Adventures in home working

I have been increasingly using Skype and decided to share my experiences to date:

Overall Summary

• Closest I have had to the perfect phone while working from home,  but still issues that I have to work around

Skype delights

• I can sit at home with my headset on listening to music, watching videos and making and taking calls in considerable comfort
• I have a very long headset cable so I can move around quite freely
• I can wind up the volume for telephone calls so that I can always hear people,  I can use the in-line volume control for my headset and the dedicated keyboard keys for this which makes it very easy
• I can easily forward calls from my Treo to my Skype-in number,  which means I don’t get interrupted on calls and avoid the low signal strength issues I have at home.
• I have a single source of contacts for Skype (via the Outlook tool-bar), Lotus Notes and my Treo 650.  I sync my contacts over to Outlook using DoubleLook.
• Its cheap,  I make lots of calls to the US and Skype to Skype and Skype to Land-lines is excellent quality most of the time.
• When video is important Skypes integrated video is great.
• The kids love it,  they use it to Skype each other and me from their rooms and to call their friends
• The ability to send voice mails instead of emails
• It’s IM is pretty good with history, search etc,  Although nowhere near as good as Trillian Pro.
• I can use it on my Tablet – over wireless – from anywhere in the house

Skype tweaks:

• Tools – Options – Hotkeys, enable hotkeys,  I find mute and focus really useful
• Tools – Options – Advanced – ‘Enable contact list and history quick filtering’ – enables word wheel type searching,  really great if you have a lot of contacts
• Tools – Options – Video – Disable – Start Video Automatically – uses too much upload bandwidth, only use video when you really need it,  unless you have lots of upload bandwidth (I have 256K on ADSL)

Skype problems:

• Registering for conference calls is a real problem.  The DTMF tones that Skype generates are rarely recognised.  I have tried several different conference solutions and never managed to get reliable results, sometimes I can connect first time,  other times I give up after 10 tries requiring several redials!  However it is possible Gizmo can do it and DTMF tone generators are more reliable. 
• Skype breakup when CPU utilisation is high,  this just means I have to keep a watch on my task bar, where I can see task managers CPU indicator, not a big problem
• Skype breakup when uploading screen changes in web conferences,  this is Dependant on the software I am using,  If I use Lotus Sametime with true colour then it is particularly bad and I have to learn not to speak when I flip slides for a few seconds.
• Poor quality when calling mobiles, especially internationally

Useful add-ons

• Best add-on so far is SkypeMuter which PAUSES Windows media player when you receive or make a call.  Very useful, although on my machine it sometimes seems to just toggle Media player, ie it un-pauses it when you Start or Receive a call,  but in general I think its great and its free.
• I have tried Pamela which promises to provide great functions including excellent voice mail and voice recording.  I have had a couple of issues with it degrading the call it is recording though so for now I have disabled it until I have time to do more testing,  however its definitely worth watching as it evolves.
• I was incredibly excited to find Unyte a free (for now) web conferencing product nicely integrated with Skype,  it really is a 2 click product.  I loved it and used it all day long when I installed it,  but I am fairly certain that it somehow crashed by Netgear router twice that day!  Again another one to watch to see if Unyte really was the cause.  It really is a wonderful product.  Also I noticed no voice quality issues when using it!
• A freeware DTMF dialer, which is more reliable than Skype.  You can store up the DTMF strings you need and play them back on demand.  In my case I have to take off my headset and put the microphone near the headset but it works 70% of the time, so its a big improvement.
• The Skylian plug-in for Trillian Pro so I can have one tool for presence and Instant Messaging

Alternatives:

• Gizmo.  Good voice quality, integrated recording, better DTMF support – sounds perfect so far!  however dialling free-phone numbers costs money and its way to unstable crashing at least twice a day on Windows 2003 Server SP2.
• Windows Live Messenger (beta), Good voice quality – however dialling free-phone numbers cost money and no one else has it installed, so its not getting much use.

