on vacation in Birch Bay, Washington. It's a little town just 5 miles south of the US/Canada border. We had very little to no cell phone service and no internet so this was a great vacation. The sunsets were fabulous!

I wanted to read up on Expressways and all sorts of other things but I skipped all of that hub-bub and just enjoyed the slow pace of doing nothing. I avoided tech except to play SimCity Build-It in offline mode :)   All of that to say that the fam did not want to kill me as I was previously worried about.

So what happens at work when you are the only one minding the shop and you are gone for a week? Thankfully not too much. So today being my first day back at work I had a few emails to parse but moved through them quickly. Now I'm looking for things to work on.

Collaboration Solutions Analyzer - the greatest thing ever?

Has anyone ever seen this? Collaboration Solutions Analyzer (Cisco how to use) is something I found before I left and took a cursory look at today. The doc I liked explains it pretty well, but of course I'm going to add my bits here.

Take a diagnostics log from your your Expressway, VCS-C, Conductor or even most endpoints and this puppy will parse out all the goodies that you probably need to know. The keen folks at Cisco TAC built this and must have had it in their secret weapon toolbox

I decided to make a few calls, gathers a couple of logs and see what it tells me. The first thing that popped up from a log captured on my VCS-c is this: POTENTIAL PROBLEMS!

Right there, the CSA tool tells me there might be some problem I didn't even know about. This is very cool. By following the link right there I was able to see what it was and in this case completely did not apply, but I like knowing that CSA can identify something I might not otherwise be looking for.

There is so much more to like in the CSA that I'm going to have to use it more and include it in the troubleshooting processes we use.
I will probably even write about it more later.

Blogging, Tweeting, Linked Inning, Sparking and IFTTTing

Confession; I have never blogged before. 

Since joining Twitter 10 years ago I have tweeted 16.2k times. Twitter has always been more my style because brevity befits my balderdash (ooh i like that). Extending my posts may not be as much a problem as learning the practical mechanics of starting and maintaining something like this.

So this is how I'm proceeding:

1. Bought the NOSaturn.com domain via Domains.Google.com 
2. Tried to connect my new domain to a new Blogger blog, but had to figure out first how to delete some blog I made a dozen years ago about nothing (I only posted twice) (that doesn't really count as blogging does it?)
3.  OK, really setting up the Blogger blog and choose the URL http://blog.NOSaturn.com because I might someday want a real front page
4. Set Blogger to redirect http://NOSaturn.com to the blog because I don't have that real landing page 
5. Much Much playing and experimenting with Blogger and layouts and formats and discovering what holes I have in the configurations

That was a whole lot of fun and I see some neat features about the domain tools offered. The SRV tools could allow me to connect potential future lab to real world communication abilities. 😎  But I have to admit a real annoyance that Blogger does not allow HTTPS: redirects with custom domains. regular HTTP needs to die.

Now that I have a blog with a a couple of entries, I ought to connect it to some of the socials I use. I'm not going to connect to Facebook since that's entirely a personal social thing whereas I mix personal and professional in Twitter. You'll find me on LinkedIn too because I hear that I should be there.

My professional presence on social media is encouraged as I am a 2017 Cisco Champion for Collaboration. I'll talk about that another time.

Ah, yes; back to connecting this blog to social media.... IFTTT, or IF This Then That, is a super useful and pretty easy way to make a "trigger" in one thing do "something". In this case I setup an applet that would post to Twitter and LinkedIn whenever I made a blog entry. The post would include the hashtag #Collaboration because that is what hashtags are for. This was real neat right up to the point that I got way too smart and built an applet that would take any of my tweets with #Collab and post that as a blog entry. 

    Don't do that.

Thankfully I stopped all that nonsense because a blog post triggered a tweet which then triggered a blog post of the tweet and on and on. This is like aiming a video camera right at a screen showing the camera's feed. 

I still wanted some of that same functionality but figuring that Blogger should easily be able to tweet or LinkedIn for me I started exploring again. Blogger's Help forums pointed me to some tool that has shut down, then on to DLVR.it which seems to suite me right now. We will see...

Speaking of applets, the new hotness is of course BOTS! There really isn't much difference between applets, apps, bots or all these things except who is using whatever term at any one time. (right?) One of the collaboration tools I'm enjoying lately is Cisco's Spark. It's a mashup of messaging, chat, voice, video, email, file sharing and other general goodness but I will cover that later. Spark has bots and integrations that really enhance and extend it's functionality. I setup a connection in Spark to Twitter so I could Tweet directly from Spark. That worked. Of course if I included the #Collab hashtag the Twitter post then rolled on up into a blog post. NEAT. I cleaned it up even more with another IFTTT applet that would take something I say in a designated Spark room would post directly to my blog. EVEN NEATER.

This is all a very long winded explanation for today's previous posts and a couple I deleted last night from the recursive posting debacle. 

(Remember that "brevity befits my balderdash"? )

This blog really is an extension of my ongoing professional development. There are so many tools and communication modes available now. I really believe understanding their strengths and weaknesses is central to collaboration.