Griddlebone by Debbie Manber Kupfer
Umbrae by Debbie Manber Kupfer
Monday, March 9, 2020
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Cascading IFTTT actions
As much as I'm learning about IFTTT and it's flexibility, this comes with a cautionary tale. It is possible to create a cascading chain of IFTTT actions that are not intended to fire in series. It pays to review your current Applets to ensure this behavior is not happening. Recently, I had such a situation and this post is meant to test it's resolution.
Managing Social Media Posts
In an effort to troubleshoot and see how far I can go to manage my social media, I delved into a trick I used to do with IFTTT, Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. A while ago, I set up some Applets on IFTTT that fired when I updated this blog page. What it was supposed to do was auto-publish the new blog post across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn without my having to copy and paste the link on each service separately. As of March 2019, LinkedIn changed their API and I was oblivious to this, or too busy to research how to correct it. As I don't blog much (thanks Sharon for pointing THAT one out...), I haven't been bothered by it much. Today, after being excited enough to post a very extensive blog post, I saw the IFTTT fire, but it only reached Twitter and Facebook. It was then I found that LinkedIn was broken. I still have the connection in place though between Twitter and LinkedIn, so anything I post should go to both places, however, I found that now I have to add an extra step. I have just updated my Applet on IFTTT and this post will test whether adding the hashtag will work to cascade the post across all three again.
Update: Well, it didn't work. LinkedIn is being very obstinate about automatic posting. In addition, they removed the ability to link your account with Blogger (at least for non-Premium accounts), therefore, my workaround is to add my Blog as a publication under my LinkedIn profile and hope people scroll down that far to see it.
Update: Well, it didn't work. LinkedIn is being very obstinate about automatic posting. In addition, they removed the ability to link your account with Blogger (at least for non-Premium accounts), therefore, my workaround is to add my Blog as a publication under my LinkedIn profile and hope people scroll down that far to see it.
Smarthome Connectivity
Since moving into the new house, I've become acutely aware of how Siri, Google, and Alexa are important from the standpoint of a person with vision difficulties. At first, it was simply a means to engage the time by reading audiobooks and providing the ability to access web searches without the need to be able to see the computer screen. This has ultimately evolved into a search into enabling such a person to have more control over a world that is becoming ever darker in their eyes.
First a bit of a backstory for those that are not aware. A very special person in my life is slowly losing his sight, and about two years ago the first signs that he needed help started to appear. My wife and I got a call that he attempted to drive home after visiting the eye doctor and realized that he was unable to do so safely. We found him parked on a median in the middle of the road. Shortly thereafter, he announced that he was no longer capable of driving himself. This was an extra burden on our already hectic lives, but we did so more than willingly, but a side conversation between the wife and I had to occur. We needed to discuss the feasibility of continuing to care for him in his home or seek an alternate residential situation for him.
This is one of the hardest conversations to have with the person involved as many children of aging parents will tell you. We scheduled the conversation and I went to look for potential houses that would be able to fit all of us under the same roof. This was a very tall order as the wife and I already had plans to find a piece of property that was large enough that our children could also fall back on if they needed to in their young adult years. We were both wanting several acres of property with trees, but for someone with failing sight, the gradient terrain had to be considered. I actually found a potential property prior to our conversation and pulled some numbers.
The conversation went far better than we both had thought, and the decision was made to have my father and us source a property together. I'll skip the next few months of financial conversations, moving, and the like as they aren't relevant nor do they add to the intent of this post. It is now about a year since the move and my father currently has both Google and Alexa on the table that he sits at every day. His enjoyment is visible to us as they allow him to interact with the wider world, enjoy sci-fi and fantasy audiobooks (a long-standing hobby of his), and even give us a phone call without needing to manually dial a number on a phone.
One of the pain points of the property though is it came with a private gatehouse that has caused me some grief in setting up with an intercom/gate opener. There really is only one manufacturer for these devices, because Craftsman and Liftmaster are both owned by Chamberlain. All of these devices are becoming connected through their technology called "MyQ" and my new gate opener came with this technology. At the original install, I did not hook it up as I view Internet-connected devices as inherently vulnerable, but my fathers' situation could not be ignored.
The manual intercom system that came with the house was a dinosaur, being some 34 years old, and badly needed replacement. I sourced and purchased an updated system that added two capabilities to the old one, that of video and RFID entry. The day I installed that system and made it work was very cool. Unfortunately, my father had trouble finding the button to open the gate as the touchscreen monitors inside no longer had the tactile feel of a push button. It was then I realized that no modern closed-circuit system would work for him.
Then came the lightning. During a heavy thunderstorm, a lightning bolt hit a tree outside the gatehouse and it took out a good bit of technology that I had installed into the house, including the brand new intercom system and gate opener. I ordered replacement parts, and all but the doorbell on the gate were replaced. The doorbell from downstairs was relocated to the gatehouse as it was still working so that we could return to functionality, but I was missing the front door and downstairs door doorbells. Two months have gone by and the part I purchased to replace the failed doorbell has yet to come in from China (Thanks a lot Trump). I'm now realizing that the tariffs have impacted me in a way I didn't expect.
Along this journey, I decided to leverage the MyQ technology built into my gate opener and purchased a Liftmaster branded Internet Gateway and set that up. I can now open my gate from my smartphone, which is good because several manual button openers have become lost. This solved the problem for most of the family, and we had a temporary solution for my father of taping a paperclip to the interior monitors next to the gate button that he could feel, but I wasn't satisfied with this solution. I wanted him to be able to open the gate by asking Google or Alexa to do it.
Here's the part of the story that gets technical and was frustrating for me to work out. The MyQ app can integrate with Google but doesn't have the capability of issuing an open command from Google. They state this is for security reasons, which is very confusing to me because their app can't be very much more secure. I suppose, given the layout of most homes, having someone outside yelling "Google, open the door" IS a concern, but in my situation, the gatehouse is a good distance from the house, and that would be futile for someone to attempt.
I started to explore the problem further and discovered that in addition to the integration with Google, MyQ also integrates with IFTTT. This is interesting because IFTTT is extremely flexible and has lots of integrations with other smart home devices and systems. As it turns out, IFTTT can integrate with both Alexa and Google as well as Samsung SmartThings. SmartThings, in case you have been asleep or not aware, has an open API for development and a large contributing community. In addition, one of those custom-built SmartApps integrates with MyQ. (see https://github.com/brbeaird/SmartThings_MyQ).
The first time I visited that link, I came away with my head swimming. I may be good with computers, but this was not an area that I had any experience with. My experience lies with enterprise-level cloud computing platforms, not the lower end consumer stuff. I shoved it into the back of my brain until I had a chance to dust it off and take a closer look. Today was that day.
I started by logging into all the relevant web portals and having them all side by side, MyQ, Google Assitant, Amazon skills, IFTTT, SmartThings, and several research windows and started digging. I quickly realized that my phone was also necessary for some of the stuff and even employed the second computer in the process. In reading through the article above, and doing a bit of other research as well as some intuition jumps myself, I finally arrived at a satisfactory solution, one that I do not believe is fully documented in a single place on the web.
So here goes. Requirements/Steps:
1. Accounts for MyQ, Google, Amazon, IFTTT, and SmartThings
2. Integrations setup and functional for IFTTT to Google, Alexa, and SmartThings
3. (optional, but highly recommended) The Community Installer for SmartThings (located here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Community_Installer_(Free_Marketplace))
4. The SmartThings_MyQ SmartApp added to SmartThings (located here: https://github.com/brbeaird/SmartThings_MyQ)
5. Creation of a virtual sensor in SmartThings using this guide: https://community.smartthings.com/t/how-to-smartthings-myq-smartapp-using-myq-sensors-with-ifttt/149601
6. IFTTT custom Applets for Google and Alexa (either or both, your choice)
Step 1: If you are reading this, I would assume you can handle that first requirement on your own, so I'll leave that to you. If you can't handle that, you really don't have any business doing this on your own, go grab the local techie down the street and hope they know better than you do.
Step 2: Integration of the services can be frustrating from the MyQ side as the phone app seems to have a way to directly integrate with both Google and IFTTT, but in reality, all it does is open the partner app and leave you hanging. Fortunately, you don't need to integrate MyQ with anything (even though I did and have left them in place). The long and the short of it is with the direct MyQ integration, all you have the capability to do is check the status of the device and to close it, NOT open it. What's more, in my case, I was not able to ever have Google recognize that I even had a device through that integration. I called Chamberlain and they were also unable to help me get it visible, which I found quite odd.
In any case, handle the IFTTT integration from THEIR side with Google, Alexa, and SmartThings. This integration is simple as of the time of this writing, you simply have to log in to the web portal, click Explore and search for the three services one at a time. Under the search box will appear the public Connections that others have written and a Services tab. Choose the services tab, then the service and follow the bouncing ball to log into the other service. Google and Alexa are just that simple, SmartThings has an extra step once you log in. It will bring up a window that will have you authorize the connected devices registered to your account. For now, it should be blank or have devices that you don't want for this project, just skip it and come back later.
Step 3: The Community Installer guide is well written and you will have no need to go into the Advanced Installation section.
Step 4: Once the Community Installer is installed, switch to the phone and download the "Classic" SmartThings app. This app, at the end of the day, isn't actually necessary beyond the addition of the SmartApp except for testing the SmartThings_MyQ SmartApp piece of the puzzle and will leave you with two apps that can then open your garage/gate from your phone without going through Google or Alexa. The objective in this step is just to get the SmartThings_MyQ SmartApp functional within SmartThings. Since I didn't find how to actually use this, I'll include a mini-guide here:
4.1. Open the Classic SmartThings app, go to Marketplace>My Apps> ST-Community-Installer
4.2. Set the IDE Login Account Type to whatever your login is (Samsung or SmartThings) and hit done.
4.3. Scroll all the way down and hit Installer Home, then login to the same account type that you identified in step 4.2
4.4. Search for and install the MyQ Lite SmartApp. Under normal circumstances, you can accept the default choices during install
4.4.1 TAKE NOTE: You will be doing this step again to update this community app if you run into a problem in the future, so this is one argument for keeping the SmartThings Classic on your phone!!!
Step 5: Add the Virtual Sensor. Although the guide was written relatively recently, the SmartThings portal has changed and some steps are out of date. For the most part, you can figure out the changes, so go ahead with Steps 1 and 2. Step three of that guide will lead you down the wrong path though, as MyQ has pulled support for the closing function within IFTTT, so don't do that one. Instead, skip down and do Step 4 and make sure that part works as laid out there.
