Life has a habbit of falling into loops. Like learning to program, you have a field day with loops - I remember when I played with BASIC for the first time, learning colors, then finding loops, I flooded the screen with random colored letters, phrases, etc. and then had it scroll the entire screen - it was fun, it was all I knew, it was new and cool.
Life is a lot like that lately, seems the more I push forward, the desire to go back to what I knew, what I know, what is safer, is all behind me, that is familar - in front of me is new people, new things, new responsiblities, new possibltiies. Change is scary - anyone who says it’s not at least a little, is either a VERY strong person, or is insane 
the more I look at the situation that I have blogged about over the last few days with this one client, I realize more and more, they are hitting some major change - new staff, new possiblities, new layout, new code, new everything, and systems within their org. I have started pushing for change means 1 more thing to learn, more time to devote to learning. Thus why they are going backwards, falling back to what’s safe, what they know, what they can handle. And that’s fine, but in the end, that means I am not needed anymore - I can’t innovate old code without changing it.
I am not trying to toot my own horn, not by any means, but I like to think progressive in sites - I am not talking all the latest buzz words like AJAX, FLASH, RUBY, etc. etc. - I am talking about taking old ideas, and spicing them up a bit. Take CMCentral.com - one of my more long time clients, for the longest time, it ran phpBB, I brought in a new software, fought up-hill to get it, but its more secure, stable, and commercially supported - we have a problem, we ask for help, we get patches - that change took some fighting to get, same with re-writing the backend, which took about a year longer than I imagined, but I had a lot come up in my life at the same time - but in the end, the software is doing alright - but I like to push forward, that is in everything but my own life.
A few years back I said I wanted a life, I said I wanted to get in shape, I wanted to get out of my rut of work, money, gadgets, and no friends. So here I am, in the past 4 months I have done more away from a PC than I have in 5 years, gone places more than I have in 10, and made non-computer purchases (I mean lawnmower vs. gps? no contest!) - but as of late, with things getting stressful with this one client, and things falling through on the company who I hoped would take over some of the management duties of FH/TN - I am desiring to fall back into my old ways - they are familar, they are comfortable, they are fewer suprises - but as much as I’d like to go splurge and get a iMac 20inch (one thing I have been considering this evening) - or keep servers as they are, I didn’t start this journey to re-vamp the business even more for more personal life, and do things like a Gym Membership, just to let them sit by and do nothing - so I need to get my butt in gear and get to the things I had setup.
As I chatted with Jon the other night, blogging lately is sanity for me, helps me unwind, let’s me put some of the things I can’t find a way to say outloud, at least written down to where its half out of my brain, sure sure, why do it public? I dunno, maybe just so I know someone is reading it with me, and my words are heard, and that folks who 5/10 visitors are folks I know, not someone searching for “Stargate” or “E-500 vs E-300″ from Google - so again tonight I have a prayer request, keep me in your prayers that I keep pushin on, that I make the changes I need to make, maybe it is time to find a staff, get a loan and hire a crew, who knows, another thing to pray about, but last thing I wanted to do was take all the clients and put them with a company who had over 25+ server outages in a 3 week period - I know there are bad weeks, bad days, etc. but in this move, changes, etc. I want to do so with my best foot forward - so please keep me in your prayers that I find the right solution, that I make the right choices, and that I keep on keepin on! (go Joe Dirt!).
p.s. if anyone wants to pool together to get me a iMac CoreDuo, please let me know, going to be selling my iBook to my cousin for school I think (praying about that too) so kind of want a mac to fill the void, but who knows - donations welcome, iMac’s to my door even better 
Night folks.
Life full circle - twas bound to happen I suppose - got some nice time off in life, sorta, ventured out, had fun, hung with friends, but it seems here I am again, back where I started, 2am mornings, wide awake, and the usual hooplah of work in the sidelines - such a odd life I lead sometimes.
