Productivity

Easter Project : Setting up a new NAS

My project for this Easter was to set up some sort of storage solution for the vast array of music, films, TV shows and photos I have, and also to organise and catalogue them more effectively.

I asked for a few suggestions on Twitter, and there were a couple I liked the look of. The one that nearly won was the HP micro server, but I eventually settled for a Synology NAS device with a 4TB WD Green hard drive, which I’d read good things about, and which would also stream all my media to my iPad with minimal configuration. I still plan on getting some sort of Linux server at some point, but I think that’s a different project for another day.

Setting up the device was easy. Anyone reading this could do it, and there are plenty of guides on the internet. What was harder was coming up with a sensible way of organising my data, and making sure that I wasn’t just copying the horrifically complicated file structure from my old NAS without rationalising if it was still the best way of doing things.

Sorting the photos was fairly easy, once I’d tracked down where they were all stored. I created a directory, and then made a folder for each event, in a “year – event” format. That way everything will list in vague chronological order and I’ll remember what year things like weddings and holidays happened.

Films and TV shows was trickier, because I wanted to be able to access these more often, and in a way that allowed me to watch them easily. In the end I went with Synology’s default file structure, and made separate directories for films and TV shows. I then put each TV show in a separate folder, and made several folders for the films (by director if there were a lot by the same director, and then catch-all folders for English language films and those with subtitles). Copying the data was an overnight job, but it all went smoothly.

I then explored ways of accessing films and TV shows on other devices. Firstly I downloaded Synology’s iPad app, which is really pretty, and tries to find metadata and cover art for everything. When it works, it works really well, but it failed on a few of my more obscure films (especially the foreign ones), and whilst it played them fine, it gave them incorrect titles, which I think might annoy me in the long term. I also had to specifically point it at folders to index – it wasn’t quite intelligent enough to know where things were on its own.

I then fired up VLC, which I already use for offline playing of films when I’m travelling. It saw the NAS straight away, allowed me to browse the whole device, and pretty much just worked in the way that VLC has always worked for me. I’m not sure why I didn’t try this first, but it’s nice to see that software I’ve been using for 10 years still does the job I need it to do.

I already have all my music backed up in two places, so it wasn’t a huge priority to move it to this device straight away. But seeing as I had the space, I figured making a copy of my iTunes library wouldn’t hurt, so I at least have a snapshot of some of my music on this device. At some point I need to go through my old NAS and make sure there isn’t anything there that I don’t have in iTunes Match, but that is a job for another day.

As well as the music, I made a one-time backup of historical email and files. Both of these usually live in the cloud, but again I thought a local copy wouldn’t hurt.

Talking of backups. I also decided that now I have this new device I can probably afford the space to do Time Machine backups of my two laptops. Both currently back up to an external USB drive, which it reliant on remembering to plug the drive in, and so I am currently setting Time Machine up on both laptops with a view to being able to use the USB drives for something else soon.

I’m really pleased with the new NAS, and it has a lot of features I’ve not explored yet (like being able to run WordPress and Mediawiki and all the things I wanted a Linux server for). It’s taken a day and a half to set up, but the vast majority of that was copying data. The actual setup took minutes, and there was nothing that required being technical, using the command line, or understanding too much about networking.

And I still have half of the Easter break left to do other things, which is an added bonus.

Going Paper Free

I wrote this article for a blog at work, but thought a slightly tweaked version might be of interest to a few people here.

I’ve never been a great fan of printing, so when I was asked to pick a project for the Green Pledge at work I thought a month of not using paper at work would be a good one to go for. The pledge was for the month of November, but I found myself sufficiently weaned off paper that I’ve carried on with it for what is now (at time of writing) over 5 months. I found it fairly easy, although it has been hard at times to get the message across to other people that I didn’t require printed meeting minutes or copies of documents they had already sent me by email.

First off, I don’t think this initiative would have worked anywhere near as well if I didn’t have an iPad. I’ve been using my iPad to take notes at meetings for a while, and from November I stopped carrying a paper notebook completely. On my iPad I have access to my email, internet access if I’m on campus, and I have automated the creation of separate documents for each meeting I attend with an agenda and space to type minutes. This has ensured that I don’t miss action points, and that I have a searchable record of each meeting I attend.

