You have abandoned us and we yearn to forgive you.  That about sums it up in a nutshell.

Of course, this need clarification.  When I said “us”, what I meant by that is your hard-core loyalists.  The people that have been around your products since the 80s and the glorious heydays of the 90s.  The people that are still required to support your products.  The people that now have to maintain an enterprise environment full of consumer goods.

It seems that you have abandoned all ideals pertaining to making your company and your product relevant in a meaningful work-based enterprise environment.  That would be disheartening but forgivable if it weren’t for the fact that we still have users that insist on using nothing but your product.  We are therefore forced to undergo every tweak imaginable to make your products work as seamlessly as possible, but it becomes more and more of a struggle every day.

There have been small steps made by your development team toward this end (Exchange 2007 support in Mail, basic AD integration), but for every step forward you make, you also take five steps back.  Allow me to explain.

As an enterprise IT organization, here is the process all of our systems undergo:

1. Purchase
2. Image
3. Distribute
4. Maintain
5. Replace

Now, that first one is a tough one to overlook.  I used to defend your pricepoints to rabid PC users, comparing spec-for-spec against premier systems from Dell and stacking them against your iMac.  I made the point that your company simply doesn’t offer sub-basement quality systems, that it is high-end consumer on up to professional-grade hardware.  I can’t do that anymore for two reasons.

First, it’s not true.  Not anymore, and certainly not in the world of enterprise purchasing.   I will withhold names and dollar amounts, but suffice it to say, I deal with purchasing bulk quantities from a major PC vendor and Apple.  My experience goes thusly with each – I obtain pricing on a more-than-qualified system that suits the needs of our organization.  I then use our standard company discount to tabulate the amount we get based on our vendor-client relationship.  This is the price that I use for onesy-twosey purchases and usually takes about ten percent off retail.  I then take that price to our rep and ask them to recalculate it based on a quantity of several hundred systems and apply a bulk discount.  The number the PC Vendor comes back with is usually about 20% off the initial 10%, so the savings is significant.  Apple?  We’re lucky to get 5%.  Spec-for-spec, dollar-for-dollar, the PCs win every time, hands-down.

The second reason I can’t argue this point any more is that it should be true.  You see, the likes of Dell, HP, etc all have many, many tiers of systems types.  Leaving sub-standard Wal*Mart fodder out of the equation, we still have small-business workstations, enterprise volume systems, high-end workstations, full desktops, high-end consumer systems, all-in-ones, small-footprint “mini” systems, etc.  Within each of these are a myriad of options.  Five processor speeds, ten video chipsets, ten memory arrangements, the list goes on and on and the end result is a system that meets the needs of the organization, no less and NO MORE.

Apple needs to step up to the enterprise plate, back down on both their pricing and their specs.  Or at least, offer a large array of lower-end systems for a large enterprise.  Most of our users want Macs because it is what they are familiar with, and we both recognize and respect that.  They don’t, however, need all that power and all that fancy build design in Apple’s consumer systems.

Additionally, in my list of five processes all of our systems undergo, the remaining 4 line items are all covered by one major thing:  SERVERS.

Apple, you were on the right track with the XServe, but you made a major fatal error.  Instead of making it powerful, you made it pretty.  This goes for your OSX Server product even more.   I would have been happier with a completely command-line-based server OS to manage our Macs as long as it had that stable options that were needed to properly manage and integrate our clients onto our existing Windows and Linux based server environment.  We don’t need it to look like OSX Client, we need it to handle the jobs we throw at it and provide strong documentation to support it.  The documentation for your server features are ridiculous.  I don’t need 75 pages explaining the features of a service as if you were still trying to sell it to me, I need instruction on file locations, terminal commands, and plist editing options if things go wrong.

So what is the solution?  How does Apple get back on track?  I have a few ideas.

