During the last open enrollment period at work, I switched health insurance plans. Same provider, but a plan that ought to save me some money and hassle compared to my previous plan ( Read more... )

One of the work projects that pretty much consumed my work life from last August through this March is now in beta: http://docs.vmware.comRead more... )

So, there is weird stuff going on with Livejournal. More details at the linked post, but the short summary is a) the Livejournal servers are now located in Russia b) the Russian government now has access to everything posted on Livejournal, including friendslocked and private posts and c) there are unconfirmed rumors of Russian-language accounts ( Read more... )

Here's a grab bag of stuff I've been finding interesting today ( Read more... )

I've been asked to interview a potential candidate for a tools developer on my team at work. The job posting is hereI've worked with plenty of developers, so I've got a pretty good notion of what I want in a candidate. I'm not planning on asking a lot of technical questions - there are other people on the team who will do that. Also, I really care ( Read more... )

The VMware Information Experience team has started a new video series called Blogger Talk, where we interview VMware bloggers about their favorite topics. I talked to Mike Foley about vSphere security topics like why a VM escape is unlikely on ESXi, how to deal with internal security threats, and how to use the vSphere Hardening Guide ( Read more... )

My efforts to teach myself Ruby programming have not advanced much in the past few months, having been displaced by acquisition of other skills more immediately of need in Ye Daye Jobbe. However, I have a solid skill base in writing scripts that take information in one format, slice it and dice it a bit, and spit it out in another format. This is ( Read more... )

Last night and this morning, I helped two coworkers work through problems with an internal tool that I happen to have written the internal documentation and training for. It looked to me, from what I was able to see in the logs, like the problem was user error - both of them were, completely separately and independently, doing Operation X instead ( Read more... )

Lots of food for thought in this article. I don't entirely agree with it - I think the author doesn't recognize the extent to which competing against oneself and setting and exceeding goals can be an empowering experience for someone who's always struggled with fitness or exercise. Certainly, for me personally, being able to track my progress has ( Read more... )

I have just replaced my increasingly unreliable 13-year-old printer with a brand-new Epson inkjet. It prints, it scans, it copies, it makes a mean strawberry daiquiri ( Read more... )