https://www.radiotope.com/ Recent content on Radiotope Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Sat, 15 Jul 2023 20:16:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/project_management/ Sat, 15 Jul 2023 20:16:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/project_management/ TL;DR Want to have greater success as a Senior-level-or-higher in a tech company? Learn to lead a project. Project Management? Yes, among the deeply technical, a “Project Manager” role is often misunderstood. However, here, I’m talking about leading a project in a project-manager-like capacity, with or without the official title. Project Manager as a Role I’ll get this out of the way: A great Project Manager is worth their weight in gold-plated gold. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/santa_client_troubleshooting/ Wed, 22 Mar 2023 20:16:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/santa_client_troubleshooting/ I’ve been meaning to post something like this for a bit now, as I see a fair number of people trying to troubleshoot problems with Santa, and not knowing how to tackle it. I really haven’t encountered issues with a Santa sync server, so, here I’ll stick to the client. What? If you don’t know what any of this is, Santa is a binary allow/deny-list system extension for macOS. At minimum, when installed, nothing gets blocked, but you get insight into all process executions via event logs. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/evaluating_advice/ Thu, 23 Feb 2023 14:16:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/evaluating_advice/ a.k.a. “There’s a lot of advice out there.” Internal to your organization, I suspect there is some process that you use to evaluate proposed actions. (If not, you should look at that.) It goes something like this: Someone casually says, “Hey, I have an idea: we should do this thing!” Someone else says, “sure, it sound interesting. Please write it up as a formal proposal.” The original person writes up a doc with the idea, a little background, what problem the idea solves, risks to implement, and a rough timeline (“this will take two engineers 4 months working full-time”). https://www.radiotope.com/posts/social_media_reset/ Fri, 18 Nov 2022 20:16:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/social_media_reset/ Someone, not me, years ago–when people were kind-of moving from FaceBook to Twitter–quipped: ‘FaceBook is the people you went to High School with, Twitter is the people that you wish you went to High School with.’ In the earlier days, that really nailed it. Then the brands came. Then the ads. And the algorithmic timeline. Everything got serious. That feeling of just hanging out with a group of people disappeared. It wasn’t necessarily bad, just not the thing it was. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/mastodon_again/ Thu, 10 Nov 2022 14:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/mastodon_again/ I’ve already written a little bit about Mastodon (and Twitter) a few years back. Now, though, it seems like there is real interest in Mastodon, and I believe this will also expose interest in the larger Fediverse. That won’t be the subject of this post, though. With all of this interest in Mastodon–whether that is genuine, or just because someone is looking for a Twitter replacement–is of little importance. There has also been a lot of confusion. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/steamdeck_non_review/ Fri, 05 Aug 2022 22:20:15 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/steamdeck_non_review/ I was lucky enough to pick up a Steamdeck, and it turns out that there’s a lot of curiosity about it. I get a lot of questions! We all have our own desires and thoughts about what a device like this is and should do. I’m also perhaps not a “typical user”. Disclaimer: this is not a review, but a write-up on the Steamdeck from my perspective, and how it aligns with what I’m looking for. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/a_new_web_home/ Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/a_new_web_home/ Switched the DNS, and…done! Here is this 20+-year-old-blog in a fancy new home! (If I recall, its first home was actually in my home…on a Pentium running Linux and Apache.) Now it’s using Hugo for a static generator, and being served with Apache. Moving over the previous content was easy, as my home-grown solution also used Markdown as its content format. A small shell script to add the front-matter was all that was needed. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/moving/ Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/moving/ It’s time for a move! I’m moving this blog to a new host, still on a VM, and still under my control (like a camera on manual…mostly), and a new blog hosting solution. In the post Why, when I had originally moved this blog to a self-written solution, I had good reasons, and now, I have similar reasons. I still control the content, server, and stack Posts are still in a plain-text format that is easily written, moved, and manipulated I get to learn some newer technology It’s still a static site, with no real moving parts I can still post easily from any device I own This ticks all of the boxes that I need right now. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/meetings_that_dont_suck/ Mon, 11 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/meetings_that_dont_suck/ Updated: 2021-10-17 Let’s start at the beginning: most business meetings suck. They’re too long and ramble-y, and at the end, you wonder what you got out of it. I have a bit of a formula for changing this, but “change” is the key word here: your entire organization will need to understand that their culture of meetings needs to be updated. Once you’re there, it all falls into place, and anyone not following the “good meeting” path will be called out on it. