markwilson.it

Author: Mark Wilson

  • Taking time “off sick”

    Taking time “off sick”

    My family has had various lurgies over the last few days. Stomach bugs, sore throats, colds but mostly feeling “non-specific urgh”. Or just “meh”.

    It might have been the ‘rona, but we all tested negative so it’s more likely that 18 months of not mixing with other humans means that, when we do, we pick up their germs and get ill.

    After a weekend of broken sleep and with a headache and a sore throat, I needed some rest and I called in sick at work.

    Pressure to work

    I’ve been based from home for a long time. Remote work is not a new thing for me that started with the pandemic (although exclusively working from home is). A side effect of that is that I rarely take time “off sick”. I might not be well enough to travel to an office and mix with others (potentially making them ill too), but I can generally drag myself to my laptop and push some emails around. And anyway, what about that meeting? Or, if I don’t do that work today, it will only add pressure later in the week. Normally, I’d dose myself up on paracetamol (or similar) and “man up”.

    Except, is that really a good mindset? If I’m not bringing my a-game to work, then maybe I should rest up and come back when I am properly fixed. Take some time to recover, step away from the screen. Unfortunately, because I felt able to do something, I felt like a fraud.

    I got back from the pharmacy and had woken up. Maybe I could (should?) just check those emails?

    Whilst I’m very disciplined at keeping away from work on my weekends and holidays, it was a lot harder when I wasn’t feeling well, but I wasn’t completely ill and confined to bed either.

    Is this just a sad indictment of modern life? Implied pressure to contribute at all times. Being a consultant and knowing that it’s an important month and every billable day counts. Or, as one person (who I’ll let remain anonymous) put it:

    “You definitely shouldn’t be feeling you have to work because years of conditioning of the UK workforce has led us to a place where unless a limb is hanging off you’re ‘fine’.”

    Get well soon

    In the end, it was these wise words that I decided to stick by:

    “Commit one way or the other. It’s horrible when you half commit to work and half commit to putting your feet up and do neither very well. (Get some rest).”

    And, when I got back to work after some proper rest and recuperation, I could bring my a-game with me.

    Featured image: author’s own.

  • Rebooting the blog

    Rebooting the blog

    This blog is poorly. It has been for a while. What started in the mid-naughties heyday of the blogosphere, has been limping along for a while now with barely a dozen posts each year.

    It long since ceased to be commercially viable, ever since Google’s “Panda” update relegated blogs and promoted Q&A sites. It’s also changed focus as my work has moved on. These days I rarely get involved in tech. And I don’t even do as much strategic consulting as I’d like. I’ve been managing the odd post here and there but I seriously considered shutting it down.

    Except I have a lot invested. I know it’s just a sunk cost fallacy, but about 17 years and just under 2500 posts is a lot to throw away.

    Inspired by my polymath friend, Matt Ballantine (@ballantine70), I tried writing weeknotes. Unfortunately, they became another task to fit into the Thursday night list as I shut down my work for the week, or something that ate into my Friday off, or sometimes something I still hadn’t done on Sunday night.

    So I’m going to try something else that Matt does. More frequent, short posts. 200-400 words on something that’s happened and made me think. When the mood takes me. Hopefully you’ll still appreciate the content (it may not all be tech-related), and maybe the blog will get its mojo back too.

    Featured image from Max Pixel.

  • Customising the “New” button on a SharePoint document library

    Customising the “New” button on a SharePoint document library

    Microsoft SharePoint gets a lot of bad press, but that’s largely down to organisations that use old versions “out of the box” and don’t try to make it work for them. Even worse, they don’t keep the platform up-to-date and wonder why their SharePoint 2010 intranet looks so old fashioned…

    This post isn’t an advert for SharePoint. Sure, it has its foibles but it can also be pretty useful and it is not going away any time soon. In fact, SharePoint is a key workload in Office 365 and it underpins both Microsoft Teams and OneDrive for Business. So, let’s try to embrace it and make it work for us… to make life a little more simple.

    One of the things we’ve had in place for a while now in risual Consulting is a custom New menu on the document library that contains our templates. If I go to create a new document, what I see is this:

    Our menu has a selection of different document types, each with their own template.

    To set this up, all I have to do (as a site owner) is click the Edit New menu option and then select or re-order items:

    To add new templates to the list, just use Add template. I’m not sure where SharePoint stores the templates, because they don’t appear in the list of documents in the library.

    As I write this, I’m considering removing the capability from our team site… because new documents get created as Document1, Document2, etc. in the document library, and we have a much more precise naming convention to enforce, but it’s still a really useful feature that’s worth calling out.

    There’s more information about customising the navigation on a SharePoint site on the Microsoft website.