I have just installed VMWare 5 on my main desktop machine (2GB) and my TC1100 Tablet (1.5GB) and I have been very impressed,  I have also along the way been very impressed by the latest crop of Microsoft Servers.  Here is a quick run through of the last couple of days.

I have been feeling really rotten for the last 48 hours due mainly to a short lived virus that has wrought havoc with my already screwed up immune system.  As a result I needed some distractions, playing around with VMWare 5 seemed the ideal solution.  Here’s how I spent the worst hours of the last 2 days:

• Installed VMWare 5,  that was very easy – my best VMWare experience to date and so much better than my experience with Virtual Server 2005 the day before.  I liked the idea of Virtual Server because it would allow me to use its Active X control console to embed live Windows Sessions in my PowerPoint presentations.  In the end I hated Virtual Server so much by comparison with the ultra slick VMWare that I gave up on the idea.  Later I remembered I could probably do the same thing with the RDP Active X control (I need to try that later)
• VMWare 5 is so sweet, it seems much faster, supports multiple snapshots and makes cloning so easy as you will see below.  It really is a great productivity boost and saves loads of disk space.  Its well written up in this article.
• Then I decided to build a whole series of demonstrations, but first I needed some machines
• First I installed XP and Windows 2003 Servers from the MSDN ISO images, quick and no problems at all
• Then I service packed and patched them both and installed anti-virus software.  After a few more tweaks I cloned them with a few clicks to create 3 Windows 2003 Servers and 2 XP Clients
• Then I renamed all of the clones to fit my demos
• Servers – BizTalk, SharePoint and Exchange
• Clients – Andy and Rikki
• Then I installed BizTalk, slightly more complicated than I had hoped but not too bad
• AD, Exchange 2003, SQL Server 2003, SP3a, Live Communications Server, LCS SP1 and Office Communicator.  I was particularly impressed with Exchange 2003 and with LCS both products with potentially complex installs made easy by the step by step work flows that take you through all of the options.
• I took snapshots for each step and a couple of times took wrong turns – who reads manuals! – but could easily just revert to the appropriate snapshot and try another route.
• Then I installed SharePoint Portal 2 and the RSS Syndication Generator
• I then created a Windows SharePoint web site that I am using to store everything pertaining to the workshop I am planning that I will also use to demo some collaboration concepts.
• I then subscribed to the changes on that site in NewsGator.

I have a few more bits of plumbing to do before I work on the demos

• I need to make sure I can transfer all of the VMWare files to my Tablet
• I need to record some of the demos in VMWare as AVI files and see if I can manipulate them in Camtasia Studio,  if not I will try recording direct using Camtasia
• I need to add a load of users to AD
• I need to activate a few of those users to LCS and Exchange and add some events to their diaries etc
• I need to sync some data between Office and SharePoint
• I need to sync some data between Outlook/Exchange and WSS
• I need to install the RDP Active X control and see if I can embed it in PowerPoint
• I need to take some WSS data offline in Groove
• Then I can illustrate some important concepts with real examples
• Here’s hoping I don’t improve for a few days so I can keep playing ,  only kidding but I always like to find a silver lining!

Inspired by listening to talks about the Microsoft Research project, My Life Bits, I decided it would be a good idea to record my telephone conversations when I can. Fortunately it turns out to be really easy if you use Skype and the free program HotRecorder.  The product is not the prettiest I have ever used, and the UI is a bit quirky but it gets the job done.  Recording quality is good, and you can add key words and the name of the person you called to each recording making retrieval easy.  The ad-supported version is free and the premium version is only $14.95.  Well worth trying out, if only to listen to the different responses you get when you tell people you are recording the call, from the slightly guarded/worried to the “where can I get a copy”, so far!

If you want to get up-to speed on My Life Bits I recommend the recording on IT conversations, which I listened to on my Treo while walking along the beach last week.

