Archive for November, 2006
In the hopes that there are spam bots out there crawling looking for tasty email accounts to swallow up, if you want one, snag this one:
chuck@subsonic.com
If your a friend, viewer, etc - send it email, we are testing out a anti-spam device, and trying to see what we get through filters, false positives, etc. so any and all mail helps - however please please please - do not sign it up for things just for the sake of trying to help - one or two is helpful.
More blog tonight, must finish up here at the office and head home sooner or later. Pray for my dad, he’s been sick the last few days, so prayers are appreciated. More later, brain scattered, bbl.
A chilly one, freeze advisories, the works - I was driving a little bit ago, coming back from a evening dinner with Mr. Sherman - and my car said “ICE POSSIBLE” lol - kinda nice to have it warn me there is a possible risk with the temperature that low.
A fun day, got some work done in the anti-spam dept. calls continue tomorrow to discuss pricing now that they have a “rough” idea of what I have going on - tomorrow also leads into the friend server first build & configuration, probably online by Friday if all goes well, does mean a software purchase, in the next 30 days or so - as we can play with cPanel for free for a bit and get things setup, but new year may also mean that the 6mbps line -> 10mbps line, so good possiblities.
Anywhoo - I am rambling (wait, thats the name of this blog) - tomorr.. er today beckons, and I need a few winks before I hit it head on. Night folks.
Posted on 29 November '06 by Chuck Brown, under basic goodness. No Comments.
Sometimes being the little guy in business has it’s perks - for one the big fish ignore you thinking your simply a fish they need not worry about - and I suppose for the most part that’s true - but in my case, I want big guy toys for my customers - for instance this constant search for spam filtering has left me wanting to drive to these companies and strangle someone.
I just love calling a company to have them go “Yeah?” as the response to being transfered to a guy in the sales dept. and have him instead say “Bob in Sales, how may I take your money?” I mean honestly, that’s what I want them to do, I have 3 companies coming in with me to look at anti-spam functions for our customers, me leading the way in total volume of accounts, but the spread helps everyone’s budgets - but in this company who will remain nameless (you know who you are bad anti-spam folk) - I just felt like they didn’t want a sale.
But that didn’t stop me, got on with my day, had lunch with Rosie, was interviewed on the news, hung out with matt, got some t-shirts (woohoo!) and arranged a lesson on the joys of SSH access with a friend, so it’s good stuff, and considering I am running on less than 4 hours of sleep, and its coming up on 1:30am, I think its time to wrap up, close the MBP, and enjoy the bliss of sleep - I am skipping a big part of my evening, but short end — work, car, jake, wow, food, relax, work, fix, work, studio60, now blog, then sleep. I think there was a Jon in there too - sorry Jon, I need sleep. Night all.
Posted on 28 November '06 by Chuck Brown, under basic goodness. 1 Comment.
… and that’s just this week 
This week leads in with a few phone calls on more anti-spam solutions, looking at appliances as a serious option, which would mean some serious cash laid out, possibly spread out along 3 companies, but not sure of the ease of management yet, but there are 2 more hosted solutions I can get elsewhere, so more calls, more long phone calls - but I think I may need to get a new Vonage box, as it seems folks can no-longer hear me, but I can hear them, doing another test once I get into the office today, but it’s been over a year since I got the original phone box, and I think its dead.
Backups/Meetings/Network goodies are all on the docket this week, should be the MacBook Pro’s real first major work week, it saw some useage this week at the beach for thanksgiving, but this week its real-world, work situations, so we shall see how it all plays out, got Parallels installed, and copied my XP image from the iMac, so its running, and the bluetooth link is setup so if I am out and about, I can get online in some form or another.
Another server migration is in the works, as well as some de-commissions coming, some servers which have been in use for over 3 years are about to be put down, they are still working great, but - they are getting harder to update, and even with a clean slate install, the catch 22 is the hardware is dated, newer, faster, more solid hardware is ready to go live.
But all things considered, I am doing good - tired, and yes, up to my old tricks of being awake at 3.30am, but hey - I think that’s just part of who I am, and honestly, I have been taking it easy, trying to keep things mellow, and get some things done, got a upset email on turkey day, but it’s the holidays, so I try not to take things too personally as everyone deals with the holidays differently, for some it’s the first holiday season while away at school, others its a fresh sting that the divorce is indeed final, and for many, it reminds them of who isn’t here any longer. So in the coming weeks, if someone is just straight-out-in-your-face-rude, cut them some slack, consider the blessings you have, and that they may simply be reacting to the things in their life, the old saying is still true, hurting people - hurt people.
So that’s what I have on my head here at 3.30am, I am going to go crash out, tomorrow it’s office from about 2pm till late, some updates to billing I want to do as well, and some customers I need to catch up with in regards to their accounts (security) the joys of being a webhosting company, who knows, maybe it’s time to kick this all up a notch, get a small business loan, get a building, a massive line, and bring it all back local… who knows - it’d sure be nice.
