Two hours on the allotment.
Perhaps, time for a beer.
[First use of Quill to update]
This is a first try at posting a status update on my blog, for microblogging
Perhaps, a little more than I can chew?
Having sorted out my office, and fixed one of my broken NAS, I decided to to look at my website.
Moved it to a new theme, and started enabling it for IndieWeb yesterday.
Wow. Bit of a hill for an old retired guy!
Still, got some mentions working, started working on some syndications stuff, checked I have h-card enabled, and got IndieAuth working.
That got me onto the IndieWeb wiki, ooh, they use Slack, better get on that…
IndieAuth got me to github; yes, kept meaning to learn about that… which got me to GitHub Pages, to Jekyll via Ruby
Diverting via static pages to Hugo
Unfortunately, less than a day later I’m contemplating the old adage “one bite at a time“
So, any first pointers?
All suggestions gratefully received – I expect the occasional “Ooh, I wouldn’t start from there”!
How I ReclaiMed my NAS drives
Since I’m sitting in my Highland eyrie, all locked down, I decided I’d do some tidying.
I sorted out my office.
Got rid of yet more shredding and started some tidying up of technology!
On my lengthy to-do list was some work on my deceased, much beloved Netgear ReadyNAS Duo v2. Upgraded from a 500G Disk, to a RAID 3Tb volume it had served me well – until a power supply failure knocked it down.
There was little on there that I hadn’t backed up – some bits of creative writing and some old documentation, but I was a bit peeved and decided to see if the files were recoverable.
After some SATA to USB fiddling and trying with a couple of Linux boxen, I decided to try some proprietary recovery software.
Three separate items were completely unsuccesful – one unamed company saying my data was “beyond recovery” – I found my way to ReclaiMe File Recovery Software.
This gave me a good feeling.
I attached the drives for the ReadyNAS Duo via USB, loaded up the software… and it started finding my files.
I’d made space to recover the files and over the next few hours recovered ALL the data.
The software isn’t cheap.
However, it works better than any competitor I had tried, produced flawless recovery and has been added to my lifetime tools arsenal.
Give it a try.
I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
Back with a bang? Perhaps a small whimper
After a four and a half-year hiatus…
[which isn’t rare nowadays, having looked through my blogroll and RSS feeds] I thought I ought to attempt to make some sort of update and tidy up here.
In my last posts I set out some aspirations
Blogging: I was going to share more content here – that failed abysmally, although I remained active on Twitter and Facebook
Coastguard: I was part of a Search and Rescue Team – after another bout of illness affecting my main work, I resigned, completing 9 years service.
Family & Friends: I intended to visit people more – and I did, although for differing reasons – including travelling in our motorhome, which I bought in advance of retirement – but as it turned out, not much in advance.
Work: after some more mental health issues, I returned to work, working in the DDoS space, which I was enjoying – but I got a generous severance offer; which I took, leaving work in July 2015. and taking my pension in 2016. When I reached 60 this year, I decided there was no way I’d look for further work, and I gave up my clearances, certifications, and memberships.
Personal Development:
- I was going to work on my security knowledge, and I did – but my interest is now academic only!
- I intended to improve my physical fitness – I walk daily and now row regularly in a Coastal Rowing Skiff
- I intended to do more to keep abreast of technology – which I do – playing with Raspberry Pis and home automation
- I intended more outdoor activity, I got that by taking up an allotment, growing fruit and veg for us – but still need to do some hammocking!
Photo Credit: StephenMitchell Flickr via Compfight cc
Drilling into the New Year – what will you find?
New Year, New opportunities
I’m not a great believer in New Year resolutions, often finding them a trite way of setting weak aspirations; however, the happenstance of calendar dates does give an opportunity to both look back, and look forward. So these are “sort of not-resolutions”
My last year or two have been challenging in family and health terms, and some sorting out at work has been testing.
I’m fortunate both with my family and my employer – and I have much to be grateful for, so I thought I’d set out some things I’d like to do.
Blogging: I have sadly neglected my blog, for Twitter, Facebook and occasional Tumblr forays. I am going to share more content here – although I may play a little with both Medium and ghost. Some of it will be technology related; some security; some knowledge management, and some more personal… I’ll try to keep my Scottish Independence thoughts elsewhere.
Coastguard: I’m part of a Search and Rescue Team locally – I intend to work more at this and step up to a more senior team role.
Family & Friends: I intend to make more effort to leave my lovely Scottish eyrie and actually see more of people this year
Personal Development:
- I have achieved a couple of security qualifications last year, CISSP and SCF; I intend to further my security knowledge and my general architecture knowledge
- I intend to improve my physical fitness
- I intend to do more to keep abreast of technology – particularly Internet of Things type activity and cloud based work
- I will do more outdoor activity, including regular sleeping outdoors – particularly in my hammock that I have used for 8 years on and off.
Work: I have said I’m lucky in my employer; I want to make sure I work with some wider teams in the company and build my contributions across our security and architecture team.
What about you?
Have you any aspirations/goals you’d like to share?
Flexible working – it’s about trust, innit?
My company is going through one of it’s regular turns – where we want our people to be working in the office – in a shared location.
There’s lots of advantages
It helps us collaborate
There’s lots of studies that show it’s better (I’ll add a link if I ever find them)
There is, of course, another view. It happens to be one I share, but I’d welcome your comments.
I’m surprised I have to repeat myself about this, but as I said in 2009(!) Homeworking builds team work – and communities
Oh, those nice open plan, shared spaces that aid collaboration? Not *everyone* thinks they do.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21878739
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/04/24/you-thought-cubicles-were-hell-try-open-plan-offices/
http://www.gensler.com/uploads/documents/pr_130626_Workplace_Survey_06_26_2013.pdf [PDF]
http://www.news.com.au/open-plan-offices-make-you-sick/story-e6frfm69-1111118550887
http://ideas.time.com/2012/08/15/why-the-open-office-is-a-hotbed-of-stress/
http://blog.analysisuk.com/post/50-Open-Plan-Offices-What-a-HUGE-Mistake.aspx
monitoring performance to death | Becoming Better
monitoring performance to death | Becoming Better.
I was referred to this post from the excellent thinkpurpose blog.
Basically, the premise is that extreme monitoring makes you slower, but slightly better; slight monitoring *always* makes things worse.
I liked
In situations like mine …, where work is not 100% plannable …, monitoring is a great way to fill time while irritating people to the maximum.
So performance mostly about systems/process rather than people sound familiar…?
Criticism of Facebook “friends” goes mainstream?
It’s widely acknowledged that there’s an air of sniffyness amongst some people who claim not to understand Social Media, Facebook friending and so on, and have never had accounts.
There’s another group of people who leave Facebook because of privacy concerns, because they felt they had to maintain a persona, or because they feel it’s indulgent or whatever.
Back in July, I alluded to the Tantek Çelik‘s SXSW Rise of the Indie web session, where he suggested own your own content and federate/syndicate it through the FB/Twitter silos.
I’ve used ThinkUp to track my Social Engagement, and capture posts and tweets, so I’m fairly sanguine as to what I share, and to whom.
The concerns are spreading way outside “the social media bubble” and I thought it was interesting to see the contrasting of online/”real” friends in a UK TV advert for tea.
Who do you friend, and what do you share?