I also think the strategic move to Sharepoint in my workplace has helped. With Sharepoint I can access all my sites and documents using my iPad, and as long as I’ve got an internet connection then I have access to all the information that would normally be printed out and handed around.

But there were some things that were more challenging, and I thought it was worth documenting those challenges and how I tried to overcome them.

1. In order to recruit new staff we have to have various bits of paperwork printed out and signed. This makes sense to me, but I did resent having to complete a document that I knew would be printed out as soon as I submitted it. We’ve got an online eRecruitment tool, and I’m not sure why management and budgetary approvals can’t be handled without paper. There is also another recruitment related issue in that we have to photocopy and sign proof of ID for all candidates. I can do all of this on my iPad, but there is a stated requirement for a paper copy. I’ve not really got a solution for this one, other than to continue to campaign for systems that do not require printing and photocopying to work.

2. We still have printed rotas in our office, which are stuck to the wall each week. I moved these over to Sharepoint early on in the process, but they are still getting printed out as well. I found it really useful being able to access these from anywhere, but I can see why there may still be a need for a paper copy at times.

3. Most people I meet with now know that I don’t require a printed agenda, or minutes of the previous meeting. It took a bit of work to get to this point, but once I explained what I was trying to do (and why) then people were generally fine. However, some people did really not understand why this was a good idea, and/or could not see how it was possible to work without paper. This includes people who have work iPads. As part of this initiative I moved all of our team documentation to Sharepoint, and I now chair and document meetings from my iPad. At time of writing I’ve not taken paper to a meeting for over 5 months, but unfortunately I have left with the occasional printed document. They have all been either reused by my team, or recycled, but I need to get better at refusing them in the first place.

4. Carrying an internet enabled device with me at all times bought with it a few new challenges. I could check email anywhere, and would also see notifications from Twitter and Facebook when I was in meetings. I largely fixed this with discipline, and also by turning notifications off for anything except work email. I also think that an iPad is much better than a laptop for using in meetings, as the angle an iPad is used at doesn’t present the same physical barrier as a laptop screen does. Also, it’s a lot quieter to type on.

5. I discovered that I spend a fair bit of time in meetings fiddling with my pen. As I don’t carry a pen now, I found myself needing something to do with my hands when I was not typing or talking. Carrying a stylus round helps that, but there is still a lot of temptation to scratch that itch by checking email or Twitter.

I think this was a really worthwhile experiment, and one I plan on continuing with. The only challenge is to come up with something else to do next year.

I’m generally regarded as someone who is quite organised and productive, which still baffles me from time to time because I don’t think I’m that organised at all. Most of what I’m writing about here seems fairly instinctive to me, but in the hope that it might help someone ready this then I’ll try and outline how I organise my day, and how I maintain at least a demeanour of getting things done.

My first rule is to get up when my alarm goes off, and to automate as much of my early morning routine as possible. I do the same things each morning, so it shouldn’t require much thought at all, and generally it doesn’t. I can be up and out of the house in about 20 minutes, as long as there is nothing to disrupt my routine (one of my cats bringing me a gift is the usual suspect for that). I then have a 25 minute walk at the start of my commute, and I tend to use that to listen to music and think about the challenges of the day ahead. This is followed by a 25 minute train journey, during which I read either the Metro or whatever book I’m currently reading on my iPad. By the time I get to work I’m wide awake, and focused on the day ahead. I then have a cup of coffee and start work.

A few years ago I did an exercise where I recorded everything I did for a week, and tried to match time slots to specific sorts of task. I’ve repeated this regularly for a few years now, and I have a fairly good idea of how to plan my day to get the best out of the time and energy I have. Solitary tasks such as writing, answering email, and tasks that require technical focus get done first thing in the morning while I’m wide awake and the office is quiet. I then put aside two slots for meetings – a morning slot for collaborative work, ideas generation, and meetings where I need to contribute a lot, and then an afternoon slot for meetings where I need to be present, but am not one of the main contributors. The rest of my day I work though my todo list, and my email inbox (both of which which I like to keep as close to zero as possible).

