Those pigs have wings, dammit! So exactly what happens, I asked?

"I choose Save As. I navigate down to CPONLINE..."

Ooops. Magic word. He said "Down", didn't he? The pigs all perked up and started tentatively fluttering their wings. I asked the $64,000 question: "Are you going through the Syn75 share or the CPONLINE share?"

NO, he was not using CPONLINE. He was navigating down through the Syn75 share. THAT share has no write permission - it doesn't matter that CPONLINE is under it, that only is writable if you come to it through the CPONLINE share! I had him map a network drive to CPONLINE and the pigs lifted off into the sky and everybody was happy.

Because he's such a nice guy ("Maybe I'm doing something wrong?) and because I should have paid more attention when he asked that, I'm not even sending him a bill for any of it.

Pigs: to your stations! Fly, you pink porkers, fly!

 

[Sharename] 

        path = /path/ShareName 

        valid users = @somegroup 

        write list = @somegroup 

        read only = No 

        create mask = 0660 

        directory mask = 0770 

        force create mode = 0660 

        force directory mode = 0770 

 

Gentle Waves

Let me first apologize to the people who don't yet have Wave accounts - it must be very boring and also frustrating listening to people wax on about things you can't yet experience.

On that note, I do have a few invitations left for regular contributors, customers, and so on.. Just drop me an email.

For those who do have accounts, I'm "pcunix@googlewave.com" and you can find my public waves by searching "with:public creator:pcunix".

Now what I really wanted to talk about.

Last night, I presented Google Wave to our little retirement community Computer Club. They are a mixed crowd: we have a guy who programmed systems in the early 50's for the Department of Defense, another man who managed programmers before he retired, other people who used computers extensively at their jobs... and people who are struggling to understand email.

I can't make everybody happy, but I do try to keep things basic enough for the newbies and deep enough not to bore the old hands. Obviously that can never be entirely successful, but I thought the reactions last night were interesting.

Some people "got it" very quickly. They understood it so much that they were arguing with the people who didn't get it, saying things, like "No, really, this would have been a fantastic tool to have for the work I used to do!" Others were obviously confused.

One man in particular almost seemed angry. "It's confusing", he said. "Why do I need all this stuff that it does? I don't - I do fine with email!"

I was momentarily tempted to ask why he comes to Computer Club if he doesn't want to learn anything new, but I realized that wasn't what he meant: he just doesn't want to learn a new way of doing email. Email as it exists now meets his needs, he doesn't need to combine it with IM, doesn't need in-line replies, doesn't need Yes/No gadgets - doesn't need the confusion, thank you very much. If Google or anybody else is going to try to drag him into using Wave, he'll be kicking and screaming all the way.

I offered my argument that as we start to use Wave for some things, we'll realize that we ought to start with a Wave just because we might need it to be a Wave later. Someone else agreed, pointing out that if you have two ways of doing something, you'll naturally settle in to using one, probably the more powerful way, even if you don't use all of its features all the time. Our Mr. Confused was having none of that, though. As I said, he seemed a little angry - perhaps he had the idea that Google was somehow going to force this upon him.

That's not how its going to happen. Nor are people like him ever going to ask for a Wave account just to kick the tires. Too confusing, no perceived value, not going to happen.

I think that what WILL happen is that Mr. Confused and Mrs. I Never Heard of It Anyway are going to get softly dragged in. That is, they'll click on a Web page that invites them to join a discussion group or to get more information about some subject they are interested in. When they access that link, they'll need a Wave account. By that time, that will be an instant or near instant process - much like getting a Gmail account now. To these people, this will just be another web page, something they need this "Wave account" to access, but that's simple.

They may not even realize at first that they have a new tool. It's just a discussion about local tax rates with their neighbors, or a list of resources and information about something else. They may not realize that they now have the ability to create their own waves. They may know nothing about Yes/No gadgets until they see one and use it. But over time, as they have joined more Waves, they'll start to "get it". Maybe a more technical friend will show them a few tricks, maybe they'll read a little how-to at another web page - or at another Wave!

That's probably how it's going to happen for a lot of people. No kicking and screaming, just a gentle slide into something new.

Misunderstanding Wave

There are people who don't understand Google Wave. There are people who don't like Google Wave. There are people who do understand Wave, and people who do like it. Most of those who don't like it just don't understand it, but even a few who do understand still don't like it.

