Andy Ferguson

Albums of the year – 2011

These are the 30 records I couldn’t live without in 2011. Some more than others, but they all deserve a mention.

The Indelicates – David Koresh Superstar
Destroyer – Kaputt
Radiohead – The King of Limbs
Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys!
PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
Marissa Nadler – Marissa Nadler
The Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps
British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall
Luke Haines – 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations On British Wrestling Of The 1970s and Early 80s
8in8 – Nighty Night
Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones
Craft Spells – Idle Labor
Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
Widowspeak – Widowspeak
EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
Wilco – The Whole Love
Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine
Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
Amanda Palmer – Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under
Akron/Family – S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On
The Horrible Crowes – Elsie
Dum Dum Girls – Always in Dreams
Grails – Deep Politics
Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
The Horrors – Skying
Tori Amos – Night Of Hunters
Soft Metals – Soft Metals
Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness
The Decemberists – The King Is Dead

My day job is currently taking me deep into the heart of Mac OS X. It’s not a bad place to be, but it requires me to think in a slightly different way. Thankfully I don’t really have to touch Windows at the moment, which means I’m only bouncing between OS X and Linux, which isn’t too far to jump, and feels quite comfortable now.

This slight shift in focus has lead to a shift in the hardware and software I use, and I’ve found myself (finally) using the GMail interface more and more for email, and almost reaching the point where I do pretty much everything through a browser of some sort. I’ve also used about 10 different Macs over the last 6 months, so might get round to writing some sort of comparison post at some point.

Oh, and the other change in the way I work comes from Google+, which seems to be the place where I post videos and babble about music.

First thoughts on Google+

I’m liking Google+ a lot so far. It looks like Google have taken everything they learned from Buzz and Wave, everything they’ve borrowed from Facebook, and a few other nice features, and rolled them together into something I think I’ll probably use quite a lot.

I like the idea of Circles in particular. I know a lot of people from all sorts of different places, and I like the idea of being able to aggregate their posts for my benefit, whilst easily segregating what I write so that it only reaches interested parties. I know other social networking sites do this to some extent, but this is the best application of that feature I’ve come across so far.

A is for Accident, but also for Amanda

I’m not sure how I missed this one.

The Dresden Dolls live album A is for Accident (Collected live recordings 2001-2003) is available to download on a pay-what-you-want model from here. In this case “what you want” can also mean free, so you really have no excuse if you like their music.

You can also download their eponymous debut album under the same model from here. This one is definitely worth paying something for.

Kickstarter and other interesting funding models

Kickstarter is a website where fans of artists and musicians can fund new records or performances, in return for receiving advance copies of the art form in question. It is a funding model that interests me, and it gives me quite a buzz to receive advance copies of records I would have bought anyway, with the knowledge that I played some sort of part in creating them. The latest record to come out having been funded via this method is Marissa Nadler’s eponymous album, which is a really beautiful collection of songs.

I’m also quite intrigued with how the Kaiser Chiefs are releasing their new record, and have already bought my version of it.

A productive first day of my holiday

Today was a day for doing computer-related things. I’ve had a brief play with Gnome 3 and Unity (again), and still found both of them getting in my way a lot more than I’m used to. I will persevere though, because I figure that eventually I’ll end up using one or the other, and could actually do with knowing about both.

I also took advantage of having my very fast work laptop with me and built a few virtual machines as part of a personal project that I’ll write about in more detail at some point soon. Suffice to say, using the Macbook Pro was remarkably painless, and it really does offer a viable Unix development environment, especially when working with Virtualbox (which I work with a lot). I’m also 75% towards getting Unity and Gnome 3 running virtually (both have fairly steep graphics requirements), and I’m hopeful I’ll be able to build something that other people could use before the end of my Easter break.

Apart from that I’ve done very little, but have plans for the next two days so should be out and about a bit more.

Installing Iceweasel 4 on Debian

As I’ve said previously, I’m a fan of new software, but also of stability. So today I decided I needed Iceweasel (Firefox) 4 on my Debian virtual machines (it’s been a quiet day and I was doing a bit of sys-admin work). As it turned out it was practically zero effort, as all the instructions were already written.

So that’s the latest version of both my main browsers running on all three versions of Debian, which makes it a viable option for being productive and getting things done.

I may write more about Debian at some point soon, as I find myself using it quite a lot at present.

Life on the bleeding edge

I love new things.

I still get that thrill when I buy a new piece of hardware or download a new piece of software.