• Hardware:
  • Introducing the new AppleCore product line!  Basic boxes with hundreds of specification configurations, all running the new OSX: AppleCore.
  • AppleCore Servers launched.  Rack-mount 1U systems at a competitive pricepoint and the recognition that you may need a loss-leader to trigger client sales.
• Software (Clients):
  • OSX: AppleCore is the new Enterprise operating system from Apple.
  • Functionally the same as OSX.6, but with small changes:
    • No keychains.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  This will greatly increase compatibility and communications with AD servers.  Don’t try to make them work better, you had your chance – just get rid of them.
    • Wake-On-LAN standard option, not just wake from sleep, and no LOM crap.
    • Apple Workspace:  an all-in-one app for Mail, Calendaring, Address Book, and tasks.  Tight integration with Exchange, including extensive sharing management, standardized offline folders, and ability to import/export or (ideally) natively read PST files.
    • No App Store, or the ability to turn it off entirely from a server.
  • Introduce license keys and an OSX: AppleCore Server KMS along with OEM licensing.
  • Make it able to run on PC systems.
    • License scheme mentioned earlier allows for strong sales
    • For native running, introduce a standard API for hardware vendors driver writing and introduce a driver repository worth a damn.
    • For virtualization, work with VMWare to make a VMWare Tools package
• Software (Server)
  • OSX: AppleCore Server
    • Include features that make it not compete with PC server systems, but work with them.  Strong SMB support, NTFS formatting, to include a few.
    • Don’t be afraid to sacrifice aesthetics for functionality.  We don’t need a hundred perfect glossy menus when all those options can be fit in one place.
    • Make Windows Server compatible software.  SCCM snapins, management tools, etc.
    • Proper client imaging support – again, not “pretty”, but rather, “works well”.
    • Forget five-user licenses, just make them unlimited and charge more for the server OS.  Why charge more?  Because, you should also…
    • Make it virtual.  That is, make it so that a Dell server can run OSX: AppleCore Server within VMWare.  We already have servers.  We already have our cabinets set up, we don’t need another five extraneous systems just to support a different class of client.
• Enterprise client relationships
  • Encourage the ability for customers to have the ability to relay these concerns and have them heard.  I have raised these above points with many people within Apple that I have contact with and they all say the same thing:  “I know, I’ve been hearing that a lot, but there’s no one I can go to to elevate these things”.  Maybe I wouldn’t feel so harshly about this if I knew that Apple had heard me and decided to go a different direction anyway… but the fact that there is no apparent way to get my voice heard as the representative of an organization that wants to include their hardware and pursue hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of annual sales… well, that’s just disheartening.

Apple, I’m about as middle-of-the-road as you can get when it comes to platform loyalty.  I’ve defended your company against most every false accusation I’ve had come across my desk, but your move toward nothing but consumer products and software portals is making it increasingly difficult to do so.

PC guys may not have a leg to stand on when they break out the old “one button mouse” chestnut, but more and more, their points are valid and with nobody to raise them to, I feel abandoned.  I also yearn to forgive.

Additionally, it dawned on me that this could be a perfect example of why small moments of thoughtfulness could be important. It makes me wonder just how many people I have influenced without ever having known my name. So, here goes – my first “Thank You” installment.

–

Thank you to the stranger in the San Diego North Clairemont Public Library. My estimation puts the year at between 1994-1995, but there’s no way I’d be able to pin it down any more specifically than that. There were computers in the Library that I liked to use, but I primarily stuck with the Macs running KidPix and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. I wound up popping over to the PC because the idea of this newfangled emerging technology called “The Internet” intrigued me.

I used it for a while with the help of the Internet Yellow Pages and found it interesting, even if it did confound me some (design back in those days was basic at best and the general protocol was lost on me – I thought “Waiting for Request From Server” meant that someone was on the other end letting people in selectively.)

So this guy comes up to me and starts talking to me about the connected world of computers.  He shows me this nifty protocol called “Telnet”, and further astounds me when he uses the Telnet client to connect to a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon).  He shows me around the text-based world and I am floored.  I’ve done peer-to-peer and even LAN games before such as Oregon Trail in Middle School, but this was worldwide.  After seeing how I reacted to this, he smiled and wrote down on a piece of paper a server name, a port, a username, and a password.  He gave me his character.

He said that he was looking for a new game anyway, so if I wanted, this one could be mine.  I was beyond grateful and he left.  I never did much to advance the character, but I did use it to explore a lot and ultimately, it did three things for me.