My Life Bits progress so far:

• Photo’s
• Emails
• Web pages
• Documents read
• Documents reviewed
• Audio listened to
• Contacts talked to, or want to talk to
• Bills, receipts, letters, certificates and most other paper etc

Since I started working from home I have increased the amount of house work that I do, my share is:

• Washing the clothes and putting them away
• At least one set of washing up
• Tidying the kids rooms
• Bed time stories

I don’t mind doing it to much,  but I have recently found that I actually quite enjoy it because I listen to technical conferences or pod-casts on my Treo to keep me occupied (except when reading the bedtime stories ).  Today I was listening to the 2nd Tablet PC Podcast that JK has just started, more details on his blog.  and I found that I was actually looking around for more cleaning to do so that I could listen to the end.  Debbie (wife) was pretty pleased when she got home!

I have gradually refined my workstation design, and its changed quite a lot since the last time I posted.  So I thought I would provide an update.  This first image shows an overview of the whole environment, there are some key points to look out for:

• First I two PC’s shown at the bottom, the one on the left is my desktop, running Windows 2003 Server, with 2GB of memory and VM Ware Workstation and all of my other applications.  This PC drives the three monitors via two ATI graphics boards.

Behind the PC’s in a curtain that my wife made for me that hides one hell of tangle of cables!

On top of the centre monitor is a USB web cam.  On the CRT monitor is my headphone jack and volume control and my Secure ID token (dual factor authentication) for my company VPN connection.

The two monitors centre and left are 19” TFT’s that run at 1280*1024.  The one on the right is a 19” Flat CRT.   I tend to use the one of the left for email, reference materials, instant message discussions etc.  The one in the middle for writing, presentations and reading, and the one on the left for Trillian Pro (docked far right) and web searches, and web reference material I am gathering up as I work as a set of tabs in Maxthon.

Lets look at things in a bit more detail now:

Working from the left again,  right next to my keyboard is my HP TC1000 Tablet in slate mode ready for jotting down notes etc.  I syncs wirelessly in the background with my email and files and I can use it wireless anywhere in the house and garden,  further afield it has a GPRS connection.  When I don’t need it it slides under the shelf out of the way.

Then there is a wireless mouse,  that slides under the shelf as well.  You can see just above the mouses cubby hole is a small pad of paper, sometimes I still prefer to make notes on paper.

The on the right is one of two DECT (wireless) phones.  These phones pick up my landline calls and my mobile calls when my Treo in its cradle, because the reception is better on the wireless phones than on the Treo and they are easier to hold.  We also have phones through the house, so i don’t have to carry my Treo everywhere I go in the house just in case I get a call.

On the top of the shelf is my speaker phone.  Its on a long cord so I can drag it onto the main desk and then I can sit back in my comfy chair with my feet up making notes on my tablet when I am on conference calls.

Whenever I go out I suspend my Tablet and drop it in my backpack and grab my Treo and I am off.  My backpack has everything I need when I am out walking and has a swim kit just in case I am tempted to pop into the pool.  It’s really small and light, but is ultra comfy which is important to me as it minimises the load on shoulders which are often in pain.

On the other side of my keyboard you can see my Treo in its cradle.  As soon as it slots in the cradle it forwards calls to the house phone number,  and when I take it out of the house, it switches off call divert (unless I ask it not to).  Then in the tray under my desk shelf is my TO READ pile,  I still get a few magazines.  Another pad of paper sits between the paper tray and the shelf and above that with the green glowing light is the microphone for skype calls.

Finally their is another PC (2GB again), which is running GSX server and my lab environment. which is currently running, Windows SharePoint Services,  Red Hat Enterprise linux 3, Windows XP VPN connected to my company network, Windows NT 4 to remember what things used to be like and Red hat Linux 8.  VMWare is just so cool!

Way over to the right tucked away in the corner is my printer, copier, scanner.  Its a HP D125xi with a sheet feeder and two paper trays,  one with good quality and one with cheap paper.  My wife makes more use of it than I do as a printer,  but I scan almost everything into PaperPort Pro which converts everything to PDF files.

Anyway thats a pretty good high level introduction.  Follow the links above for more details.

