Back to Active Directory

Eating lunch, I once again have a brain running in circles.  In the end, I got a little done during that lunch break, but not much.  Now I’m back in the morning, and things are considerably calmer.  Earlier this week, I thought I was behind.  Now, I’m not as convinced.  I ended up finishing the Java book and now I’m moving on to the Active Directory book.  I have decided to start over and reread the Active Directory book because I essentially skimmed through to find the parts I was looking for the first time.  Now, I’m going for a decent level of competency.  So I have to read the entire book to make sure I get what I want out of it.  I’m pretty sure I will.  My Active Directory knowledge has moved in leaps and bounds, and a lot of things are making a lot more sense.

My problem with the startup script had nothing to do with permissions.  I had the default software policy to basic, and the user didn’t have rights to access or run network resources.  They basically couldn’t run any software I didn’t specifically allow.  So that had to be dialed back to allow the company to operate.  Now, my proxy file works great and updates like I want it to.  This solution seems to work a lot better than using Content Adviser.  It also allows the use of Google Chrome without a separate blocking file.  That was nice of Google to allow all those things to interoperate well together.  Good design policy for Google, there.

Changing subjects: after restarting the Active Directory book, I’ve completed 11.96% of my goal.  Granted, I don’t have a date on any of these.  I just have an overarching goal to get it done.  I really only have a goal on getting my app built because there is a definite potential there.  Though I may be wrong, the financial outlay is low enough to where I’m not concerned with a flop.  I could make nothing on the thing, and still be happy I got it out there.  The hard skills in creating the app will still be there, so if I come up with another idea the lead time won’t be near what it was before.  Definite bonus to me.  Plus, the web based skills could easily be usable.  My brain is still running the thought of having MySQL and Tomcat running on my wife’s desktop, and doing…  I don’t know with it.  Something internal, probably.   I don’t want the hassle of hosting.  That’s just a pain.  It’s easier to pay someone else.

Behind Schedule

So, I’m behind schedule.  And now that I know it, I can do something to fix that.  Sure, this is a long term goal set out over a long period, and it’s hard to guesstimate how long something is going to take.  But tracking a bit of data can be effectively used to determine whether you are ahead of schedule or behind schedule.

Here’s how I did it with a book.  I have a spreadsheet.  It keeps track of current location, total pages, percent complete, average increase, and days between reading.  I have all these to determine if I’m putting in the work necessary to accomplish the goal.  In this case, I’m reading a book to learn material.  Once I have read the book and learned the material, I will then build a prototype.  The prototype will be working by January 1, 2015.  So I’ve got limited time in which to read the book to learn the material.  So I need to be going through a certain number of pages per day.

After a few days of reading, I then calculate the average increase.  Then, it’s simple math.  

(Total pages – current page) / Average = days to complete the book

Now, with that number I can figure out whether I am ahead of schedule, behind schedule, or right on track.  I have a goal of completing this particular book in 60 sessions of 30 minutes per session.  I based that off 15 pages per 30 minute session even though I usually read faster than a page a minute.  But if you aren’t putting in 30 minutes of reading per day, then you aren’t going to hit your targets.

And despite my best intentions, I now know that I am behind my schedule.  The “so very easy” 15 pages in 30 minutes turned out to be more than I’m currently reading.  That’s one thing I gathered from Timothy Ferriss in The 4 Hour Work Week.  Anything working doing is work measuring and recording.

Rather than try to guess at how successful you are, find something to measure it.  Playing in the backyard with my kids, I’ve been trying to do a cartwheel.  Mostly for fun, but slightly because I’m moderately interested in the idea of parkour.  The goal of parkour is seamless movement through an environment at a high pace.  In order to do so, you need a decent bit of athleticism and coordination.  So I’ve been doing small things to work towards that. 

On cartwheels, I got to the point of thinking I was doing a decent job.  So I decided to record me doing a few cartwheels to see what I looked like doing cartwheels.  The hand position looked good, but I wasn’t fully extending my legs.  So I was kind of cramped looking, and my cartwheels looked weird.  They also lacked the seamless look that I was interested in the movement. 

So, far I haven’t fixed the cartwheel.  But I know  I need to read more than I have been reading in order to accomplish what I want to achieve.  

New Stories and Kindle

I started a new story today.  Not sure if this one is going to be long or short.  So far, it’s reached a page.  Part of me is screaming that I need a break from work, and the other part is telling me to shut up and get back to writing.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to look back at the previous sales I’d accumulated.  My royalties from Kindle Direct Publishing are sitting at a whopping $5.56.  And that is giving me some sort of strange hope.  Sure, it’s not a lot of hope.  But there is a bit of hope.  Because someone actually bought my book and I earned some chump change from it.  You can still buy it too.  

I should probably quit being lazy and get a picture for the cover.  Eh well.

But yeah.  I guess the motivation is there to finish this thing out.  I may not be making millions out there quite yet, but it’s better than working at a job you hate.  And I don’t necessarily hate my job, I’m just a bit tired of it and wanting something that provides more opportunity.  Because my goal right now is to learn as much as humanly possible, and keep slogging through work requests like a crazy man.  Because that’s what I can do to produce. 

Or, I can quit trying to learn every single thing in the world and start producing a steady stream of small little Kindle books that sell at $0.99 a pop and see what I can do to make a living off of that.  Because I’d much rather sit at my kitchen table and write books than I would go to work and deal with other peoples’ problems.

I did look at my situation a few weeks back and decide I wasn’t getting what I wanted out of life.  And it didn’t seem like it was going to change anytime soon.  So it’s now time to try a different approach, and that approach is an approach I tried before but never finished.  So what I need to do is finish two different stories I’ve been stalled on.  One is about an intergalactic space virus, and the other I just started.  Merge the two stories and sell them as a collection of shorts, and boom!  Profit!