Twitter Opens up process for Verified Accounts!
I’m quite excited about this. For those of you who have been following me for awhile, you will know that one of my pet peeves is always getting confused on Twitter with @HonMichaelKirby an Aussie Senator who tweets less frequently than an Egg.
I think if I get this my social media reach could be extended exponentially. I just hope I make the cut!
Wireless AC
I recently bit the bullet and upgraded my home wireless router. The old D-Link DIR-655 was a decent N based router but did have issues providing coverage to my whole house and it would slow down after heavy use (torrent or Skype) and require a reboot.
At work we did an upgrade to Cisco 3701 AC Access Points on our corporate wireless and implemented Guest WiFi across our campus.
Performance at work was great with excellent coverage and increased bandwidth. So I thought I would explore an upgrade at home as well to 802.11ac. Looking at the various options I narrowed my search down to the
Asus RT-AC87 AC 2400
The reviews all looked excellent but they didn’t really say it all. I expected some benefit to my new devices but what I didn’t expect was that my 802.11n and even 802.11b devices are working flawlessly. I believe the difference is the AiRadar beam forming combined with much beefier cpu hardware and antennae.
This device pays for itself over and over again despite the high acquisition cost. No more router resets, no more wifi extenders to provide whole house coverage. Skype calls always go through with zero disconnects or dropped calls.
I haven’t even started with any of the advanced traffic shaping or profiling available on this router and I can say that right out of the box, this is the best router I’ve used at home ever.
10/10
Open Letter to Microsoft Technet
Sent to the Canadian Editor of TechNet Flash…
Hi Pierre,
Thanks for the latest article from Technet flash. I notice now though when I go in to the Technet website under my Enterprise licensing, I no longer can download software for eval/ testing purposes. Is this a recent change? I don’t frequently use this as Microsoft is not the only technology we utilize but it is a benefit that I have grown used to in my many years in Enterprise IS management and technology roles.
If you have any input or can provide feedback to your team, you can let them know that I am disappointed in the loss of this important tool. I guess I can always go back to signing up for evaluation software as required but I find the process extremely onerous and it in itself will be a detractor from my doing so. Also having software that doesn’t timeout or expire in our test labs means that I can manage our projects to our own schedule rather than having a ticking timebomb waiting to expire while I struggle with supporting daily operations while looking at new technology.
I’m not sure of the logic behind the decision. I wasn’t keen on the subscription model of a yearly cost from Microsoft and frequent “True-up” requests. One of the saving graces was access to all Microsoft software for testing and evaluation. Maybe I need to go back to buying my software and upgrading when budget cycles allow. It may even be more fiscally responsible as reviewing competitive options with a proper business case rather than just standardizing on a single technology partner who no longer supports me is no longer viable.
Yours (past tense),
Mike Kirby
Manager, Information Systems
Yukon Hospital Corporation
Facebook App for Z10
For a few weeks now I’ve had a problem with my Facebook app on my Z10. For some reason when I ran the application I would get an error that Facebook returned no messages.
I rang the issue up to the device being new and perhaps it would be resolved with the next update. Besides I was always able to access the mobile view in the fantastic BB10 browser which had most of the functions I need (I’m not a huge Facebook user)
Today I received the 10.2 update and I used that it would finally be resolved. To my surprise and frustration, it wasn’t.!
Not being one to just leave a challenge I did some research and found that the problem was not.just mine but no one seemed to have a resolution.
Finally I did posts find a vague reference to the issue possibly being due to “bad posts. Unfortunately it didn’t reference any posts that I had on my feed.
I proceeded to block the many game posts my friends send me(besides I hate those anyways) but nothing seemed to work.
More digging and a new direction.. “books I Like”. Of course most of my friends are more likely to do almost anything other than read but I did find a post about “Shows I Like”. BINGO!
I hope this helps anyone else with the issue. Now maybe I’ll test that new app.
New BlackBerry Z10!
I just upgraded to the new BlackBerry Z10. So far I am really happy. It is taking me some time to get used to it but the predictive keyboard is so good that I almost prefer typing using it to a real keyboard.
http://instagr.am/p/WnZ9yAB7DY/
I’m still waiting for some apps like Skype and VMware View but I was able to sideload Instagram and others fairly easily.
The hardware is great, fast and beautiful screen. My only issue in that area is the battery but perhaps I am just pushing it since it is so new. Right now I’m barely getting 10 hours.
I’ll post more of my experiences later. Fingers crossed as I have my first OS update to try this weekend.
Blog Migration
I had my Blog posted directly wordpress. Recently while updating My domain settings on GoDaddy I noticed that I had the option of free hosting Linux or windows server. The idea of being able to self manage my own system and use a background database was very intriguing. I immediately signed myself up!