Now you want to test the actual MyQ Garage Door Opener supplied by the MyQ Lite app added in Step 2 of the guide. On your "My Home" in the SmartThings Classic app on your phone, you should have at least two devices, one labeled "DO NOT PRESS - something you typed" and one labeled whatever you're naming your devices in MyQ. Click on the one from MyQ, a dashboard will open giving you the status of Closed and an Open and Close button. Hit the Open button, then switch apps to the MyQ app*. Without doing anything, you can watch the gate/garage open from the MyQ app. If for whatever reason this isn't working, you've done something wrong when adding the virtual sensor or setting up the integration between MyQ and SmartThings. Go back and check both of these and ensure they are set up correctly. If the gate/garage opens, CONGRATULATIONS! you can now move on to Step 6 and you are virtually home free now.
*Because the device in SmartThings is set to a virtualized sensor instead of the actual sensor from your gate/garage, it's not actually reporting real-time information and as long as you haven't set the "DO NOT PRESS - [whatever]" to "ON", it will report "Closed" in SmartThings, therefore, you have to switch apps to get real-time info from your device.
Step 6: On to IFTTT: While this is, by far, the simplest in execution, if you got tripped up on the last step, it will be very frustrating. Step 3 of the last guide shows you to connect IFTTT to MyQ, but MyQ pulled support for the close actions within IFTTT. Furthermore, due to a strangeness that I ran into as described above, setting the trigger to MyQ resulted in my not finding a door to trigger! Here's what I did (and tested successfully). Keep in mind that my ONLY goal was to set up Google and Alexa to OPEN my gate by voice command and I wasn't interested in any other way to connect this string together. Having said that, the method described below is probably faulty in some way I haven't discovered yet, but it works and I'm happy with the result.
I built two applets, one for Google, and one for Alexa, they are essentially identical except for the phrase needed to trigger the action. This is not by design, but rather because Alexa requires an extra word in order to functionally work with IFTTT. Before building these applets though, you have to edit the connection of IFTTT and SmartThings. From IFTTT (web version) do:
6.1 Click on your portrait, go to My Services>SmartThings
6.2 In the upper right, there should be a Settings button (unless they change things, in which case, look around, it's going to be here somewhere as "Settings" or "Edit" or three dots, or a gear icon...you get the idea), click THAT, then "EDIT" in the Account Info section.
6.3 You will be taken to the SmartThings/IFTTT integration window you saw before way back in Step 2. (I told you we'd be back later :-), but this time, when you choose your Home, you will see devices, and it's asking for permission to action those devices, so put a checkmark in the box next to the device you just tested at the end of Step 5 and click Authorize.
Great, we are almost done here. The actual setup of the IFTTT applets is extremely straightforward, just go to your portrait, got to Create, and put Alexa/Google in the search bar (THIS side) with "Say a specific phrase" trigger. Then put SmartThings in the search bar (THAT side) with a "Switch on" action choosing the gate/garage device you just authorized.
I gave the primary phrase the same content for both Google and Alexa, but Alexa has to go through something else on the backside and doesn't allow for multiple phrases nor a customized confirmation response. Therefore, I have to say "Alexa trigger open front gate" and she tells me that she is contacting IFTTT, but for Google, I can say "Google, open front gate", "Google, Open sesame" or "Google, Let me in" and she comes back with "Ok, I'm opening your front gate" I like the way Google does this a lot better because it's much more natural...poor Alexa, you lose this round.
Got those built? Great, as long as IFTTT recognized your gate/garage as setup in SmartThings, and you don't swallow your own tongue talking to your favorite device, your gate/garage door is going to open when you give it the voice command. Have some fun, I know I did showing it to my wife and father.
NOTE: Although I'd love to report that the gate/garage will open immediately, alas, there IS a slight delay while those four cloud services talk to each other and then back down to your device. Give it some time, be patient, it's no worse than the actual MyQ app in response time, so no worries. Happy trails!
First a bit of a backstory for those that are not aware. A very special person in my life is slowly losing his sight, and about two years ago the first signs that he needed help started to appear. My wife and I got a call that he attempted to drive home after visiting the eye doctor and realized that he was unable to do so safely. We found him parked on a median in the middle of the road. Shortly thereafter, he announced that he was no longer capable of driving himself. This was an extra burden on our already hectic lives, but we did so more than willingly, but a side conversation between the wife and I had to occur. We needed to discuss the feasibility of continuing to care for him in his home or seek an alternate residential situation for him.
This is one of the hardest conversations to have with the person involved as many children of aging parents will tell you. We scheduled the conversation and I went to look for potential houses that would be able to fit all of us under the same roof. This was a very tall order as the wife and I already had plans to find a piece of property that was large enough that our children could also fall back on if they needed to in their young adult years. We were both wanting several acres of property with trees, but for someone with failing sight, the gradient terrain had to be considered. I actually found a potential property prior to our conversation and pulled some numbers.
The conversation went far better than we both had thought, and the decision was made to have my father and us source a property together. I'll skip the next few months of financial conversations, moving, and the like as they aren't relevant nor do they add to the intent of this post. It is now about a year since the move and my father currently has both Google and Alexa on the table that he sits at every day. His enjoyment is visible to us as they allow him to interact with the wider world, enjoy sci-fi and fantasy audiobooks (a long-standing hobby of his), and even give us a phone call without needing to manually dial a number on a phone.
One of the pain points of the property though is it came with a private gatehouse that has caused me some grief in setting up with an intercom/gate opener. There really is only one manufacturer for these devices, because Craftsman and Liftmaster are both owned by Chamberlain. All of these devices are becoming connected through their technology called "MyQ" and my new gate opener came with this technology. At the original install, I did not hook it up as I view Internet-connected devices as inherently vulnerable, but my fathers' situation could not be ignored.
The manual intercom system that came with the house was a dinosaur, being some 34 years old, and badly needed replacement. I sourced and purchased an updated system that added two capabilities to the old one, that of video and RFID entry. The day I installed that system and made it work was very cool. Unfortunately, my father had trouble finding the button to open the gate as the touchscreen monitors inside no longer had the tactile feel of a push button. It was then I realized that no modern closed-circuit system would work for him.
Then came the lightning. During a heavy thunderstorm, a lightning bolt hit a tree outside the gatehouse and it took out a good bit of technology that I had installed into the house, including the brand new intercom system and gate opener. I ordered replacement parts, and all but the doorbell on the gate were replaced. The doorbell from downstairs was relocated to the gatehouse as it was still working so that we could return to functionality, but I was missing the front door and downstairs door doorbells. Two months have gone by and the part I purchased to replace the failed doorbell has yet to come in from China (Thanks a lot Trump). I'm now realizing that the tariffs have impacted me in a way I didn't expect.
Along this journey, I decided to leverage the MyQ technology built into my gate opener and purchased a Liftmaster branded Internet Gateway and set that up. I can now open my gate from my smartphone, which is good because several manual button openers have become lost. This solved the problem for most of the family, and we had a temporary solution for my father of taping a paperclip to the interior monitors next to the gate button that he could feel, but I wasn't satisfied with this solution. I wanted him to be able to open the gate by asking Google or Alexa to do it.
Here's the part of the story that gets technical and was frustrating for me to work out. The MyQ app can integrate with Google but doesn't have the capability of issuing an open command from Google. They state this is for security reasons, which is very confusing to me because their app can't be very much more secure. I suppose, given the layout of most homes, having someone outside yelling "Google, open the door" IS a concern, but in my situation, the gatehouse is a good distance from the house, and that would be futile for someone to attempt.
I started to explore the problem further and discovered that in addition to the integration with Google, MyQ also integrates with IFTTT. This is interesting because IFTTT is extremely flexible and has lots of integrations with other smart home devices and systems. As it turns out, IFTTT can integrate with both Alexa and Google as well as Samsung SmartThings. SmartThings, in case you have been asleep or not aware, has an open API for development and a large contributing community. In addition, one of those custom-built SmartApps integrates with MyQ. (see https://github.com/brbeaird/SmartThings_MyQ).
The first time I visited that link, I came away with my head swimming. I may be good with computers, but this was not an area that I had any experience with. My experience lies with enterprise-level cloud computing platforms, not the lower end consumer stuff. I shoved it into the back of my brain until I had a chance to dust it off and take a closer look. Today was that day.
I started by logging into all the relevant web portals and having them all side by side, MyQ, Google Assitant, Amazon skills, IFTTT, SmartThings, and several research windows and started digging. I quickly realized that my phone was also necessary for some of the stuff and even employed the second computer in the process. In reading through the article above, and doing a bit of other research as well as some intuition jumps myself, I finally arrived at a satisfactory solution, one that I do not believe is fully documented in a single place on the web.
So here goes. Requirements/Steps:
1. Accounts for MyQ, Google, Amazon, IFTTT, and SmartThings
2. Integrations setup and functional for IFTTT to Google, Alexa, and SmartThings
3. (optional, but highly recommended) The Community Installer for SmartThings (located here: http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Community_Installer_(Free_Marketplace))
4. The SmartThings_MyQ SmartApp added to SmartThings (located here: https://github.com/brbeaird/SmartThings_MyQ)
5. Creation of a virtual sensor in SmartThings using this guide: https://community.smartthings.com/t/how-to-smartthings-myq-smartapp-using-myq-sensors-with-ifttt/149601
6. IFTTT custom Applets for Google and Alexa (either or both, your choice)
Step 1: If you are reading this, I would assume you can handle that first requirement on your own, so I'll leave that to you. If you can't handle that, you really don't have any business doing this on your own, go grab the local techie down the street and hope they know better than you do.
Step 2: Integration of the services can be frustrating from the MyQ side as the phone app seems to have a way to directly integrate with both Google and IFTTT, but in reality, all it does is open the partner app and leave you hanging. Fortunately, you don't need to integrate MyQ with anything (even though I did and have left them in place). The long and the short of it is with the direct MyQ integration, all you have the capability to do is check the status of the device and to close it, NOT open it. What's more, in my case, I was not able to ever have Google recognize that I even had a device through that integration. I called Chamberlain and they were also unable to help me get it visible, which I found quite odd.
In any case, handle the IFTTT integration from THEIR side with Google, Alexa, and SmartThings. This integration is simple as of the time of this writing, you simply have to log in to the web portal, click Explore and search for the three services one at a time. Under the search box will appear the public Connections that others have written and a Services tab. Choose the services tab, then the service and follow the bouncing ball to log into the other service. Google and Alexa are just that simple, SmartThings has an extra step once you log in. It will bring up a window that will have you authorize the connected devices registered to your account. For now, it should be blank or have devices that you don't want for this project, just skip it and come back later.
Step 3: The Community Installer guide is well written and you will have no need to go into the Advanced Installation section.