1. It improved my reading and writing skills.  In a MUD, the world you are in is defined only by the text on the screen.  The faster you read it, the faster you can achieve your objectives.  The better you read it, as in with better reading comprehension, the more detail you will get out of it.  If you simply get by with reading the basic bits of text, you can do quite well, but to become truly immersed and let your imagination wash over you, an above-average grasp on the words is a necessity.
2. It greatly improved my typing skills.  You live and die by the commands you enter into the Telnet client.  There is no click to attack, you must precisely and with an unforgiving syntax, tell the computer in no uncertain terms what you want to do and how you want to do it.  Too slow?  You’re dead.  Inaccurate?  You’re dead.
3. It got my ass in the Library.  This is never a bad thing.  Often, I walked in and the computer was already taken, so I either sat down and read a book or I left and rode my bike around the neighborhood – both of these are better than sitting at home and on the offchance the computer was free and I could play for half an hour… elation.

Considering how important reading comprehension and quick, accurate typing are in my professional life right now, I have no doubt that this was one of the first steps toward developing my strongest skill-sets.

I never saw you again after that day you handed your hard-fought character over to me, but for opening my eyes and inadvertently improving my life, Mr. Stranger MUD In The Library Guy, I offer my sincerest “Thank You.”

6 lbs lighter.

This is a little dramatic, but I know from experience that the first week or two of a diet tends to be a rapid fall for me, then it tapers off to the gradual descent I’m more looking for. Regardless, I’m quite pleased with the results and am happy with my comfort level on Weight Watchers. Aside from shedding some light on my plate and making better choices, I really don’t feel like I’m hungry. It’s worth noting that I also haven’t really felt full in the traditional, bloated sense – I more just go through every hour of every day this last week with a sense of contentment.

Right now, I’ll admit, I’m allowed quite a lot as long as I make good decisions. It’s the double-edged sword of being a lardass. Calorie-wise, I could eat 3,000 calories and as long as I’m relatively active (as in, breathing), I would still lose weight slowly. That’s the issue I don’t mind. I’m not in this to fit into a new outfit by Easter – speed is not important to me. This is for long-term health.

WWO doesn’t factor in calories, though – it uses points and it’s a very easy system to use. At my weight and height, I’m allowed 68 points per day.

If I ate nothing but fast food, here’s how a day could go on 68 points:

That right there – that’s 70 points, so it’s already over and I didn’t even have sauce for the chicken or ketchup for the fries. I don’t know about you, but that seems like a very reasonable quantity of food – perhaps lacking in quantity, even. For a man my size, talking in terms of simple hunger and cravings, the above day of eating is conservative.

However, let’s review the quantity of food I was able to eat today by making better choices.

My dinner

Imagine to my surprise when I saw the view count skyrocket and that most of the traffic was from Facebook. Sure enough, there it was, on my wall for all to see. I checked every imaginable setting in my WordPress admin tools and couldn’t find anything about auto linking to an external site. After much digging, I found it was an element of Facebook itself and a WordPress App that I had never consciously installed.

The privacy concerns of Facebook are many, but I consider my web presence to be fairly open – I don’t protect my anonymity with any degree of fervor. It’s when things happen without my consent or control that I take umbrage with a service. I didn’t ask for auto linking and I didn’t install a WordPress App purposefully. It is now uninstalled and I have regained control of my various accounts, but I now have a strong sense of hesitation toward the heavily connected world of seemingly unconnected sites and the control I have over my own content.

It’s no stretch to say the last year has been stressful – 360 days after the bomb dropped on us, I have gained back all the weight I lost over the last several years, am on antidepressants, and still have raw thumbs from a nervous habit of picking at my cuticles.

The antidepressants are alright – I don’t mind them, it’s a low dosage, and all told, it keeps me nicely centered. The thumb thing will work itself out and if not, hey – they’re only thumbs. The weight… well, now, that is an issue and one that I can finally get back to addressing.

Maybe I’ve written the following tidbits in the blog some while back, maybe not (I can’t remember half the crap I say), but regardless, it’s worth noting that I have a deep emotional connection to eating. I’m the sort of fella that when the going gets rough, the pizza gets ordered. Its how I cope with bad times, and always has been. If I try to change my eating habits, even under the best of conditions, I turn into a cranky bastard. If I try it under the umbrella of stress, I am absolutely intolerable and as a family man, useless. In the recent past, I’ve had to shelve my conscious good eating habits for the sake of being worth a damn to the family. Now, there’s no more excuses.

