random ramblings of a crazed nerd

I need a nap day, I think I’m on the last leg of my flu, getting out yesterday helped, fresh air, sunshine, etc. but this morning I woke up, and have had some server issues, seems like a network conflict - or a dying network card, working it out, but for now things seem to of stabalized, just don’t want to go back to sleep before I know it’s 100% again.

The joys of owning your own business

… if your me that is

Well greetings from lovely 4am, been up since 2, but been working on some things, been a busy week, Saturday we got the kid (brother’s daughter) and she’s well, exhausting sometimes - but fun none the less, she has been hanging out with me and dad most of the day, then when mom gets done with work, she and grandma go crazy (shopping, movies, etc). So fun stuff.

Some not so fun stuff yesterday, don’t want to air too much dirty laundry as of yet, but let’s say it was a day where I had to put my foot down with someone, just tired of being nice, then having them push that nice to the next level and basically try to get me to do what I do to make a living for free, frustrating, and making it even worse, they huffed off after I did it like I was being mean by saying “No”. Sad stuff really, just find myself praying for this person, as I know they have had some rough times, but no excuse to exploit others - but its been said, done, and life goes on, finishing the last thing I agreed to do, and I am done for a while.

I am really excited about today, second shoot for Awaken! Dan is coming, possibly Courtney and Jake as well, plus Mrs.  Foster will be there to cheer me on LoL It’s fun stuff, even got a 2GB CF card ($36.50!) and it works good in the camera, so I am going to shoot ALL of tomorrow in RAW+SQ(1280×960-JPG) so I can do some more advanced editing with Lightroom (one of the few Mac/PC apps which understands E-500 RAW format) - so going to be nice to have some digital negatives this round, and do some more advanced clean-up of the colors/lighting/etc.

What else… Got a txt from Rosie around 3am wanting to go riding, and since I am still awake (which means I’ll probably need a nap before the shoot) I txt’d back okay - but that’s only 2 1/2 hours of sleep for her, have a funny feeling there will be a few “15 more minutes” calls but already have the backpack loaded, water in the feezer to chill a bit before leaving, and workout clothes set aside so as soon as I am out of the shower I can get dressed - but a ride strangely sounds nice right about now.

Anywhoo - more busy work this week, more to come next week, I have 30 cell phones at the office -  maybe I should sell em on the street corner but possibly another post in a day or so once things calm down, or who knows, maybe tomorrow after the shoot to show off my favs So with that, I’ll say Top of the Mornin’n to ya! and be on my way to the shower.

So I have been toying with Ruby as a “mellow” thing to do, granted I am still working on some PHP 4.x apps I have written over the last few years, but armed with Agile Web Development with Rails - a mellow read, but some good documentation and examples, plus with the development happening on the iMac it’s very smooth to edit, see results, and debug as needed.

I love one of the original code demos they show in the box regarding database interaction - it’s like 60+ lines of code for some interaction with a database, then enter the Ruby version, maybe 15 tops. That is simplified code to say the least, now granted there are some configs you must edit within the base app, but that’s a 1 time edit, I know in PHP with classes, and such you can simplify calls, but this is out of the box, no digging up old code, old functions and classes to bring back that functionality.

I am still trying to wrap my head around some of the simple things, just because in the realm of coding I have always had to do it a tad more code heavy, so going from a ton of calls, it’s now like 4 so re-arranging my mind around the simplicity of it all.

The first thing I am going to be working on is a cart that interacts with Google Checkout, kind of a project to help Awaken, but also because the logic in my head for the cart matches what I can do in Ruby, and probably fairly quickly - then leaves the only trick, Ruby on Rails + cPanel Already in testing on a dev server, so it may be yet possible. Well, Mr. Sherman has requested my presence, so I am going to go forth, and hang for a bit. Night folks.

