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Supplemental Melatonin For Improved Sleep Quality

For years, my sleep has been hit or miss. Stress and projects are the big drivers that impact my sleep. If I have a lot on my mind, it’s hard to settle into steady sleep. If I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s hard to get back to sleep.

For me, quality sleep is the difference between a productive day where I move projects ahead and a terrible day where I take power naps around lethargic staring at my inbox while feeling guilty about what I’m not getting done.

Enter melatonin.

Melatonin, “is a hormone that is produced by the pineal gland in animals and regulates sleep and wakefulness,” according to Wikipedia. In other words, we make melatonin in our bodies, and it prompts us to sleep.

As I understand it, the body’s natural inclination is to release melatonin in response to night/day cycles. For instance, I have noticed that I fall into a sleep/wake cycle matching sunset/sunrise when I am on long-distance backpacking trips. When indoors with artificial light, screens holding my attention, and a work schedule that doesn’t care about what the sun is doing, melatonin production, in theory, isn’t as consistent.

Technologies like Apple’s Night Shift for Continue reading

A Million Steps With The Garmin Fenix 3

The Garmin Fenix 3 is a GPS fitness tracker with limited smartwatch functionality. I bought it in May 2016 to be my constant companion when I hike, trail run, Crossfit, and sleep. Here’s my review after tracking over a million steps with the device.

TL;DR.

I adore the Fenix 3. The watch was an expensive technology purchase, but I feel the money was well-spent. The Fenix 3 has met or exceeded my expectations in every area. Despite my ardent adoration, the F3 is not perfect.

Folks shopping the Garmin product line should know that there is now a Fenix 5 line out. There was never a Fenix 4. However, I’ve not seen anything in the F5 line that makes me want to upgrade from my F3.

How is the Fenix 3 form factor to live with?

The Fenix 3 is big and bulky. I knew this going in, and so I don’t mind. I especially don’t mind because part of that bulk is due to the battery. However, the bulk does make it difficult to wear under cuffed shirts. The watch stands tall, so if you try buttoning a shirt cuff around the Fenix 3, you’re in for a tight Continue reading

All Of Ethan’s Podcasts And Articles For February 2017

Packet Pushers Community Blog

Packet Pushers News

Packet Pushers Weekly Podcast

Datanauts Podcast

Priority Queue Podcast

Citizens of Tech Podcast

No Sound In Exported Video – Final Cut Pro X 10.3.2

Ran into an issue today where audio was working normally in Final Cut Pro X 10.3.2, but the exported video had no sound. The video and sound were originally recorded using a Canon G7X Mark II.

The fix was to delete Final Cut Pro X preferences, as detailed by Apple here. In short…

  1. Quit FCPX.
  2. Press Command-Option when re-launching FCPX. You’ll be given an option to delete your FCPX preferences.
  3. Delete your preferences.

That will definitely result in some interface trauma for you, as FCPX won’t remember where your libraries are. I’m not sure what other settings you’d invested in that might also be forgotten — probably a lot of things. I’m still relatively new to FCPX, so the hit wasn’t too hard to handle. But still. Yuck.

Yuck or not, that worked. Once I pointed FCPX at my libraries and built a new project for my simple video, exporting rendered not just video, but audio too. And all was right with the world.

Ethan Banks writes & podcasts about IT, new media, and personal tech.
about | subscribe | @ecbanks

IPv6 Q&A For The Home Network Nerd

I was a guest on the Daily Tech News Show, episode 2957A. We chatted about the news of the day, then had an IPv6 discussion aimed at folks who are curious, but haven’t had a chance to work with v6 yet. My goal was to dispel FUD and spread the gospel of IPv6 to the nerdy public.

For those of you that listened to the show, here’s the text I’d prepped. We didn’t get to all of this when recording, so you might find more information here to inspire your IPv6-related Google-fu.

What are the benefits to me as a general consumer of IPv6? (beyond having fifteen bajillion addresses)

In a certain sense, there is little tangible benefit for consumers. Addressing is largely transparent to general consumers. I think many consumers don’t know or care about the IPv4 address assigned to their gear. They care whether or not they can access the Internet resource they are trying to access.

For the more tech savvy, IPv6 does indeed bring fifteen bajillion addresses, so to speak. And while that doesn’t seem like a big deal, it is. For example, most of us at home have gear obscured by NAT. This makes us feel more secure Continue reading

All of Ethan’s Podcasts & Articles for January 2017

Packet Pushers Community Blog

Packet Pushers News

Packet Pushers Weekly Podcast

Datanauts Podcast

Citizens of Tech Podcast

Video

NetIntro Book

  • I’m contributing to a book along with Jeremy Filliben and Russ White explaining fundamental networking problems and their solutions. In January, I began work on a chapter on QoS.