I usually end up disappointed when I buy a new gadget and must admit I was a little disappointed with the keyboard.  However in all other areas I have been very pleased.  A combination of the built in software and the fine tuning done by third parties makes it a superb phone, and the integration of “phone and media player” and “phone and address book” and “address book and calendar” are excellent.  The one handed navigation is also top notch with a combination of the application buttons, touch screen and that 5 way nav-pad allowing stylus free navigation for most functions.  Battery life seems excellent as well. 

There is so much great software its difficult to know where to start,  but the neatest (and simplest) I have found so far is Call Director.  If you are unfortunate – like me – to live in a poor mobile reception area this is a perfect utility.  As soon as you pop the Treo in its cradle at home,  it diverts your calls to your home number, in my case between the hours of 8:00 and 22:00, take it out the cradle and call divert is cancelled.  If you plug it into the charger in the car it realises there is no PC connected and doesn’t divert.  You can setup manual diverts as well for “in the office” or “divert to wife’s phone” etc which you can activate with one click.   This is particular useful for me because it lets me use my speaker phone or DECT phones for incoming mobile calls.

I am also trialling TakePhone which looks likely to stay,  its a very slick integration of the phone and contact database and I am looking for a utility to divert all but personal calls to voice mail for when I am on holiday or otherwise want to be left alone.

Now if only my company would kindly enable GPRS I could test some browsers and push email as well!

Just recently I read a blog post (which I can no longer find) that cast doubt on the business case for portable computers.  The basic argument went like this:

• Portable users worked for 14% more hours
• Portable users produced 13% more work
• Therefore portable users were 1% less efficient

Assuming I remember this correctly it seems a pretty strange analysis, so here is my counter analysis.  First the case for portables and productivity:

• Portable users do more hours when they have a portable device because it allows them to work when they would otherwise be undertaking some leisure activity, depending on the portable device in questions, these times are most often, whilst waiting in airports, travelling by train, sitting in front of the TV etc.
• Portable users do more hours because its easier to “just spend an hour” working at the weekend, than it is to drive to work and do it there
• Portable users spend more time with access to time critical information sources, email, IM etc and so respond faster reducing lead-times, and improving decision making
• Portable users make better use of their time in the office, processing email, expenses and other low low importance high volume tasks tend to be done at home.  Higher value tasks requiring face to face collaboration, leadership and problem resolution tend to get done in the office
• The vast majority of portable users do not get paid for the extra hours they work
• Even if they did get paid the marginal cost of their hours, compared to the full cost of an additional employee for every three portable users, is very considerably less
• Most portable users are happy with the improved flexibility a portable device affords to balance their time in the office and their time at home

That’s not to say that portable users are always more productive, there are some cons:

• The constant intrusion of work into leisure time leaves less time for rest and probably contemplation and innovation (I am guessing about that)
• The constraints of the portable device format can reduce productivity.  For example when I am away from my home office I have a laptop or tablet and am a lot less effective than I am with my three screen desktop, cordless mouse, conference phone ….
• Working with distractions like TV, family etc can lead to mistakes or overly terse emails and the like

So in summary I think it’s only to be expected that portable device users work more hours, but that those hours are slightly less effective.  However the overall business case for portable usage is very strong.  I personally believe that in most working environments, except task working environments, provided the workspace is designed well, all users should be able to work flexibly within their work office and at home as well as whilst travelling.

In his podcast today on Tablet PCs James mentioned that studies have shown the creativity is reduced when typing with both hands (which use both sides of the brain) which explains why many people find that their creativity is increased when using ink as the input method to capture ideas.  In addition the freedom of expression enabled by ink also increases creativity.  I have also seen this, and noticed a similar effect when mainly using my mouse and minimal typing to create Mindmaps on my desktop.

Its interesting how this interesting observation links together posts from yesterday on thinking and on report writing here and here.

Tarantella has always lagged behind Citrix, but with the advent of “Secure Global Desktop”, reviewed here, and at $60/concurrent user it offers incredible value for money and near key feature parity, especially for enterprises with a very low concurrent to potential user ratio.