Step 4: Once the Community Installer is installed, switch to the phone and download the "Classic" SmartThings app. This app, at the end of the day, isn't actually necessary beyond the addition of the SmartApp except for testing the SmartThings_MyQ SmartApp piece of the puzzle and will leave you with two apps that can then open your garage/gate from your phone without going through Google or Alexa. The objective in this step is just to get the SmartThings_MyQ SmartApp functional within SmartThings. Since I didn't find how to actually use this, I'll include a mini-guide here:
4.1. Open the Classic SmartThings app, go to Marketplace>My Apps> ST-Community-Installer
4.2. Set the IDE Login Account Type to whatever your login is (Samsung or SmartThings) and hit done.
4.3. Scroll all the way down and hit Installer Home, then login to the same account type that you identified in step 4.2
4.4. Search for and install the MyQ Lite SmartApp. Under normal circumstances, you can accept the default choices during install
4.4.1 TAKE NOTE: You will be doing this step again to update this community app if you run into a problem in the future, so this is one argument for keeping the SmartThings Classic on your phone!!!
Step 5: Add the Virtual Sensor. Although the guide was written relatively recently, the SmartThings portal has changed and some steps are out of date. For the most part, you can figure out the changes, so go ahead with Steps 1 and 2. Step three of that guide will lead you down the wrong path though, as MyQ has pulled support for the closing function within IFTTT, so don't do that one. Instead, skip down and do Step 4 and make sure that part works as laid out there.
Now you want to test the actual MyQ Garage Door Opener supplied by the MyQ Lite app added in Step 2 of the guide. On your "My Home" in the SmartThings Classic app on your phone, you should have at least two devices, one labeled "DO NOT PRESS - something you typed" and one labeled whatever you're naming your devices in MyQ. Click on the one from MyQ, a dashboard will open giving you the status of Closed and an Open and Close button. Hit the Open button, then switch apps to the MyQ app*. Without doing anything, you can watch the gate/garage open from the MyQ app. If for whatever reason this isn't working, you've done something wrong when adding the virtual sensor or setting up the integration between MyQ and SmartThings. Go back and check both of these and ensure they are set up correctly. If the gate/garage opens, CONGRATULATIONS! you can now move on to Step 6 and you are virtually home free now.
*Because the device in SmartThings is set to a virtualized sensor instead of the actual sensor from your gate/garage, it's not actually reporting real-time information and as long as you haven't set the "DO NOT PRESS - [whatever]" to "ON", it will report "Closed" in SmartThings, therefore, you have to switch apps to get real-time info from your device.
Step 6: On to IFTTT: While this is, by far, the simplest in execution, if you got tripped up on the last step, it will be very frustrating. Step 3 of the last guide shows you to connect IFTTT to MyQ, but MyQ pulled support for the close actions within IFTTT. Furthermore, due to a strangeness that I ran into as described above, setting the trigger to MyQ resulted in my not finding a door to trigger! Here's what I did (and tested successfully). Keep in mind that my ONLY goal was to set up Google and Alexa to OPEN my gate by voice command and I wasn't interested in any other way to connect this string together. Having said that, the method described below is probably faulty in some way I haven't discovered yet, but it works and I'm happy with the result.
I built two applets, one for Google, and one for Alexa, they are essentially identical except for the phrase needed to trigger the action. This is not by design, but rather because Alexa requires an extra word in order to functionally work with IFTTT. Before building these applets though, you have to edit the connection of IFTTT and SmartThings. From IFTTT (web version) do:
6.1 Click on your portrait, go to My Services>SmartThings
6.2 In the upper right, there should be a Settings button (unless they change things, in which case, look around, it's going to be here somewhere as "Settings" or "Edit" or three dots, or a gear icon...you get the idea), click THAT, then "EDIT" in the Account Info section.
6.3 You will be taken to the SmartThings/IFTTT integration window you saw before way back in Step 2. (I told you we'd be back later :-), but this time, when you choose your Home, you will see devices, and it's asking for permission to action those devices, so put a checkmark in the box next to the device you just tested at the end of Step 5 and click Authorize.
Great, we are almost done here. The actual setup of the IFTTT applets is extremely straightforward, just go to your portrait, got to Create, and put Alexa/Google in the search bar (THIS side) with "Say a specific phrase" trigger. Then put SmartThings in the search bar (THAT side) with a "Switch on" action choosing the gate/garage device you just authorized.
I gave the primary phrase the same content for both Google and Alexa, but Alexa has to go through something else on the backside and doesn't allow for multiple phrases nor a customized confirmation response. Therefore, I have to say "Alexa trigger open front gate" and she tells me that she is contacting IFTTT, but for Google, I can say "Google, open front gate", "Google, Open sesame" or "Google, Let me in" and she comes back with "Ok, I'm opening your front gate" I like the way Google does this a lot better because it's much more natural...poor Alexa, you lose this round.
Got those built? Great, as long as IFTTT recognized your gate/garage as setup in SmartThings, and you don't swallow your own tongue talking to your favorite device, your gate/garage door is going to open when you give it the voice command. Have some fun, I know I did showing it to my wife and father.
NOTE: Although I'd love to report that the gate/garage will open immediately, alas, there IS a slight delay while those four cloud services talk to each other and then back down to your device. Give it some time, be patient, it's no worse than the actual MyQ app in response time, so no worries. Happy trails!
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Another new hobby
Here are a few pictures from a new project I’ve been working on. This is the base for a 90 square foot HO scale model train layout. I’ve been thinking and doing research on this project for most of this year. It’s refreshing to begin work on the base. Most importantly, this project is with my father by my side.
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Playing with my Raspberry Pi
It's been a while, and a few updates: I got a pair of Raspberry Pi 3's on my desk and a Foscam exterior dome camera hanging over my garage now. One of the Pi's is acting as a server to store the images for me on a custom built attached storage array (I've been busy!). This post is not about those four projects though....it's about a piece of scripting that I found myself writing today. See, the camera just dumps the files into a very flat directory structure, resulting in thousands of images and video files per day. As you can imagine, this can build up to tens or hundreds of thousands if I'm not proactively moving the files into a structured directory tree, which until today, has been a manual process. I got tired of that, and knew I could write a bash script to do it for me. It only took me four hours, and here is the result:
#!/bin/bash
### Script to move output files from a Foscam exterior camera into a structured directory tree instead of storing them all in only the two default folders
### Adapted from a script found on the web at http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/261888/help-creating-script-to-move-files-based-on-date-or-filename
### Modifed with information from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26881104/extract-date-from-a-file-name-in-unix-using-shell-scripting
### and with information from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12230762/insert-characters-into-a-string-in-bash
### Written by:
### Christopher M Goodrich, CISSP, ISSEP, ISSMP
### phaldor@comcast.net
### Lets set some variables to the base directories. These should be changed to the base directories that you are using for the Foscam recording location
### and the top level folder where you want to store the organized files
BASEDIR=[insert folder here] ### Top level storage location (we are going to make directories under this with this script)
RECDIR=[insert folder here] ### Location where your Foscam is saving the recorded content
cd ${RECDIR}/record ### Start with the motion recording files
for file in alarm_*.mkv ### we are going to loop for .mkv files produced by the motion alarm
do
### Foscam uses alarm motion recording file format of alarm_YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.mkv so
### get the year, month, and day out of filename
rawdate=$(echo ${file} | awk -F'[_-]' '{print $2}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
date=$(echo ${rawdate} | sed 's/^\(.\{4\}\)\(.\{2\}\)/\1-\2-/') ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD'
# date=${date}- ### adds ending '-' (ending hyphen is important)
year=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f1) ### sets varialbe year to the first four digits in variable date
month=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f2) ### sets variable month to the next two digits in variable date
day=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f3) ### sets variable day to the last two digits in variable date
PARENTDIR=${BASEDIR}/${year}-${month}
MIDDIR=${PARENTDIR}/${day} ### create the variable for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
STOREDIR=${MIDDIR}/Motion-record
if [ -d ${PARENTDIR} ] ### if the parent directory exists
then
if [ -d ${MIDDIR} ] ### if the storage directory exists
then
if [ -d ${STOREDIR} ] ### if the motion-record subfolder exists
then
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
else ### the sub-folder doesn't exist
mkdir ${STOREDIR} ### create it
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the storeage directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the storage directory and the sub-folder that the file will reside in
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the parent directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the directory tree to store motion recorded media
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
done ### close the for loop
for file in schedule_*.mkv ### we are going to loop for .mkv files produced by the scheduled recording feature
do
### Foscam uses scheduled recording file format of schedule_YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.mkv so
### get the year, month, and day out of the filename
rawdate=$(echo ${file} | awk -F'[_-]' '{print $2}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
date=$(echo ${rawdate} | sed 's/^\(.\{4\}\)\(.\{2\}\)/\1-\2-/') ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD'
# date=${date}- ### adds ending '-' (ending hyphen is important)
# rawdate=$(echo ${file} | grep -Eo '[[:digit:]]{8}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
# date=$(echo ${rawdate:0:4}-${rawdate:4:2}-${rawdate:6:2}-) ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD-" (ending hyphen is important)
year=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f1) ### sets varialbe year to the first four digits in variable date
month=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f2) ### sets variable month to the next two digits in variable date
day=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f3) ### sets variable day to the last two digits in variable date
PARENTDIR=${BASEDIR}/${year}-${month}
MIDDIR=${PARENTDIR}/${day} ### create the variable for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
STOREDIR=${MIDDIR}/Schedule-record ### create the variables for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
if [ -d ${PARENTDIR} ] ### if the parent directory exists
then
if [ -d ${MIDDIR} ] ### if the storage directory exists
then
if [ -d ${STOREDIR} ] ### if the schedule-record subfolder exists
then
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
else ### the sub-folder doesn't exist
mkdir ${STOREDIR} ### create it
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the storeage directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the storage directory and the sub-folder that the file will reside in
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the parent directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the directory tree to store scheduled recorded media
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
done ### close the for loop
cd ${RECDIR}/snap ### switch directory of focus to the snap folder
for file in MDAlarm_*.jpg ### we are goinig to loop for .jpg files produced by the snapshot feature during motion events
do
### Foscam uses a file format of MDAlarm_YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.jpg for taking snapshots during a motion alarm event so
### get the year, month, and day out of the filename
rawdate=$(echo ${file} | awk -F'[_-]' '{print $2}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
date=$(echo ${rawdate} | sed 's/^\(.\{4\}\)\(.\{2\}\)/\1-\2-/') ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD'
# date=${date}- ### adds ending '-' (ending hyphen is important)
# rawdate=$(echo ${file} | grep -Eo '[[:digit:]]{8}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
# date=$(echo ${rawdate:0:4}-${rawdate:4:2}-${rawdate:6:2}-) ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD-" (ending hyphen is important)
year=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f1) ### sets varialbe year to the first four digits in variable date
month=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f2) ### sets variable month to the next two digits in variable date
day=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f3) ### sets variable day to the last two digits in variable date
PARENTDIR=${BASEDIR}/${year}-${month}
MIDDIR=${PARENTDIR}/${day} ### create the variable for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
STOREDIR=${MIDDIR}/Motion-snap ### create the variable for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
if [ -d ${PARENTDIR} ] ### if the parent directory exists
then
if [ -d ${MIDDIR} ] ### if the storage directory exists
then
if [ -d ${STOREDIR} ] ### if the motion-snap subfolder exists
then
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
else ### the sub-folder doesn't exist
mkdir ${STOREDIR} ### create it
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the storeage directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the storage directory and the sub-folder that the file will reside in
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the parent directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the directory tree to store motion recorded media
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
done ### close the for loop
for file in Schedule_*.jpg ### we are goinig to loop for .jpg files produced by the scheduled snapshot feature
do
### Foscam uses a file format of Schedule_YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.jpg for taking regularly scheduled snapshots so
### get the year, month, and day out of the filename
rawdate=$(echo ${file} | awk -F'[_-]' '{print $2}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
date=$(echo ${rawdate} | sed 's/^\(.\{4\}\)\(.\{2\}\)/\1-\2-/') ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD'
# date=${date}- ### adds ending '-' (ending hyphen is important)
# rawdate=$(echo ${file} | grep -Eo '[[:digit:]]{8}') ### sets variable rawdate to just the 8 digit date from the filename
# date=$(echo ${rawdate:0:4}-${rawdate:4:2}-${rawdate:6:2}-) ### sets variable date to the format 'YYYY-MM-DD-" (ending hyphen is important)
year=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f1) ### sets varialbe year to the first four digits in variable date
month=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f2) ### sets variable month to the next two digits in variable date
day=$(echo ${date} | cut -d"-" -f3) ### sets variable day to the last two digits in variable date
PARENTDIR=${BASEDIR}/${year}-${month}
MIDDIR=${PARENTDIR}/${day} ### create the variable for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
STOREDIR=${MIDDIR}/Schedule-snap ### create the variable for the parent folder (year and month) and storage folder (day)
if [ -d ${PARENTDIR} ] ### if the parent directory exists
then
if [ -d ${MIDDIR} ] ### if the storage directory exists
then
if [ -d ${STOREDIR} ] ### if the schedule-snap subfolder exists
then
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
else ### the sub-folder doesn't exist
mkdir ${STOREDIR} ### create it
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the storeage directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the storage directory and the sub-folder that the file will reside in
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
else ### the parent directory doesn't exist
mkdir -p ${STOREDIR} ### create the directory tree to store motion recorded media
mv ${file} ${STOREDIR} ### then move the file
fi ### close the if statement
done ### close the for loop
Pretty handy little script there, and it processed the 26k files I had lying in the directories with a fair amount of speed! You will notice that I have some extra lines in there that are commented out. I tried a couple different methods before I found one that worked, and I failed to remove the extra lines before posting this, I was just that excited! #HappyDance
Thursday, July 21, 2016
Pokemon Go
Have you caught the fever yet? Well, if you haven't, perhaps you are under the impression that this is just a fad, that it's childish, or maybe you just don't quite "get" the concept of Augmented Reality (AR) games. While this post is just about my own experience and why I got into the game, not meant to make an argument for or against it, if this post does convince you to get involved, you have my respect and support.