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/gatekeepers/ Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/gatekeepers/ Flag Waving “Patriots” Before I was born, my father was in the U.S. Army. He didn’t talk about it really, but, there were little tells. He was big on making your bed properly each morning (“hospital corners”). He would often remind me of the importance of shining my shoes—particularly before any interview. In addition to these telling behaviors, he did have physical remnants. Stuff. As a child, I thought a lot of these things were pretty cool: the uniform itself, pins for your uniform, and so on. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/macsysadmin_2020/ Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/macsysadmin_2020/ Another Virtual Conference? First, this isn’t a real “review”. I’ve been routinely speaking at MacSysAdmin for, well…a while now. It was already one of my favorite events. Due to the worldwide pandemic of 2020, like many other events, it is on-line only this year. I am “speaking” again this year (via a pre-recorded session). I won’t pretend that this is what I want: I’d much rather be in a conference venue with other delegates, watching and listening to presentations live. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/appreciations/ Thu, 30 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/appreciations/ Appreciations and Greetz! I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and have taken too long to actually write this down. There are, of course, a lot of people that I could thank for their help over my life. Too many, unfortunately. I do want to call out and recognize the people that left some lasting, dramatic, and career and life-altering change on me. So, while your name is likely not on this list, I hope I have thanked you in some way for your guidance, assistance, or aid. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/terminal2blink/ Thu, 30 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/terminal2blink/ terminal2blink and Swift I love Blink Shell on iOS. It’s a fantastic ssh/mosh client (and more!) that supports external monitors, too. However, I’ve used Terminal.app on macOS for so long now, that I have it tricked out just the way I like it. This, of course, includes the color scheme. It turns out that Blink Shell is themeable past the built-in themes. It would be a bit of a pain to go though each color setting in Terminal. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/raspberry_shell/ Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/raspberry_shell/ Raspberry Shell I’ve had some interest in how I use a Raspberry Pi as a portable backend and shell for my iPad. You can use this method with any device that can give you a shell over ssh (Android, your iPhone, a Mac or Windows machine, etc.). The TL;DR is that I use a RPi and shell into it so I can perform certain tasks while on my iPad. That may sound simple or obvious. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/rpi_headless_config/ Tue, 31 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/rpi_headless_config/ Initial Raspberry Pi Config, Headless We’re at the very beginning of a golden age of single board computers, and the Raspberry Pi is currently leading the charge. From the Raspberry Pi Zero (and Zero W), to the Raspberry Pi 4 (with up to 4GB of RAM), you have choices in both size and power. Best of all, they’re all pretty affordable: from $10 to about $60. I’ve bought several (read: many) at this point, and typically use them as some kind of server. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/sudotouchid/ Wed, 02 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/sudotouchid/ Using TouchID for sudo on macOS I’m writing this as a note to myself as much as to share with other TouchID-enabled macOS users. sudo on the command-line is incredibly useful: it helps enforce security boundaries by not promoting that you simply run as root, it enforces separation, as you then run with your own account, and finally, it logs actions taken using sudo. These are all great features, but as we strive to create longer passwords and passphrases, this can get cumbersome to type repeatedly. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/things_i_use/ Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/things_i_use/ Things I Use I’ve been meaning to collect together all of the things that I’m asked for a recommendation for, seemingly quite often. There are no ads here, and no affiliate links (but I will link to things that are for purchase). Just things that I use every day to get things done. None of this is exhaustive: you probably have your favorite thing for a popular task. I’m only listing things here that I find people are surprised about when I mention it. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/why_mastodon/ Fri, 17 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/why_mastodon/ Why Mastodon? Why Now? I signed up for Mastodon.social in early 2017, and promptly didn’t use it at all. As a tech professional, I feel it’s important to stay up to date and check out new technologies and sites. (To be honest, it’s also part of the username land-grab: I probably have an account on every major service if I use it or not, save Snapchat. That’s one I just never checked out at all, but I have enough other people that I know that keep me up to date on it. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/tech_interviews_are_broken/ Sat, 10 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/tech_interviews_are_broken/ Tech Interviewing is (Still) Broken…and Some Ideas Tech interviewing has been kind of terrible for a long time now. Some people ‘get it’ and try newer, or original techniques. Unfortunately, the bulk of companies hold on to this terrible, old model. How Do You Know? You may be wondering how I know, or why I care. First, I care very deeply about the tech industry. All of it. Software really is eating the world, and the tech industry touches everything we do. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/leaving/ Fri, 12 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/leaving/ People don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Right? This seems to be the maxim that we keep hearing, and largely, it makes sense. When I was consulting, I knew this to be true: I wasn’t really working for a “company”. I was hired by an individual, kept a relationship with that individual, and—in the off chance that said individual left said company—all bets are off if I lose the relationship with that individual. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/iphone_x_non_review/ Wed, 06 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/iphone_x_non_review/ iPhone X Review (aka, The Future of the iPhone) The Non-Review Review I don’t write reviews. There has, however, been a tremendous amount of hype and talk about the iPhone X. I don’t have to do a lot of review, here: Apple announced both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X (read: 10) at the same event, with the 8 being the usual faster, better version of what we’ve seen in the iPhone line, and the X being touted as “the future of the iPhone”. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/conference-speaking_review/ Tue, 05 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/conference-speaking_review/ Guidance on Public Speaking The Offer The very short version: If you’d like to speak at a Mac/Apple-focused conference, I’d like to help. Contact me however you like, but a DM or @ on Twitter is likely the fastest first step. Feel free to email, Slack (@marczak on macadmins), or even text. I’m not really picky. I’ve made this offer before and have worked with a few people in the past, but I’d like to open this wider. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/anti-anti-diversity/ Sun, 06 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/anti-anti-diversity/ I’ve started, stopped, and started writing again several times now. I thought that meant that I’m not sure what to say. But I do. First, and most clearly, I do not condone the “Anti-Diversity Manifesto” that is apparently making the rounds at Google. I’m dismayed that it exists. Secondly, I’m not sure what parallel-universe-company the author works at, but every woman I have ever interacted with at Google is smart—much smarter than I am—capable, and gets things done. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/the_not_shipping_mac_pro/ Wed, 19 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/the_not_shipping_mac_pro/ The Not-Shipping Mac Pro A lot of people have written and spoken about the newly, kind-of announced, not-shipping-this-year Mac Pro. So, you don’t really need my commentary…but here it is anyway. I’m not going to write about the (unknown) specs, or what I think it should be, but rather about two things that it made clear to me. First, and easiest: this isn’t a “new” Apple. This is an aberration. A one-off. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/speaking_professionally_and_more/ Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/speaking_professionally_and_more/ Speaking Professionally…and more I’m slowly moving content over from the previous version of this site, and my “Speaking Professionally” article was always popular. I re-read it and I think the advice is still good. Instead of just burying in this blog, it has its own permanent place: https://www.radiotope.com/Speaking_Professionally/ I’ll be bringing over these older, but still useful articles from time to time. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/speaking_professionally/ Thu, 09 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/speaking_professionally/ I’ve been speaking at conferences since about 2004 or so. I’m always looking to improve my craft of presenting the material that I’m looking to deliver. I certainly think I’ve improved, but know that I can always get better. Now, I have seen a lot of good advice to speakers, particularly Peter Hosey’s, Presentation Tips and others. However, most of what I’ve seen talk mostly about your slides. I also used to run a conference, so I have some views from that perspective as well. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/logic_and_garageband/ Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/logic_and_garageband/ Some people have embraced iPads and can do the majority of their work that platform alone. I’m still looking for that level of productivity. I do hold out hope on the creative front, though. I use Logic extensively. So far, nothing on iOS has even come close. There are plenty of stand-alone synths that are subjectively better than the ones in Logic. There are also DAWs that are excellent, but just different, or do one specific thing really well. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/music_rig_at_mactech_2014/ Wed, 08 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/music_rig_at_mactech_2014/ Originally published on 1/11/2015, 5:58:48 PM Updates to this, since it’s three years on: I’ve largely replaced Soundflower with LoopBack. I still use Logic Pro, but have also come to love a number of external soft-synths on both the Mac and iOS. Probably for a separate post, but Logic has some interesting capabilities to be able to do live sampling and then using those sounds immediately. I should use Ableton Live more, but Logic is my hammer. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/computing_should_be_fun/ Sun, 05 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/computing_should_be_fun/ My father likes to fix things. Handy with electrical equipment, a little carpentry, and having a plain willingness to just open things up, it’s likely where I got some of my hacker mentality from. He taught me to solder when one of the joysticks connected to my Atari 2600 stopped working one day. We just opened it up. He maintained airplanes while in the U.S. Army, and then got to do the same with cars. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/fixed_rss/ Wed, 01 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/fixed_rss/ Fixed the RSS Feed Thanks to Per Olofsson for being an unofficial QA department and posting a screenshot of my RSS feed on Twitter. I noticed that, while ‘correct’, the article dates were assuming the date of the channel creation. That was a quick fix and since GitLab was back up and running, I could commit the change, push, and deploy. I have to say that this project has been fun as much as it has been work and learning experience. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/more_progress/ Mon, 30 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/more_progress/ In “Progress”, I mentioned two short-term goals: better navigation, and an RSS feed. Of course, I got the ease of implementation completely backwards. I now have an RSS feed, and wow, that was easy. (It was actually up and running about a week ago.) The navigation is better, but not where I want it just yet. Just a quick update on how I’m making this site better. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/longing_for_the_previous_gen/ Sat, 21 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/longing_for_the_previous_gen/ I’ve finally had enough time to live with the latest generation of Apple hardware to be able to speak about it cogently. How can it be that in each case, I prefer the previous generation. Let’s look. iPad Pro I’ll admit that this is a mixed bag. The 9.7" iPad Pro is very, very nice. Of course, so is the iPad Air 2. It has several improvements over the iPad Air 2, but each improvement is fairly minor. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/launched/ Tue, 03 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/launched/ ##Launched! So, I’ve launched the new blog. It isn’t perfect, so there is certainly more work to do. Some styling tweaks, for one. I’ve also made another decision: I need to write a maintenance program. Yes, I initially decided on ensuring that this blog system would require nothing besides the web server itself, two of the shortcomings wound up being important enough to me that I’d like to address them. Since you’ll likely need to run some kind of cron job to refresh/check the server’s TLS cert, one more job would be just fine. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/progress/ Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/progress/ Progress I’ve gone through a few prototypes, and have settled on a basic, old-school ajax model. The main load routine simply grabs the right thing from the server and displays it in the right div in the browser (with style!). I set up a git repo at Gitlab. Why not Github, where I pretty much have everything else? I’ve been meaning to check out Gitlab for a while, and it’s pretty nice. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/why/ Wed, 21 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/why/ Why Why am I writing my own blogging software? Of course, there are many, many good blogging systems out there. I had a few goals here: I own it. One. Hundred. Percent. This is the overriding goal. No additional infrastructure besides a web server. No database, mod*, or php/perl/python required. Be able to write in plain text. Well, OK, it’ll be Markdown, but that’s still a plain text format. Write anywhere, anytime, using any device. https://www.radiotope.com/posts/welcome/ Tue, 20 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/posts/welcome/ First post This is the first post in the new blog system. Let’s see how well this works. Loading on demand and all. I don’t imagine it will scale very well, but that’s left as a later exercise. https://www.radiotope.com/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/about/ Radiotope is the personal site of Ed Marczak. More detail coming shortly. https://www.radiotope.com/speaking/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.radiotope.com/speaking/ OK, You First First, if you are looking to speak at an event, I have an open invitation to the Mac/Apple community to help with any part you may need: identifying an event, submitting a speaking proposal, or presentation review. You can find out more from this post, “Conference Speaking Review” Recurring MacAdmin Monthly You can catch my banter every month along with a guest, and chatting with the Mac Admin community.