I still run the latest version of Ubuntu on my laptop and my netbook, and generally upgrade to the next release whilst it is still in beta.

The only drawback with this is that I occasionally run into the sort of bugs that new software is well known for. It’s been a while since I’ve come across a show-stopper, but there have been occasions where running bleeding edge software has hampered my productivity somewhat.

I’ve also recently come to the revelation that whilst I love new software, I’m also very keen on making my desktop look and feel the same no matter what operating system I’m using. Which is why it’s often very difficult to tell what version of Linux I’m running, as I tend to have a very minimalistic looking desktop that is probably quite close to how it looked in 2005 (and also quite close to how Debian 6 looks today). I also tend to use the same wallpaper on all my computers (regardless of OS) which can also muddy the water a bit.

What I seem to be moving towards now is running the latest released software at home, and dual booting between something stable and something experimental at work (where I do need to keep up with the bleeding edge of whatever I’m working on, which at time of writing is Mac OS X and Ubuntu). This ensures that I have a stable platform to use for email, writing documents etc, but that I also have the latest builds of Ubuntu and Mac OS X running on real hardware so I can iron out any potential support issues early on. I also have at least 10 virtual machines that I use regularly, and I wonder how I ever got by without Virtualbox (actually the computer graveyard in our spare room offers some clues).

What kicked of this train of thought was Ubuntu 11.04, which ships with a new default desktop called Unity. I’ve had a play with it, and don’t hate it as much as I thought I would, although I’m glad I can still make a fresh install look exactly like my existing desktop in under 5 minutes. It does seem like a further step towards the UI of Mac OS X, but as someone who has always preferred that to Windows then I don’t mind that at all. I’m still not sold on dark themes, but as I’ve said many times, these things can be changed easily.

So yes, another version of Ubuntu that I can work with and will upgrade to on my home machine. I might also spend some more time with Unity to see if it’s something that I can one day grow to love. Of course, I also wouldn’t say no to a new Mac once Lion is out, but I do get to use quite powerful Macs at work at present, which does scratch the OS X itch for now.

Job titles, and why they are important

As part of my role, I am involved in recruitment within my team. This involves reading through a lot of CVs and application forms and trying to work out some sort of correlation between a person’s job title and what they actually do. And it’s not as easy as you would think.

Take for example the humble Sandwich Artists (sometimes known as Sandwich Architects) at Subway. This role has nothing to do with art or architecture, and everything to do with making sandwiches to order, and could easily be misinterpreted when skim reading a CV. Similarly, it might be possible to misunderstand what a Nail Technician actually does, as well as misunderstanding what type of nails their skills relate to.

We have this problem in IT as well.

In IT we are blessed with legions of IT Managers, Network Specialists and Computer Officers who may have had the same job title for 15 years, even though what they do now bears no relation to either what they did 15 years ago or what other people with the same job title do now. This is particularly noticeable at conferences, where the same rough skills set might be described in 20 different ways on people’s name badges, but it also makes recruitment a bit of a minefield.

We also have a few more esoteric job titles, including a few Data Architects and Infrastructure Architects (who again are nothing to do with architecture). It’s often difficult to make a stab at what some of them do, and sometimes even the (proud?) bearers of these job titles are a little hazy about what they actually mean.

There is also the issue of job titles that only refer to a small part of what someone actually does. I’ve fallen foul of this one myself a few times, and think that is is very important that managers review the job titles, job descriptions and duties of all of their staff on a regular basis to ensure they are still fit for purpose.

It makes me think we need some sort of unity, or at least a naming convention. Should managers have to manage people, or is it fine for them just to manage a service? What makes someone a specialist, an analyst or an advisor? And shouldn’t we make job titles easier for people to understand, both internally and externally?

Maybe then we might have a chance of working out what someone does without having to read their whole job description.

Coming soon…

I have so many things I want to write about right now. Starting with some of the really productive conversations I’ve been having with staff and students about how they use IT, and ending with everything I’ve learned over the last few days at the UCISA conference in Edinburgh. I reckon that’s probably at least a few thousand words of writing, but as I’ve got a few other things to get finished first, I thought I’d at least make a list for my own benefit.

The move towards phones and tablets and away from traditional computers, and what this means for service delivery and support.
Why job descriptions, job titles, and what we actually DO at work should be as closely aligned as possible.
Balancing innovation and stability.
Google Apps, live@edu, and email for life.

I think that covers most of it for now.

Author: Andy Ferguson