I wrote a short article yesterday about how my SwimMP3 player has transformed the way I swim.  In this article I will provide a better review of the device itself.

First off it looks quite strange, you get lots of looks whilst swimming.  If you like to chat to people then it’s a good ice breaker!

It has 128MB of memory, which is reasonable for music, if you set it to random then most people won’t get bored even if they swim every day.  If like me you listen to talk shows, conferences etc then 128MB is more than enough, in fact the way I use it I tend to load it up with just 2 * 30 minute MP3 files, less than 30MB, why 2, just in case I don’t fancy the the content of the first one and need an alternative.  Each day I just delete the talks I have listened to and download another.

My main source of talks right now is IT Conversations

I find that lots of the things I want to listen to are too long for my swims, so I split them into 20-30 minute sessions depending on how long I want to swim that day.  I use Cool MP3 Splitter for this.

With a couple of clicks, and in a couple of seconds, you go from:

Open Source Code – Managing the Opportunity.mp3

to:

Open Source Code – Managing the Opportunity-001.mp3
Open Source Code – Managing the Opportunity-002.mp3
Open Source Code – Managing the Opportunity-003.mp3
Open Source Code – Managing the Opportunity-004.mp3

So how does this thing work.  Well you wear it just like a pair of goggles, it comes with goggles, but you can fit it to your own.  The MP3 player itself is at the back of your head and its easy to reach and locate the controls.  Two pads rest on your cheek bones and the vibrations reach your ear through the vibration in the cheek bones.  The quality is OK, not fantastic.  Even with ear plugs you can still hear the splashing of the water as you swim, especially with front crawl or butterfly. But set of max volume I find I can follow 95% of a well recorded talk and music of course especially rock, is no problem.  I have found that if the speaker is quiet, or the recording is not very clear then its a bit of a struggle to make out very word, (and there is no way to got back if you miss a bit).  Another quirk is that the volume is higher when your head is under water, so if you are doing breaststroke you need to get used to the fact that with each stroke there is a slight volume variation as your head rises and falls.

The MP3 player functions themselves are VERY basic. On, off, pause, random, next track, previous track.  If you listen to music thats not too bad but if you listen to a 30 minute talk, then basically you can start it and stop it but that’s it.  You also need to take care with pause – which is achieved by pressing next and previous track buttons together – because a few times I have failed to pause and instead done a next/previous.  This means you have to listen to say 15 minutes of talk all over again as their is no fast forward!

The battery life is claimed to be 4 hours and it charges through the USB connection, not many people will find this a limitation!  There is some PC software with the player, Music Match, but I have not tried it yet (and don’t expect to).  The player just appears as a Drive in explorer and I drag and drop files to it.  The USB cable is yet another unique type to add to my collection – sigh!

It only supports MP3 format, which is a bit of a pain if you have all of your music in WMA as I do, but there are plenty of batch converters around and with Windows Media Player 10 you can switch the default to MP3.  Note if you use Windows 2003 Server like me you have to wait for SP1 to get Windows Media Player v10!

There is no display on the device, so you have to find the track you want using next and previous, and no concept of playlists etc.  For music I device my mood then just download a folder of songs for the day and set to random.  For talks as I said before I just download 2 maybe three so next and previous navigation is no problem.

Although the manufacturers claim ear plugs are optional, I don’t agree, unless you have your own silent pool and swim breast stroke only then its unlikely you will be happy with the level of background noise.  I tried the molded plugs that were supplied with the player first, they fitted really snugly, but I found they leaked slightly but suppressed the sound well.  Then I tried foam plugs and these were leak-proof and suppressed the sound just as well so I use these now.  One set lasts about 20 swims if you dry them off on your towel each time and leave them for a couple of days to dry.  Just a tip – buy them off the Internet in bulk, not two a a time from the Chemist, they are about 50 times cheaper!

Overall summary – very expensive – but in my case it has resulted in me swimming longer, more regularly and being more productive.  I think it payed back in about a month!