Tag Archives: technology

Technologic Change is Good

We live in a time when our technical infrastructure is being constantly enhanced.  I am very puzzled by the resistance by some to these improvements.

Although to be honest, updates do affect me significantly given my complex home network and associated self-maintained infrastructure and often much work is required to integrate the changes.

Logical Approach

On the whole though, muttering and complaining aside, once I have adapted and received the benefits, you would be hard pressed to convince me to go back.

Some though refuse to accept the improved processes, ie., more productive or secure and resist adoption as long as they can.  Even when logic dictates the change has more pro’s than ons.

Over 80 countries around the world have a Real Time Payments (RTP) system.  Not Canada yet, although we have been working on it for over 5 years.  I suspect the big banks in Canada don’t want to let go of the current ‘float” based system.

Online Billing

RTP will greatly advance the productivity gains associated with our current on-line billing systems which have been eagerly adopted by most of the population.

Although some of the older generation still illogically resist these enhancements it is mainly an emotional response.  Personally I look forward to the continued enhancements, they do contribute to making my life easier once I overcome my natural initial resistance to change.

Uncontrollable Changes

Over the last couple of months I have really encountered the impact of changes outside my control.  Naively, many years ago, I registered my own domain, implemented a Dynamic Domain Name Service, created some web sites, added application servers like mail and such.

Then I sat back thinking I would enjoy the fruits of my labours for years to come.  Not so.  Over the years the hours of support needed to maintain my technology has been very significant.  Not because I changed anything first, my changes were to keep up with the changes all around me.

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

A recent example of this, just one of many over the last 20 plus years, was a change to the the way “Lets Encrypt” (a free certificate authority service) , validated the ssl certificate they issued.

As a result my renewal at the end of April failed and since I was on a trip out of the country, even with my remote access I could not fix it until my return ho e.  Frustrating.

As a result, it was very difficult to access my websites as encrypted requests via ssl got errors.  Also the self signed certificate on my router, which I used for remote access stymied me form correcting the renewal.

Nothing New

Of course this constant change in technical environments, software and hardware, is not new and over the years I have asked myself many times “Why did this stop working?”

For the most part the answer has been, something I do not control changed.  With today’s technology it is not possible to function in isolation but mores the pity.  So much effort required just to keep up with the status quo.

 

Celebration time

For each of us, throughout our lives, there can be moments when we decide to take action and display our pleasure by engaging in enjoyable, typically social, activity.

For me, today I am celebrating a couple of weeks of technical activity cleaning up my home network, improving security, cleansing data and implementing a number of new features.

Updated Kerrzone Website

I mark the celebration of this milestone with a launch of an updated website for Kerrzone.com.  You will notice I have greatly simplified the interface and changed the content focus.

The work on my home technology continues with more enhancements planned for the future including adding SSL certificates for the websites, however,  modernizing kerrzone.com has been a goal of mine for awhile, so time to celebrate.

Hacking versus Managed Development

As I have engaged on my journey of technological improvement of my fairly extensive home technology I have really noticed the difference between development approaches.

In the workplace my experience had always included a high level of structured methodology while I would characterize my home development as more like hacking.

Methodology based technology starts with documented practices intended to be followed like recipes with check and balances to ensure that is the case.

Conversely my hacking journey begins with figuring it out (based on an underlying technical aptitude). In this case reference to documentation is only a last resort and even then a bit haphazard.

This of course is the higher risk approach but somehow I do seem to manage to figure it out in the end although some frustration might ensue while doing so.

Anyway, I reached one of my goals, so today I celebrate.

I’m Back

Warning, todays post is a rant about the vagaries of modern day social media technology. Really just need to get it off my chest.  Please accept my apologies if this causes your eyes to glaze over.

I noticed this morning my Dlvr.it  WordPress RSS feed automation has not been working since May 20th.  Neither was my Zapier automation which I use to post my feed to the Kerrzone facebook page.

