Free virtualization tutorial

Sure, I like free things.  That's why I appreciate the Storage Networking Industry Association's posting free tutorials on their website.

When I downloaded the Virtualizations/Applications tutorial, though, I hoped for a simple explanation,  preferably a video with one-syllable words, of the benefits of dynamic provisioning.  Instead I found three PowerPoint presentations full of sophisticated network-speak.

So I did what any writer would do.  I wrote down the phrases that appealed to me.  Here they are:

• Heuristic shifting
• Transparent on-the-fly reconfiguration
• Virtual disks
• Switch-based fabric topology is preferable to appliance-based failover mechanisms
• A smart switch comprises a metadata controller and a data controller
• A full block copy is better than a live volume
• Volume updates replicate to remote servers
• "Do not rely on only one network-based appliance or intelligent switch only"
• You use two redundant volumes, one active and one passive, stored in a mirrored backend.  The passive one has host-based multipathing software
• Policy-based service level management handles error-prone administrative tasks such as storage provisioning.  In fact, policy-based service must have no user interaction.  This one made me think of Vonnegut's Player Piano.
• " Map storage to server volume(s) (online)!!" This one is obviously important because it has two exclamation marks
• Hypervisor This is a new word to me, and I like it.

If I got them wrong, don't blame the experts at the SNIA.  Do look for these phrases on web copy and newsletters coming from my desk very soon :D

Finally, slide 21 of Trends in Application Recovery by Andreas Schwegman makes it all worthwhile.  So grab some popcorn and download those tutorials.

Edward Tufte and I...(2)

"No!" Edward Tufte snapped. "That's patronizing."

I had just suggested that despite his despite of PowerPoint, it might have its place, in reaching out to the illiterate and dyslexic. Tufte is quite literate himself. Any array of fewer than 100 figures he prefers to lay out in a simple table in Gill Sans, no rules, and let readers find the information they want. He relies on readers to find their information without fancy graphics.

But what if the reader can't read?

"They can read the sports pages, can't they?" Tufte said. I submit that non-readers do not read the sports pages, nor anything else. They consume their sports on television.

I still marvel that I talked to Tufte at all. His courses last Thursday and Friday in New York were sold out. I counted about 500 people on Thursday. He had no time for questions from the floor. Instead, he made himself available during lunch hour, when he surely would have preferred to eat, for "office hours."

I didn't convince Tufte, but my failure did not halt my train of thought. Susan Pinker writes that 8% of all males have dyslexia.

Two out of every three high school dropouts are male, and many of these dropouts
have learning disabilities, of which dyslexia is the most common.

Pinker writes in The Sexual Paradox (Scribner, 2008). This book pulled together subjects I had been musing over for a long time. Why are males more fragile? Why are more of them subject to autism-spectrum disorders? Why do more of them battle with psychosis?

I once worked with blue collar workers--men, to a one. When the rep from the 401(K) program visited to explain our benefits, he read the booklet to us, every word. I know that the men I worked with were intelligent, capable of installing complex systems. But I suspected that some of them could not read.

Tufte, meet Pinker. There may be a place for PowerPoint and speeches, even if literate people can read two or three times faster than they can process spoken speech. Not everyone is literate.

Mea culpa: in my last posting about Tufte I asked who could forget his graphic about Napoleon’s troops retreating from Moscow? I obviously remembered the graphic, but had forgotten that Tufte did not design it. It was laid out by Charles Joseph Minard.

Webinars: You get what you pay for

Too bad loading my dishwasher was more interesting than this webinar:

Stories, Comics, and Manga - Oh My! Making Learning Stick For Your Audience!
Have you ever wanted to turn basic information into a more effective communication? Join a discussion with Dan Bliton to discover how storytelling strategies can channel and drive your communications and learning activities to increase audience retention and make your message stick. This event explores visual storytelling (comic books, graphic novels, and Manga) and why you should care what stories your new employees are reading (hint ? changing workforce demographics). Perspectives drawn from lessons learned in several markets and Booz Allen Hamilton?s award-winning learning organization. A take-away job aid and web site references summarize the approaches discussed and list additional resources.

A prominent software company presented this program for "free" (it wasn't exactly free since they took all my contact information and will probably be in touch with me for the rest of my life). It doesn't matter who presents the webinar, in my limited experience; they are uniformly bad. Some are worse than others.

Presenters, the webinar you broadcast today will linger for many years. Please, for the sake of attendees investing their time in your message, do at least the following:

• know your medium inside and out. This particular presentation dramatically lowered the standards for all PowerPoint users when the slides spun out of control. Several times.
• if you can't join Toastmasters, do as the Toastmasters do. Have an ah-counter listen to your speech (beforehand) and count the number of "ums," "ahs," and "you knows." Then, stop using them.

I would have counted the filler noises myself, but at 53 minutes and 51 seconds, there was no way I was listening to this presentation again.

I wish I could have my hour back so I could spend it working on HTML and CSS instead so I can communicate my own stories more effectively. For the time being, I forswear all webinars.