Most (maybe even all) of the complaints you'll hear about Wave are gripes about problems that obviously will be fixed as this progresses out if its current "Preview" stage. Most of the complaints are also client-side implementation issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with the underlying concepts. You need to keep that in mind when listening to negative comments.

One of the most important things to understand about Wave is that anyone can create a Wave server or a Wave client. You can go to http://google.com/wave to use Google's web based client, but I and many other Mac users use Waveboard, a third party Wave client. If you Google for "google wave client", you'll find many other clients. Doing a search for "google wave servers" doesn't yield quite so much, but I did spot at least one, and as time goes on there will be more. Although I and others often refer to "Google Wave", in fact the idea is that Wave servers will be like SMTP servers: anybody can run one and your Wave server will happily talk to any other Wave server.

Let's have a look-see at some of the griping.

Interactive Chat is distracting

Google Wave is IM squared. Not only do you see what the other person is typing, but if there are many people involved in the Wave, you see all of them typing, back-spacing, correcting things - the screen jumps around and it can all be very annoying.

The biggest problem there is the jittery screen. That is, of course, a client side issue - nothing says you HAVE to have the screen updated in real time. And nothing says you have to participate in a Wave that has dozens of people actively typing. One of the truly beautiful things about Wave is the "replay" ability - you can come back when all the excitement has died down and run through the whole thing step by step at your own pace.

I have confidence that client-side issues like this will be fixed, and soon.

It's sloooowwww

If a lot of people are in a Wave, it does get slow. That feels like a client side issue to me - just don't try to show all that activity at the same time. Buffer it up and display it when things calm down a bit.

Big Waves Break

Early adopters are finding that large Waves crash and burn. It's not hard to split off and start another Wave, but that needs to be fixed. I don't know if that's client side, server side or a general weakness in the protocol, but it needs fixing. Again: Preview release.

Difficult Contact Management

When I first got Wave, I found my contacts list populated with people who already have Wave accounts. These people were apparently people I know, or at least have had email correspondence with. I use Gmail, so Google probably pulled them from there.

I don't recognize half the people on that list.

The reason is simple enough: their Wave account doesn't match whatever I know them as. Google knows them, and knows the connection between that account and whatever email I know them as, but Google doesn't let me see that connection.

Presently, you can't organize your Wave contacts into groups. Obviously that's a necessary and useful feature and justas obviously it WILL be added. But right now? Nope.

Broken features

Remember, this is a "Preview". Sometimes things that are supposed to work get balky. Sometimes your Client loses contact with its server. Sometimes just plain weird stuff happens. For example, I had marked a Wave as "public", which means that anyone can see it and add to it. The darn thing kept losing its public status. It seems to be OK now, but that's annoying.

You can find my public waves by searching (in Wave) for "with:public creator:pcunix"

Spammers

It's unclear how the problem of misbehaving people will be dealt with. Right now, if you add someone to a Wave, you can't take them off easily or even just block their messages from your view. In a public Wave, any idiot can join the conversation and you can't filter them out. People can add objectionable 'bots to your Waves - somebody added Eliza Robot to one of my public Waves. I was able to delete that, but this kind of nonsense does happen and we will need ways to prevent it.

Unwanted Invitations

The matter of you being added to Waves you don't want to be part of is a common complaint, but there's a simple fix - just "mute" the Wave and it won't bother you again. The mute function moves the Wave out of your inbox and ignores any updates that would bring it back to your attention. If you ever change your mind, you can drag it back to your inbox, but otherwise it has been gagged and silenced.

Just don't understand it

I've talked to people who think Wave is IM. Others think it is email. Still others think it's a Wiki.

It is all of that, and more. Some people, stuck in their false perceptions, may never see the reality. I think as more of us start using Wave, the confused nay-sayers like Robert Scoble will eventually understand.

Just this morning one of my Wave contacts posted a new Wave about using a Wave as a Technical information log. He says:

Trying to visualize how the different elements stitch together is often almost as hard as starting from scratch. The more I play with waves the more it really seems like a one stop shop for interfacing to information.

He has the right idea. Robert Scoble may not understand yet, but others do. The Waves are coming!