The first choice was Windows or Linux. I am familiar with both, on the DB side, I am most familiar with MQ SQL and only Windows had this option. It took less than 20minutes to install. I then was offered a wizard for the rest of the setup. The wizard offered to let me setup a number of apps including WordPress, Dotnetnuke, etc. Seventh Heaven for a techie like me!
Unfortunately none of these tools worked. I tried a number but all said they were not compatible with my chosen service. Sigh!
I then tied using a free version of Visual Studio Express to manage my site with the server in asp.Net iis7 mode. I could only use ftp upload. The visual studio had a neat feature to download different web services. More options!
Again more failure. With only the option to download locally and no remote setup scripts, it seemed impossible to configure my site.
Going back to the drawing board, I was able to figure out the godaddy basic hosting didn’t allow for the autoscripting option. Instead I went to wordpress wiki and found the remote asp set instructions.
I swapped my db from MS SQL to myself and downloaded the code to my site, used the phpdb tool to configure mysql and finished the install the in no time.
I then downloaded my site as an xml, uploaded my template and custom css to my new godaddy site. Importing the xml was a problem until I created the upload directory and gave write permissions. Then it was simple and even pulled the media (pictures) from my original site.
The End of Napter Canada
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Also, we strongly suggest that you back up all of your previously purchased and downloaded tracks because we will not be able to provide any customer support relating to them, including any further backup copies, after 12/16/2011. These downloads are DRM-encoded WMA files and can be backed up by burning them to audio CDs. Doing this will allow you access to your music on any CD player and generally have a maintenance free permanent copy. If you do not back up your purchased Napster music downloads by burning them to CD and you later change or reinstall your computer’s operating system, have a system failure or experience DRM corruption, then the downloads will stop playing and you will permanently lose access to them.
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Whitehorse in the Fall
I’ve been up in Whitehorse full-time now since July. I talked my son into joining me so that he could start school here and keep me company. Summer was great other than it being somewhat wetter than normal (at least according to the locals).
It’s now well into the fall and so far things have been somewhat what I expected. The weather seems to be about one month earlier than it was in the Okanagan. Meaning the weather now is about what the rest of my family will be experiencing in Mid November. We have had snow a few times but it doesn’t say more than a day or so. It is staying at the higher levels and when the sun is out, the mountains look gorgeous.
We have both started indoor soccer at the great Canada Winter Games facility. My team seems to be fairly good, we did lose today but it was a tight game. It is certainly going to take some transition as we are used to playing 9 aside in Vernon with a larger field and no use of walls. Here we play 5 out on a field about the size of a hockey arena with the walls being in play. The smaller field and addition of bouncing off the walls adds to the speed of the game and play is closer to hockey than outdoor. I’ve got to get in better shape with all these short sprints!
Work is awesome and I have a great boss who seems to think the same thoughts as me (it can be creepy at times). It’s a small team but everyone contributes and feels valued. It’s good to get away from the bureaucracy of healthcare in BC.
School is going full tilt as well and I’m starting to get into the steam of things. I have to keep on top of things though as it is easy to fall behind.
I’m looking forward to winter here. I just hope that we can handle it! GULP!
New Job
I am now back in action. Working as the Manager of Information Systems for a regional health group in Northern Canada (think way north!)
Really enjoying things although I will feel much better when relocation issues are all settled.
Thanks for following my blog. The format will likely change in the near future. It’s been a stressful time being unemployed during the recession. I’m very blessed to have survived somewhat unscathed.
New Adventure
Starting the first full day of my new adventure today. Unfortunately today I am also waking up sick (ugh!).
So what is the adventure? Today I start a new job in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory at the Hospital as Information Systems Manager. It is going to be an awesome job that is the perfect next fit in my career. I’ve been in healthcare management for about 10 years, mostly within the technology side of things. Before I was laid off from my previous job I had started a move over to the clinical applications side of things (mostly managing projects). What makes this next step so good is that it encompasses everything from business systems, clinical applications, and technology. By going this route, it makes my next career step of a Director or CIO closer.
The other adventure part of this is the location. Can you say north of 60?!? Flying in yesterday on the 1st of May, the first thing to notice is all the pretty white snow covering everything including the frozen arctic lakes! Luckily Whitehorse itself is a little further along but unlike the sunny Okanagan I just left there is little growing here yet. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to have a look around out there though.
I went shopping yesterday and picked up my SPF 110 sunscreen (necessary for fair-skinned southerners like me). By June, there is almost constant daylight so I better be prepared.
Wish me luck on my first day! Here is to first impressions!
Mike Kirby's Journey of Enlightenment 