The site I mentioned last night which I may of essientally ended my job, well I had 1 out of 3 people who I hoped would respond, respond at all, and they agreed with my views - however in doing some work tonight for that site I found another programmer had been working on things - just kinda hurts my brain - more and more this site makes itself more and more complicated (hince the title of this post) - I look at it even 6 months back, simple, functional, expandable, accessable, however now its cluttered, high-end, not old skool friendly, and from the looks of this new code from another programmer, its heading towards more complex. Some might call that progressive, but I think a site can be progressive, and still work with low-end users - not everyone can afford a dual-core processor PC or Mac or things like DSL/Cable.
So I may honestly just quit,not sure - but if I do, afterwards once things have calmed down I’ll probably discuss this site a tad more openly, just as an active client, I don’t want to be naming names, and give fuel for the fire should something go horribly horribly south - the joy of working - I mean I can’t complain about all my clients, some have truly blessed me, and taken care of me (heck one feeds me almost weekly!) - but its sad when it’s a long term client like this and their view has changed and no longer do they see me as an asset to the site, but almost more of a liabilty it would seem, I dunno, again - this may just be my sleep deprived anxiety of the whole matter - but I have done the web a long time, and this client is making some fatal flaws in their plan, and not keeping the entire crew informed, left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing.
Well such is life I suppose - nose burried work for over 6 years my life was simple, wake up, work. SMS beeps, wake up, check a server. Client calls, let them rant for hours - simple enough, easy, predictable - but try to throw in a personal life, tad more complicated Should of expected it - but above all this bunk, the one thing that bothers me the most? No one will go to waffles with me at midnight. What kind of world is this?!
Anywhoo - keep me in your prayers, busy busy busy around here, lots getting done, but still lots more to do, lack of sleep, some high stress, but some great rewards amoung it all - God is Good, can’t complain, but I can be overly tired and exhausted! Oh and pray for Rosie too - she has a final this weekend! I’m sure she’d appriciate the prayers. Night all.
Even 6 months ago there wasn’t as many attempts on servers, I mean sure you have your automated SSH attempts, FTP attempts, folks trying to brute force a common list of account names “joeuser” “bob” “administrator” etc. for a common, easy, password - the common rule from olden days (aka the comedy classic Hackers) was words like sex, power, money, god, etc. things that are all too common in the day - but since rollerblades become popular (ie Hackers) - the war has moved elsewhere.
I have some clients which still to this day are HTML only folks, they only use HTML, they don’t want to try a CMS, they don’t want to make a Blog, their photo gallery they do by hand, and to them, I want to give them a hug for being sticks in the mud - less security concerns there (granting their username isnt bob and their password isnt power!) - but things like Message Boards, Blogs, Galleries, CMS systems - all lately have had seemingly an increase in attacks, this morning I got a txt’d from Julie saying they had a site defaced - not the worst of hacks, but still, requires attention, cleanup, audit to ensure files aren’t infected - and in some cases, wiping everything, and starting from a few days old backup.
So my advice to anyone out there who runs their own blog, their own gallery - and mainly any application which you can goto a .com and pickup - check for updates, check for new relases, and stay up on it. One of my customers has 1 semi-dated application, and another which is who knows how far behind in updates - this weekend he has quite a task ahead of him in updating these dated apps - sadly a worry I see if the loss of data or database corruption if a proper upgrade path isn’t taken - if your unsure how to update an app (aka a friend installed it for you, or it “came with my hosting”) - post a comment, ask away - unsure if your version is old? Check the software’s homepage, if it’s not posted all over “NOW VERSION 3.20391!!!!!!” check the downloads page, 99% of the time it’ll be listed next to the download link - but if you have questions, worries, need help in a walk through to backup, post a comment and I’ll be glad to offer help if I can either privately or via IM (and soon IRC) - just don’t think “Oh I’ll never get hit, my site is too small” - I have had personal websites which get less that 50 unique visitors a month get taken down, so no one type of site is targeted.
That’s my rant for the day - go about your business
Man what a whirl-wind week thus far, lots done, more on the plate to be finished up, been toying with CMC’s newsletter system, ick. I love the software, runs awesome on my other servers, but somehow on CMC’s end it kinda sucks lol - had more issues with folks not being able to unsubscribe, server overloading, etc. very odd to say the least - but the upgrade is going to wait another night as something isn’t quite right, and the server keeps running out of drive space (problem I hope to fix tomorrow).