My first Waves

Thanks to one of our readers (thanks again, Donal) I got a Google Wave invitation Friday morning. By the way - if someone says they have sent you an invitation, you may have to wait: Donal said that he had sent that invitation on Monday. I don't know if Google is just slow in processing these or if they are deliberately doling them out slowly (probably the latter), but once you actually get your invite, you can be up and working in minutes.

I started out using Wave in my Firefox browser, but quickly switched to Waveboard, a Mac Wave client. It's not that it's all that much better than running Wave in a browser; it's just that I like having it in its own Dock icon.

I created a few waves and soon had a few conversations going with other Wave users who I added to the Waves. My contacts as supplied by Google seem to be people from my Gmail contacts who also have Wave accounts. I recognize only about half of them, though: probably because they used a different name in email than they do in Wave.

My first conversation was with Donal, thanking him for the invitation. That could have just as easily been done in email or chat, of course; there was no specific reason to use Wave. However, in the next conversation, Wave was useful.

I had started a Wave titled "Until everyone can use this, sure is useless :-)", in which I lamented my inability to bring in people who don't currently have Wave accounts. I have uses in mind for Wave, but without being able to add in non-wave users, I can't do anything useful. I added in everyone in my Contacts list and a few comments soon came.

One of the people happened to be someone I do business with and his appearance reminded me that there was something I wanted to talk to him about. We started doing that in a "private" conversation within the existing wave, but then realized that it was better to spawn it off to a new Wave. That's very easy to do and is an advantage of Wave over Mail and Chat - not that you can't peel off from either, but it's easier in Wave.

I also started a "public" Wave. That's a Wave that anyone can join (assuming you have already been blessed with a Wave account). You create a public Wave by adding "public@a.googlewave.com" to the list of people you want to be able to read the Wave. With that, it's now open to the world. Presently, there is no way to post a link to a public Wave; you have to search within Wave to find them. For example, to find my Wave, you'd search for "with:public Tony Lawrence's Unix, Linux and Mac OS X Tips".

     Click for larger image

Note that it's perfectly possible to insert advertising into your Waves. I did that here with simple text links, but you could put in Javascript with a Wave Gadget. How long before there's an Adsense Gadget? I'd guess not very long.

I started another Wave called "Will Wave replace Email?". I opined:

For SOME email conversations, Wave is much better. The problem (for mail) is that you don't necessarily know ahead of time that a conversation would be better in Wave. So... once this is ubiquitous and we all understand that, we might just start using Wave instead of email at the beginning of a conversation?

Two people have commented on that so far. One said:

If Google is going to succeed with this they're going to have to do two things.

1. Make it so user@googlewave.com is a real e-mail address that can be used by anyone. Regular e-mails sent to these addresses will automatically turn into Waves for the Wave user.

2. Make it so that a Wave user can create a wave and add people to it that use regular e-mail. Waves will get sent to standard e-mail users as regular messages and get sorted into threads the way their e-mail client chooses to do it.

I suspect that's exactly what will happen. A Wave isn't always better than email, but sometimes it is and you don't necessarily know at the beginning of a conversation that it would be better as a Wave. For example, suppose that halfway through a long back and forth email discussion you need to bring someone else in. With email, you'd have to forward all the prior messages - that can be tough for the recipient. With Wave, you just bring them in and they can replay the previous messages step by step if they want to. That's a powerful advantage over email and it's why, if this does become ubiquitous, many of us will probably just use Wave instead of email.

That could really change things, couldn't it?

Help, I'm disappearing!

When we first moved here, our address didn't exist in Google Maps, nor could anything but dirt be seen in the satellite images. That changed soon enough and for some time now I've been able to plug in my home address as a starting point for directions.

A year or so ago, I started having a little trouble with that. The reason was because someone I do business with added me to a user generated map. From that point on, Google saw my address as a business address, and would react by asking "Did you mean A.P. Lawrence?". I'd just click on that and everything would be fine.

The other day I noticed that I couldn't do that. Google Maps insists that my address simply does not exist. Indeed, if I summon up a map of the town, the whole street has disappeared! It's still visible in the satellite view, as is my house and even the golf cart parked in my driveway, but the map view shows empty space.

Yahoo still knows we are here. I don't LIKE Yahoo maps, but I'm stuck with them for now. It's not all that critical; I only use these as a failsafe for my car's GPS, but it is a bit unsettling to have disappeared.