  • Notes from the field: Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo

    Notes from the field: Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo

    Generally, Office 365/Microsoft 365 data is located in the datacentre region that relates to the country where the company’s registered address is. If your company is registered in Amsterdam, you’ll be in West Europe. If you’re registered in New York, you’ll be in a US datacentre somewhere. Registered in the UK… it depends on when your tenant was created but it could be in West Europe (if it’s an older tenant, like mine) or in the UK…

    For global organisations, this can be a challenge. If your data is on the other side of the world then you may find that latency adversely impacts access to resources. The Microsoft global network is designed to efficiently route traffic from local points of presence to Microsoft datacentres over fast links, but sometimes that’s not enough. In these cases, check out the Microsoft docs on network planning and performance tuning for Microsoft 365.

    The other challenge relates to data residency and, as you can expect, there are some options.

    One would be to establish multiple tenants. But that means multiple Azure AD instances. Added to which, a DNS name can only be registered in one place. This means I can’t have users with @markwilson.co.uk addresses (for example) in more than one tenant. For a global organisation with everyone using an @company.com address for identity, email and instant messaging, that’s going be a challenge.

    Another option is Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo. This service allows the provisioning and storage of data at rest in the locations of your choice. Note that this is not designed for performance optimisation – in fact, the Microsoft website specifically calls this out:

    “Note that Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is not designed for performance optimization, it is designed to meet data residency requirements”.

    Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo documentation

    On the face of it, Multi-Geo sounds great, but it has some pretty significant licensing restrictions:

    “Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo is available as an add-on to [selected] Microsoft 365 subscription plans for Enterprise Agreement customers with a minimum of 250 Microsoft 365 seats in their tenant, and a minimum of 5% of those seats using multi-geo. User subscription licenses must be on the same Enterprise Agreement as the Multi-Geo Services licenses.”

    Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo documentation

    In my case, with a US-headquartered organisation where the UK organisation was tiny in comparison, Microsoft 365 Multi-Geo became cost-prohibitive. With around 80,000 US seats and only up to 1500 in the UK, they would have needed almost three times the number of licences in order to hit the 5% minimum seat count in the UK satellite location. And it needs to be on an Enterprise Agreement (not Cloud Services Provider), although that’s probably not such a challenge when operating at this scale.

    For the vast majority of Microsoft 365 clients that I work with Multi-Geo is not even a consideration. But if it is for you, then go in with your eyes open. The reliance on the US-HQ IT team for Microsoft 365 led to a total change of strategy for my client… and that meant the project was no longer led from the UK, and therefore they no longer needed my team’s services.

  • Notes from the field: some common dependencies for Microsoft 365 deployments

    Notes from the field: some common dependencies for Microsoft 365 deployments

    My blog posts take a while to get published these days. I struggle to find the time to write them and often a few notes can remain in draft form for a long time. Some of those notes never make it. Others possibly shouldn’t.

    This is one of those posts where I’m not sure whether to publish or not. It’s based on an email I sent to a client, in 2018, as we were starting to work together. That client was about to embark on a migration to Windows 10 and Office 365, and these notes were intended to set them in the right path.

    We all know that Office 365 is under constant development, and some of the advice below might not be current. I don’t think it’s too far off the mark but your mileage may vary. I’ve also added a few comments where I know we’d look to do things differently today. Those comments are marked with square parentheses.

    All of these dependencies were things I identified before we got into design… but many more came out as we got into the detail.

    Preparing the identity platform

    [Identity is key to any successful Microsoft cloud implementation. And Azure AD is Microsoft’s cloud identity platform.]

    Recommendation:

    • IdFix tool used to ensure that there are no directory issues that will cause synchronisation issues.
    • Azure AD Connect synchronising without error between on-premises Active Directory and Azure Active Directory. Even with on-premises authentication via ADFS or similar, user objects will be required in Azure AD in order to populate the Exchange GAL.

    [in this case, I could be reasonably sure that both of these are already in place for the existing Skype for Business Online deployment.]

    Useful links:

    Preparing for Exchange hybrid

    [It’s common to run Microsoft Exchange in a hybrid configuration when migrating mailboxes to Office 365. Generally, the hybrid will remain in place even after user mailboxes have been migrated to the cloud, for management purposes. There are constraints around the versions of Exchange Server that can be used though.]

    • The hybrid server must be running the latest or immediately previous (i.e. n or n-1) cumulative update or update rollup available for the version of Exchange installed on-premises
    • Domain names that will be used for email should have the appropriate records created and verified in DNS.
    • Ports should be enabled to allow traffic to flow as outlined in the above article. It may be useful to run the Remote Connectivity Analyzer (RCA) tools to verify this.
    • In addition, I recommend that the other Exchange servers in the organisation are upgraded to run with the latest available updates.

