Onion Slices

It’s that time of year again. Actually, it has nothing to do with the time of year, but I am really fed up with my AT&T service. Julie and I have been with them since January of this year, and the primary reason why we made the switch was because I wanted to get an iPhone. There were a couple of other reasons, like being unhappy with my Verizon service, needing to get new phone numbers, and a desire to get off the old CDMA network. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve come to realize that I was a fool!!!!

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my iPhone. I use it every day, and enjoy the experience that it provides me. I have no problem with my phone, and I am sad over possibly turning it into just an iPod Touch in my day-to-day use. Sadness aside, AT&T is driving me to this decision.

The main reason that I’ve been thinking about switching is that Julie and I have a lot of trouble talking to one another. There aren’t many other people that we talk to, so honestly, this is a deal-breaker for me. The service and signal strength in our apartment is not that great, so I know that has some to do with us getting cut off, but I am tired of knowing, without a doubt, that if someone calls me at home, I’ll be able to talk to them for about 2 to 3 minutes and then lose the call. It also happens while driving in some areas, but I know that’s a risk of talking on a cell phone. Even with that in mind, I shouldn’t have the kind of agony that we are having, just in accomplishing the simple, basic, task of talking on the phone.

Totally aside from the voice quality (sucky) and the dropped calls, I’ve been unhappy with the data service that I have as well. I’m not that heavy of a data user, other than e-mail, simply because I spend so much time in front of a real computer of some sort. This is the same reason why I don’t need a netbook, or any of the other cool connectivity gadgets out there. Lately, most of my real data usage has been uploading photos from my phone to my blog, which uses the WiFi connection anyway. It’s quite nice being able to check my e-mail at any time or place and I love being able to look up the foods that I’m eating when Julie and I go out for Indian, but honestly, even doing that is difficult on AT&T’s network.

While I was in Las Vegas for the SharePoint Conference 2009, all the geeky attendees managed to bring the AT&T network to it’s knees. During the day, anywhere around Mandalay Bay Hotel, Casino and Conference Center, I was completely unable to make any phone calls, or use any data service at all. Several people I know have made all kinds of excuses about how it’s the iPhone that’s causing tons of network congestion and the infrastructure just can’t handle that many iPhones in one place. Frankly, that’s a load of horse pocky. I’m not saying that it’s not true, but I think it is just a really bad excuse. One of my friends who spends a lot of time in Seattle was at a music event and she had the same problem. People were not able to make plans, text messages never were delivered, and AT&T was cursed by an entire generation of Digital Natives. You would think in a connected, trendy, progressive area like Seattle AT&T would have their stuff squared-away and able to handle spikes in network traffic, but sadly this isn’t the case.

Enough of my rationalization! Right now, there are several contenders for my business. We have:

• Sprint and the Palm Pre
• Pros: It’s not AT&T. Palm has gotten some good press about it’s nifty new OS. There are some really cool talk plans that they offer.
• Cons: Sprint has a reputation about connectivity about as good as AT&T. They are not considered a major player. The Pre, while cool, has managed to do just about everything wrong when talking about Exchange and enterprise connectivity.
• T-Mobile and a jailbroken iPhone
• Pros: I get to keep using my iPhone. They have a GSM network. They are local (I can drive over and kick someone when my service sucks).
• Cons: Part of the problem with AT&T is the GSM network. No real support from Apple on my phone once it’s jailbroken. One of the reasons I love the phone is because It Just Works(TM).
• Verizon and the new Droid
• Pros: I am VERY receptive about going back to Verizon network. I was a customer for 6 years, and only had trouble towards the end. The new phone runs Google’s Android 2.0 OS, which looks like it will support multiple Exchange accounts.
• Cons: Well, I might still have all the same problems I’m having with AT&T, but I have no real way of testing that. Phone isn’t even out yet. It may suck. I’m not totally confident that Verizon is going to be a leader when the 4G stuff starts hitting.

Whew, this is getting to be a long post. I’m going to finish my hot cider and see if Julie wants to go to Target!

So, as my time here at 3Sharp draws to a close, most people are starting to realize how much I actually do around here. We just finished up a meeting with all the partners where I laid out all the major systems and services that we have going. All of us agree that we have WAY more going than any company our size really needs, and now it’s up to them to decide what needs to be gotten rid of, or outsourced. I agree that having someone dedicated to IT is not a good plan, for a company this size, but that is exactly the same kind of thinking that got us where we are.

I’ve been thinking about the best way to take care of getting things in the “proper” configuration, and I can honestly say, that what SHOULD be done, is hire an IT consultant or contractor for a month, put together a plan of where they want to be at the end of it, and then have the consultant or contractor go and actually DO the work. I know this is a pipe dream, because it will NEVER happen. Instead, once again, there will be a list of projects, and they will get to that list when “nothing more important” is going on. Just like the past two years, there will ALWAYS be something more important.