As a middle-aged man with teenage children, I tried to ignore the original Pokemon movement, but it sure didn't go unnoticed at the time. Pokemon was big....HUGE, back in the day. Unless you lived in a cave and didn't talk to anyone for years, you recognized the name, the main Pokemon creature (Pikachu), and the ball icon at the very least. So when it hit the app store just a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself "here we go again." Then the news brought to my attention the staggering numbers, so I checked out what in the world was going on. This led me to articles about Augmented Reality, city planning, and a few other stories that were only ancillary to the game itself. Being a bit round around the middle (so to speak), and given that I saw there was a huge benefit to contributing to the data generated by the game, I decided to give it a try. Another motivator was the teenage children in my household either already playing, or wanting to play the game. Because I try to monitor the younger one's use of gaming and the internet, it gave me another reason to check it out.
So I downloaded it. Keep in mind that other than a slight familiarity with the fact that it existed in the past, I had no knowledge of what Pokemon was all about, so I found myself at a disadvantage from the start. Because I'm an intellectual, I went and did a lot of research on the game mechanics and the general world of Pokemon. After doing all this, and playing the initial few levels in the game, I brought my younger teenagers aboard, giving me another experience on the back side of the game through the website. So, here are my thoughts:
The game is dead simple. At it's heart, you have a classic scavenger hunt where you run around looking for hidden things. In this case, it's the literal truth as the game is played on the stage of the entire planet. Think of it this way, Google has been mapping the planet Earth now for quite some time, and in doing so, has created enough public data that a game can be modeled to use it accurately through the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Since most smart phones come with a GPS receiver as well as the ability to download an app, the concept of adding digital data tied to GPS coordinates is not only not new, it's now old hat. We actually see this every day without thinking of it in navigation apps. Waze actually was a game first before it became the popular navigator that it is today. Those that used the original version may remember your car gobbling up candy on the road. Pokemon Go is the exact same concept, except you don't automatically get the candy once your real life coordinates intersect with it. Add to that basic concept a simple idea. What if, once you get within range of the object that you are attempting to get through the coordinates, you could actually see it in the context of the real world? Well, open up that camera to this app, and your wish is granted. Welcome to Augmented Reality. We now have a digital object that is tied to a real world location that you can see through the camera lens. Not only that, but you can interact with the digital object AND the real world at the same time.
This is, of course, the entire purpose of the game, collecting these objects. Pokemon Go accomplishes this by setting up a ball throwing game overlaid on the AR experience. If you throw straight, and take your time, you are more likely to hit your target and capture the Pokemon you are seeing. I can vouch for what this looks like to an outsider, not much different than what everyone else not playing the game is doing already, keeping their head into their phones, and then raising it to take a picture. Kudos to the game makers for this, other than the walking around aimlessly, these "trainers" as they are called, look like a normal person out in the world. It could have been worse, making the game require an unusual movement which would look completely out of place or inappropriate. Here is where anonymity in reality depart company though. Whether you catch the Pokemon or not, something compels you to exclaim with joy or despair (as the case may be), making the players of this game extremely easy to spot. Fortunately for them, they usually have company when they are caught in this situation. I've experienced this first hand and in realizing that I've probably embarrassed myself, looked around and been met with sympathetic eyes rather than not. By far the most beneficial aspect here is you are getting exercise that you may not normally be getting.
Ok, great, so collecting Pokemon is the intent here, but to do so comes with the true benefit of the game. In order to do this, you have to walk....a lot. The whole game revolves around this simple fact. There are location based interactive objects other than Pokemon in the game, in the form of rest stops (Pokestops) and community centers (Gyms). These offer game enhancing items or a place to put your collected Pokemon against other trainer's Pokemon in battle. The former are static locations where in the real world, you will find other players standing around. This facilitates interaction with those people, solving another real world problem, that of the increased isolation of the individual. Because you have a common interest, there is something to talk about, facilitating a social aspect. While some may say this can bring about a negative encounter, it's far more likely to be a positive one. One other aspect to these locations is they base themselves on real world points of interest. Maybe it's a sign, a mural, or a museum piece, but the point is that it exists in the real world. Why this is important is lost on most people, but not to city planners. Using the data points generated from this game, they can now plan activities, track visits, and promote locations.
My last point is that I am getting to interact with my children as well. Sure, not all parents will want to run around their neighborhood playing a game while dealing with kids, but it's nice to relate and build on the relationship with your kids while seeing a few things you may not know about your area and meeting others from your local area. If this simply isn't for you, you can purchase in game items and not have to walk around to catch the Pokemon, but that will get expensive after a while. Worried about your data plan? T-Mobile is now offering an incentive to not count the data from playing the game against your limits.
That about does it for this post, so to all those out there playing, happy hunting!
As a middle-aged man with teenage children, I tried to ignore the original Pokemon movement, but it sure didn't go unnoticed at the time. Pokemon was big....HUGE, back in the day. Unless you lived in a cave and didn't talk to anyone for years, you recognized the name, the main Pokemon creature (Pikachu), and the ball icon at the very least. So when it hit the app store just a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself "here we go again." Then the news brought to my attention the staggering numbers, so I checked out what in the world was going on. This led me to articles about Augmented Reality, city planning, and a few other stories that were only ancillary to the game itself. Being a bit round around the middle (so to speak), and given that I saw there was a huge benefit to contributing to the data generated by the game, I decided to give it a try. Another motivator was the teenage children in my household either already playing, or wanting to play the game. Because I try to monitor the younger one's use of gaming and the internet, it gave me another reason to check it out.
So I downloaded it. Keep in mind that other than a slight familiarity with the fact that it existed in the past, I had no knowledge of what Pokemon was all about, so I found myself at a disadvantage from the start. Because I'm an intellectual, I went and did a lot of research on the game mechanics and the general world of Pokemon. After doing all this, and playing the initial few levels in the game, I brought my younger teenagers aboard, giving me another experience on the back side of the game through the website. So, here are my thoughts:
The game is dead simple. At it's heart, you have a classic scavenger hunt where you run around looking for hidden things. In this case, it's the literal truth as the game is played on the stage of the entire planet. Think of it this way, Google has been mapping the planet Earth now for quite some time, and in doing so, has created enough public data that a game can be modeled to use it accurately through the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Since most smart phones come with a GPS receiver as well as the ability to download an app, the concept of adding digital data tied to GPS coordinates is not only not new, it's now old hat. We actually see this every day without thinking of it in navigation apps. Waze actually was a game first before it became the popular navigator that it is today. Those that used the original version may remember your car gobbling up candy on the road. Pokemon Go is the exact same concept, except you don't automatically get the candy once your real life coordinates intersect with it. Add to that basic concept a simple idea. What if, once you get within range of the object that you are attempting to get through the coordinates, you could actually see it in the context of the real world? Well, open up that camera to this app, and your wish is granted. Welcome to Augmented Reality. We now have a digital object that is tied to a real world location that you can see through the camera lens. Not only that, but you can interact with the digital object AND the real world at the same time.
This is, of course, the entire purpose of the game, collecting these objects. Pokemon Go accomplishes this by setting up a ball throwing game overlaid on the AR experience. If you throw straight, and take your time, you are more likely to hit your target and capture the Pokemon you are seeing. I can vouch for what this looks like to an outsider, not much different than what everyone else not playing the game is doing already, keeping their head into their phones, and then raising it to take a picture. Kudos to the game makers for this, other than the walking around aimlessly, these "trainers" as they are called, look like a normal person out in the world. It could have been worse, making the game require an unusual movement which would look completely out of place or inappropriate. Here is where anonymity in reality depart company though. Whether you catch the Pokemon or not, something compels you to exclaim with joy or despair (as the case may be), making the players of this game extremely easy to spot. Fortunately for them, they usually have company when they are caught in this situation. I've experienced this first hand and in realizing that I've probably embarrassed myself, looked around and been met with sympathetic eyes rather than not. By far the most beneficial aspect here is you are getting exercise that you may not normally be getting.