Another server under attack today - someone spoofed a client’s email address, so now not by choice mail servers all over the world are essientally pounding the server like mad, craziness. So I guess so much for sleeping 12 hours till I have to be downtown, maybe I’ll just stay awake till then, or go down at noon and take a nap for 2 hours - what a morning - but this does identify the second half of an issue folks were reporting… about that roadtrip/vacation? feel free to buzz me on IM - its gonna be a late one.

Update: Server upgrades have gone fine, removed the MX records of the trouble domain, and that’s got mail from the blast slowing down to a trickle - ran some updates - things are looking better, still not perfect, but almost good enough to get some sleep for a while - probably around 4am or so - ah sweet sleep. Thanks for the prayers.

So I am sitting here trying to amp down from crazy developments in what I thought was a quick and dirty exploit on a customer’s site - thats 2 in under a week, and I have heard of other hits around the web, it’s getting bad - so I turned on “Walk the Line” for some background noise (good movie) and worked on a network map I have been doodling for a few days - it represents the expansion of FlockHosting primarily as Thrust Networks has been a slow grow lately, still plenty of clients to support itself, but FlockHosting has a higher demand, and sales up 5% over last year, it’s already a great year, with plenty more of the year to go.

The changes are more peering, more networks, more options for customers, including (going into testing end of the month) Windows based hosting! So expansion, upgrades, and new servers - going from the current 4 (retired a backup server recently) up to 10 - yes that’s a jump of 6 servers, a big outlay of cash, but this isn’t a plan to deploy say tomorrow - but my goal for year’s end - core of the network including 4 name servers are linux servers across 4 major networks, so no matter what 1 of 4 name servers will resolve domains - 7 servers for clients including Linux and Windows, and more as time goes on - and always expanding backup servers.

Why the sudden jump? Working on the balance as always, I find I get into friend time far too easily, and tend to neglect business end of things, or family time, so I have been sketching on this - and as always really just throwing this all up in prayer as I really desire more than my own crazy path/ideas on this, God’s guidance and wisdom about the next leg of my business, life, path, etc. I still very much want to take my road trip, which does mean putting most road trip funds towards a car - then re-saving for the trip, so probably a fall/winter trip - but should be fun too.

I am starting to get tired though, and morning will come early as always, really looking forward to Friday, get my bicycle back, get Rosie’s replacement tube for her front tire, and have a nice ride at Ming on Saturday early AM - I really need it - be a nice way to unwind and relax a bit after this up and down week of server “eh”-ness I do as always appreciate everyone’s prayers - I know my blog tends to be rather life based lately, but gotta unwind sometimes, and while I may not have someone physically here to hear me rant, this is better than nothing to vent a bit and let it out - better out than in - so thanks for reading, thanks for praying, more soon I’m sure. Night/Morning.

Well tonight I was “fun” - a customer hit me up via email saying their forums had been hacked, thankfully the subject line was one of frustration so reading the subject I didn’t wet my pants with the classic “THE SERVER IS HACKED!” which has been done before, but I do understand the feeling, frustration, fear, that comes from your site getting hit.

So the reason for doing it and wiping out her entire collection of posts, was because the software was old, and thus she needed a wake up call more or less - I just don’t understand why these guys can’t just drop a email, leave a comment, post a thread - let people know, give them a CHANCE to do something, I mean it’s summer, so lot of the youth owned sites are going to be neglected some, while others are going to get more attention than they do most of the year - it just boggles my mind.

Thankfully her backups were only a day old, and so the database restore took some tweaking, but it got back online - ho-hum, sad stuff, I know in my youth I had too much spare time with computers, heck I chatted weekly in my “art group” making software tweaks, chatting about servers, using ol IRC - but no one in our group was descrutive. But none the less, times change, so let this be a warning to everyone out there - update your scripts, its not a time consuming thing - just means 10-15 minutes out of your day to help keep your site running smooth - and helps me get some sleep (really tired lately).

But that’s it really, just a little un-winding post, these situations get me worked up a bit, always hafta check servers over afterwards - but its nights like this lately I want to say “Anyone want to buy a hosting company?” - I think I’d like being a traveling photographer / piano man Night folks.