I don’t want to sound like I’m being defeatist, or pessimistic, but the reality of the situation is that 3Sharp likes to operate in crisis mode. Anything that can be done to get them OUT of crisis mode will be passed upon, so that they can focus on generating revenue. I understand this decision, and I know how much 3Sharp needs the business, but things are going to bite them in the butt, again, at some point.

Since my last day is tomorrow, I decided to clean off the sparkles and velvet and penguins that I had decorated my computer with. I pulled all that stuff off, and to hide the last little sparkles of glitter, I put a “Exchange Server 2010” laptop decal on. It looks good, but it’s quite the conformist way out.

So, to everyone who doesn’t know, I’m on my last trip for 3Sharp. At the start of this month, I was given the oppurtunity to go and work on Exchange 2010. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to talk about what I’m doing, but the really cool thing is that I’ll be helping to manage 10 MILLION mailboxes. It’s going to be a BIG change, and I’ll post more about those changes a little later.

What I really wanted to do is sit down and think about this last trip. I’m in Las Vegas, again, and I’m loving it. Well, actually it’s been more stressful than I really wanted, but the work isn’t too beyond me, and I’m getting to work with some great people again. I’m in town for the SharePoint Conference 2009, and it’s shaping up to be a cool week. What I’m actually going to be doing is providing hardware and logistic support for speakers. They will bring me a Virtual Machine, I put it on the server, and when they are having their session, I start up the VM and give them access. It seems simple on the outside, but there is really a lot going on from the back end of things.

Being busy at a conference is no new thing to me. Working on building and supporting demos, as I’ve been doing for 3Sharp, means a lot of 16+ hour days on-site. There always seem to be last minute details to take care of and changes that the client wants to make. Even on the most simple and quick assignment, there is a lot of stress and buildup to making a demo happen. This is one of the things that I will really NOT miss at all.

What I think that I WILL end up missing is the chance to go to cool places, and meet all the neat people that I’ve worked for. This year, I’ve gotten to come here to Vegas twice, flown to Japan, and gotten to hang out with an old friend in Atlanta. This has really been wonderful, and I am sad that it’s coming to an end, but I’m looking forward to the other type of work that I’ll be doing.

It’s been important to me to reassure the people at 3Sharp that I’m not leaving because I hate the place or work, but because the change in the business focus would take me somewhere I don’t really want to go. I like doing demos and working with SharePoint, but I don’t want that as my profession.

So, now that I’ve talked a little bit about what’s going on, and why, I wanted to do a quick write up of my time here in Las Vegas so far. First, I have to say that I really enjoy coming here! There are all sorts of good places to eat, things to see, and comforts to be indulged. I got here on Thursday afternoon, and after checking the convention center at Mandalay Bay, I relaxed for the rest of the evening. Taking my book, I wandered around, had an awesome burger, and enjoyed watching people and sipping some drinks. Friday was quite a bit more hectic with the arrival of the equipment that I’m supporting. I ended up spending most of the day getting things ready, and when I finally did have access to the servers, getting the infrastructure set up was quite a bit more of a pain than I wanted. It was after 9:00PM by the time I had the servers powered up and networked, and then it was time for the client to get started. I made sure that they were set up, but I scampered back to my room at 11:15PM to get some sleep. Apparently they stayed until 3:00AM or so, and were still back at work on their environment at 8:00AM. I don’t want to sound like I’m not a dedicated employee, but I’m glad that I won’t have to do that anymore! 

Now that they are all set up and I’ve put out the few fires that have come up, I’m just waiting for the second part of my job to start. Soon, I’ll have presenters coming to load VMs onto the servers and the real work will begin. Whee!

Since I’m up to about 715 words (this sentance will bring that higher), I’ll move on to talking about Mandalay Bay. This place is AWESOME. This is the second time I’ve stayed here, and the third time I’ve explored it, but I have to say that I would love to come back here when I’m actually on vacation. The food has been great (too rich, actually, but I could get used to that), the people have been wonderful, and the rooms are so comfortable it’s hard not to want to steal the whole bed. I’m not saying that it’s perfect, but this will be the place I pick to come back to! I’ve had some trouble with room, specifically that it’s on the top floor of the regular hotel, so at night I can actually hear the dance/night club that they have on the upper floors. It’s quite the pain in the rear (it’s woken me up every night), but with better planning tonight, I’m going to set up some white noise to help me sleep. The only other complaint that I have is yesterday I indulged in the buffet too much. They have a deal where you can pay a daily rate and then eat every meal. It works out to about $12 per meal, so that’s a GREAT deal, considering that dinner alone is normally about $30. The reason why this wasn’t as good an idea as I had thought is because the food is so rich and you can eat all you want, it’s easy to eat more than your body can process. I limited myself to one plate a meal, but I was still having quite the upset stomach last night and into today. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and I’m debating lunch as I type. Oh well, it’s kind of a minor complaint, but I WANT to be eating more! I love food (:

Okay, I’ve broken 1000 words, so now back to wandering around asking if anyone needs anything!