Ok, great, so collecting Pokemon is the intent here, but to do so comes with the true benefit of the game. In order to do this, you have to walk....a lot. The whole game revolves around this simple fact. There are location based interactive objects other than Pokemon in the game, in the form of rest stops (Pokestops) and community centers (Gyms). These offer game enhancing items or a place to put your collected Pokemon against other trainer's Pokemon in battle. The former are static locations where in the real world, you will find other players standing around. This facilitates interaction with those people, solving another real world problem, that of the increased isolation of the individual. Because you have a common interest, there is something to talk about, facilitating a social aspect. While some may say this can bring about a negative encounter, it's far more likely to be a positive one. One other aspect to these locations is they base themselves on real world points of interest. Maybe it's a sign, a mural, or a museum piece, but the point is that it exists in the real world. Why this is important is lost on most people, but not to city planners. Using the data points generated from this game, they can now plan activities, track visits, and promote locations.
My last point is that I am getting to interact with my children as well. Sure, not all parents will want to run around their neighborhood playing a game while dealing with kids, but it's nice to relate and build on the relationship with your kids while seeing a few things you may not know about your area and meeting others from your local area. If this simply isn't for you, you can purchase in game items and not have to walk around to catch the Pokemon, but that will get expensive after a while. Worried about your data plan? T-Mobile is now offering an incentive to not count the data from playing the game against your limits.
That about does it for this post, so to all those out there playing, happy hunting!
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The quest for a better workspace
Anyone who works from home may relate to this story. I began working from home last year, and I wasn't really prepared to do so from a workspace perspective. I started with a writing desk that my wife had rescued some time ago and slowly added surfaces to handle the monitors and personal laptop that I really did need. The problem with this setup was that the writing desk was never meant to handle computers, especially more than one laptop, so it was very cramped and I couldn't use the CD/DVD drive without moving the laptop towards the front. Below is a picture of the setup after I moved into a spare bedroom (not the original setup in the master bedroom, which was even more cramped than what this picture displays.
Well, it happened one day that I was browsing online and got the thought to look at prices for desk mounted monitor stands. Don't ask why, because I couldn't tell you what exactly I was thinking at the time since a desk mounted stand wouldn't possibly work with the setup I had, but sometimes I just get a thought into my head and I have to go with it. As it happens, I found a very reasonably priced hex monitor stand (under $100 is reasonable given it could handle six 24" monitors at once). True to my nature, I whipped out the card and two minutes later, the stand was bought. Great, now what? As I stated before, the desk setup I had wasn't built to secure a desk mounted stand off the back. It didn't take me very long to come up with the beginnings of an idea though. The two cabinet units on either side of the writing desk were of the same manufacturer, solidly built, and had the capability to put a surface on top to accommodate the monitor stand. Next out of the drawer came the tape measure and I found that if I didn't want to sacrifice any leg room between them, the surface would have to be over 7 and a half feet wide. Try to find a desk that large, I dare you.
People that don't know me should be informed that once an idea gets into my head, I bull forward solving the problems until I have a complete solution. Everything else gets set aside, and even if I'm doing something else, my own family catches me with a particular facial expression; head cocked to one side, staring at the ceiling muttering to myself. Fortunately, I've been around long enough that I've picked up some experience here and there, but it is still a process. I think I spent the next day going to the salvage yards and consignment markets looking for a suitable surface. I did find a conference table without legs that may have done the job, but it was too heavy for me to move by myself, was far deeper than I wanted, was oval, and was priced far too high for my thinking. Craigslist didn't yield any better results, and a quick search online didn't leave me with much hope that I'd find a desk or any reasonable facsimile thereof that fit what was in my mind.
From the start of the search, I had it in my mind that this may be the case, and I moved to plan B; yup, you guessed it, I'm a guy, that means the local hardware store. What I wanted was a surface somewhere in the dimensions of 8'x3' that could support the monitor stand off the back edge, which meant at least 3/4" plywood. Keep in mind, I hadn't stepped foot into the hardware store yet, all of the above was done within the confines of my own skull so far, and I wasn't done, but I wanted to see if they had a piece of wood that may fit. For anyone familiar with plywood, this could be a tall order, it couldn't be construction grade, it had to be finished and hardwood, meant to be exposed, not rough framing lumber. As it happens, the local Home Depot had a very nice piece of birchwood with a surface so smooth I couldn't find an imperfection. What's more, I liked how it looked (I love woodgrain).
Did I mention that I fancy myself somewhat of an engineer? Well, I am analytical and have a passing knowledge about weight tolerances, which means I usually OVER-engineer any build (ask my wife about the porch I built for the doublewide when we first got married with the 3/4" carriage bolts through 8"x8" posts). I wasn't sure 3/4" plywood would be enough, so decided to double the thickness of the desk, which meant two sheets of 4"x8" glued together. Now I had an idea of the desktop, but I wasn't done yet. Two pieces in those dimensions meant that I'd be cutting the plywood lengthwise and have a 1'x8' strip left over from each piece. I'd already be buying the whole sheet, so what was I going to do with the extra wood? This epiphany wasn't a stretch, I could built shelves on either side of the desk. After about an hour wandering around the store, I had a very good idea of what I was going to be building, with what materials, and a few extra enhancements to boot. I walked out empty handed.
"Wait, empty handed?" you say? Yup, not only do I have to approve the budget with the wife, but I wanted to be absolutely sure of the design I had in mind, which meant modeling it on a CAD program. I went home and found a free program that I'd used in the past, but found it didn't have a feature to draw exact measurements (or at least adjust the objects after I had approximated them with the mouse). The second free program I tried did have what I wanted, and I proceeded to look up the specs on the monitor stand and draw my concept. Below is the final result.
This took me about two days to get it to a level of sophistication I was happy with. I didn't bother drawing the bottom tier of the monitor stand to show the laptop trays I had ordered as they weren't critical for the measurements I was after. All I wanted out of this drawing was the confirmation that I had enough room between the shelves I had thought of for the monitor stand and mounted equipment. It looked good, and that Saturday, I pulled the trigger on the purchase.
As soon as I could, I setup a mock build to ensure I had the store employee cut the wood the right way (the guy that cut the dowels didn't impress me with his measuring skills).
It took an evening and part of the next day to get the holes in the two sheets because I ran out of power on the cordless drill and had to charge the battery, then I took a step back and looked at that sunken receptacle again. It was meant to go into a wall and had a 1/4" lip on it. My worry was it would create too much of a gap in-between the plywood and cause the two sheets to not bond properly. So I dug the Dremel out of the shed and routed the surface of the bottom sheet to sink it enough to allow the two sheets to be perfectly flush. I managed to save one of the cutouts for a lid to hide the hole on the top surface as well and spent some time with the Dremel getting that piece and the edges of the top hole as smooth as I could so the cords wouldn't catch or fray on sharp edges.
A couple of days into the next work week, the monitor stand arrived, and I was surprised to actually see the size of the thing. The specs online weren't all inclusive, and I had guessed on certain dimensions. As it turned out, I had fallen short on a couple of them, so back to the CAD program I went to make sure it was still going to work. About an hour later, I breathed a sigh of relief, it was still good. I would have to articulate the arms a bit more, but now I had the right measurements and the monitor stand was truly impressive.
Originally, I had planned on using the two cabinets for supports, but they weren't going to do the entire job. I needed to support the back half of the desk, so went out to find a couple of simple bookshelves to use in the back. I didn't care about color or function, as long as they were 29 1/2" tall (the same height as the two I had already). Walmart this time, no reason to build some from scratch. I bought two, but one had an open end, and was missing the hardware kit. I called the customer support line and they promised to send me the kit out. I built the one I could and found it was actually a tiny bit taller than the units I had.
That Friday the forecast called for rain, so I had to bring the finished desktop and all the raw materials inside. I had wanted to finish the shelves, but settled for setting up the desk and waiting for the weather to clear. Since I still had not recieved the hardware kit for the second shelf, I used a tripod, which worked out in my favor since the desktop turned out to have a very slight curve and was bowed up in the middle. When I got it upstairs, I also found that the second shelving unit wasn't necessary, this thing was solid enough for my 200 lbs weight to climb on top and assemble the monitor stand.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Freedom of Speech vs. Freedom of Action
Over the last few weeks, my country, the USA, has seen a number of issues rise to the surface of public view and opinion. While this blog will attepmt to stay neutral on the individual issues, it will not be silent when comparing a vital element found in the mainstream media. This element is easy to see once it's pointed out, but it's obviously been overlooked by the general public. I'm talking about a basic misinterpretation of the first amendment. Yes, I'm talking about freedom of speech and it's key difference with freedom of action.
You see, there is a difference, one that is painfully obvious, yet seems to be largely ignored by certain individuals who try to hide behind the first. Let's start by stating the intent behind this amendment and follow the trail from there. When the founders of this country proposed the amendments, one thing was painfully clear to them at the time, that of freedoms, given that they had been under the oppressive thumb of the British crown and were in the midst of a revolt. I propose that their thoughts were to create a country without the possibility of an oppressive government and, at the same stroke, justify their revolutionary actions to the rest of the world.
After the revolution however, they realized that some of the actions they themselves took could not be condoned outside of the specific situation they found themselves in, and the drafting of the original documents that founded the nation reflect very careful thought along these lines. Here are two specific examples:
1. They gave the right to bear arms, but not to use them against others
2. They gave us the freedom of speech, but not action
These examples highlight a common element, that of a freedom of expression, but not the execution of the thought. This is a huge difference when considering the recent events in the media. We have a right to express ourselves, in other words, a peaceable demonstration. We do not have the right to rioting and violence. We have the right to express our thoughts publically and openly, but we do not have the right to act on those thoughts, especially if there is a law against it. Notice that given the absence of a law, we are still not automatically granted a "right" to act. In these cases, we are left to our own moral judgement and have a choice to act, not the right. If we chose to act, there may well be consequences as a result of our actions.
Monday, April 20, 2015
E-cigarette usage in Corporate Policy
A statement regarding the recent policy change on
e-cigarettes:
I wish to proclaim a grievance with the policy, but not to
totally dismiss its reasoning or importance.
In order to properly display the significance of the grievance, it is
necessary to clarify my personal position (and perhaps the position of every
e-cigarette user). The choice to move to
an e-cigarette was a willful, conscious and researched option stemming from my
known addiction to nicotine and my fervent wish to continue to avoid the use of
combustible nicotine products (regular cigarettes). Furthermore, I have researched the field of
medical knowledge on the topic and have purposefully chosen my suppliers to
minimize the dangerous effects of ingesting harmful chemical solutions.