I also automate as much of my working week as possible. I have set weekly meetings with my manager, my co-worker, my team, and my direct reports. I also have set monthly meetings with a variety of other people and teams. All of my meetings are recorded in Google Calendar, and the agendas appear in Evernote 15 minutes prior to the meeting starting, thanks to the magic of IFTTT. I then make notes in Evernote on my iPad, and move any action points to my todo list as soon as the meeting finishes. Minutes are then archived to a workbook, so that my Evernote inbox contains only my todo list and things I am actually working on at that moment.

I used Google Calendar to organise everything I do (and everything I plan to do), and go back afterwards to ensure that how I spent my time is accurately recorded. This allows me to track how much time I spend on tasks, and how my work and personal schedule change over time. I also colour code everything, and have separate calendars for work and my life outside of work, which I strongly recommended as a compartmentalising exercise if nothing else.

I’m not a great fan of clutter, although anyone who has seen the inside of my study might debate that fact. I like to keep a clear desktop (physical and virtual), and I’ve been largely paper-free since November 2013, which has helped both with the reduction of clutter and with general productivity.

My Setup – 2014

I’ve not done a post about my setup for a couple of years, and as a few things have changed I thought it was worth an update.

Hardware

Right now I seem to be a big believer in a two computer setup, but it’s not always the same two computers, because I split my time between two offices at the University plus my own study at home.

On the left hand side of each desk I work at, I have a large monitor. This could be plugged into a computer, waiting for a laptop, or plugged into my iPad and used as a TV.

On the right hand side I have a laptop, or a space for a laptop. My general philosophy regarding laptops is that it’s hard to beat a Mac with maxed out memory and an SSD drive, and as such I hardly use anything else now. I think it’s quite possible to get decent speed and performance out of a fairly old machine, as long as that machine is configured correctly for what it is being used for, and as long as I have access to one powerful computer for occasionally processing digital media then there is nothing else I do that requires me to have bleeding edge hardware.

I’m also currently using iPads a lot more than I thought I would. I have one for accessing work email and making notes at meetings, and another (smaller) one for carrying around with me at all times and acting as a portable media and internet machine. Since I started using iPads, I’ve found that my laptops hardly ever leave my desk, and I do toy with the idea of a setup that consists of one powerful desktop machine and an iPad.

Software

All but one of my regularly used desktops/laptops are now Macs running OS X, although I do maintain several VMs running Linux (Ubuntu and Debian) and Windows. I sometimes need to test applications on every single OS/browser combination, and I’m actually not sure how I managed to do this sort of work before I started using VirtualBox.

I use three browsers on an everyday basis. Safari on my iOS devices, Firefox for work, and Chrome for personal web browsing. Firefox works better with some of the web applications the University use, and I like to compartmentalise data from the various areas of my life anyway. I also have one machine that runs the development versions of all three browsers, which I largely use for testing purposes.

I also use a wide variety of other software, most of which I’ve mentioned in pervious posts. The big changes are that I use Evernote for a lot of things now (which deserves a separate post), and I’m also increasingly managing my work email through Good for Enterprise on my iPad, which makes Inbox Zero achievable rather than just being a pipe dream.

Backups

As far as backup goes, any machine that stays in one place (or mainly stays in one place like my heaviest laptop) backs up nightly (via Carbon Copy Cloner) to an external hard drive. I also have a portable hard drive that I back up to weekly with a bootable copy of the two machines where I regularly create data (as opposed to consume it). When I’m not backing up to it, this drive is kept in a different physical location to the machines it is backing up. Additionally, all my music is in iTunes Match, my photos are in iCloud, my work laptop backs up to another machine via Crashplan, and everything text based I’m currently working on will exist in either Evernote, Dropbox or Google Drive, depending on what it is and who else needs to access it.

I test my backups monthly (sometimes more than monthly), including booting all the full disk clones to make sure they actually boot. I think this is important.

My dream setup

I think I am probably fairly close. I would like some machines I use to be newer, lighter, or faster, but on the whole I think I am satisfied right now apart from wanting to put an SSD drive into my Mac Mini, which I plan on doing very soon. Of course, that doesn’t stop me looking wistfully at the 13” Macbook Pro with Retina Display and the new iPad Air, but I very much plan on waiting a few months until I buy anything else.