Interestingly, one of my neighbors ( who also runs a business from his home) does appear in the business listings. He's at the top of the page, even though our street no longer exists. Why is he still there but I am not? Who knows? Why does google show addresses in other States when I have specifically given both a town, a State and a zip code? How can Google have maps of a street for several years and not have them now? I do not know.

Perhaps Google knows something I do not. We are on the amorphous edges of the supposedly spooky Bridgewater Triangle ; perhaps we are slowly being sucked into another dimension? If so, it's been grand and I will write if I can.

There is a "Report a problem" link at the bottom of the Google page. I clicked on that and explained the vanishing of my street. We'll see how long it takes for Google to find us again.

Answer the bleeping email

Earlier this week I got email from VMware announcing that I could now order Fusion 3.0 for my Mac. Because I had been a beta tester of this, they offered me a coupon code that was supposed to give me a 25% discount.

To my annoyance, it did not. The order page insisted the code was invalid.

In spite of diminished income in this recession, I still have more money than patience, so I just ordered the upgrade without the discount. Of course that ticks me off, so I returned to the email that promised this boon and noted that it didn't say a word about "No reply possible", so I hit reply and (politely) expressed my disappointment.

Yeah, I know - I should not hold my breath.

I don't want to single out VMware here. Yeah, it's really dumb to send out coupon codes that you aren't honoring, but never mind that. Where VMware really fails is that I can't send them email.

That's hardly unusual. At far too many large companies today, email from outside is discouraged or blocked outright. You usually can't hit "Reply" and if you visit their web sites, you are more likely to be forced fill out contact forms that may confine you to certain subjects - your particular concern may not be among the choices.

VMware has such a system. In addition to finding nothing that matched my needs, all of their forms request extraneous information that I don't feel like providing, thank you very much anyway.

Suggestion to companies implementing such things: have a "I think you screwed me" form and DON'T have any required fields other than one of email or phone.

It's possible that someone from VMware may eventually reply, but I have little confidence of that. I could try calling them, but large company voice mail systems aren't fun to navigate. I SHOULD be able to send email. That is the most convenient way to provide everything that they'd need to either redress my complaint or tell me to go stuff it. Nobody has to write down who I am, why I got the code - it's all there, because I'm replying to their promise!

Oh, right: they'd need a lot of people to handle customer emails. Oh, boo-hoo: how much would it truly cost? How much happier would those annoying customers be if they could communicate this way?

As noted, VMware is hardly the only sinner. I'm just ticked at them because they promised me $15.00 off and didn't give it to me. I'll get over it.

The cure for everything - chmod 777

I admit that I have done a "chmod 777" when I should not have. Almost always that came from haste or frustration. Not frustration with Unix permissions, but frustration with whoever had daily care responsibility for the system - their inability to understand permissions might have driven me to this.

Sometimes it hardly matters. At many small businesses, everybody has "got root" anyway and has learned that this magic incantation will "fix" problems. Well, until it breaks a setuid program, of course. Nobody, NOBODY ever learns "chmod +w", do they?

Another rare breakage is /tmp. It's supposed to have the "t" bit set so that only the owners of files can delete, but I've had folks "777" it. Why? Who knows?

More usually the open permissions are applied to some common set of data. All goes well until someone removes (or just moves!) something that is needed by someone else, and then the crying starts.

The most horribly wrong things that can be done with permissions come from people who have learned about "-R" (recursive) or wild cards. Two or three times a year I find a system where someone has done a chmod to ".*". That's bad enough by itself, but when combined with -R, the results can be spectacular.

Unnecessary damage

What you should understand is that this is all unnecessary. Most of us who have to deal with the results of misunderstood chmod's wish that users didn't even know that the numeric form exists. There would be far fewer errors if users only knew the symbolic modes.

The symbolic form is also much more powerful. Consider this :

$ ls -l total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 apl apl 0 Oct 27 15:06 a -rw-r--r-- 1 apl apl 0 Oct 27 15:06 b -rwxr--r-- 1 apl apl 0 Oct 27 15:10 c $ chmod a+X a b c $ ls -l total 0 -rw-r--r-- 1 apl apl 0 Oct 27 15:06 a -rw-r--r-- 1 apl apl 0 Oct 27 15:06 b -rwxr-xr-x 1 apl apl 0 Oct 27 15:06 c

ONLY the file that was already executable had full execution bits added - try THAT with Windows!