First, the pros regarding the policy: Most e-cigarette juice (e-juice) is primarily
made up of only four or five ingredients, distilled water, propylene glycol
(PG), vegetable glycerin (VG), purified or synthetic nicotine, and flavorings. In multiple studies on the individual
ingredients including air quality testing, only two of these ingredients has
shown to be any more harmful than the normal air we breathe. The two that are of the highest concern are
PG and nicotine. PG has been shown to be
an occasional irritant in a small number of the population, and nicotine is a
vasoconstrictor. From this explanation,
I fully support the policy of removing e-cigarettes from the workplace environment
and delegating them to restricted, designated areas on the basis that that
small number of the population may be impacted by the PG directly, and the
nicotine addiction qualities generally.
Now the con: My
concern is the choice of lumping the vaping crowd in with the designated
combustible tobacco areas. Use of the
e-cigarette is termed “vaping” not “smoking” for a reason. People who have completely stopped all use of
combustible tobacco products are, in fact, non-smokers and physiologically have
the same reaction when exposed to smoke from those products. Since my choice has been a conscious one, and
I wish to avoid the dangers of smoking, I must protest being forced to share
the same designated space as the smoking community. Therefore, I should be afforded the same
rights as every other non-smoker in the workplace who wish to be removed from
the harmful effects of combustible tobacco smoke.
Possible solutions:
Since it is clear that vaping should rightfully be removed from the
general work area, but should not share space with designated smoking areas,
either a vaping area should be formally designated, or clear limits set on open
area (inside or outside) use of e-cigarettes.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Information Security Control Mapping
As any Information Security Professional will tell you, there are a multitude of regulation and security control frameworks out there to choose from. Very often, an individual organization is subject to multiple regulations and must show compliance with them regularly. This mandate sets up a situation where they have a choice between duplication of effort for compliance's sake, or to compare and contrast the multiple regulations and implement a single, unified solution. Given that duplication of effort is not cost efficient, and smart organizations always track the bottom line, then a security control map is absolutely necessary.
Mapping of security controls between differing standards is not a task to be taken lightly, nor is it the most speedy process. At best, an odd sized small team (5 or 7 individuals) takes months to come to an agreement between them. Teams smaller than this run into a problem of less objectivity faced with a herculean task. Larger teams run into the opposite problem of the more frequent disagreements in committee and too much input to be discussed in a timely fashion. In the end, the map itself is always subjective to the nuances of the group that created it.
This subjectivity is the result of two factors, the interpretation of the control measures combined with the methodology used to form the map. While the interpretation is subject to each individual making up the group along with their expertise, (which not only cannot be controlled, but is very often viewed with a contrasting opinion once the map is published) the methodology can at least be framed by a general consensus among the professional field. This is accomplished by taking each control measure into consideration and finding one or more suitable equivalent controls from the other control set.
It is widely accepted that there are not one, but two maps to look at when comparing two sets of control measures, that of each set in the context of the other. Adding more control sets makes the number of potential maps rise progressively using the formula <i>n * (n-1)</i> where <i>n</i> is equal to the number of control sets in play. Therefore, 3 sets would produce 6 maps, 4 produces 12, and 5 produces 20 maps.
While a thorough exploration can be thought of to be complete by finishing all the maps, a simpler method presents itself, reducing the number of maps to just the number of control sets in play. This methodology consists of choosing a primary control set among the multiples and only considering the maps to the other control sets in context of the prime. Logically, this makes sense, but there is still something missing from this methodology, that of the usefulness of the "reverse" map.
Because differing control sets often have no equal between them, and many are far too focused in scope and content to be of any use to the other, holes in the map abound. Compounding this is the fact that the regulations themselves are not enough for an effective security program, and an additional framework is necessary to achieve security effectiveness, increasing the number of maps by a proportional number. Fortunately, there are several frameworks in the wild that are written from a far more general nature than the specific regulations.
When employing a framework into the mix of regulations, caution must be observed in the choice of framework. Traditionally, individual regulations are married to particular frameworks (i.e. PCI-DSS to COBIT, SOX to COSO, HIPAA to ISO 27001, FISMA to NIST 800), but in reality, any framework could potentially contain any regulation depending on how flexible it's implementation is handled. It stands to reason that not every pairing is a harmonious match, thus the traditional pairings have the most chance for success. In the end, the framework dictates a common control set that will then have to be mapped to the applicable regulations.
This mapping, as discussed above <i>could</i> be achieved in the context of the framework, however, a more saturated method is to only consider the <i>reverse</i> maps instead of the "forward" maps. This method takes each control measure from the regulation and fits one or more controls from the framework to achieve compliance. This last method is by far the most beneficial from a compliance standpoint as every mandatory control measure is assured to be assessed and met as well as any holes from the framework control set will be identified and rectified. This last situation is actually very rare as the framework used (as long as a harmonious "marriage" is observed) is most likely to be a super-set that envelops the regulation set.
So what happens when an organization needs to be compliant with multiple regulations? Obviously the choice of framework becomes even more critical, requiring a much more general context to maximize the saturation and minimize the leftover controls from the individual regulations. For this effort, two frameworks stand out, the NIST 800 series and the similar ISO 27001. Both are formed by entities that produce common standards, one for the U.S. federal government and the other for an International community. Which to choose depends upon the nature of the organization contemplating the adoption of either from the aspects of HQ location and global presence.
Mapping of security controls between differing standards is not a task to be taken lightly, nor is it the most speedy process. At best, an odd sized small team (5 or 7 individuals) takes months to come to an agreement between them. Teams smaller than this run into a problem of less objectivity faced with a herculean task. Larger teams run into the opposite problem of the more frequent disagreements in committee and too much input to be discussed in a timely fashion. In the end, the map itself is always subjective to the nuances of the group that created it.
This subjectivity is the result of two factors, the interpretation of the control measures combined with the methodology used to form the map. While the interpretation is subject to each individual making up the group along with their expertise, (which not only cannot be controlled, but is very often viewed with a contrasting opinion once the map is published) the methodology can at least be framed by a general consensus among the professional field. This is accomplished by taking each control measure into consideration and finding one or more suitable equivalent controls from the other control set.
It is widely accepted that there are not one, but two maps to look at when comparing two sets of control measures, that of each set in the context of the other. Adding more control sets makes the number of potential maps rise progressively using the formula <i>n * (n-1)</i> where <i>n</i> is equal to the number of control sets in play. Therefore, 3 sets would produce 6 maps, 4 produces 12, and 5 produces 20 maps.
While a thorough exploration can be thought of to be complete by finishing all the maps, a simpler method presents itself, reducing the number of maps to just the number of control sets in play. This methodology consists of choosing a primary control set among the multiples and only considering the maps to the other control sets in context of the prime. Logically, this makes sense, but there is still something missing from this methodology, that of the usefulness of the "reverse" map.
Because differing control sets often have no equal between them, and many are far too focused in scope and content to be of any use to the other, holes in the map abound. Compounding this is the fact that the regulations themselves are not enough for an effective security program, and an additional framework is necessary to achieve security effectiveness, increasing the number of maps by a proportional number. Fortunately, there are several frameworks in the wild that are written from a far more general nature than the specific regulations.
When employing a framework into the mix of regulations, caution must be observed in the choice of framework. Traditionally, individual regulations are married to particular frameworks (i.e. PCI-DSS to COBIT, SOX to COSO, HIPAA to ISO 27001, FISMA to NIST 800), but in reality, any framework could potentially contain any regulation depending on how flexible it's implementation is handled. It stands to reason that not every pairing is a harmonious match, thus the traditional pairings have the most chance for success. In the end, the framework dictates a common control set that will then have to be mapped to the applicable regulations.
This mapping, as discussed above <i>could</i> be achieved in the context of the framework, however, a more saturated method is to only consider the <i>reverse</i> maps instead of the "forward" maps. This method takes each control measure from the regulation and fits one or more controls from the framework to achieve compliance. This last method is by far the most beneficial from a compliance standpoint as every mandatory control measure is assured to be assessed and met as well as any holes from the framework control set will be identified and rectified. This last situation is actually very rare as the framework used (as long as a harmonious "marriage" is observed) is most likely to be a super-set that envelops the regulation set.
So what happens when an organization needs to be compliant with multiple regulations? Obviously the choice of framework becomes even more critical, requiring a much more general context to maximize the saturation and minimize the leftover controls from the individual regulations. For this effort, two frameworks stand out, the NIST 800 series and the similar ISO 27001. Both are formed by entities that produce common standards, one for the U.S. federal government and the other for an International community. Which to choose depends upon the nature of the organization contemplating the adoption of either from the aspects of HQ location and global presence.
Friday, March 28, 2014
An Interpretation of HIPAA as it relates to Home Health Agencies
Many industries are subject to US government regulation regarding Information Security. Aside from direct government contracting entities, the main three industries are now national infrastructure, financial, and healthcare. Government contracting entities and the financial industry have had to deal with this type of regulation for a long time now, but the other two are fairly new to it. The healthcare industry looks more like the financial sector, specifically the credit card processing model, in that even the smallest entities are impacted by the regulations. With the passing of HIPAA, HITECH, and now what is commonly referred to as Obamacare, the healthcare industry is undergoing a transformation. How it impacts individual entities is the subject of much concern. The natural reaction is to get away from regulation as much as possible, but these acts leave very little room to breathe. Other industries have already accepted the fate to which Information Security regulatory acts have imposed upon them, and it is time for healthcare to get serious about it. In this article, I will attempt to break down the specifics and suggest a course of action.
Before a suggested course of action, an examination of the government regulation is in order here. Specifically, whether the regulation is even applicable to a particular entity. Currently, the HIPAA and HITECH acts apply only to healthcare clearinghouses, agencies that must work with the federal government for either Personal Identifiable Information or billing purposes, or professionals in the healthcare field such as doctors and hospital administration. This seems to leave some entities out, but be very wary. With the passing of Obamacare, this could be rapidly changing. The observation here is that Obamacare mandates that everyone carry health insurance, and those that are not provided insurance through an employer must purchase it at the state level, funded by the federal government. Although private industry insurance providers are still the carriers, the government oversight here cannot be ignored. Obamacare impacted every man, woman, and child currently carrying insurance by enacting regulation over the industry. Much like the financial industry, the healthcare insurance carriers now cannot ignore governmental regulation. By extension, any entity doing business with the insurance carriers are similarly impacted, much like any business that accepts credit cards must be found to be in compliance with PCI-DSS. This is the transformational event that is being addressed right now. The implication here is that even the smallest agencies will have to consider HIPAA and HITECH compliance in the very near future. Due to the heavy penalties of HIPAA non-compliance, and the ramifications stated above, it is in the best interests of any entity planning or operating any type of healthcare industry to budget and implement a security compliance effort whether they feel they are in scope or not.