The thing that has always helped me in the past is keeping strict records and logs of my food. Just knowing the particulars of every gram of intake helps me form a better picture of my habits. At my current 325lbs, 6’2″ self and with my mostly sedentary job, I burn a little over 4,000 daily calories just existing. So, it stands to reason that if my daily intake is around 2,500 calories, then I am using more than I’m taking and then will slowly lose weight. Simplistic, but factual – certainly for me (like I said, I’ve done this before and I know my body well). The shocking bit comes in when you realize just how much that extra slice of cheese or dob of mayo adds things up. It’s an eye-opener when you realize how you can eat the same foods, but with one or two modifications, it becomes sensible eating.

I used to use a fantastic site called Fitday to track these things and was about to do it again when my wife approached me about the possibility of her signing up for Weight Watchers Online. I gave the thumbs up and after watching over her shoulder and taking the online tour, decided to dive in as well. It’s the same basic concept as Fitday, but takes its own hidden equation, churns on Fat, Protein, Carbs, and Fiber, then spits out a “Point Plus” value to your food. When you pay atttention to the nutrition labels, it’s not difficult at all. Plus, the interface is top-notch and there’s an iOS app for it as well.

So, here goes. I’m on day 2 now and am plunging ahead. It’s not bad and the hunger isn’t terrible at all. I’m looking to lose between 50-75 pounds this year and keep on going until I hit my goal of roughly 210 pounds.

I’m also planning ahead regarding getting back into running. I’ll be doing this Weight Watchers bit for another few weeks until I’m really good and comfortable with it, then start doing a light 3-night-per-week exercise regime on the recumbent bike in the bedroom. I figure by the time I build up my stamina and shed the first 20-30 pounds, the snow will be gone and I’ll be ready to hit the trail in a shiny new set of running shoes.

Oh, and to address it (mostly to get it in writing for myself), I also plan on taking some counseling sessions once I’m at (or near) my target weight. There will always be stress in life and I can’t have it continue to be the catalyst for these ups and downs. Time to talk to someone and figure out more positive approaches to the harsher winters of my remaining years.

My Life as Onkel – Part 2

My Life as Onkel – Part 3

My Life as Onkel – Part 4

Well, it’s over. At 8:00 this morning, my nephews have moved out of our house and back in with their mother. Just 4 days short of a year, it’s over.

About a week ago, we met with Child Protective Services – they have been popping by every month to check on the kids and the state of our house. This time was different, though. They wanted to talk to us about our thoughts regarding the children leaving. On the whole, much progress has been made and we were fine with it on some conditions, which we laid out thoroughly.

We also explained that when the kids left, we would be making many phone calls to cancel various support services and we doubt re-approval could ever happen. Additionally, we would be getting rid of excess clothes, furniture, etc. In short, once they left, though we would always be able to babysit and help, the kids would not be able to move back in if anything were to regress.

We then spent the next several days making preparations. This morning, they left. There is still follow-up work to be done. Plenty of clothes and toys that need to be bagged and moved, but overall, the burden is lifted and our lives can resume.

I’ve thought often over the last year what this would feel like and I have to admit that the reality is far more bittersweet than I had hoped. Mickey and I were discussing some feelings over lunch today and I admitted that I had been feeling empty and directionless for some time, now. It feels as though I have an overall sense of missing fulfillment – a hole in my being that I had been pushing aside for the greater good of the family. With kids to wrangle, four different dishes to cook every meal (to accommodate finicky tastes and allergies) piles of laundry, cleaning, and the absolutely mind-boggling number of miles to drive in transporting people from one place to the next, I had no room for myself and my feelings of unknown longing.

Now, I’m face-to-face with it and there’s no white noise to drown it out. I have no toddlers, no diapers, no commitments, and I’m even on vacation from work, to boot. It’s now 11:56 and I just cracked a beer open – more of a symbolic gesture, really. I have no real desire or need to drink, but I like the idea that I can drink before noon. Just the ability is somehow uplifting.

So, I’ll be trying different things out. Exercise, picking the guitar back up, writing more; perhaps even on this blog, start homebrewing beer (got the “OK” from Mickey last night to start on that, since I have all the equipment), and whatever else that may fill the void.

The point is that My Life as Onkel is over. Now, it’s time to start My Life as Mike.

Here is a batch file for cleaning user profiles in Windows 7. This was much easier in XP, but in Windows 7, you need to also clear out the registry values or you will get a Profile error on the next login by the cleared user. I couldn’t find any good ones online that met my needs perfectly, so I made my own.