Other news, iPod 5G enroute. Another awesome client who has enjoyed my work, and to say “thanks!” they are giving me an iPod, plus they are working on getting me a “disposable” cell phone, and by that I mean a phone I am not afraid to take with me while tumbling through the hills on my bike, running over with my car, etc. aka not my Treo - so they are working with their T-Mobile Rep to see what they can spring me
3 x 1.5 = 4.5, part 2. Tomorrow afternoon I am going to make yet another attempt to be at the office and let the screwballs Arrival get the new line up and running, I can’t say I honestly miss working with Arrival when it comes to data based lines, I remember my first year of business, as I am sure Jon does too - many late nights online/offline as the line would go up, then down, then up, then down, then up - then offline for a afternoon. Tons of fun - in this case its a “This time for sure” scenario, they believe they have all issues worked out, and should be able to fire me online ASAP - can’t say I see it happening, but here’s to hoping.
Lastly, I may of killed a job I have today by a post I made, not sure, time will tell. Basically had some things I needed to get off my chest, and did so. Granted by no means what I had down in email, but none-the-less, I hope it’s taken as constructive advice and not me complaining, just 9/10 anymore I feel left out of the loop, then someone comes down on me about XYZ which I knew nothing about, or another person gives me the “Good Soldier” speech and tells me my every waking moment, my every desire, my every waking moment, should be for SiteX - so who knows, they may say “See ya!” - sad to leave, but may just be time…. oi. what a world.
That’s all I got. I need to put up a pop-up on HaF - and then it’s off to bed, hopefully before 5am. (riiiight) - Anywhoo, night all.
In my days of the internet past there was many types of “effects” there was the ever popular “Slashdot” effect, in which if your website/product/crazy post was featured on Slashdot.org, 9/10 the traffic which followed equaled over-quota, server crashing, etc. to a smaller, yet powerful scale there was the “Gnome” effect, LockerGnome.com also had a habbit of this, the newsletter would feature some software one week, and when you checked your email that evening to view the site you were greeted with a note “We’ve been gnomed” lol - one of the many reasons software companies upload now to mirror services, C|net downloads, etc. save them selves.
Well tonight I get to experience a real world example of a “MySpace” effect - Myspace is so viral it’s not funny, 1466 people from Awaken Industries MySpace profile will probably be getting a notice shortly that there favorite friend has finished their website, and thus traffic will increase, increase, and increase. As people fwd. that bulletin to others, and as they go forth to the site - so hopefully my server can stand the test of the modern effect of MySpace, may the Lord have mercy on my soul, and my servers!
p.s.: the site is up at awakenindustries.com
I usually don’t post much about mac software, there are rare gems out there thought which I do use from time to time, one of which is SubEthaEdit from CodingMonkeys - well to that end BLOGZOT 2.0 on MacZOT.com, has arrived offering a highly discounted version, and possibly a “FREE” copy for some lucky folks who blog about it (what can I say, I like free, and I like Coding Monkeys).
So to help the good folks at macZOT make another spectacular offer of goods, I am making the post about them do yet again this crazy give away with the TheCodingMonkeys of $105,000 in Mac software - and good software at that - SubEthaEdit has been on my iBook since day one, I don’t use my iBook all too often anymore - but I do plan to get a nice MacBook Pro or possibly a iMac in the coming months and if I do, SubEthaEdit is always on restore disk, I use it for personal use (which is free) but nothing wrong with a free fully registered version
I need a nap sooner or later, but for now, that I am back home, it’s time for some final touches to a website or two which are in their second day of final touches and get them online, then for both, pray the rush of MySpace users doesn’t make my servers cry.
Posted on 25 April '06 by Chuck Brown, under basic goodness. No Comments.
So today I got to sit and work on a server install in the middle of my day (finally came home because it was taking forever) - but while there, I got bored and I made this pretty video… enjoy.
Posted on 24 April '06 by Chuck Brown, under random thoughts. No Comments.