Previous versions of this post

July 2010 – http://teknostatik.co.uk/2010/07/18/my-first-stab-at-self-interview/
March 2012 – http://teknostatik.co.uk/2012/03/18/what-im-using-to-get-the-job-done-in-2012/

The start of something new

Today I started using my new iPad mini to do as much of my writing as possible. I wanted to see if it could replace my laptop for short non-work trips, and was interested to see if writing on this device would seem natural, or if the user interface would get in the way of my creativity.

So far I have found it a pleasant experience. I can’t type quite as quickly yet, but I am sure that will come in time, and it already feels quite natural to type on the built in keyboard. I would certainly consider using this as my only device on short trips, and whilst it is hardly a great effort to carry around my MacBook Air, it would also be nice to travel supremely light on occasion, and the iPad mini fits the bill perfectly.

Other things I’ve been impressed with so far are the streaming capacities when I am connected to my home network. I can stream music and movies to and from the iPad, and can also use it to get music from Amazon cloud player to my Apple TV. Web browsing is also a delight, and I think this device could easily replace my laptop for the sort of casual browsing that I generally engage in after a busy day at work.

There are still things I need a laptop for, but I can see myself using this iPad a lot over the next few months – especially as I am travelling so much.

Backing up Gmail with Gmvault

This weekend I have been experimenting with Gmvault (http://gmvault.org/) in order to back up my various Gmail and Google Apps accounts to my computer. I’m using Mac OS X, but almost all of this will work with Linux too.

Firstly I downloaded the software, extracted it, and ran the following command once to download all of the mail in each account:

./gmvault synch example1@gmail.com

I then wrote a script to automate the process:

#!/bin/bash #change to the correct directory cd /Applications/gmvault/bin/ #run a quick sync on all my gmail and google apps accounts ./gmvault sync -m -t quick example1@teknostatik.org ./gmvault sync -m -t quick example1@gmail.com ./gmvault sync -m -t quick example2@gmail.com ./gmvault sync -m -t quick example3@gmail.com

Once that was working, I automated it with cron to run a few times a day.

Restoring the email to another Gmail account is a slow process, and you should probably only do it a few times a month (and always overnight). Again I’ve scripted this bit, but have commented everything out unless I actually need it. Having done the initial upload, and because I now have two local copies of everything, I’ll probably only run this one monthly.

#back up all downloaded email to a dedicated gmail account in the cloud #./gmvault restore backup_account@gmail.com #or just for the last month #./gmvault restore -t quick backup_account@gmail.com

Further reading:

Thoughts on travel

This summer I will be spending two weeks away from home, during which time I will spend a fair amount of time on aeroplanes (two international flights, plus two local Canadian flights) and in hotels. I am quite used to hotels, and carry around a fair amount of technology designed for hotel living, but this trip is going to be more challenging, and I think I need to plan in advance what clothes, accessories and gadgets I need to keep me productive and connected throughout such a long trip.

My hand luggage usually contains my 11″ Macbook Air, plus my iPhone, Kindle, and associated chargers. I also carry a UK 3G dongle, and several USB drives (including one I can reinstall my Mac from should I need to). I sometimes also carry various adaptors and cables, depending on where I am travelling and what I am there to do. I also plan on taking plug adaptors for any country I will be visiting, chargers for all my devices, and an additional device to charge my phone if a plug socket isn’t available.

Usually I don’t take a bootable clone of my laptop with me, because it makes more sense to keep my backup drive somewhere safe whilst I am travelling. For a two week trip I may invest in a new external drive though, or will at least have a smaller USB drive with a bootable installation of OSX with my settings and applications intact – just in case of emergencies. I should also look at how often I think I will be able to get online in Canada, and perhaps pick up a cheap pay-as-you-go 3G device to cover any shortfall.

I will also have my old iPod with me as a backup music device, and will also wear a watch rather than relying on my phone to tell the time. Time keeping is even more important on trips which involve a lot of travelling between places, and I need to make sure any timekeeping anxiety is minimised.

