So today I gathered $585 dollars in total, $580 in checks, and $5 for installing MacBook ram for a guy, so quite a complete day, but it’s nice to have funds fixing up nicely, and getting back on track, and not only that, being blessed to get a buffer back, which I figured would take some time, some php, and strange side jobs.
I also got the last of the smaller servers setup, while smaller, still 8cores, less ram, less storage, but mainly for some side projects and smaller customers, so pretty happy that in servers alone I am saving some decent coinage, but still getting great hardware, performance on my blog alone has been wonderful, tonight after Denny’s (yes 3rd night in a row) I plan to migrate friend websites over, so friends, be-ware!
Okay - so Apple, while I may use a iMac day in / day out - and have a MacBook Pro, at heart I am a PC user, not a “WINDOWS” user, but a Personal Computer user, so anything that runs on a PC, be it Windows, Mac, Linux, BeOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, whateva! I am there, in the house alone I have XP, Vista, 10.4, 10.5, Ubuntu, and a small appliance running Gentoo - but that’s a secret - so when MacWorld comes around, the Stevenote while cool sometimes comes off a little “high and mighty”, and this year really was a bit much for my tastes.
The new stuff “eh” - while I will admit out of EVERYTHING shown today, the only thing which really makes half my eyebrow perk up is the 2nd Gen AppleTV - while it’s not the first time it’s been done, and nor is it something I couldn’t do with a off the shelf unit with some Linux magic, the idea I no longer need a system tied to it, a nice thought, but the price still keeps me away for now, maybe when I am rich and famous.
I kept hoping Air would have more redeeming qualities than a multi-touch trackpad, for me that was it, that was the only feature I found cool, the form factor to me seemed more like someone who needed a ultra portable word processor / email rig - something like Palm tried to make with the Foleo but in the end even it ultimately died before it began - but the unit didn’t preach to me and say “Covert unbeliever!!!” it screamed “I AM OVERPRICED, BUT THIN!” I could see it coming in at around $1,000, but knowing Apple’s pricing structure the idea of $1,200 was what came to mind, but nearly 2k, no thanks, I’ll just share my CD-ROM to my MBP and feel like I’m getting the same thing, but play WOW.
Watch the keynote, and once Steve starts talking about the iPhone, note the level of applause, then lead into the iPod Touch, did you hear the crickets? $20 for early adopters? Did we learn nothing after changing the price on the iPhone? Come on Steve, launch it if anything as a $0.99-$2 fee, something small, simple, get your customer base on board, because lord knows at the end of the day these new “adjustments” are going to lead to more Apple buying options for add-on software, iWork for Touch etc. so give the loyal subjects a break.
Other than Rentals which might be nice (but rumor is HD only on the AppleTV) - nothing that said “Chuck Save the Money!” so I doubt other than my hopeful Mac Pro to replace the iMac, nothing jumped out and grabbed me - nothing was “NEW and EXCITING”, a iPhone for non-ATT without jailbreak and such would of been nice, but nope, apparently AT&T still has a while longer.
Anywhoo - there it is, my day goes forward, coming up at 9pm for my evening hang-out with the guys, we are going to brave Denny’s another time, and I pray we walk away alive. Till next time, have a Good Tuesday, a Great Wednesday! Take Care!
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… here I am on a Saturday, I’d love to be sleeping right now, but I am wanting to migrate things and have a good plan in place, not to mention I am getting some great support from this new provider with the initial server roll-out. Code named “Trogdor” the server is looking amazing, they have worked with me to fine tune many little details, fix some small glitches, but so far, the server is online, 8 cores and all and looking good. Doing some dry-runs right now with the blog and such.
So I am truly thinking of making the move 100%, means dropping some cash, I just got it in the bank, and now it’ll all go away! LoL - but the nice thing is since it’ll all be paid up for a month, and no other company’s bill, it shouldn’t be so bad - but I am really looking at this move as a good thing, some more money in the monthly budget, some additional resources to give to customers, I can re-vamp some packages, all in all, everyone wins it seems.
The plan for the next lil bit here is to actually migrate this blog (should be moved) and a few other choice sites of mine, and friends over - a bit of a leap, but I need some real world testing ASAP so I can make the final call before moving galore. Prayers appreciated, who knows, I may move things, and take a nap More later!
Soooo…. another day, no checks. Not even a call back from the kMan, and the other ones I figure at the latest would be Saturday/Monday as they went out in the mail (the ol “Checks in the mail” bit) on Monday - so hopefully, tomorrow I’ll have some $1200+ in my pocket, and my budget will return to the land of happy.
Server world, things are looking good, company I am looking at to handle my servers looks really amazing, and the public seems to agree, still reading thru some reviews, and praying about it some more, but if I made the move, I’d be looking at nearly $400 in savings a month, and all the goodies I mentioned before - amazing emailing a sales got me a quick response and a great deal, so in then ext 3 days I may be making a big order, and making plans for migrations thru the end of the month.
