Well I have been scarce the last couple of days from the online world in any size-shape-form, my home internet access has been horrible lately - but yet, as one tech support person said “Have you worked here before?!” as I was giving tons and tons of diagnostic information as internet tech is one of those things I tend to diagnose a bit - so when its down hard, I am living on GPRS (thank God it’s unlimited!) - but the bandwidth on my GPRS is soooo limited, 28-33.6k modem at best, but hey - it’s better than nothing, and allows me to SSH.
The LCD vs. Phone delima - the winner? Oh I give in, I think in like 30 minutes (granting I am still awake & the internet is online) I am going to snag the 2nd LCD for the desk, and the Treo650 - granted its gonna all go on credit, but Newegg is now offering 90 same as cash, so I can break it into 3 payments over the 90 days - which makes it a breeze to pay as I have some consulting gigs and projects which should have payment to me within that time - so paying off the total should be easy.
Worked this morning on Rosie’s computer - got it all in the case, mobo lined up, runnin smooth at 1.4.ghz with 768mb of DDR333 ram - lil AGP card in there, KyroII chipset from Hercules - but all in all, it’s shaping up to be a awesome little rig, just need to get Windows and Office on there for her, going to check with Dan what he can get me educational wise for pricing since she’s a student, get her some legit & affordable software, or she can have my copy of Works 2005 that came with my laptop as I uninstalled it since I own Office Basic - ah the joys of Microsoft.
Anywhoo - with only 3hrs of sleep (i think it was more like 1 1/2hrs) under my belt, I am still pushing myself this morning to keep functioning - but its gonna be a stretch as I am hungry and food tends to invite a touch of sleepiness. So hopefully the ISP doesn’t call and wake me up! (but I secretly wish they would) Well food here I come, and possibly a powernap.
Ah Microsoft… how insane you are. I purchased your software, and in turn since my first install got jacked up, and I had to reinstall a second time, I flagged my Key Code as “Too Many Uses” - thus I had to call, the automated system was kinda retarded, as it wanted me to SAY the numbers, thus it failed, and then the operator was talking REALLY quiet. So much for buying software and being trusted - maybe I don’t need a gaming rig… Unbuntu.. keep showing me love here.
UPDATE: Yet again - when doing windows update, having to validate AGAIN - maybe it’s time to sell this rig and just get a Dual G5… Dear Apple.com…
Well the last 24 hours have been a hoot - got called into the gym for music issues - apparently one of the local computer outfits who built all their computers & service them decided to come in and do some ‘clean up’ well in turn he installed a firewall on the computer that does music - that’d be fine and dandy if I didn’t have VNC running to allow them to use the back computer to manage music from the front desk - lot easier than re-wiring all the audio stuff, so I had to modify firewall rules to allow the main computer access - I wish they had been more ‘intelligent’ rules, like allowing me to let the local subnet only access port 5900 - but it works now - so one less worry for them…. the joys of work - but thankfully I like the 7steps crew, so I had no issue in going down, hung out and talked for a while afterwards.
Now onto the big delima in life right now - SmartPhone (Treo650) or LCD (Acer 17 (matching black monitor)) - part of me REALLY wants a Treo 650 - but it’s a lot of money down, a lot to put on a card, and if the TM credits happen then its no big deal, essientally I am not paying for cell phone service for a year, and have a nifty phone.
The reason for the LCD is I want to swap out my last CRT, take my prettyful Samsung SyncMaster 753df and put it on my parents computer, and take my parents monitor and put it on the computer I am building for Rosie to use for school - but 2 17inch LCD’s on my desk would look incredibly cool, but also give me a LOT more space to work with!
But it all comes down to cold hard cash - part of this week has been set to re-working some sites to maybe help towards that end, I want to get profits up 10% by year’s end, and between naps, loafing, and wandering around town this week, I have been mapping out new FH/TN as well as thinking up promotions and new “LARGE” packages for both for those wanting to start off with more space, more bandwidth, and possibly even their own chunk of a server - plus backup solutions are on the table too - but that’s only spawned from me working on backing up my own PC’s here.. good times.
Anywhoo - thats my random bit for the day, need to go swap my laundry over to the dryer - need the clean clothes 
Adios.
Welcome to the halfway point. Wednesday. How much work have I done on client projects thus far? Honestly? About an hour for one, but it wasn’t major, plus it helped me with one of the things I have been relaxing doing - the joys of working on personal projects vs. someone elses - don’t get me wrong, I love working on Client things, service enhancements, software tweaks and features for websites, but it has been ages since I really sat down and actually poked at one of my projects.
Backups is one of the things I had been wanting to work on, as my home system didn’t have a ‘perfect’ backup solution, but for $8 a month I am trying out a service which thus far I am loving being on Linux to use - rsync to the web, currently rsyncing over ssh -> backup service - wrote a tiny backup script in bash to automate it a bit, but it’s syncing up thunderbird right now, going to set it to do maybe every other night backups - but it also syncs up my Docs from my linux box, and a drop box folder I made, so if I need access to something at work/on the road, it’ll be in the web interface, but more detailed info on this service in a future post.