One of the biggest criteria that I had was that I wanted to specify users for the script to leave alone. It seemed like anyone that made a script for profile deletion wiped the ground clean and I wanted to be able to retain users of my choosing. This is especially helpful in lab or library situations, to set this script as a logoff hook. There are two places that you would need to enter accounts to exclude from the wipe – one in the directory clean and one in the registry clean, just look for the commented areas below. Enjoy!

REVISION 2: I have altered this slightly as of 01/3/2011. When tested on systems with a lot of really beefy profiles, it would error on the directory deletion saying some items weren’t found or were in use. This did not affect the functionality – it wiped 99% of the contents of the profile and would then move on, resulting in a fresh profile and no login errors, but I still didn’t like it. I noticed that if the script was run again it would finish the job and remove the rest. I thought about adding an errorlevel check and repeat, but on the offchance the error was valid, I didn’t want it to go in an endless loop. Therefore, I put in two “if exist” checks and repeats and if it still finds the directory existing beyond that, it gives up and moves on.

REVISION 3:  I was having a bit of an issue with the script, not in terms of functionality, but in trust of automation.  In short, I have this running on hundreds of systems as scheduled tasks in multiple locations and I needed to know that it was not only running, but was running successfully.  So, I added log reporting functionality.  After the cleaning has occurred, it checks to see if the c:\Users directory is empty except for the excluded profiles and generates a “success” or “failure” based on that, then it does the same with the registry.  I then have it appending it to a remote file that I can monitor from my station.

I can’t help but feel that this isn’t the cleanest way to do it, that I should be able to reference the previous exceptions, but honestly… I’m not a programmer by trade.  I’m a desktop tech that makes my own tools for the sake of functionality, so if it works, then it works. Just look for the note (::) portions of the script and make your customizations accordingly.

@echo off

:EOF

Now, if you know me, then you know I’m not a black-and-white kind of guy.  My thoughts are often multi-faceted and they many times contradict each other.  I don’t pretend to have any answers, or take any sides.  I simply muse upon topics in various ways and hopefully come away with a more complete picture of myself, rather than a formed belief about the topic at hand.  This Wikileaks issue has definitely brought out the wishy-washy nature of my thought process.  Whatever your views are on this topic, it can be universally agreed that it is complex, at best.

Over the course of the Bush presidency, I was often very frustrated at the level of secrecy that the government operated at.  I believe that a government should conduct itself with a certain amount of transparency to ultimately provide high levels of public discourse and Official accountability.  The shroud that was put over the public at large was thick and foreboding.  Couple that with the level of privacy that the government expected of its citizens, and you essentially had a governing body that expected everyone to be an open book except themselves.

Now, we have a new president and unfortunately, little has changed in terms of privacy, both in the government ranks and in the lives of the public.  Small, hopeful steps have been made – pictures of soldier’s coffins can now be taken and released, state and federal budgets are more open to public eyes, but ultimately, the same arguably illegal eye is on every American, guilty and innocent alike.

Along comes Wikileaks.  It provides the ultimate in transparency.  It forced government and military documents out into the open for all to see.  It took the large watchful eye of the government and positioned a mirror in front of it.  Now, they feel what we feel – exposed, violated, and in danger.  We’ve been told that if we had nothing to hide, then we had nothing to fear – isn’t the same true for them, ideally?

Yes and no.  I like to think that the highest ranking officials of our governing leaders would be the example-setters.  The cream of the crop.  The tall men in suits that set the bar for the rest of us.  Ultimately, though – they are human.  Humans are flawed.  Humans are greedy.  Unilateral, unquestioned human nature in the position of power is a foul-mouthed memo waiting to happen.  Should we hope to find them above the ranks of those that would abuse their positions?  Absolutely.  Should we expect it?  Absolutely.  Should we realistically expect it?  Well, maybe not.

Further, I can’t say with any degree of certainty that these leaked documents put anybody in harm’s way – I’ll only say that if they did, it damned well better be worth the price.

So there we have it.  My contradictory thoughts on the whole thing summed up:

• I like government transparency.
• I like personal privacy.
• I believe our officials should feel the same comfort of privacy as the citizens they protect.
• I like the notion of a shrouded government being exposed.
• I dislike the notion of an eye-for-an-eye.
• I admire the size of Wikileaks’ collective balls.
• I seriously question the nature of the “service” they are providing.
• I wish everyone would follow the age-old corporate rule of, “Never say in written word what you don’t want to see in print.”