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EthanCBanks.com

The Harsh Reality Of Audience Supported Podcasting

Every now and then, podcast listeners tell me that they’d gladly donate a few dollars each month, if only the ads would go away. I get that. It’s a nice thought that listeners would support the content they find valuable and subscribe. It’s also a nice thought that the sum total of subscription revenue would pay the bills.

Sadly, neither of those things are true.

In my experience, less than 1% of listeners will financially support a podcast in any way. That might be through affiliate programs such as Amazon’s. That might be through Patreon patronage. That might be through Paypal donations. That might be through a regular subscription. Whatever the way is, it just doesn’t matter. Almost no one that listens to your show is likely to become a direct source of revenue.

How much money needs to come in for your show to do away with advertisements? That depends on your goals, and I’ll assume you’ve got one of two.

Goal 1. The podcast paying for itself.

One goal is for your podcast to simply pay for itself. You’d like the audience to pay for a mic upgrade, hosting services, a mobile recording rig, your move into vlogging, and maybe some coffee now Continue reading

Starting A Podcast Is Easy. Continuing Is Hard.

Just how hard is it to start a podcast? It isn’t. Starting a podcast, especially for someone with a bit of technical aptitude, is easy. The actual problem is keeping up with the podcast. Podcasting is a major time commitment that busy people struggle to keep.

For many, I think there’s a romantic notion about podcasting. “Hey, I have all these ideas to share, and I’ve got a creative streak. I think I’ll start a podcast. Fans and money will rain from the sky!” The thought of getting your show with some cool intro music, snappy patter with interesting guests, hijinks with your friends, offbeat humor, or maybe deep content hard to find elsewhere is stimulating and exciting. Your own show! How cool will that be?

You will find moments of joy and wonder as a podcaster. But, podcasts produced regularly and worth listening to are a lot of work — a job. If you don’t love it, you’ll find yourself easily distracted. You’ll skip a week. Then another. And the next thing you know, you haven’t put out a show for over a month, and you’re wondering why you should bother picking it back up.

I’ve seen this cycle happen to folks at least ten times over Continue reading

Reading Tech Books Via The All-At-Once Method

I was recently asked by a friend to read and review a book his publisher had just released. This was a technical book on a topic I was keenly interested in, so I was happy to oblige.

I tackled the book in the way that I normally tackle technical books — a chapter a day, or maybe two chapters in a day. Technical books aren’t recreational fiction for me. I want to grasp the contents of technical books to best make use of the information. This often leads to slow reading. I mull over paragraphs and digest.

This time, I broke that habit. I wanted to get this book done quickly. I wanted the information immediately. I didn’t want to take a few weeks to get through it. Thus, I tried reading the book all at once.

Surprisingly, this worked out well. I ended up getting through the book in four sittings, which perhaps doesn’t sound like “all at once.” Bear with me. The first sitting was a single chapter. The second sitting was a single chapter. Then came the holidays and a complete disruption to my workflow. And then came the epiphany as I stared at the book post-holidays. Continue reading

Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite ERLite-3 Board Detail

I ran a Ubiquiti Edge Router Lite as my home firewall for a couple of years. The box had a nice GUI with CLI option, and had no problem keeping up with my > 100Mbps Internet connection. The box died after a lengthy power failure that drained the large UPS buffering electrons in my basement equipment rack.

I’m not sure what happened to the ERLite-3, but it’s as dead as the bird in the Python parrot sketch. The firewalls appears to boot. The lights come on, etc. However, the box passes no traffic and responds to no ARP requests. I can get no serial console output from it. I even tried a full factory reset, to no effect.

Until its early death, the little firewall had a trouble-free two year run. For $99 spent according to my Amazon order history, I don’t feel too badly about the loss.

Before throwing it in the bin, I decided to open it up and take a look at the mainboard. Here’s a notated picture for you. Enjoy.

Click image to BIGGIFY and see cropped text.

UPDATES

  1. My thanks to @williamhulley for correcting the first version of this diagram.
  2. @Brownout suggests that the firewall might have bricked due to a problem with the Continue reading

Stumbling And Fumbling Into Video Blogging

I’m used to writing and to podcasting. I know what the content creation and publication process looks like for written and audio media. The increasing popularity of video has had me and my business partner scratching our heads, wondering how we can best leverage the medium. Or if we even should.

And so, we’ve begun our video adventure the way we’ve always done things. Just go for it. Try it. Hit publish. It won’t be perfect, but that’s okay. Learn and improve.

My first video was a good bit of work, taking roughly eight hours to write, shoot, produce, and publish a ten minute video covering some tech industry news. That’s not scalable, but it was a learning experience. Here was my process.

Write

I get press releases from dozens of marketers and public relations firms, usually several per day. I chose some that I thought folks might be interested in. And then I wrote copy. I know from past projects that many written words translate to many spoken minutes. You have to keep copy tight if you’re writing to a time limit.

I managed to do that, writing just under a thousand words of copy. I did ad lib a bit, but Continue reading

After Two Years, Do I Find Self-Employment Worthwhile?

In March 2015, I started working for myself exclusively. That is to say, I went from working for someone else full-time while also operating my own company full-time to working strictly for my own company. How am I feeling after nearly two years of self-employment?

Fulfillment

Working for myself has proven to be fulfilling. I like the correlations to be found among opportunity, effort, risk, reward, and failure. I can weigh all of those things, make a decision of how to proceed, and benefit (or suffer) directly in accordance with my decisions. That is fulfilling to me.

Suffering, by the way, isn’t a bad thing. We could all stand to do a bit more of it today, so that we do a bit less of it tomorrow.

Process

I am free of silly processes that cripple my ability to get things done, not that I believe process is inherently bad. With my own company, I still have to define processes, but I can keep them both streamlined and fluid. I’m also free to let the people that work with me define their own processes, with me providing only the input required to achieve the desired result.

Balance

When working for other employers as an IT professional, Continue reading

How To Wade Through 100s Of Articles Weekly

The writing masses in addition to professional media generate tons of articles each week. What’s the best way to keep up? My strategy is multi-pronged.

TL;DR.

Filter quickly and mercilessly. Read only the most interesting articles.

  1. Know why you read. Ignore content that doesn’t align with your personal consumption goals.
  2. Ignore content with clickbait titles. These articles are purposely designed to drive traffic, generating salable ad impressions. Most of the time, they are content-free and safely ignored.
  3. Have no fear of declaring amnesty. Missing out doesn’t matter.
  4. Read it now; you probably won’t read it later. Don’t let articles pile up for when you have a better time.
  5. Use tools effectively. You can get through content more quickly and share or save the best stuff easily.

Know why you read.

Keeping up with technology is a big part of my business. Therefore, I subscribe to feeds about emerging tech from news organizations, independent tech writers, and technology vendors. From these sources, I monitor trends and hype, picking out what strikes me as useful or at least thought-provoking for IT practitioners. Articles that match this criteria inspire articles of my own as well as podcast scripts, and spawn research projects. My overarching goal is Continue reading

Get Out While You Still Can

For years, this blog has mostly been about enterprise IT with a focus on networking. I’ll spare you the entire history because no one cares. But in short, if you dig through the archives, you’ll find content going all the way back to the beginning of 2007 when I was writing for my CCIE study blog.

Ten years, hundreds of articles, and millions of words later, I am a full-time writer and podcaster covering enterprise technology for engineers from behind a microphone and keyboard. But I don’t do that here anymore. I do that at PacketPushers.net.

Before Packet Pushers became the thing that put food in my mouth, I’d split my enterprise tech writing between this blog and that, but splitting the content just doesn’t make sense now. Thus, I’ve been putting all my enterprise tech writing under the Packet Pushers flag. Packet Pushers Interactive is my company that I co-founded, and I’m proud of it. There is no reason to straddle the fence.

So, what of this blog?

EthanCBanks.com will be where I write about…

  • General technology. For example, I’m into the Garmin & Apple ecosystems. I read a lot about alt-energy. I cover many other nerdy topics with my friend Eric Sutphen on the weekly Citizens Continue reading

Auto-Adding Routes When Mac PPTP Connection Comes Up

Before you read this post, understand that PPTP is insecure. Don’t use PPTP to create a VPN to anything you care about.

TL;DR

Skip to Solution #3.

Problem

When successfully making a PPTP connection to a remote VPN server with the built-in Mac OS X client, you find that you can’t connect to hosts on the other side of the VPN tunnel. You can still connect to the Internet and LAN hosts.

The root issue is that, by default, OS X has no reason to send traffic across the VPN tunnel. A reason must be provided.

Solution #1 – Setting Service Order

In System Preferences > Network, perform “Set Service Order” (the drop down gear icon), and move the PPTP connection to the top of the list.

This means that when the PPTP tunnel is up, traffic will flow through it before other network connections. This will gain you access to hosts on the other side of the VPN tunnel. It will also break everything else, unless the network on the other side of the PPTP tunnel can also service your Internet traffic. This is going to be a function of the VPN termination device as well as the firewall configuration at the remote site.

The issue here Continue reading

Managing Digital Racket

I read this article, long by today’s standards of fleeting attention. TL;DR. Information bombardment addicted the author with negative effects on his life. And while he’s not done making changes in his life, he has broken the cycle.

I’ve had similar challenges to him, and continue to hone my approach to managing digital racket. I know I’ve written about this before, but the art is evolving for me. Chronicling progress, however minor, is cathartic.

