We are into our seventh week of containment here, and one thing I have noticed is how much slower the world has become. Routine tasks take longer as we put masks on, wipe everything down, and make efforts to stay away from everyone. And no more shuffling kids to 27 different activities, either. Slower pace is better for…
A long time ago in a reality far, far away… SolarWinds User Groups (SWUGs) are pretty cool. There’s free food, and more. Much more. Planning and delivering a SWUG requires a huge investment, not just financial. A relatively small team is involved in the planning: basically Danielle, Kevin, and some experienced folks from…
Thanks to everyone’s efforts these past six weeks, I’m hopeful we’re on the other side of the curve now. Perhaps we’ll resume normal activities in a few weeks, although I think “normal” will be refined a bit. I look forward to the day where I don’t spend 30 minutes wiping down my groceries. As always, here's a bunch of…
I hope everyone was able to enjoy this past holiday weekend. We had decent enough weather here, allowing us to set up an egg hunt for the kids on Sunday afternoon. I also kept our annual tradition of burning the Christmas tree on Easter. In related news, the fire circle is officially open for the season. As always, here's…
We’re calling this the “mostly un-necessary summary” because, if the previous 11 posts haven’t given you the information you needed, odds are you won’t find it here. Because this post isn’t about information, it’s about encouragement. As we said at the start of this series, at the best and most normal of times working…
This week’s Actuator comes to you from Week 4 of N, as there’s no end in sight to our current situation. Everyone here is adjusting as best as possible. I hope you and your family are healthy and well. Keep washing your hands and stay home! As always, here's a bunch of links I hope you find useful. Enjoy! Google's COVID-19…
If you’ve been keeping up with this series (and we hope you have), you’ve heard our opinions, tips, and tricks for working from home. Now, we’ve pooled together external resources from the WFH community, our teacher and school administrator friends, and other friends who help them (and us). These range from other WFH…
All roads lead to the cloud. In fact, our cybersecurity survey revealed a majority of state IT leaders are planning major investments in public and hybrid clouds in addition to their on-premises data centers. Data security is a major driver behind this investment. Over the past couple of years, a plague of ransomware…
Following up on Clear Communication—where we addressed the importance of (and tips to maintain) conversations and communication which happened naturally in the office—we now want to address the tech side of communication now that it’s remote. “Can you hear me now?” is funny until you’re in an important meeting and they…
Our last post covered the importance of and practical tips for collaboration. Today, we want to address communication. It’s imperative for the communication channels natural in an office setting to not get lost while everyone is geographically dispersed. It’s easy to lose important details (not to mention the sense of…
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