HIPAA and HITECH generally go hand in hand, but compliance with one does not equate to compliance with the other as they have different focus areas. They are complimentary, not conflicting though, so achieving compliance in one or the other makes it easier to become compliant in the second. The problem with both of these is they do not state how compliancy is to be achieved, they simply lay out the objectives. In order to meet the objectives, another tool must be adopted in order to move an entity through the design, planning, implementation, and assessment phases in order to prove compliance. Many security frameworks are out there, some publically available, some through a small cost for licensing. None of them are simple in scope, cost, or time. Once a security framework is adopted, a software toolset is necessary as well to move the entity through the process. So, to sum up, government regulation must be examined to see if it applies, a security framework compatible to the regulation must be chosen, and the corresponding toolset must be obtained. These steps are relatively easy to achieve, and as stated above, it is in the best interests of a business to just simply submit to the regulation and make the effort to become compliant as doing otherwise may be the first death toll heard for them.
As many in other industries have pointed out, becoming compliant is very costly, both in capitol and labor. Although there are a few shortcuts that can be done, the effort itself is the bulk of the cost and cannot be avoided. As in other industries though, there is hope for entities that simply could not afford the compliance effort otherwise. A new type of B2B entity is beginning to emerge, one that provides a service to small and mid sized businesses to take the responsibility of compliance out of their hands. This is not a new concept for the financial industry, but it is much larger in scope as applied to the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry cannot simply obtain an approved device and let the worry of compliancy fall upon the processor....or can it? Such a model does not currently exist in the healthcare industry, but perhaps as the industry maturates, this could be possible. Currently though, the headache is squarely on the entity performing transactional services for medical records or medical billing for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. So what about private pay agencies? Well, this is a very gray area, as discussed above in relation to Obamacare. Now that everyone is mandated to carry insurance, and insurance will most likely carry some form of long term care clause, doesn't it follow that the pressure is already evident for private pay home care agencies to be compliant as well? In my opinion, it is.
Before a suggested course of action, an examination of the government regulation is in order here. Specifically, whether the regulation is even applicable to a particular entity. Currently, the HIPAA and HITECH acts apply only to healthcare clearinghouses, agencies that must work with the federal government for either Personal Identifiable Information or billing purposes, or professionals in the healthcare field such as doctors and hospital administration. This seems to leave some entities out, but be very wary. With the passing of Obamacare, this could be rapidly changing. The observation here is that Obamacare mandates that everyone carry health insurance, and those that are not provided insurance through an employer must purchase it at the state level, funded by the federal government. Although private industry insurance providers are still the carriers, the government oversight here cannot be ignored. Obamacare impacted every man, woman, and child currently carrying insurance by enacting regulation over the industry. Much like the financial industry, the healthcare insurance carriers now cannot ignore governmental regulation. By extension, any entity doing business with the insurance carriers are similarly impacted, much like any business that accepts credit cards must be found to be in compliance with PCI-DSS. This is the transformational event that is being addressed right now. The implication here is that even the smallest agencies will have to consider HIPAA and HITECH compliance in the very near future. Due to the heavy penalties of HIPAA non-compliance, and the ramifications stated above, it is in the best interests of any entity planning or operating any type of healthcare industry to budget and implement a security compliance effort whether they feel they are in scope or not.
HIPAA and HITECH generally go hand in hand, but compliance with one does not equate to compliance with the other as they have different focus areas. They are complimentary, not conflicting though, so achieving compliance in one or the other makes it easier to become compliant in the second. The problem with both of these is they do not state how compliancy is to be achieved, they simply lay out the objectives. In order to meet the objectives, another tool must be adopted in order to move an entity through the design, planning, implementation, and assessment phases in order to prove compliance. Many security frameworks are out there, some publically available, some through a small cost for licensing. None of them are simple in scope, cost, or time. Once a security framework is adopted, a software toolset is necessary as well to move the entity through the process. So, to sum up, government regulation must be examined to see if it applies, a security framework compatible to the regulation must be chosen, and the corresponding toolset must be obtained. These steps are relatively easy to achieve, and as stated above, it is in the best interests of a business to just simply submit to the regulation and make the effort to become compliant as doing otherwise may be the first death toll heard for them.
As many in other industries have pointed out, becoming compliant is very costly, both in capitol and labor. Although there are a few shortcuts that can be done, the effort itself is the bulk of the cost and cannot be avoided. As in other industries though, there is hope for entities that simply could not afford the compliance effort otherwise. A new type of B2B entity is beginning to emerge, one that provides a service to small and mid sized businesses to take the responsibility of compliance out of their hands. This is not a new concept for the financial industry, but it is much larger in scope as applied to the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry cannot simply obtain an approved device and let the worry of compliancy fall upon the processor....or can it? Such a model does not currently exist in the healthcare industry, but perhaps as the industry maturates, this could be possible. Currently though, the headache is squarely on the entity performing transactional services for medical records or medical billing for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. So what about private pay agencies? Well, this is a very gray area, as discussed above in relation to Obamacare. Now that everyone is mandated to carry insurance, and insurance will most likely carry some form of long term care clause, doesn't it follow that the pressure is already evident for private pay home care agencies to be compliant as well? In my opinion, it is.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Job Hunting
Perhaps I'm getting older in an ever increasingly complex online world, but the job hunt has me all "a twitter" right now. The last time I was on the hunt was three years ago, and the premier job board was still monster.com, although there were several offshoots that were getting much more specific to certain industries. This time, I have found that things have changed yet again, and the best place to look is now firmly in the hands of a social media site, LinkedIn. This led me down the road to examine my other social media accounts and connections. Updating the information on them has been completed, and I have cross-linked them as much as they have allowed me to do, and where they don't inherently do this for me, I have done so manually by posting the links to the status updates fields on all of them.
While all the above is all great, in the end, it's rather like climbing to the highest tower in a city and shouting from the rooftops. Not only will your words be drowned out by the din of the others, there is no expectation of a reply worth pursuing. Is this really good networking? Sure, the friends and followers on the social media sites have been picked carefully, or at least with an eye toward some personal gain, but it's a far cry from showing up at a company and handing your resume to them personally.
I have never been very comfortable with selling myself, nor being an active participant in social media in general. My comfort zone is firmly on the right hand side of someone else as a trusted advisor, being an expert in my field, and my social circle is almost exclusively limited to my own wife and kids. I truly envy people that can thrive in the limelight of the media, be the social butterfly at any event, or those that seem to have a natural ability to land a really great job. I've learned what I needed to over the years, and followed the trends as much as I was able, but the one factor that has been the most useful over the years has been to be in the right place at the right time when the new job came along.
I only hope this factor comes my way this time as well. In the end, I've done what I can to encourage this to happen, even extending myself outside of my normal comfort zone tremendously, yet I can't help but wonder if there is something I can be doing that will further this cause. Get myself in front of more people who can see what my skillset may bring to them. On LinkedIn, I could try to friend all the recruiters I can. On Twitter, I could hashtag the popular trends with a link to my LinkedIn profile. I can blog here. I can spread the word on the other social networks. Does this cross any boundaries or present me as an annoying person? I am simply not sure about the perception such actions would be viewed. That having been said, the end may justify the means here, all I can hope is that it does not tarnish my online reputation.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
An in-depth Look at Destructive Behaviors
I come to this post today with a great deal of apprehension, guilt, and remorse. This is not to be a confession, as the important people in my life already know the particulars, but more to the point, this post is about the how and why of the behaviors I have been exhibiting for quite some time. In short, I have failed a large number of people in my life as well as myself and today I will examine the specific behaviors that led to this as well as to document a plan forward.
I cannot pinpoint a specific time that it all started. Like many things in life, this has been a gradual decline that gained momentum as it progressed. I can say that a level of disappointment in my life is probably a trigger to the behavior I am about to describe. I have been an avid gamer for as long as I can remember, from Dungeons & Dragons and mundane board games to the great social giants of MMORPG's prevalent on the Internet today. I have enjoyed this activity immensely and as I realize now, achieved a natural high on dopamine as my reward for playing. Because this has been a mainstay in my life for such a long period of time, and very few people have called attention to this activity as being destructive, I had a great deal of confidence that there wasn't a problem in engaging in this activity, that it was completely normal, justified, and there was no reason to stop or even scale back on the practice. As a child, this category of activity is even encouraged, leading to this level of thinking and the resultant shock that it can even be considered a problem.
In my early adult years, it was easy to balance the gaming with other aspects of my life. My hormones and activity was completely normal for my age in all respects. I had many girlfriends, went to college, was able to keep jobs, and was a generally happy and healthy person in all respects. It wasn't until my first marriage that I can spot a period of time where gaming completely dominated my life for a solid week. The predictor was a failing marriage were my wife at the time went away for a week, I fell into a depressive state, got a medical release, and stayed in my apartment playing Baldur's Gate. I only broke off the game to eat, go to the bathroom, and sleep. While I was able to rise above this period and continue, it is, most certainly, a period where an addiction is evident.
Some other behaviors intervened, but the gaming never stopped. New games replaced old ones, but I was always playing at least one, if not several games, and from the time that computers were common, I have never been more than a few feet from one loaded with a game or several. At every point since I can picture myself sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, often when there was other things I should have been doing. Even though I chose computers as my career, it was not in the gaming industry, and my time was split between useful work and leisure activity while I was operating a computer. To put some time reference on this, the Commodore VIC-20 came out when I was 12, modems and bulletin board systems in my late teens, and the World Wide Web (Internet) in my 20's. It is, at the time of this post, now more than 20 years later, which means that I have practiced gaming for over three decades now, most of that time online in a social interaction with others in virtual space.
The true rise in social media and gaming began when I took a job with America Online in 1997, shortly before my first daughter's birth. There I was introduced to a truly interactive style of gaming which was completely immersive. At Gateway a few years later, they had a gaming room at the workplace where I was often found every break rushing back to my desk, sometimes late. The gaming had started to interrupt normal life at this point as I much preferred gaming to performing chores or even interacting with real people.
Over the next few years, I was able to relieve some of the gaming experience in the various subsequent jobs I had, but if I ever found free time, the gaming took over. I still only perceived it as a relaxation activity, but looking back, I missed a great deal of time with my children and other family in preference to playing various games. Ten years ago, I married a third time, this time to a woman who did not share any interest in computers, nor slacking off in any activity that wasn't productive. Although I still found time to game, it was always a point of contention between us. I even justified the gaming, insisted upon doing it, and at one point, setup my laptop on a TV tray in the living room as a compromise to the family so I could "spend time" with them and game at the same time. Realistically, even though I was physically present, my attention was only on the games.
New devices appeared, and the laptop gave way to the iPad and iPhone with a plethora of entertainment applications that were much cheaper and able to be played just about anywhere I went. Of course this was a simple leap for me and the more mobile devices became my mainstay for satisfying my increasing need for gaming. At first, these apps didn't have much of a social component, but now, of course, they are very sophisticated and interactive. The game makers, wanting to increase profit, redesigned the billing model to be more subtle, placing incentives for spontaneous purchases in exchange for greatly enhanced abilities in the games. The more sly game makers most likely used this to a great advantage and are now reaping profits in the millions, if not billions due to the spread of devices into all areas of the globe, leveraging the power of mass profit. Now, instead of buying a game once and playing it for free, they offer the game for free, and fleece profit over time through in-app purchasing.