I mute nearly all notifications. This cuts down tremendously on mental intrusions, improving my focus and reducing FOMO. While you’d think turning off notifications would increase FOMO, you realize over time that you aren’t actually missing anything substantial. Once you believe this, the anxiety borne of FOMO fades away.

The only notifications I currently receive are as follows.

  1. Phone calls. I don’t get many, and most of them are directly related to my business.
  2. Direct messages from my immediate family.
  3. Direct messages from my three co-workers and a few close collaborators.

I have deleted most social media apps from my phone. I have a few for the sake of convenience when abroad, but rarely access them. With notifications turned off, the temptation is practically nil. Twitter is my greatest temptation, and therefore do not Continue reading

In Chicago on October 26? Come think about SD-WAN with me.

On October 26, 2016 at 5:30p, I’m speaking to a couple of Chicago-based MeetUp groups banding together to hear me discuss implementing SD-WAN. Sign up here. Or here.

The talk will be held at Cisco Systems Building – SkylineATS, 9501 Technology Blvd. 3rd Floor, Rosemont, IL.

This SD-WAN discussion is aimed at network engineers and other technologists who need to understand and recommend technology solutions for their organizations, as well as those who need to make the silly things vendors sell us actually work.

My goal is to make sure you’ve got plenty to think about as you explore SD-WAN. The talk will take away some of the, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

I’ll cover the following.

  • An overview of what SD-WAN really is.
  • Integrating WAN optimization and SD-WAN.
  • Managing existing private WAN contracts.
  • Managing your own internal SLAs.
  • Relating SD-WAN to XaaS you might be using.
  • Considerations for multi-tenant environments.
  • Handling deep packet inspection requirements.
  • Leveraging TDM and other non-Ethernet circuits.
  • Bandwidth scaling.
  • WAN circuit design recommendations.
  • Integration with your existing routing domain.
  • A list of SD-WAN vendors & their products.

I hope to see you there.

Presenting Technical Topics To Technical People

Fred writes, “I’ve got a conference coming up in December that I’ve been invited to speak at. This is something I’ve wanted to do for sometime. However, having never done it, I’m looking for some tips on how to get started.”

Q: What’s the best way to find a topic that is new enough to be interesting, but relevant enough to be useful?

People go to conferences hoping, among other things, to gather information that they didn’t have before. What that is will vary by audience member. Designers, architects, and C-levels who are trying to stay ahead of the curve will want to know about the future — what tech is coming and the likely impact to their business and operations. Engineers and operations — the people down in the blood and guts of IT — will be more interested in hard skills.

By “hard,” I don’t mean difficult. I mean useful tools and techniques that they can bring back to their job with them and put to use.

  • When addressing a technical audience, the most engaging talks will be technical ones that go into specifics. The catch here is that most talks are in the 30 to 60 minute range. Continue reading

Slack. Less Bad Than The Rest.

A topic I complain about with some regularity is my inability to keep up with incoming messages. I’m too busy creating something for someone else to consume to bother trying to keep up. That’s the way of things. If I successfully keep up with all the input, I never achieve useful output.

In this world of message misery, Slack is my friend. I find that Slack is better at managing input than most other forms of communication.

As Slack groups form (I’m in 8 now), it allows me to interact with people in a private or semi-private manner in a way that’s less intrusive than Google Hangouts or an iMessages chat room.

Slack groups are far better for me than e-mail. I have a passionate dislike for e-mail, although I’ve gotten better at managing it with process and tools. E-mail remains useful to me because it’s the lowest common denominator of communications. If nothing else works, then I can probably send the person an e-mail.

At the moment, Slack is the “least worst” way to manage communication for me.

  • I can mute as well as tune notifications. I often mute entire channels that do not require real-time interaction. I can also set do not disturb times. I can also Continue reading

Interview: Dr. Pat McCarthy Of The Giant Magellan Telescope

On the Citizens of Tech Podcast #43, we interviewed Dr. Patrick McCarthy of the Giant Magellan Telescope project, currently under construction in Chile.

The GMT is in a new class of “extremely large telescopes.” Featuring a custom glass formulation, seven asymmetric mirrors being polished in Arizona, and software that will correct in real-time for atmospheric distortion and physical alignment, the GMT will gather images too dim for us to have ever seen before.

Among the anticipated advances is the ability to see planets orbiting distant stars, allowing us to get that planet’s spectrographic signature. That data will help us find planets with the chemical signatures of life. We’ll also be able to look ever further back in time as we observe across light years, clarifying our understanding of the universe’s opening moments.

Pat was an outstanding spokesman for the GMT, clearly explaining the project’s worth to science, construction challenges, and relation to other extremely large telescope projects. He also helped us understand the pros and cons of terrestrial vs. space-based telescopes.

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