Archive for 'prayer requests'
So woke up at around 5:30 or so, still feel a little bit edgy - but today short of some minor server work I have done already, to a service call this afternoon - the day should be pretty light, which is a nice change, I do have a possible server migration coming up next weekend, but it should be pretty laid back, just need to let the customer know we need to order his new server from his server company by Wednesday so its ready to go by Friday night.
I am hoping at some point to get some sort of photos, the 365 project has slowly become a lost cause, just been too many days were I was feeling sick and thus not at the computer to use the iSight, and on top of that, it would not be a pretty sight to be hold, but if I can get away for a bit, I think I am going to goto the lake, been a while since I’ve gone - just relax there for a while and snap a few shots.
CS3 should be here before 7pm, I know the UPS guy who runs our route, my dad fixed his classic Mustang - but he tends to get here around 4pm (on average) but usually later in the afternoon/evening, but it’ll be nice to get CS3 up and running, give Dreamweaver a look, and see what fancy things I can do with “Photoshop Extended” 
so should give me something to relax and do later tonight.
Anywhoo, prayers are appreciated - but to you out there after the iPhone, you really should see this video, it’ll explain how you will really use the iPhone take care folks! Have a Good Friday!
Well tonight sadly marked the end of the “Sleep Fest 2007″ for the last week or so, I got to bed early, woke up for maybe 5 minutes in the middle of the night, then passed out again to awaken early - tonight however, I laid down for a bit to try and stretch out after a day in the chair, and bam, out like a light, which leads me to 1:15am when I woke up and wasn’t just “awake” I was “UP! AND READY FOR DUTY SIR!” no idea why/what - just up.
So I am here working on some misc. things, one of which was upgrading Wordpress, sadly I had to ditch the k2 theme, just too many of the plugins I enjoy and hacked up to work all fancy, no longer work in this version for whatever reason, and I have no desire to poke around and find the old version that worked, so back to Wordpress basic templates again, this one isn’t my favorite, but it’ll work till I can get some time in to code some similar functionality as the last one, hopefully with the new tools ordered, I’ll get some time to give CSS another whirl and see if I can leave the world of tables and font tags behind
A good day for bringing in the bacon so to speak, cleared $900 in incoming today, should of been $1020, but none the less, $900 is better than $000! But things are picking up around here it seems, taking on this project has me jazzed, not the most money I’ve made on a design in my time, but not the least either, really at some level above and beyond as a way to thank the photographer for the deal and fun photos she took @ my friend’s wedding, its also a way for me to get my feet wet in design again, and while some tasks today took me much longer than they would of in the past, it felt good to be working on it again.
Plans for the early AM include, checking into an expired SSL cert., flushing a site that was compromised, putting in a manual apache hack for a client to help out, refreshing the CS3 order page for a tracking # constantly, and working on the sketches for secret project #20391, may even get some work done on the FH end of things, some updates I need to do, also hacking up the old TN layout I had done about 3 yrs ago, still looks good, just want to clean it up, make it little faster on the load time, and get it ready for production.
Anywhoo - keep me in your prayers, busy busy around here - things always seem to amp up, hoping to get some spare cash in the bank, and then open up a savings account for the first time in a few years, really want to build up my savings, and get some bills paid off, so hopefully I can keep up with the load, and get things rolling up and up. Thanks for stopping by! Have a Good Tuesday!
Well I awoke at 3:30am, and have been awake since, worked on putting up a coming soon splash on the Thrust Networks homepage - the design has been the same since the company started in 2001, so I figured some fresh paint was long-overdue. The splash is a logo refresh I actually did about 4 years ago when I originally started re-working the site, but never put up the enhanced re-build of the site, since then the old layout has gotten stale for me, and I want to freshen it up - rebuild the hosting packages offered, get it linked up in the online sign-up, and see what happens.
I have been working on Photoshop this morning, and purchasing CS2 last year it was fine speed wise… of course then I got my hands on the Photoshop CS3 beta, and wow, speed was dramatically different on the iMac & Macbook Pro, so I have been considering the upgrade - I just have the standard, but I really want to begin dabbling with Flash, and the new Dreamweaver as well, so I have been considering going from CS2 Standard -> CS3 Premium - its $200 more, but I think it’d be a sound investment as with one project I am working on if I could get action script & some cleverly crafted php working together I could do some pretty cool stuff.
So I am guessing the playful iPod 80GB will wait 
I think I am just never meant to get it, which I think *sigh* I can live with but the 35mm is still on the list, as it can be used for projects, business, and help in relaxing me - I want to get out with the Bakersfield photography group on Flickr and maybe shoot a couple events, part of me is tempted to brave the street-fair tonight with the E-500 and get some shots, all depends on my energy level.
Doing good thus far today, sleep last night was good, may try to sneak in a nap before the 4pm meeting, actually heading there around 3:00pm so I can get there, get on the Wifi and make sure I have access, if not the Dash is there and can easily access Edge, but I want to also setup a tunnel again so my traffic is routed via Home vs. open over the wireless @ Starbucks - so some tweaks before the meeting too!
Anywhoo - have a good one folks, continued prayers are appreciated!
No matter what I do, I seem to be tired, if I go out to try and move around a bit, away from my coding - I get tired, if I work around the house, I get tired, if I sit and code more than 3hrs, you guessed it - I get tired.
Been like this about a week, not a huge deal, but I did take the time today to get my bed set back up, so I could stop crashing on the couch, I’ll miss that couch, but the bed should let me hopefully unwind a bit more with more room to sprawl out - too many projects, so much on my mind, but its going good, pushing forward - can’t really complain too much.
Today I re-configured servers around a bit, changed around some cron jobs to lessen the load at various times, was having load spikes over 10 which had me worried, so I re-did some of the log related bits, I changed the other things like sa updates etc. so instead of happening around 9:30 each night, its all spread out a bit more, between 8pm and 10pm, which so far is working wonderfully.
I decided to hold off on the buying for a bit, as much as I’d love to get the 35mm lens, and a iPod - the timing isn’t right just yet, going to put half away - probably should actually get a Savings Account - been thinking of a iNG Direct account for savings - anyone heard anything negative? But if things continue to go as-is, who knows, maybe in a month or so, I’ll snag the 35mm and the E-510 body, again, who knows 
Anywhoo, meeting tomorrow, followed with possibly another later that evening to discuss the earlier meeting, hang out, and eat - so time shall tell what is to come, but I am tired, and I figure if sleep is wanting to visit, I’ll step away from the bright shiny thing here and visit with it and the pillow Thanks for the prayers folks, even though I feel like crap, I am positive about everything in the works! Have a Good Thursday!
Well I got an email tonight that the server was down, checked my phone to see if I somehow magically missed a page, report was okay, so I tried to login to the server, worked, hit the two sites the customer had issue with, worked. The issue? SMF 1.1.1 - it posts a phpsessid to the URL and thus triggers mod_security, well recent tweaks to the intrusion system I flagged a configuration option which reads the mod_security log, and blocks on its fails. Thus the customer’s IP was banned via the firewall.
I think I may be getting overly exhausted, I do that now and again in the middle of big projects and various things looming, I really need to take a photo day, heck maybe even a nap day to follow that but something is definitely not quite right, found myself today around 12:30 just dead tired, I took a nap till 2:30, then woke up, made some calls, helped Sam over at Fluxar get some PHP magic happening, then hung out a bit doing laundry, and I was exhausted again, laid down and woke up at 10pm - so just tired tired tired, going to try crashing out here again in a minute.
Got another project today, meeting a Photographer on Thursday @ Starbucks to go over some plans for her website, already jotted some notes from our call, and our previous talk at the wedding, but I think it should be fun, I have a server migration to plan, and I imagine in a day or so once all options are exhausted I’ll be getting a call from a site to look at an issue they are having, which leads me to spare cash.
Granted now I have some bills to pay, the big server setup a few months ago wasn’t what I’d call “cheap”, and some other expenses came up, so I have bills to pay, but I have been wanting to pickup a 80GB iPod 5G as well as a 35mm lens for the E-500, so I have both items sitting in my cart @ Newegg, just trying to hold off if possible, I know I could live without the new iPod, however I’d love to pickup the E-510 body (not the kit) and the 35mm lens, expensive, but it’d give me two 4/3 compatible camera bodies, 3 lenses - aka - lovely. With a wedding or two this fall season I’d love to get some time behind the lens and the E-510 before, but Newegg only has the E-510 kit, granted it comes with one lens I don’t have, but if I got that, I couldn’t get the 35mm also.
Anywhoo… I feel sleepy, so I am going to try sleep again, hopefully it comes, and hopefully the night is mellow. Night folks, prayers appreciated for my health, and if anyone feels overly generous to donate a 80GB iPod, E-510, 35mm lens, or even just some cash, let me know
Well after being sick the last two days (don’t blog sick -or- tired) I am feeling loads better, and prep’d for this week’s hosting drive, going to offer 8 packages a month - once those 8 are gone, they are done, each month the amount will reset, and the game begins again - I am considering making it the standard account packages, and just re-doing billing entirely (sounds fun right?) - but one step at a time.
Also looking at re-arranging the hosting environment, getting a larger pipe, a larger backup system, and a larger range group of customers - I have been throwing the idea around in my head for months, but only about a week on paper, going to make some calls this coming week - my hope, my goal, is to get things moved around easily, and with as little disruption as humanly possible - thus allowing me to migrate customers, servers, and hardware as needed - going to talk to a networking buddy to see if my concept of a load balancer or a high-end switch could re-direct entire groups of IP space to help ease the migration to the new IP’s as new DNS propagates.
About 6 years ago I picked up one of my first FH customers, a site hosted on a free “fan-site” hosting, and brought them over to my new hosting, and for 6 years this gal has hosted her website with me thru the ups and downs, gone to experimental servers, gotten more perks than I can count, and has kept a wonderful site - however she is stepping down from her site. I imagine the combo of that dreaded “real life” sneaking up with College/Work/Etc. running a site and doing web things seem to take a backseat - so I wish Rachael all the best, and her site will be missed!
Lastly, I want to thank those who prayed for my health/work - feeling a lot better, but I do have another prayer request, for this week - I have a few projects in the pot, and I want to get a few completed, not just “another step forward” one involves a lot of coding and tweaking of PHP code, and the other includes trying to rustle up more monthly revenue to possibly buy a house, or get an apartment - so both projects lead to that goal at some level, so prayers are appreciated.
Anywhoo going to try and get some sleep going, need to change my laundry around first though, but have a good week folks!
Tonight I had a nice gal at the drive thru, I wasn’t wanting anything special, just got a jumbo jack and a order of taco’s - but the gal at the window just seemed to be having a good day - she smiled, asked how I was, and got my order 100% correct, honestly it was the first person outside of my family who really asked me how I was - and I am doing pretty good. Tired, and possibly a touch a heat stroke (never stand on a roof mid-day in the summer) - but when you lay it all out, lay it all down, I am doing good.
Granted a few rough spots, my old 3yr old router (aka 2004 purchased) died today. May it rest in piece. Thus my new DIR-655 took it’s place, and only 1 device in the house takes advantage of it’s 802.11n-ness (the macbook pro) and that is pretty dang snappy - so I did have to snag the Pre-N enabler, but for $2 a small price to pay vs. buying a Apple based wireless router, now I need to get a gigabit switch for my linux server here in the house to keep things internally flowing snappy.
Got a few phone calls, took on a project I sort of half started the other day, and by 4pm I was done with it, had a call in the midst of it and other projects about a possible job, going to call on it tomorrow, would be possibly deploying a server, then another call of the possibility of a part-time job doing tech support and web stuff, so some job options piling up, who knows, might all work out, and life will smooth out with time, just don’t want to go back to work-a-holic mode sleeping at all odd hours, avoiding the rest of humanity, but time will tell.
One call I got was from a friend who got engaged over the weekend, she and her mr. man needed some advice on a brewing situation (not wallpaper choices) but do keep them in your prayers as they enter a crazy start to their life together, hopefully the situation at hand will resolve itself in the next 3-5 days, if not, I bring out the big guns….. more on that later maybe, but aside from the first little blip it does mean I have a new wedding to put on the calendar, who knows, maybe I’ll get the photographer deal, which would mean 2 things, #1 New Lenses, #2 E510? Oh yes. LoL.
I think I am going to wrap up my night by sitting in the front-yard, the wind has been blowing off and on, the moon is nice a full, the breeze is a very inviting sound, helps clear the brain - or if I don’t get that motiviated, I’ll simply head to my bed and pass out… time will tell. Night folks. Have a Good Fake Friday.