(If you did want to change all the files, you'd use "chmod a+x a b c")

But I'm being silly. People will continue to "chmod 777" anytime they have a problem. Program doesn't work? Chmod 777. Unexpected error? Chmod 777. Grinding noise inside the computer? Chmod 777. Too hot in here? Chmod 777.

Feeling frustrated by people changing permissions for no reason? By now you should know the cure. Say it with me: Chmod 777.

Don't you feel better now?

/Unixart/chmod-777.html copyright and reprint notice

Comments /Unixart/chmod-777.html

Wed Oct 28 12:45:02 2009 joe

when everything fails often a chmod 777 solves.....
is the case one is in front its own limitations
regards.. sharing the hard life of thecnical support
joe. neuquen patagonia argentina

Thu Oct 29 16:37:37 2009 anonymous

yes! i feel better with chmod 770 on a OSX System with MORE than 1 User on it - the System neves me with created files that have 707 permission set - ahhhhrrgg ! fuc*-*ff


Sun Nov 1 21:13:17 2009 how can this be done on Linux? anonymous

Just curious, how I can grant access to a directory like the following within Linux?

* Tom: can read, write, delete, and create new files
* Marcy: can read files but nothing else
* Bill: can write only but not read other data
* Jake: can view directory contents only
* Everyone else: no access

Sun Nov 1 21:45:22 2009 anonymous

By setting ACL's. See the article at http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/using-acls.html

Add your comments

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Prevent deletion or moving of files

2009/10/27

You need to let users create files in a common directory, but you don't want them to be able to delete other's files. Or you've put certain files, directories or symlinks into a user's home directory and don't want them to be able to mess with any of those. What can you do?

"t" bit

If you create /foo and do "chmod 1777 /foo", you'll have a world-writeable directory with the "text bit" set. Any user can create files here, but they can only delete files that they own (root can still rm anything). That's ownership as listed in the "owner" column of an "ls -l". Group ownership doesn't come into play here although it does change responses a bit.

Let's see what happens when Sam tries to remove Pete's files in a directory with the text bit set:

[sam@localhost foo]$ ls -ld . drwxrwxrwt 2 root root 4096 Sep 18 06:00 . [sam@localhost foo]$ ls -l total 12 -rw-rw-r-- 1 pete pete 29 Sep 18 05:52 pete -rw-rw-r-- 1 pete apl 29 Sep 18 06:00 peteapl -rw-rw-r-- 1 pete wheel 29 Sep 18 06:00 petewheel [sam@localhost foo]$ id uid=502(sam) gid=502(sam) groups=502(sam) [sam@localhost foo]$ rm * rm: remove write-protected regular file `pete'? y rm: cannot remove `pete': Operation not permitted rm: remove write-protected regular file `peteapl'? y rm: cannot remove `peteapl': Operation not permitted rm: remove write-protected regular file `petewheel'? y rm: cannot remove `petewheel': Operation not permitted

Now watch what happens when a user in the "wheel" group does the same thing:

[apl@localhost ~]$ cd /foo [apl@localhost foo]$ ls -l total 12 -rw-rw-r-- 1 pete pete 29 Sep 18 05:52 pete -rw-rw-r-- 1 pete apl 29 Sep 18 06:00 peteapl -rw-rw-r-- 1 pete wheel 29 Sep 18 06:00 petewheel [apl@localhost foo]$ id uid=500(apl) gid=500(apl) groups=10(wheel),500(apl) [apl@localhost foo]$ rm * rm: remove write-protected regular file `pete'? y rm: cannot remove `pete': Operation not permitted rm: cannot remove `peteapl': Operation not permitted rm: cannot remove `petewheel': Operation not permitted [apl@localhost foo]$ [apl@localhost foo]$ [apl@localhost foo]$ rm peteapl rm: cannot remove `peteapl': Operation not permitted [apl@localhost foo]$ rm petewheel rm: cannot remove `petewheel': Operation not permitted [apl@localhost foo]$ rm pete rm: remove write-protected regular file `pete'? y rm: cannot remove `pete': Operation not permitted

Having write permission makes rm proceed without caution, only to be brought up short by the restrictions of the "t" bit.

mount --bind

If the problem is removal of a directory and it is not terribly inconvenient for you to have that directory actually be on a separate filesystem, then "mount" can make the directory safe from removal. You can read more at mount --bind, but it's not very complicated. Let's say we have /dev/foo mounted at /foo and I want a "link" to that under /home/fred. All I have to do is:

mount --bind /foo /home/fred/foo

Fred can have full write permissions on /foo if he needs it, but he will not be able to remove /home/fred/foo. Not even root can:

# rm -rf /home/fred/foo
rm: cannot remove directory '/home/fred/foo': Device or resource busy

Now THAT is removal protection!

