You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That's the mark of a true professional
--Joe Paterno

When you come in to work, are you working a job or are you working your career?

I've met many people in IT and there are those people that strike you as a Pro and others that strike you as a Joe. Now, there's nothing wrong with being an average Joe, per se, but is that were you want to be?

About 10% of the people out there in the IT world are "professionals". These are people that love what they do and would probably do it whether you paid them or not (ironically, this usually means they are paid even more than the average Joe).

About 80% of the people are "Joes". These are the folks that come in to work, do their job, then head out when "the whistle blows."

The remaining 10% are people that ended up in IT because they thought they could make some easy money, the employment numbers looked good, that was the only thing their government retraining dollars would pay for, or maybe their Uncle Buck told them "the future is (hushed tone...) INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY". Since you're reading this, I'll assume you aren't in this category.

So, what separates the Pros from the Joes?

Professionals are all about the work, quality, improvement, exceptional results, and peformance at consistently higher levels than your average Joe. Pros read about IT, study their craft, study their industry, stay on top of new innovations, weed through the cruft to find the useful new technologies while avoiding the fads, and go at their job like it really matters. A Pro could be described as "living to work".

A Joe is all about following the rules, putting in the time, trying not to get yelled at by anybody, getting by, and getting paid. Joes avoid reading about their industry, use down time to "play a quick online game, or two", and can tell you more about their favorite game/sports team/hobby than they could about the latest technology. A Joe could be described as "working to live".

So, take a look at what you do and how you do it. Are you continuosly learning? Are you maximizing your knowledge? Are you trying new things? Are you doing things on your own, without being told? Are you failing, once in a while? Are you owning your job?

If so, maybe you are headed in the right direction.

We just picked up a couple of Droid X phones and could not get them to sync with Zimbra 5.0.22. Every time we tried to set it up, we'd get "ERROR Could not connect to the server." no matter what we tried. We checked all the usual suspects such as DNS, internet connection, etc. Also, we tried about every combination of user ID, domain, password, etc.

We also spent a week working with Zimbra tech support trying to get the Mobile tab to show up on 5.0.22, to see if we could change some settings there, but after a week they finally figured out that we were on 5.0.22 and you have to be on 6.0.x to see the Mobile tab!

Well, I finally figured it out...

The One World Futbol Project is helping to spread joy thru soccer to communities in need around the world. (By “Futbol” they mean soccer.)

You can buy an ultra-durable soccer ball from the project and play with it anywhere. That's why it's called an all-terrain ball. It never goes flat, never needs a pump, and never gets punctured. If you try hard, you can puncture it with a knife, but the One World Futbol will still keep playing.

For every ball you buy, the Project will give away a second ball, free, to someone who can’t afford one. Neat.

If you don't need an indestructible soccer ball, you can donate to their foundation and, for every $25 you donate, they'll send a soccer ball to a community that needs it.

Check it out at http://www.oneworldfutbol.com

I ran into a problem figuring out how to set up a large, multiple terrabyte disk array that was usable by VMware ESXi.

Specifically, I'm setting up a server with 16GB of memory and a 4-core 3ghz processor to run VMware ESXi 4.0 (Update 1). This driveless Dell rack server is hooked up to an external Dell MD1200 array packed with 7.2TB of storage. I wanted to make the entire 7.2TB (less after accounting for RAID5) available to my virtual machines.

The MD1200 has the option to split into two drive arrays and be accessed by two systems. For this configuration, I'm just going to have the one server, so I set up redundant paths (2 cables) from the server to the first controller on the array.

A few of the things you need to know about installing ESXi...

After waiting over a month since I saw it announced at Google IO back in May, I finally have the final build of Froyo (Frozen Yogurt) running on my AT&T Nexus One.

It's great!

All of the promised improvements are there and it really seems faster...

"What's the difference between ignorance and apathy? I don't know and I don't care."
--Anonymous

Is it better to be efficient or effective?

Let's start with some definitions (from Webster's):

Efficient:
1 : being or involving the immediate agent in producing an effect
2 : productive of desired effects; especially : productive without waste

Effective:
1 a : producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect
1 b : impressive, striking
2 : ready for service or action
3 : actual
4 : being in effect : operative
5 : of a rate of interest equal to the rate of simple interest that yields the same amount when the interest is paid once at the end of the interest period as a quoted rate of interest does when calculated at compound interest over the same period

The FINAL, FINAL, FINAL solution. (No, we didn't switch to Exchange.)

I have several other articles on this site talking about Zimbra not working at a client's home network, but working fine at the office and other locations.

The problem was that the compressed javascript files would not download and the Advanced Web Client would not work. It stalled during download and hitting refresh multiple times MIGHT get it to almost work (the code for handling folders would almost never load). If we took the computer into the office, it worked fine. If we took it home, it worked fine. If we cleared the cache, we were back to having the problem.

Sometimes Firefox would work, but IE almost never would...

I had a client report a problem using Outlook 2007 when trying to send email to a group list. The error was "An unexpected error has occurred" (what, as opposed to an expected error?) when email was sent and Outlook wouldn't expand the list when the + was clicked in the "To:" box.

The problem turned out to be pretty simple...

cognitive dissonance: psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously.
--www.merriam-webster.com

If you've read my other segments "Make your mistakes faster" and "Have the Appropriate Level of Terror", you might be wondering how I could logically hold these two opposing views at the same time. Am I just suffering from cognitive dissonance or do I have a legitimate point?

The answer is pretty simple, if you dig into the meat of my arguments and look at the timing of each...

"Put it up to eleven."
--This is Spinal Tap

If you want to be successful in IT, one of the most important attributes you can maintain is to have the Appropriate Level of Terror (the acronym is ALOT).

What I mean is that there are many things you will do in IT, such as software projects, server hardware upgrades, or management presentations, that demand you feel a high degree of terror.

How can terror be good? Well, it injects your body full of handy hormones and neurotransmitters like adrenaline that will heighten your senses, improve your reactions, and even help you see things you might not otherwise see. Terror will cause you to double and triple check your work. Terror will help you come up with alternative and fall back plans. Terror keeps you focused.

Terror in some people can cause them to freeze or stiffen. Don't be one of those "fainting goats" that topple over at the slightest sound--that's not what I'm talking about...