Troubleshooting Yuck

I had an alert from Zapier last week but after spending several hours trying to figure out the problem I gave up.  Dlvr.it sent no error message so I figured the LinkedIn feed was still active and that is the one I really care about.

This morning I thought I would quickly check if my Zapier feed had miraculously fixed itself.  It had not and just in case I checked Dlvr.it and found the feed also was not working.

Strange Ambivalence

I have mixed feelings about trouble shooting technology issues.  I like the challenge and certainly feel good when I figure it out, however, I am never happy when things mysteriously stop working.

For well oiled organizations (public and private) documentation is a system and application documentation is a requirement.  For my home grown Kerrzone tech, not so much. Which of course makes troubleshooting even more fun.

Cutting to the Chase

For some unknown reason (I had made no changes) traffic to my WordPress blog was blocked from outside my network.  So, Dlvr.it and Zapier could not connect.

Within my own LAN I had no connection issues.  When it finally nally dawned on me some sort of weird partial Natty address blocking was going on I put the server into the DMZ and problem was solved.

Even weirder, I took the server out of the DMZ and the problem did not return.  Chalk up another one for the mysterious electronic gremlins..

Tool Dependency

Many things we take for granted are just tools to improve our lives.  These run the gamut from refrigerators to calculators.  Often these tools require materials like gas and electricity to work.

Over time many of these things from traffic lights to stoves become critical necessities.  Without them, problems ensue (e.g., massive traffic jams to hunger from lack of uncooked food).

Helpless

On the rare occasions when these critical support tools are not available, it can leave us feeling helpless.  We do not know what to do or how to proceed.

Earlier today Google calendar went offline worldwide.  This software used for managing both personal and corporate meeting management, on a multitude of devices from desktop to mobile phone,  was offline

A quick check of the internet is all that was needed to see the panic that ensued.  Without access to our daily schedules, purpose, attendance, and location of meetings and to do items, everything falls apart.

What did we do before Google calendar? How can can we meet or manage our to do lists without it.  A mornings productivity lost.  Haven’t you guys heard about auto-failover.

Dependent

My greatest fear is we will reach the point of no return.  That is loss of electrical or gas power and mis functioning software will become more than an inconvenience.

The higher our level of dependence on these support tools, the greater the potential for us to whither and die without them.  The entire premise of our lives is based on the availability of these critical tools.

Have we reached the point of unsupportable dependency?  Is the end near?

 

Technology, Weddings and Traveling with Toddlers and Babys

With great apologies to my loyal audience, my blog has been inaccessible via the internet for week and a bit.  Relative to technology, I have learned over the years, never change anything.

My home computing infrastructure is extremely complex and fully undocumented.  This is something I probably would not recommend for organizations with some desire for stability, but hey, for me on my own, I will figure it out.

And so it begins

Last week on remembrance day I improved the speed and capability of a networked multi-media receiver and in doing so disabled my entire local area network.  Change is good – hmmm!

Trouble shooting through the long weekend including hardware purchases (improvements all) I actually improved things even further and fixed it all.

NOT!

Off to the Wedding

Thinking all was repaired I flew off (literally) to my favorite son’s wedding (also our only son) and booked into a suite with my daughter, son-in law, wife and two grandchildren.

While being in a hotel suite with a baby and a toddler can create interesting moments for shy retiring grand parents, like my wife and I, a lot of fun interactions with the children ensued.

We even shared child care duties with our son (he’s preparing for post marriage child care duties) while the parents went out and partied.

While away, I discovered although I could access my web server without difficulty from my own LAN, not so when on another network.  So musings was offline for a week.

Of course being away I could not trouble shoot the problem.  I fixed it this morning when again physically present and able to coax the infrastructure with sweet talk (and contrary to popular believe I do actually know what I am doing).

Coming back

Our daughter booked the same return flight as us so we could enjoy more time with the grandchildren.  Oh joy.

Actually, it was a joy and the real pleasure came with the fact the baby sitting behind us (belonging to someone else) made more noise the whole flight than both our angelic grand children put together.