The billing model is deceptive, as you really can be duped into not paying attention to how much is spent or even that you aren't really getting anything in return for your purchase except the dopamine rush of addiction. Many doctors are now comparing the addictive qualities to a drug addiction, and the physiological response is more closely related to a gambling addiction. I have personally witnessed bills in the hundreds per month on my credit card statements. Compare this to a game 20 years ago that cost a mere $50 to purchase that you could play for years before it became obsolete. There is now no doubt in my mind that we are seeing companies taking fiscal advantage of a physiological addiction without regard to their customers well being.
So, to the point of this post. It has taken my wife, my father, and a therapist to finally get me to realize how bad my problem is, how long it has been going on, and how hurtful it is to everyone around me. An addiction of this magnitude generates a feeling in others that the activity is more important than they are. If it is the spouse feeling this, the activity can be compared to infidelity as the emotions and reactions are identical. In a clinical comparison, I may as well state that I have a gambling problem, an addiction to heroin, and am cheating on my wife in front of her eyes as there is no difference in those three from playing the game and being obstinate about doing so. It is so bad that in recent past, I have regularly spent up to 18 hours playing games and spent over 1% of my annual income per month on them (12% per year). I have heard that others spend more time and money than I have, which is astounding to me. For comparison, if you made $50,000 per year, that would translate to $6,000 in game related expenses a year and leave only 8 hours for activity not related to gaming per day, most of that spent in sleep.
I have chosen to leave this where it stands. To quit all games in order to return to a normal level of family activity, get over the addiction, and perhaps return to a much reduced form of gaming if it can be controlled. I have lost many thousands of dollars that I cannot recover, but more importantly I have lost precious time with my wife and kids that I can never get back. I will leave you with a story that hit home to me this morning. I chose to stop this activity just last night, and have deleted the games from my devices. This morning, I dropped my son off at day care and the teacher commented to me that I must be not traveling this week. This surprised me as I have not been traveling for several months. She explained how she knew....it was because she could tell a difference in my son's behavior when I was home. I smiled and left, without telling her the truth of the matter, but it was immediately evident to me what the truth was. When I wasn't gaming, my son exhibited different behavior than when I was focused on the game. Although the comment was hurtful to me, it wasn't intended to be. This, more than anything else, clinches my resolve to carefully monitor a return to gaming, if even I can trust myself to ever return.
I cannot pinpoint a specific time that it all started. Like many things in life, this has been a gradual decline that gained momentum as it progressed. I can say that a level of disappointment in my life is probably a trigger to the behavior I am about to describe. I have been an avid gamer for as long as I can remember, from Dungeons & Dragons and mundane board games to the great social giants of MMORPG's prevalent on the Internet today. I have enjoyed this activity immensely and as I realize now, achieved a natural high on dopamine as my reward for playing. Because this has been a mainstay in my life for such a long period of time, and very few people have called attention to this activity as being destructive, I had a great deal of confidence that there wasn't a problem in engaging in this activity, that it was completely normal, justified, and there was no reason to stop or even scale back on the practice. As a child, this category of activity is even encouraged, leading to this level of thinking and the resultant shock that it can even be considered a problem.
In my early adult years, it was easy to balance the gaming with other aspects of my life. My hormones and activity was completely normal for my age in all respects. I had many girlfriends, went to college, was able to keep jobs, and was a generally happy and healthy person in all respects. It wasn't until my first marriage that I can spot a period of time where gaming completely dominated my life for a solid week. The predictor was a failing marriage were my wife at the time went away for a week, I fell into a depressive state, got a medical release, and stayed in my apartment playing Baldur's Gate. I only broke off the game to eat, go to the bathroom, and sleep. While I was able to rise above this period and continue, it is, most certainly, a period where an addiction is evident.
Some other behaviors intervened, but the gaming never stopped. New games replaced old ones, but I was always playing at least one, if not several games, and from the time that computers were common, I have never been more than a few feet from one loaded with a game or several. At every point since I can picture myself sitting in front of a computer for hours on end, often when there was other things I should have been doing. Even though I chose computers as my career, it was not in the gaming industry, and my time was split between useful work and leisure activity while I was operating a computer. To put some time reference on this, the Commodore VIC-20 came out when I was 12, modems and bulletin board systems in my late teens, and the World Wide Web (Internet) in my 20's. It is, at the time of this post, now more than 20 years later, which means that I have practiced gaming for over three decades now, most of that time online in a social interaction with others in virtual space.
The true rise in social media and gaming began when I took a job with America Online in 1997, shortly before my first daughter's birth. There I was introduced to a truly interactive style of gaming which was completely immersive. At Gateway a few years later, they had a gaming room at the workplace where I was often found every break rushing back to my desk, sometimes late. The gaming had started to interrupt normal life at this point as I much preferred gaming to performing chores or even interacting with real people.
Over the next few years, I was able to relieve some of the gaming experience in the various subsequent jobs I had, but if I ever found free time, the gaming took over. I still only perceived it as a relaxation activity, but looking back, I missed a great deal of time with my children and other family in preference to playing various games. Ten years ago, I married a third time, this time to a woman who did not share any interest in computers, nor slacking off in any activity that wasn't productive. Although I still found time to game, it was always a point of contention between us. I even justified the gaming, insisted upon doing it, and at one point, setup my laptop on a TV tray in the living room as a compromise to the family so I could "spend time" with them and game at the same time. Realistically, even though I was physically present, my attention was only on the games.
New devices appeared, and the laptop gave way to the iPad and iPhone with a plethora of entertainment applications that were much cheaper and able to be played just about anywhere I went. Of course this was a simple leap for me and the more mobile devices became my mainstay for satisfying my increasing need for gaming. At first, these apps didn't have much of a social component, but now, of course, they are very sophisticated and interactive. The game makers, wanting to increase profit, redesigned the billing model to be more subtle, placing incentives for spontaneous purchases in exchange for greatly enhanced abilities in the games. The more sly game makers most likely used this to a great advantage and are now reaping profits in the millions, if not billions due to the spread of devices into all areas of the globe, leveraging the power of mass profit. Now, instead of buying a game once and playing it for free, they offer the game for free, and fleece profit over time through in-app purchasing.
The billing model is deceptive, as you really can be duped into not paying attention to how much is spent or even that you aren't really getting anything in return for your purchase except the dopamine rush of addiction. Many doctors are now comparing the addictive qualities to a drug addiction, and the physiological response is more closely related to a gambling addiction. I have personally witnessed bills in the hundreds per month on my credit card statements. Compare this to a game 20 years ago that cost a mere $50 to purchase that you could play for years before it became obsolete. There is now no doubt in my mind that we are seeing companies taking fiscal advantage of a physiological addiction without regard to their customers well being.
So, to the point of this post. It has taken my wife, my father, and a therapist to finally get me to realize how bad my problem is, how long it has been going on, and how hurtful it is to everyone around me. An addiction of this magnitude generates a feeling in others that the activity is more important than they are. If it is the spouse feeling this, the activity can be compared to infidelity as the emotions and reactions are identical. In a clinical comparison, I may as well state that I have a gambling problem, an addiction to heroin, and am cheating on my wife in front of her eyes as there is no difference in those three from playing the game and being obstinate about doing so. It is so bad that in recent past, I have regularly spent up to 18 hours playing games and spent over 1% of my annual income per month on them (12% per year). I have heard that others spend more time and money than I have, which is astounding to me. For comparison, if you made $50,000 per year, that would translate to $6,000 in game related expenses a year and leave only 8 hours for activity not related to gaming per day, most of that spent in sleep.
I have chosen to leave this where it stands. To quit all games in order to return to a normal level of family activity, get over the addiction, and perhaps return to a much reduced form of gaming if it can be controlled. I have lost many thousands of dollars that I cannot recover, but more importantly I have lost precious time with my wife and kids that I can never get back. I will leave you with a story that hit home to me this morning. I chose to stop this activity just last night, and have deleted the games from my devices. This morning, I dropped my son off at day care and the teacher commented to me that I must be not traveling this week. This surprised me as I have not been traveling for several months. She explained how she knew....it was because she could tell a difference in my son's behavior when I was home. I smiled and left, without telling her the truth of the matter, but it was immediately evident to me what the truth was. When I wasn't gaming, my son exhibited different behavior than when I was focused on the game. Although the comment was hurtful to me, it wasn't intended to be. This, more than anything else, clinches my resolve to carefully monitor a return to gaming, if even I can trust myself to ever return.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
19 September 2013
you know, sometimes im not sure people understand how to communicate in this newer technological world. especially those of us that are getting into middle age. i suppose this is what our parents felt when we were trolling the BBS boards of the early World Wide Web. it is so hard to remember a thought process over time, much less communicate it real time. Yes, I'm talking about Instant Messaging, something started by the very BBS's i spoke about earlier, and brought to the layman user with the venerable AOL. Todays version though is loaded with features only dreamed about twenty years ago, picture, video, and short audio exchanges as well as VOIP phone calling, group chatrooms where all sorts of intimate things are shared with a wide audience. Gone are the days of writing out thank you letters for Christmas, or calling someone on the phone because thats the only way you could communicate....no, now its texting (sexting too), in a nearly pure virtual world. by the next generation, im wondering whether physical contact will be necessary for conception. "Demolition Man" with Sylvester Stalone actually predicts such a society and targets the year 2032....freaky?!?
i urge everyone towatch "Parental Guidance", a newer movie starring Bette Midler and Billy Crystal that touches on a broader range of similar changes that have taken place.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
11 September 2013
Certainly a day to reflect upon the tragedy that is now 12 years in the past. Those that died upon U.S. soil in New York, Washington DC, and to the fated airliner that our countrymen managed to wrest control away from the terrorists. Today also marks a few other days to remember personally. My wife's mother's birthday, my own mother's birthday, and the day I met my current wife. Yes, today seems to be a focal point in the space time continuum that is a recurring theme in my life. It is not without some apprehension that I approach this day, one marked with so much significance. Most certainly a day of reflection.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Ruminations
So, I'm watching "The Real Story" on the Smithsonian channel where they are detailing the story behind the Bruce Willis movie, "Live Free Or Die Hard." As always, my curiosity is peaked for the truisms and sheer possibilities presented. One question keeps running through my head though. Why, in all my research, reading, and seeing shows, either fictional or reality, has the United States or it's citizens been portrayed as the victim of cybercrime? Surely other nations are targets and face the same problems from cyber criminals as the U.S., but for whatever reason, these other nations get secondary billing. I suppose if there were a story (fictional) about an American hacker attacking another nation, the impression would be far different. Would the impression be the top nation being a bully?
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