ACL's

Typically, ACL's let you avoid complicated groups by setting specific permissions for specific users. Other than setting a file as "immutable" (chattr +i filename on some Linuxes), you really can't prevent removal of a file. Of course setting it that way may also make it useless, as even the owner can't modify or remove it either without doing "chattr -i" first.. See ACL's for more on that.

[pete@localhost foo]$ id uid=501(pete) gid=501(pete) groups=501(pete) [pete@localhost foo]$ chattr +i pete [pete@localhost foo]$ rm -f pete rm: cannot remove `pete': Operation not permitted [pete@localhost foo]$ mv pete /tmp/ mv: cannot move `pete' to `/tmp/pete': Operation not permitted [pete@localhost foo]$ /Unixart/file-removal.html copyright and reprint notice

Comments /Unixart/file-removal.html

Add your comments

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Small is the new big

2009/10/26

I've been working out of my home office since 1983, but had no idea I had so much company: The Rise of the 'Homepreneur' (Business Week) says that there are over six and a half million "homepreneurs" and that we are responsible for 10% of private sector employment.

Wow. When I tell people I work from a home office, the reaction is often a bit negative. "How long have you been doing that?", they'll ask, with a strong implication that I must just be "between" jobs. As I've said in other places, you could work for yourself for 50 years, but if you took a job at the Mall just before you died, your obituary will probably mention that: most people don't think of self employment, and especially self employment from a home office, as "real" employment.

When I first started this business, I did rent an office. It didn't take me long to realize that was a silly and unneeded expense. Yes, I had a few clients that had visited me there, but the bulk of my business was at clients offices or done remotely (dial up modems in those days). Many a day my office sat dark and unused - but the rent was still due at the end of the month. I was a "tenant at will", no lease, so after enlisting my father's help to build a workspace desk in my cellar, I moved "home" and stopped paying rent for space I wasn't using.

I actually wasn't paying rent. I had made a Faustian deal with the building owner: free consulting services in exchange for rent. His over-use of those privileges and his annoying business advice were also large factors in my moving to my home.

Admittedly there are times that a home office is inconvenient. Every now and then I get a client who needs or wants to visit. As my office isn't separated from my home, that means making everything presentable for guests - even if someone is supposedly just dropping something off, the beds must be made, there must be fresh towels in the guest bathroom and neither the dishwasher nor the laundry can be running when they arrive.

We also have to get dressed. We would have made the beds anyway, and as the guest bathroom isn't used al that much, the towels might pass, but ordinarily we might not dress until it's time to go get the mail. I'm also accustomed to showering and shaving when I feel like it: 7:00 AM, sure, but there's nothing wrong with 11:00 either. And shaving? Well, maybe, maybe not...

The link above points out that working at home makes financial sense:

Indeed, the most obvious financial benefit for home-based entrepreneurs is lower operating costs. A 2006 SBA study compared tax returns of sole proprietors who deducted home-office expenses with those who deducted commercial rent. That analysis found that home businesses, on average, had lower sales and net profits than companies in commercial spaces. But profitable home-based ventures retained a greater share of their total receipts as net income: 36%, vs. 21% for non-home-based businesses.

That's a fifteen percent difference - a good chunk of extra cash in your pocket. Remember, it's not just rent that you save. There are commuting costs, incidentals like coffee and furniture and often you are duplicating things you may already own at home. When I closed up my office, I ended up with having two of many things I really only needed one of. I could have avoided a fair amount of expense if I had never had that office.

I've often said that although our Congress critters fawn over the big companies who fill their campaign chests, small companies are much more important to our overall economy. I did not realize that the smallest of the small - people very much like me - are such a big part of that.