Well tomorrow is Turkey Day, I’ll be in Grover Beach with my fam celebrating it up, leaving tomorrow sometime and driving my rents up in my car is my guess (I like driving my car) - but all in all it should be fun, going to take the camera, and maybe have dad/mom drive part of the way so i can roll down my window and take some shots as we go - its a fun drive, that and I have never got to be in my backseat yet, always driving!
Got some fun news the last few days, a few new server contracts coming my way, which will help the finances some a nice recoup from the MBP purchase 
but that and the fact that across the board now my common OS is Mac, it is really easy to work across my network, not that I couldn’t with Windows, but a common OS is handy for some of the Mac-ish things I can do with some apps, like SubEthaEdit - so should come in handy.
I am trying to come up with something new for my bedroom, and considering getting a new LaserJet for the home office that is Mac compatible, as I have my Epson for Photo work, but with the Windows rigs slowly being phased out, I am hitting less and less things that can use the LJ1000, considering a 2300N which is Mac and Network ready, so it’d be nice to throw it on as a Network printer vs. something tied to a certain computer, just have it always on, and accessable from anywhere in the house, as well as routed into the linux box so I can get to it from the outside world.
Lastly, the war on Spam continues, its gotten worse for some, but not many companies are working with me and how I do business, they want me to pre-purchase X number of accounts to get a discount that allows me a minimal mark-up (if any) so for instance, at the base buy-in it’d be $2 per account for customers to make me like $0.10 profit, so at this point it’s either A) Buy a anti-spam/virus appliance -or- B) Live with the fact I am getting no profit, and offer 0 support to customers on the functionality, but simply pass the buck. Not sure what I am going to do yet, but hopefully I can come up with something soon.
Anywhoo - must find the adapter for the MBP (still needs a name) - as I have been sitting here over 3 hours and this battery has to give out soon! (not that I am wanting it to!) anywhoo - have a good Turkey Day folks, don’t eat too much!
Well the plans for Turkey Day are offical, I am going to drive up with the rents to Grover on Wednesday after mom finishes work, and spend a few days there eating turkey - should be tasty.
So I am sitting here, on my bed, from my laptop - writing the first of many blog posts that will come from this laptop, it has no name, but it is shiny - a new MacBook Pro, the specs for you Mac-a-Holics is as follows:
- MacBook Pro Core2Duo - 2.16Ghz
- 1GB Ram (soon to be 2 - possibly 3GB if money suddenly appears in my wallet)
- 120GB Drive
- 15.4″ screen
- Wifi/BT2.0
Already installed quite a few apps, I think I am going to shift a new POP3 account on it, macbook@somewhere.com (not sure what .com yet) - but its a great feel, a great look, and a great tool since a majority of the work I do on servers, consulting, etc. are all done via Mac - but now I can carry my iMac contents with me and actually use a Mac at the office vs. lugging what now feels like 40lbs of a laptop.
It was a rather hefty investment, one of which I do plan to get rolling on paying off the last bits ASAP - but it’s nice to have a Mac laptop again, I miss the G4 my cousin has now, it was a good laptop, and still is (she has it setup on her desk at her house) but this will mark the phase out of PC to Mac as a primary platform for me, granted I still have Parallels and Bootcamp - but not sure if I am going to do XP on a secondary partition, part of me just says “Bleh!” to games that aren’t Mac compatible, but I may change that tune, if I get a 200GB drive for the MBP.
Anywhoo - pics on Flickr, I am going to get back to downloading and installing apps before I get too tied up and forget to do things like I dunno, sleep. Night folks.
Posted on 21 November '06 by Chuck Brown, under basic goodness. No Comments.
Today might be a photo day. Not sure yet - a little time away from the Terminal may be nice, but then again, I may be stuck at a day of appointments, service calls, and server setups - apparently that is how one pays the bills but it would be nice to wander, snap some shots, and enjoy the weather (which has been lovely & cool lately).
Friends server is coming along, got the Linux discs burned, the temp lic. for cPanel, and the hardware is being configured in a lovely new case - so that may be on the docket for today, but I time will tell.
Lastly - been in talks with some various companies for Anti-Spam enhancements to folks email, however the catch 22 is some companies are talking $2-$3 per email account to filter, trying to get the amount down, but a few of these companies are giving me the “Well, just tell me XYZ, and I can give you a price.” - they apparently don’t have a fixed price list - so we shall see who wins the bidding process (aka, who gives me the best deal) - hopefully something concrete can be determined by 2007, so the new year can truly have a big-bang with features, upgrades, etc.
Anywhoo - coming up on 5am here shortly, I think I am going to get myself a cup of tea, maybe bake some biscuts, and relax a bit, maybe see if I can squeeze in a few hours of sleep, have a lunch visit with Rosie, dropping off some information for her on a school project she’s working on. So I hope you all have a good Friday & a great weekend!