    Useful links:

    Preparation for deployment of Windows 10 images using SCCM

    [System Center Config Manager (SCCM) is now part of Microsoft EndPoint Manager (MEM) and I’m not sure I’d recommend an SCCM-based deployment these days. My first preference would be to use Microsoft’s own Windows images, in Azure AD-joined configuration managed with Intune (also part of MEM). This topic would make a blog post on its own…]

    Config Manager needs to be updated to align with the version of Windows 10 being deployed: Support for Windows 10 in Configuration Manager.

    [Even when I wrote the notes 3 years ago, it seems I was guiding the client towards a Modern Device Management approach with Intune…]

    Preparation for the use of Office applications (desktop and web)

    [Office 365 ProPlus is now Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise but the advice below is unchanged apart from the product name.]

    Office 365 ProPlus (i.e. subscription-based Office application) requirements are the same as for Office Professional Plus 2016 (i.e. perpetually-licensed applications) and are detailed at Microsoft 365 and Office Resources.

    With regards to documents (including spreadsheets, presentations, etc.) containing macros, etc. It would be advisable to perform some basic compatibility testing: Check file compatibility with previous versions.

    Office 2016 and 2019 are supported under the Fixed Lifecycle Policy.

    Use of a supported browser is critical to the use of Office 365 web-based components although many organisations are held back by legacy software releases.

    General Microsoft 365 system requirements may be found at the Microsoft 365 and Office Resources link above. Most notably:

    “Microsoft 365 is designed to work with the latest browsers and versions of Office. If you use older browsers and versions of Office that are not in mainstream support:

    • Microsoft won’t deliberately prevent you from connecting to the service, but the quality of your Microsoft 365 experience will diminish over time.
    • Office 2019 connections to Microsoft 365 services will be supported until October 2023.
    • Microsoft won’t provide code fixes to resolve non-security related problems.

    [Microsoft’s guidance previously stated that “Office 365 doesn’t support interoperability with any software that isn’t supported by its manufacturer.”]

  • Weeknote 22/2021: By the sea

    Last week, I was on a family holiday – and the sun shone too. And, for the record, it’s still a holiday even if you don’t go abroad. It’s only a staycation if you stay in your own home.

    Connectivity

    Sadly, I’ve been strugging with mobile connectivity recently. I finally got around to putting a 5G SIM in my phone. Since then the 3/4G signal has been awful and I haven’t even seen 5G. giffgaff’s Twitter support were worse than useless, eventually demanding a list of personal information in a direct message including things they should know (like the identifier of the SIM they had sent me, which Android refused to show me). In the end, I gave up as I needed a SIM removal tool… I’ll try again this week, now I’m back home.

    Meanwhile, in parts of Dorset, I even got a French mobile signal (when I couldn’t get an English one…)

    Family History

    One evening, whilst discussing family history, I found that my wife’s Great Great Grandfather was quite possibly murdered in the 1890s! The Coroner’s report suggests the body was found buried in a sitting position – so that sounds like foul play. It’s unclear whether there was a severed hand found nearby with some money but the newspaper says “hat” so that may be translation!

    This week in pictures

  • Weeknote 21/2021: Running late

    Last week’s weeknote is a few days late…

    That was the week when I confirmed that:

    • I’m still not a fan of panel discussions (I did take part in this event, but it still didn’t do it for me).
    • …or online events. Matt Ballantine’s post on “why I struggle with online events” sums up many of the things that I hadn’t quite managed to put my finger on. Basically, just because you can get 1000s of people to attend for virtually no cost, doesn’t mean it’s good value (not for the attendees anyway!).

    On the subject of online events, I missed the Microsoft Build keynote completely (because of the poor communications), but I found this nice summary of what Google is up to:

    Meanwhile, I’m reading The Human Organisation Report, to help me understand how to make work work.

    A colleague shared this great advice for helping neurotypical people communicate in a way that works for those who are neurodiverse – so we can all understand one another:

    It was also the week when I saw QR codes being used incredibly badly, and also well.

    Last week in pictures

    Not much on Insta’ this week…

    Next week (now this week)

    I’m on holiday now, which leads to my final point. I was reminded that being away from work should be absolute… if you do drop into email to do “just one thing” you may see things that then nag you and you have to fix them…

    You have been warned!

  • Weeknote 20/2021: Echo chambers

    This week has been a bit flat. The weather is mostly awful, so I don’t much feel like riding my bike. I hurt my back exercising on Wednesday. And I have 5 weeks to get into shape for my ride across Wales.