/Employment/homepreneurs.html copyright and reprint notice

Comments /Employment/homepreneurs.html

Tue Oct 27 15:05:27 2009 BigDumbDinosaur

http://bcstechnology.net

Admittedly there are times that a home office is inconvenient. Every now and then I get a client who needs or wants to visit. As my office isn't separated from my home...

When we purchased our present home, I went through some trouble and not-inconsiderable expense to avoid that type of situation. The BCS Technology World Headquarters are in the (finished) basement, and consist of two offices and a shop. There is even separate power for the offices and shop, completely isolated from the upstairs, except for the meter of course.

Should a client visit, s/he can go directly from the front door to the downstairs without having to pass through any of the living space on the main floor. Well, almost...you have to walk past the kitchen to get to the stairs. That's usually not a distraction unless, say, a roast is in the slow cooker and starting to produce that make-you-hungry aroma...

Anyhow, I and others have long maintained that if you intend to work out of your home, you need to be careful to create a clear demarcation between the business space and the living space. I did that by virtue of turning most of the downstairs into business space and limiting downstairs use for non-business purposes to about 30 percent of the available floor space (my wife has a spacious and well-lighted craft area--I may be a Big Dumb Dinosaur, but I'm not stupid). When I step into the BCS Technology space there is nothing that suggests home--well, almost nothing...my wife yelling down to me that the aforementioned roast is ready makes it clear that home is always right above my head.

The separation of business and living space reduces the "bleed over" problem that often afflicts home businesses and occasionally results in domestic difficulties. If you are going to convey and maintain a professional demeanor and appearance during work hours, you cannot have home stuff intruding on the business, e.g., screaming kids vying for your attention as you attempt to talk business with a client. Similarly, once you turn off the office lights and retire to watch TV or do other things with your spouse, you should not have anything about the business present and/or visible--unless, of course, you want your spouse to feel that s/he is competing with the business for your time and attention. That means not having a business phone line ringing the bedroom phone or a workstation set up in a corner of the living room. You do that and I can almost guarantee that your spouse and you will be experiencing some tense moments.

Tue Oct 27 15:10:13 2009 TonyLawrence

We used to have everything separate - the office was in the basement, had its own phone lines, own refrigerator, own door... but in our new home, it's just a room and I didn't bother with separate phone lines.

It would be 'better" to have it as BDD recommends, but my wife and I have been together in the same room for many, many years, so we're fine. I strongly discourage clients from visiting and don't work al that much anyway :-)

Tue Oct 27 18:09:33 2009 BigDumbDinosaur

http://bcstechnology.net

I don't have the refrigerator, but do have a fairly high-end stereo to provide music as I sit in my chair and scratch my (rapidly balding) head. My office is also big enough that I have room for a test bench on which to put PCs for test and repair of either the hardware or (more likely) the OS. Since the development of Windows XP, that bench has seen a lot of use.

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I don't WANT the Internet to forget!

2009/10/23

I was listening to an NPR show about internet privacy and the "worrysome" fact that internet information lasts forever. The very forgettable guest being interviewed was harping on "forgetting" - he apparently wants us to be able to set retention dates for things the Internet knows about us. Callers chimed in with stories of real and potential embarrassment from discretions and more serious actions that their boss, their children or their spouses might accidentally discover while bumbling about the Internet. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!

I don't agree.

If you want to go digging around, you can find some "embarrassing" stuff about me on the Internet. That is, you'd find stuff that you might THINK would embarrass me and probably would embarrass whoever that "let's forget it" guy is and apparently could upset some of the people who called in all worried about something they said or did in 1994. As for me, I don't care. If you aren't smart enough to realize that EVERYBODY has skeletons in their closet, that EVERYBODY has been petty, vain, jealous, stupid, dishonest, and worse, why would I care what you think about me?

Wouldn't we all be better off if we stopped pretending that we are perfect or even close to it? I'm not saying we shouldn't strive toward not being jackasses, not doing dumb things. I'm saying we should accept that we are human, we do screw up and we and everyone else just need to get over it.

Maybe if everyone's "dirt" was always easily dredged up we could dispense with this fantasy of saintly people passing through their oh-so-perfect lives without any stain of error. Maybe if nobody could hide their indiscretions and mistakes, our children would better know how to avoid or mitigate their own?

Say it with me now: I can be a jackass and so can everyone else. I have done stupid things, cruel things, idiotic things and so has everyone else. Anyone who presents a perfect facade to the world has dirt behind the curtain and is lying to us overtly or by omission.