Treo650… oh how I hate thee. I figured if I was longing for this device, before I shelled out a ton of cash, the least I could do is give it a whirl, so seeing as one of the few providers who carry it is Cingular I called the shop next to my gym to see if they had a demo in stock I could come preview - sure enough the nice lady said they did - went in and checked it out, such a awesome little unit, it is indeed little - but such a good feel in the hand, not too bulky like my brother’s new iPaq Smartphone - all the PalmOS greatness I have come to know and love, plus camera phone, bluetooth - so I’d be set for a lot of goodies, while I still wish Palm offered a hybrid 802.x/memory sd card, for now the GPRS/BT will allow me to do some basic stuff. Come the 18th I find out if I earn $25 a head for the 35 user (soon to be 40) referal of my brother’s work’s cells to T-Mobile, $800+ credit would easily allow me to justify getting the Treo650 from the link below, but then also sell the V551 (Unlocked GSM) and the Tungsten T3 (sexy pda).
Vacation is going well thus far, I did goto the office yesterday, faster upstream than home (2.3mpbs up/down), centrally located in town (aka downtown), and to top of it with the kicker, AC (it was 104F yesterday) so it was nice to hide out, and I did spend time browsing playing with code for this project I am working on for me, made some good headway, but so far my vacation away from Client projects is going well. Today I think I may even go to denny’s for breakfast, biscuts and gravy have been calling my name
Anywhoo - If anyone has any desire to donate a couple bucks to the Treo 650 fund, that would be awesome - as always not required, don’t feel obligated at all - just if you have the desire to you can use the following PayPal donation option:
Come on… everyone has a spare $569.99 lying around they can give me…
I have been pondering if I should actually ‘GO’ somewhere on my break - however as it stands, I am sitting in a rocking chair in my living room with my iBook, and firing up Pirates of the Carribean - so definately a tad more ‘relaxed’ than I am used to, sadly I do have one project hanging, been watching to catch someone on AIM to nail down the final bits on a app, but so far no contact… so I am just hangin a bit.
But plans for this week include things like (but not limited to):
- Loafing around.
- Going to the Lake
- Taking a Drive
- Hanging out at my old Jr. High
- Working out at the gym
- Buying a Treo650
- Going to the Bank
- Staring at the wall
All in all a fun week wouldn’t you say? I am trying to stay away from clients sites, projects, emails, etc. like the plague - I figure I have given people weeks and weeks of my time for over 5 years, least I should get is 5 days of free time to relax… but you never know, time will tell.
Anywhoo - time to start watching, so far there has been pirates attacking, so I suppose I should start following the plot now
Happy Vacation to you All!
So it’s nearly 3am on a saturday, why am I up? Oh the usual - been working 36h days off and on this week, but in trying to get caught up friday with some sleep - I in-turn woke up at odd hours, and thus here I am - 84F outside, kid sleepin in the other room (parents had to run up to SanFran) and a few more projects sitting on the to-do for this weekend, just been playing flip-flop with customers, and need to do some invoicing as well as some projects are done - and some by their nature, seem to never be done (ah the joys of people not testing things) - it’s not that I am not coding to their specs, its they may not like the layout, or silly things like decide after the fact wording isn’t what they want - but one thing I keep getting stuck with is the perpetual "I need this tiny update" - I feel like I am becoming a webmaster again for 40 different projects - so as such, going to be laying down some pricing as I can’t afford to do constant tweaks/upkeep on 40 projects and expect to get any work truly done.
But Saturday should definately proove interesting, definately going to be a interesting weekend as a whole, but hopefully, be it saturday night, or sunday night, get some real rest, and disappear most of this next week, leaving Monday afternoon (or so is my desire) but wether that will happen or not is yet to be seen, checks are slow coming in these past 2 payment periods, heck one of my usuals had issues with Direct Deposit and it took nearly a month to get paid, so spare cash for "doin stuff" is thin at the moment - but not entirely out, so who knows, everyone else is going to SanFran, maybe I need to as well
But thats really all I got - wanted to do some writing before trying to crash again, as it has just been a long day, and I had some stuff on my mind - but probably stop by the gym tommorow to make sure their new music system is working properly.. long story 
but just one of my many odd talents as a solutions provider - they needed music, wanted variety, found the best way, and affordable way at that, a tad bit of a "grey" area on legalities of a gym and various online audio services, but for now, it’ll hold.
Okay. Sleep becomes me (this time for sure!) prayers/well wishes greatly appriciated for this weekend, I really want to wrap up the projects I have ahead of me tommorow, just final tid-bits of code to clean up, but it seems like each time I start to do it, something/someone comes up with some crazy mission critical issue - and for the record if your bank tries to offer you a eCommerce solution, say no to if it’s called Your Pay…. long story. Night.