But there it is, another day, still alive, fighting to stay positive at this point, but even though I am not actively thinking about budget, I know it’s on my brain, so here’s to cash flow returning to it’s proper levels tomorrow… have a good evening folks, going to go try to convince folks to go for food, or simply make myself something tasty.
So last night was a long one. Then it was followed up with a far too early start to more or less tell me what the emails I sent out said were possible glitches, but since no one was warned about the migration (not my servers/clients mind you) - I was woke up to deal with PHP5 issues… yay! It was all tiny stuff, but it required some research on why each app broke under PHP5, granted I could of stayed PHP4, but the core goal of this migration was to ensure a “Rock Star”’s website was functional in the morning and fully migrated without a hitch - that meant the migration of 3GB of data, email, etc. but in the end, I had to go PHP5 as it was coded in PHP5, and the new server is now upgraded to PHP5 + Apache 2.2 - and somehow I imagine there are still bugs to be told.
The rest of my day was more or less shot from that point out, I still need to do some things, but I think I am going to try and just pass out here soon, as tomorrow I have a bank run, mail run, and CompUSA run (checking to see if they’ll have leopard next friday) - but it seems like it’ll all go smoothly I think, just sleep being the key thing I need to take care of, but this is one thing for sure - no more mid-week migrations unless I am getting paid a MASSIVE amount of money, as it washes me out for a few days.
Well that’s really about it - a mini-vent, hopefully tomorrow’s various runs around town will result in some additional funds in the bank, a few check customers have been slow as of late - I also need to see about getting a PO Box for real - something closer to me that’s easy to check any and all hours of the day vs. driving across town to go check mail for nothing - but thats another blog for another day another time etc. I am going to go now, lay my head on my pillow, and fade away into a restful night’s slumber. Night folks.
So tonight rings in the migrations, I have a customer who I will call “k” yes that’s lowercase k, not to be confused with K - TOTALLY different people - but migration thus far is going smooth, going to make some changes to DNS slowly as I can’t do a bulk change since not everything on the server is coming over to this light weight VPS, but shouldn’t be too difficult really - the VPS is smokin though, about a website over a minute, so pretty jazzed to see the wonderful performance - still need to get more ram added, but not a major deal, already have it priced, and just working on getting it ordered, and a window for upgrading.
The iPhone in Feb will get an official SDK from Apple, all I can say is “about time” - one of my main gripe (aside from the use of AT&T) is the lack of apps without hacking the phone up voiding warranty, my hope is also as the new year rolls around that Apple gets a step closer to a unlocked GSM model, thus killing another thing off the list of why I won’t get one, but I suppose one step at a time, and the SDK is a major step for Apple, now if they can just get 10.5 out and happy
Been looking at downgrading cable again, as I have noted before the digital packaging just sucks, not a lot to it, that I didn’t get with the old system, so I am looking at building up a nice DVR - found the parts @ Newegg I want, a 939 dual core AMD is cheap! 2.2ghz = $70, so look at that, and mainly a media center case with a set of PVR150’s it’s not that bad, basically upgrading what is currently bfp under my desk into a media center rig, as it was meant to be, and then I’d bring ol sparky back online after a good dusting, with a few HD’s on board to continue the mission as a backup/dev box - probably a fresh install of Ubuntu 7.10 for it, but all in all it’d be awesome.
All in all, things though seem to be going good, I am just hoping this doesn’t go too late, but it probably will, watching an account moving over, that probably wasn’t meant to be in the list (yay) - but the night goes on I guess, have a good one folks, I’ll probably post more later if I am still awake.
So this morning the big plan was “migrate” started slow and simple, migration of this site to the friends server, it has gone well and is looking good, the upgrade of PHP5 is lovely, so far the site seems a tad more chipper than before, and thus far no PHP5 blips to make me sad, so on with the show, the next step will be to continue migration of friend sites over the next day or so over to the Friends server, and go from there.
Finances are still a tad “eh” I have money in the bank, but each month it seems to be slower and slower on getting funds in from clients, still have more to transfer from the old system to the new, but I guess it’s time for tuff love, and suspending some accounts as the notices they didn’t pay don’t seem to be taking hold - but I suppose after this many years, a good spring cleaning is in order.
I was supposed to work on a migration last night, but never got the call, so I got some sleep, and woke up around 2am, and have been poking around for a while, but now as I roll into the morning, going to start working on some projects, and actually “work” but it is nice to have some downtime for my own randomness - hopefully over the next week or so, someone will bite on some hosting, but thus far, none of the specials have gotten any bites, either from old customers or new. Going to send out a newsletter again tonight to just refresh folks minds, and maybe throw in a special to the newsletter as well.
so it looks good.