    This weeknote will be a short one. I can’t believe it’s Friday already…

    This week I:

    • Desparately tried to bring some very dry design workshops to life with the inclusion of visual content, only to find that Microsoft Teams isn’t very good at sharing digital whiteboards, yet:
    • Was reminded that annual reviews are a good opportunity to take stock on what’s happened in the last 12 months.
    • Received my new UK (non-EU) driving licence:
    • Escaped from my home office and spent a few hours working inside a coffee shop, for the first time in months.
    • Learned that my social bubble is oh so echoey… when I stepped outside it I heard of people for whom the discomfort of taking a lateral flow test is some kind of hardship (Really? Spreading Covid is a lot worse, I’m sure!) and got called an idiot for not agreeing with conspiracy theories around government tracking of citizens.
    • Felt the need to remind people that there are two NHS Apps:
      • The NHS App (authenticated), which lets you access your own health record.
      • The NHS Covid-19 app (anonymous), which is used for test and trace purposes.

    This week in pictures

  • Weeknotes 18-19/2021: Doubling up

    Last week didn’t have a weeknote. I just didn’t get around to it! To be perfectly honest, my weekends are packed with cycling-related activities at the moment and work has been pretty busy too… so here’s a bumper fortnight-note. Even this is delayed because I locked myself out of WordPress with too many incorrect login attempts… but the very fact I managed to post this indicates that I got in again!

    Working

    There’s much I can write about my work at the moment but we are approaching my annual review. That means I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the last 12 months and looking forward to where I need things to head in the coming weeks and months. It’s not been a wonderful year: although my family has been fortunate to avoid Covid-19 we’re still living in strange times and I really could do with leaving my home office for the odd day here and there. Procrastination levels are certainly up, followed by evening catch-up sessions. That could be another reason there was no week note last week…

    Learning

    I did manage to squeeze in another exam. It’s one of the Microsoft Fundamentals series: Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals (DP-900) and I used Microsoft Learn to prepare, passing with a good score (944).

    I’m also really interested in building a body of knowledge around sustainable IT and I worked my way through the Sustainable IT MOOC from the Institut du Numérique Responsable’s ISIT Academy. Not surprisingly, some of the statistics are French-specific but, in general I found the content interesting and enlightening. Definitely worth a few hours for anyone with an interest in the topic.

    Watching

    I’m a heavy social media user and I’m under no illusions about what that means in terms of my privacy. I often say that, if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product. Even so, my wife and I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix a couple of nights ago. Highly recommended for anyone who uses… well… the Internet. So, pretty much everyone then.

    Cycling

    After riding England Coast to Coast (C2C) on The Way of the Roses a couple of years ago, I’ve been planning my next big cycling trip.

    My eldest son and I were planning to head to the French Alps after his GCSEs this summer but, well, that was before a global pandemic messed up our plans. So we’ve been looking for something a little closer to home. We’re planning on riding the length of Wales – from Cardiff to Holyhead on Lôn Las Cymru. 

    After booking all the hotels, and the train travel to return from Holyhead (5.5 hours, via England, with a change mid-way at Shrewsbury) the biggest challenge was booking 2 spaces for bikes on the train. I had similar issues with the C2C and I’m just hoping that I manage to make the cycle reservations nearer the time. I certainly can’t allow myself to stress about it for the whole 4 day ride up!

    Something that will almost certainly come in useful on that trip are the waterproof socks I bought from Sealskins… they are fantastic:

    Still on the subject of cycling, the Trek X-Caliber 9 mountain bike that I bought last autumn is back in the workshop. It’s 6 months old, with just 300km on the clock and the forks have gone back for warranty repairs (and that’s after the headset bearings already had to be replaced because they were not fitted correctly in the factory). More generally, there’s a big problem with bike part availability in the UK right now – partly Brexit-related (inability to buy from some EU-based vendors) but some general supply issues with some parts on back order until 2023.

    Meanwhile, I’m finding more and more of my weekends involve supporting my eldest son with his racing (either cross-country or cycle-cross, with the occasional road circuit). One bonus was that the usual Saturday Youth Coaching session was replaced by a pleasurable gravel ride (and pub garden visit) this week due to non-availability of our usual venue.

    Random techie stuff

    The last few weeks in pictures

  • Weeknote 17/2021: Not yet digitally transformed

    This week I’ve been struggling to focus but still moved a few things forwards. I also kept bumping up against some bizarre (non) efforts at “digital transformation”, courtesy of Standard Life (abrdn), Costco and the UK Government.

    This week’s highlights included:

    • Realising that digital transformation hasn’t reached Costco UK yet – and no membership card means no entry and no shopping:

    Looking ahead to the (long) weekend, I have no races to take the eldest teenager to and the weather ins’t looking wonderful. So, just the usual Youth Cycle Coaching on Saturday and, hopefully, some relaxing and pottering at “geek stuff” in the Man Cave…

    This week in photos

    No Insta’ from me yet this week (maybe there will be over the long weekend) so here’s a Line of Duty meme instead: