random ramblings of a crazed nerd

So today I was excited about quotes, however when I checked in on the status, he was a tad tied up, but is going to come in tomorrow morning and go over things with me, in the end to sell this I think we’ll REALLY need to do a off-site demo with the boss-man as well as something onsite to demonstrate the speed of things.

In other news while I was eating lunch I had 2 visitors come in, one was the head of personal/accounting the other is her friend who does filing around the office - so we chatted for a little bit about things, laptops, etc. then she asked her friend to leave and shut the door - so knowing that my 90 days was here, I wondered what it would bring - she started off with the good news a 7% raise, and another review in Feb. so now making $34,240 a year - not too shabby on top of hosting, also since I am 90 in I can now get health insurance, hopefully vision too as I’d like to get a new pair of glasses! One negative point did come up in my review which was I spent too much time on sales, which I had recognized myself, I do have some on-going projects on that side, and some of the print work I do, does require me over there, but I let her know I have been working on doing rounds during the day and it was a work in progress - that seemed to make her happy. And that was that.

So I have about $100 roughly more per paycheck, which is nice - every little bit helps, not sure if they are doing bonuses this year, but if so that’d rock to get that as well (fiscal year is done in the end of June) but none the less it’s something, and the fact that I don’t have to wait for a year before another review, that’s handy - so some major big cool deals today! Just had to get on and post about it, who knows may go out and celebrate tonight!

Anywhoo - back to the grind of it all, going to work some of a PHP project or two, been working on converting these DOS based exports to MySQL, so who knows if I can work that I can probably bring back a lot of reports they wanted - time will tell!

So tomorrow is the dreaded bi-weekly meeting… 830am I go into a meeting that I don’t honestly know why I must attend - but I do, I of course try to stay awake, but I make no promises - but I have a lot to do, I have about 5-6 more slides for the bosses presentation to get (got them just before the end of the day), last bits of taxes, figure out my ticket, launch 2 sites, fix up some billing, tweak some configurations on the server, and something else I am sure
I will note I am trying a second outsourced email provider, so far I like the webmail, I like the speed, performance, etc. the only thing I am not too keen on is the price. Granted for the price I get quite a bit, 10GB of storage per account, IMAP/POP/SMTP access via SSL/Secured so even nicer, compatible with Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Windows Mail (Vista), Outlook, Outlook Express, etc. etc. so far it’s more compatible than the last, but not as affordable on their reseller plan, with the other it was basically something I could really just absorb at some level into the cost of hosting, here were looking at the $1-$2 per account, but again 10GB of MAIL STORAGE.

Needless to say my brain is going about 30 different directions, allergies are killing me off of course I think the meds I took earlier for them are working quite well, except it’s removing the discomfort I was having, thus sleep is rapidly approaching! So little time anymore, seems like I get home, catnap -> eat -> work -> sleep -> shower -> work -> etc. and I forgot to gas up my car, grrr.

Anywhoo - probably a good time to call it a day, maybe run get gas… really only need about a half a tank, over 300 miles on this last tank, round abouts 342 miles on a single tank, quite lovely - so for now I will say “Good Night” I hope you all have a great Tuesday.

So far so good - I crashed out and woke up at 1pm, so fair sleep, got some minor issues out the way, and on a whim installed Installatron on Trogdor, hit a snag, but the guys at Installatron were awesome and quickly got me a work-around, and now all friends on Trogdor will enjoy the benefits of this great auto-instaler, frequently updated, some nice scripts to choose from - a major enjoyment indeed. If the budget levels out, and once I get all these assorted cPanel lic. cleared, as well as various tid-bit bills I have officially phased out cleared off the books, I plan to install it across all servers.

Tonight will be a night to relax, possibly going and hanging out with Dan and the nephews, I hope my scrabble skills have not gone down-hill, as I am indeed out of practice. But this will be one of the last nights I imagine for relaxing as I head into things moving forward this week with a spot job, a coding discussion, and a job interview - but none the less I am hoping things all work out and move forward, for now though, I am going to hit the shower - and get dressed for a relaxing evening, one way or another.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers over these migrations! Much appreciated - always glad to know I have folks watching out for me even on something that to some may seem trivial like a server move, but every little bit of prayer helps! So again thanks a million, and now I will go forth, and become clean! More later.

It begins. I have placed the order for the remaining 3 servers to get the core up and running, merging a few smaller systems into larger, and of course a few specialty servers which will host core service sites (aka FH/TN/TSWS) - the plan is to really get things rolling here in the next 2 weeks, Monday I am going to get the big bits done in software projects, finish the final plan for migration, and get things rolling with a full audit.

Lots to do, and I must do it all in 2 weeks, then it’s smooth sailing, budget survives easier, opens up to some other upgrades I have planned for all customers, now the big test, doing some searches to see if there are any apps NOT compatible with MySQL5, so far I see no reasons as to why any would NOT, but I want to check, and if things look good, I think I may just install MySQL5 by default and let sites import in and be upgrade to MySQL5 from 4, worked well on all other projects, heck this site is running on MySQL5 now too so it looks good.

Anywhoo - going to try to rest up the remainder of the evening, may try to rally up some folks for dinner, as once Monday starts, I may be MIA for a while. Prayers as always are appreciated greatly! And all support given is welcome! Here’s to a great migration, a great happy budget, and the occasional nap

So what do you do when a upgrade goes smoothly, you combat a few memory hogs, add in a few system tweaks, and just have a good upgrade window? Simple. You make a no bake cheesecake. Mmmm cheesecake. It’s in the fridge now on it’s last bit, since it’s late and when it’s quite electric mixers are insanely noisy, and folks are sleeping - I did the mixing by hand - I feel so old school.

All in all though, things did go good, did a run down of sites, even found a few dead ones, I should do a audit and clean up each server before years end, but honestly, smooth - looks like folks have been doing fair keeping things up-to-date, now if I can provide some easy tutorials to get things rolling in the “Bot Proofing” of apps, that would be even better! I have been looking at reCAPTCHA as an option, in some apps, there is plugin support, so should be pretty simple, but between that, and getting dead beats finally off, things can push forward, and by Feb. (if not sooner) I do want to try and be migrated to the new server, 8 cores, 8gb ram, mmmm tasty.

So I am counting down the time before I can go dig in, with as cold as it is, I could probably go eat it now and it’d be cold, I think it’s colder outside than inside my fridge (31F), there was a 3/16in layer of frost on my car, chevy heaters though, top-notch, from 31->198 (coolant temp) in about 5 minutes, very nice, very toasty, and makes for a quick get away at 5am (hey I was out of milk!).

Anywhoo - Happy Saturday to ya, and if anyone wants to get me something for Christmas (hint, hint) keep an eye on my Amazon Wish-list, I am going to expand it soon and add in some apartment things, starting to plan, and get some of the expenses out of the way now (cooking goods, furniture, etc.) - so aside from the movies/games/books on the list - watch for more goodies for the home, as I would LOVE to have my own place by my Birthday in Feb. I mean hit 28, have my own place again - would indeed be nice. Happy Saturday Folks!

So it’s true, what goes around, comes around. I lost a customer to another hosting company, no real reason given, they just requested a cancel, said a few happy words about my services, but then left, well then the company goofed, and I gained one of their customers lol. Funny how life works, but client is all setup and happy now, apparently I have features hostX doesn’t! Very nice.

Today was Test Turkey Day - the dry run for my dad before the official bird for turkey day, and already, I am trying to fight the desire to take a nap lol - but it was a good lunch - tasty, some good mashed potatoes, some good dressing, definitely going to make some homemade biscuits this year - have to dig out my old recipe.

Code tonight is the plan, just unwind the evening working on textmate writing up some spicy code to get ready for a meeting at some point this next week with a client, it should be polished up by Monday enough for a demo display - then its onto phase two which wraps up a lot of the code for production, and Monday I “officially” start on the other project, which is really just code cleanup so code code code!

Had a fun dinner last night, got the call from Jake and joined him, Scott and his sister Sarah @ Denny’s for some grub and hanging out - it was nice, a fun evening, even a crazy waitress hitting on Jake (ooo la la) - but it was a fun evening, I’d really like to get a regular night a month or every other week or something for hanging out with friends and a meal.

Anywhoo - back to it, going to do some upgrades on software, also looking at Java based IRC clients for some customer support in a “Live” setting, so a full afternoon/evening setup, so now I must work, and fight the effects of turkey on the human body. Zzzzz.