I also plan on packing slightly differently for this trip. Part of the reason for travelling is a family wedding, and so I need to make sure I have smart clothes with me. I will fly in the usual combination of loose many-pocketed combats with no belt, slip-on shoes, and a loose cotton shirt. But I will also style the rest of my wardrobe around things that can be work with a suit jacket and/or waistcoat. This should cut down on luggage, and ensure that everything can be worn with everything else.

I also plan on packing a second bag for the shorter (English) section of my trip, and arranging for it to be waiting for me when I get back to the UK. That way I am not carting things all over the world that I won’t need until the last few days of my trip.

Yes, I’m not travelling for ages, but I find it is useful to have these thoughts sufficiently early enough to do something about anything I may have forgotten.

All roads lead to Rhodes

I’m currently on holiday in Rhodes. I’ve just finished the 7th book I’ve read since I got here, and I’m really appreciating having the Kindle with me as it has quickly become an important part of the technology I carry with me when I travel. It’s interesting to see what the other guests are using actually – there are a few laptops, lots of phones, but not much in the way of kindles or other ebook readers. A fair few people are accessing the internet from the hotel lobby, and it is certainly more socially acceptable to do so then it was a few years ago, although some older people still blatantly disapprove. There are also many many internet cafes in the general vicinity, and I get the feeling that although this is a sleepy tourist area it is also fairly well connected. The signal here is strong, and the speed is comparable to UK broadband.

I carry technology with me wherever I travel. I don’t always take the full range of devices, but I generally have something to read, something to listen to music on, and some sort of communication device at the very least. I actually find that being able to access my books and my music relaxes me, and I do enjoy having internet access when I’m away as it allows me to research what the weather will be like, and what local customs I need to be aware of. On this trip I’ve limited my net access to one session a day (usually around an hour), but in that time I’ve researched what I need to research, as well as reading (if not replying to) all personal email and skimming through articles of interest from my growing list of RSS feeds. It interests me that this activity takes less than an hour a day, because when I’m at home it often takes significantly longer.

What I’m using to get the job done in 2012

A couple of years ago I documented the hardware and software I use as a homage to http://usesthis.com. I thought it was probably time to update it.

I’ve been working with Macs and with OS X for most of the past 18 months. As a result of this, most of my hardware has shifted from generic Dell and Sony machines running Linux, to Macs running OS X. I still maintain a couple of physical Ubuntu/Debian machines, but mostly virtualise now, especially as by using powerful Apple hardware I can create VMs that are significantly more powerful than their physical counterparts.

I do most of my work on either a Macbook Pro or Macbook Air, both of which were the absolute bottom-of-the-range at the time they were purchased. I generally have one of these machines with me wherever I am. I also have access to a more powerful Mac desktop, as well as several VMs covering OS X, Windows, Debian and Ubuntu.

At home I have a 2011 Mac Mini, a generic monitor, and the same keyboard and mouse I was using 5 years ago. I back everything up to a large external hard drive and a NAS device that also streams media to an ancient Mac connected to the TV in the living room. I also have several laptops set up for specific purposes, but am in the process of moving everything important onto a series of VMs hosted on the Mac Mini.

I also have a Kindle 4 (the £89 no frills model), and am really enjoying being able to read books on the train without breaking my back or zapping the battery on my phone.

Since I went truly cross-platform, I’ve simplified things a fair bit. I use Chrome (home) and Firefox (work) for browsing, and use Google’s web-based apps for pretty much everything. At work I use Microsoft Office 2011 for those things that require it, but am getting to the point where I can be fully productive with a web browser and a terminal session. This makes moving between Mac OS X and Ubuntu easy, as does having everything I’m working on in Dropbox so that as long as I’m on one of my machines I can sync my changes back home instantly.

I think if I was starting again with setting up what I needed to make me truly productive, I’d go for a maxed out Macbook Air coupled with a 27″ Thunderbolt display in every place I worked. I’d also want a Debian or Ubuntu server to deal with backups, storage, and working on Linux specific tasks. None of this is out of the question, but is hard to justify until the machines I currently use cease to be of use.

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.