existence | rhythm

/EXISTENCE
Today was a hard day for some reason. Clients that I'm normally super happy to work with triggered an unbridled rage within me to which I reigned in only barely by stopping and thinking about what I was doing. My heart was in such a bad place I asked if I could head home early. On my way home I stopped by In-n-Out to get a burger and a chocolate shake. The sugar high did improve my mood, but only temporarily. Surely playing video games with friends online would help, but alas competitive co-op only made me feel useless when my score was less than half of friend and the lowest of the three of us. My heart was sinking and I felt the tailspin of an emotional vortex starting. In a moment of clarity, I decided to drop out of the second round through the game's rather short story in favor of taking it easy the remainder of the evening. I even thought about going and building something in Minecraft, but it didn't feel quite right. In a second moment of clarity, I finally followed the reminder I had setup to do some writing.

But I didn't have to write anything of any use if I didn't feel like it. In fact I didn't initially. I started with some free writing based on what was rattling around in my head. I even tried something a bit new and took off my glasses so I had to write everything by feel. My typing ended up being quite accurate and I was left with a clearer mind. No longer did the words and feelings have to rattle around internally. Now they were recorded in a file saved to my documents. As I let the emotions flow the words came with them, helping create a new description and image for my feelings. Music and audio have always been super important in my life and so I described my state as being in a state of dissonance with life. I don't know if I changed, or what's really different, but I've noticed that slowly I no longer feel a harmony with my work. But I'm not sure it's all IT work. I think it's just this style of IT support.

My sister got me thinking as well about what I really want out of where I live and I realized that where I currently live is actually pretty damn nice. I'm within walking distance of a major shopping center and things in general are pretty chill on the roads. Overall, it's not where I live that's out of sync with me. It's where I work. And it's hard because I am pretty good at what I do. But I hate having to go into LA or even north Orange County because traffic sucks and I just don't like the vibe I get. Everything is too... intense. I hate to think what kind of stress I'd have over in New York City.

So that's my goal at this point: to find harmony and bring a good rhythm back to my life.

Until next time:
Work smart. Play hard. Sleep well.

that damn checkbox... Java options greyed out

/TECH
My co-worker was going about his business one day when he needed to add an exception to the Java Security Exception Site List. So he popped in, clicked "Edit Site List...", and... couldn't modify the list. The "Add" button was greyed out. We started searching the Internet and found some things that sounded right, but they weren't. Most posts had to do with deployment options. Finally, we decided to compare settings.

As we were comparing various things, he scrolled down to one of my favorite hidden gems within the Java options and I noticed something strange. There was an extra box that he had checked. It seemed so innocuous. So unassuming. And so we unchecked "Store user settings in the roaming profile". He closed and re-opened the Java Control Panel and was finally greeted by the ability to modify his Exception Site List again.



But why would this seemingly good setting cause such problems? We're not sure, but my guess is a permissions issue to the roaming settings. We even tested re-checking the box on his computer and his Exception Site List was working either way now.

If you're having this issue, open the Java Control Panel -> Advanced tab -> scroll to the bottom and uncheck "Store user settings in the roaming profile". You can even re-check it later if you need it as it seems to fix permissions in the process.

And this was all because of a damn checkbox.

Until next time:
Work smart. Play hard. Sleep well.

existence | renewal

/EXISTENCE
I'd like to preface this posting stating that although I did SharePoint posts in the past, I haven't touched it in 3 years. In some ways I miss it. In more ways I don't. But regardless of my feelings toward SharePoint, it has been too long since I posted anything here. And so like a phoenix from the ashes, I'm revitalizing this blog with new content.

In the coming posts I'm going to dive both into things I've been doing in and outside of work, though mostly inside work since that's where I've learned the most. Nearly 3 years ago I moved to Southern California and I've been doing IT Support and System Administration. We're the local area outsourced IT department for many clients, none of whom I'll mention both due to respect and an NDA. To give you an idea, our work ranges from helping a small local shop keep their Windows XP machines running their business to getting a new production printer setup for a 70+ person office part of an international group of companies. I've worked with Exchange servers, Windows Server 2000 - 2012 R2, Google Apps, Office 2007 - 2016, Adobe CC, Office 365, Okta, VMWare vSphere, Yosemite backup, Dell Compellent Storage systems, Dell Equalogic, SonicWALL firewalls, Apple Mac OS X 10.6 - 10.11, SMB sharing, QNAP, Lenovo, Barracuda, Cisco Aironet wireless, Dell network switches, and more things than I can remember.

My co-worker and I discuss things a lot. Many of the things we've learned are because we were poking about in settings trying to fix some esoteric issue. Sure we get hints from other postings online that talk about other settings or tweaks, but there doesn't seem to ever be nearly enough information. And in the end it's often some check box buried in the advanced settings. So I decided to start a new set of posts regarding these strange issues that are solved by changing one solitary setting. These posts will have "that damn check box..." in the title to indicate what kind of post it is.

The last thing I want to mention is that although I've learned a ton in the last 3 years, I'm rather worn out from this job. It's full of pressure to make things better for users and full of users that are mean. There are plenty of people I've met that are actually quite nice about it, but those mean ones tend to leave a mark. I hope writing about the issues I fix and my current life helps put me in a better head-space as well as enlighten others crazy enough to be in IT support. Additionally I'm quite tired of the busy-ness that is Los Angeles and Orange County. For my own health I believe I need some place a bit slower paced. This not only leads to that I'm looking for new employment, but I'm also looking to relocate. I haven't truly decided on where I want to go, but I've been thinking a lot of the life I left behind when I moved to SoCal in the first place.

It's hard to close my existential posts sometimes. I feel like I need to say something poignant, but I can never find the words. Sadly those words rarely coalesce. So...

Until next time:
Work smart. Play hard. Sleep well.