If I'm trying to find out what kind of person you are and I come up with nothing, what have I learned? What are the possibilities? Either you've been really sneaky and secretive or you are such a timid, inactive and uninvolved person that you've never had an opportunity to screw up. Do I really like either of those? No.

Let's stop being phony. People screw up. Maybe there are a few untainted people somewhere, but most of us wouldn't like them because they probably have no fire, no spark, nothing to make them interesting. They walk through life so carefully, so fearful of error - what clods!

So no, I don't want the internet to forget anything about me. I want it all preserved forever. I want my future relatives to be able to learn things about me that I can't learn about my ancestors. I want future historians to have a treasure trove of data that will tell them societal secrets that are almost never known about past generations. I don't WANT the Internet to forget!

/Web/forget.html copyright and reprint notice

Comments /Web/forget.html

Fri Oct 23 18:29:50 2009 BrettLegree

http://6weeks.ca

My thoughts exactly.

We all make mistakes, we all have quirks, skeletons, whatever.

Many people have said to me that they cannot believe I am willing to say anything on the internet, lest I apply for a job in the future and am turned down because the company did a search.

You know - it goes both ways, if they don't want me to work for them because of something I did on *my time*, then I don't want to work for them either, because the company has some serious trust issues.

Besides - if I wanted to "get some dirt" on a person, all I would need is a name and address. Smear campaigns existed long before the internet.

Sat Oct 24 14:47:50 2009 BigDumbDinosaur

http://bcstechnology.net

Smear campaigns existed long before the internet.

Yes, but the Internet has facilitated them in ways that were heretofore impossible.

As far as whether data retention should be indefinite, that's ultimately a matter of capacity. While I don't foresee us running out of capacity in the immediate future, I suspect older information will disappear simply because someone somewhere at sometime will deem said information to no longer be of sufficient value to retain. Or, some bean counter will say we don't need to spend money and put more disks into the server. Just get rid of some data that is of limited value/interest.

Meanwhile, be careful of what you say and do in public (or "private" in some cases). Don't videotape that orgiastic sexual encounter you had with the neighbor's wife. Odds are it'll end up on U-Toobe, Facebook, etc., and come back to haunt you.

Sat Oct 24 17:00:58 2009 BrettLegree

http://6weeks.ca

"Yes, but the Internet has facilitated them in ways that were heretofore impossible."

Of course - my angle on this (which I didn't expand upon) was more along the lines of "just because it is easy to do something i.e. run a 'morality check' on someone via Google, doesn't mean we should".

Another example - where I work (and where many people work no doubt), management hits employees over the head about "wasting time on the internet using company resources".

Let's face it, people have been wasting time on the job long before computers existed. Reading newspapers, chatting, etc. - by and large, though, the work got done.

But now that it's easy to track one particular "time wasting method"... they pound it into our heads, over and over again.

I get paid to think, sometimes I need a break. I used to surf to tech sites that would - OMG! - expand my knowledge.

But the groovy new system they're using is becoming more and more restrictive. So you know what I do?

Get up from my desk, take a walk. Get a coffee. Chat with someone.

Still gives my brain a break. But I don't learn as much. Oh well, their loss.

Back to the privacy thing - yes, be careful what you do in private lest it end up online and you lose your job.

You know what I say to that, then?

Bring on the mind reading equipment.

Thoughtcrime.

Let's read everyone's minds, so that we're all on an even keel.

I wonder how many politicians and C-level executives would be willing to let us in on *their* dirty little secrets?

:)

Mon Oct 26 13:53:55 2009 RickBrandfass

It is amazing that so many people who post things on the internet don't take longevity into consideration. This can be seen in the available articles, blogs, etc. which do not have a visible post date. Sometimes it is impossible to tell if an article is one week or one decade old. Most of the time, it makes a difference.

Mon Oct 26 14:25:30 2009 TonyLawrence

Sometimes it is impossible to tell if an article is one week or one decade old. Most of the time, it makes a difference.

True. I was guilty of that here. I did have a link at the bottom that would get the original date, but that was inconvenient. A few years back I started putting the date right under the title and have updated many older articles to the same standard. There are still a few old posts out there without those dates, but I fix 'em as I catch 'em.



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