random ramblings of a crazed nerd

So the house thing seems to be a bust - little sad, but not too unexpected, apparently the property my rents looked at was in pretty bad shape, and would of cost a small fortune to as my mom put it “get the smell out” so their search continues, but I am not giving up hope of my own place soon.

Picked up a possible project, still working on the particulars for the quote, but I have been thumbing thru a SQL drop file here for a bit, and I think I have the project nearly laid out in my head, need to sleep on a few things, but I think it’s do-able, hope to make some headway on other projects over the next 2 days, both billing & programming, both are two key projects I really want to wrap up and have done and done right, so far so good, just need to really buckle down tomorrow, hopefully I can get some sleep tonight.

I looked in the mirror a minute ago, and I actually recognized myself - I dunno, just so much stress lately, and questioning why I do things in life, things I have taken for granted, things I am trying to change in my life, for a while there I didn’t seem like myself in some areas of my life, and I think I am getting there, still some changes down the road, still some rough patches ahead - but I think I am going to make it even got a good laugh tonight, and got to relax to some good TV (which is rare) but I dunno, I am just praying over a lot of things right now, jobs, opportunities, finances, everything, now if only God would add me to the share list on his Google Calendar for my life! Oh how much more simpler that’d make things.

Anywhoo - I appreciate all of you who keep track of me here, and those of you who keep me in your prayers - good to know I have friends out there who cover me in prayer! Take care all, have a good Tuesday!

Toast - it’s the breakfast of champions. Been quite a morning, just got offered a house to rent for $500 (3 bdrm, 1 bath) pretty sweet deal, thought its all teetering on another property, long story more later, I just got an alert that a file had been uploaded to the /tmp folder on a server, checked it out, thankfully no-execute permissions, and /tmp is mounted noexec - so both big pluses - did some checks around the system, things look clean - so PTL for that - but the site my guess got nix’d by its CMS, which is highly highly outdated, but for now site is suspended, and waiting to hear back from the owner, I really want to move up to PHP5, Sushion, and SuPHP.

Got a call last night from the kMan about a emergency project with a movie company, really a hotfix, but invoice-able time so fun more so than the usual project as of late, but got it all squared away - made some money, so can’t complain too much, but I did get sleep last night, which I am very happy I did as when I’m on lack of sleep, and things like a site get hacked, tends to kick me into hyper-stress mode, thankfully I got in, removed the file, suspended the account, did the quick audit, so happy to have a cool head this early AM.

So quite a start to a monday, I do want to take a nap now (been up since 5am) but the day presses on, some PHP work is on the agenda, going to utilize some PHP5 magic & modules, so hopefully nothing else huge jumps up and bites me… unless it pays well, I may have a house to rent here soon

So I survived the time change, well so far at least but as it stands, I am awake - but I slept off and on most of the day, I think I may do more shortly, but who knows!

The week brings about some of the usual fun, chasing money, testing the new post office box, final bits of billing migration, paying bills, server upgrades, newsletter to go out, coding to do, server to probably deploy by week’s end, and I am sure more and more that I am thus far unaware of, or have pushed aside in my brain!

So I am off, going to go stare at the wall, just really tired all of the sudden, who knows - if I am lucky, maybe… just maybe… I’ll sleep till morning. One can hope

So a new week, a new day - and I am still excited about things coming along, and wether or not I get a call back about a job, I still want to push forward with what I have, as that’s what I have to work with at the moment but some good things in the works, just hoping they’ll pan out over the next few days.

The budget is coming along, not perfect still, but soon I hope - I am hoping to pick up some checks here today if at all possible, my big desire is that a few of the “big ones” come in that I’ve been waiting for, if so, that should stabilize things for a while, I am hoping some other projects come in and really help replenish my reserves a bit - but as always, time will tell - I am also hoping a friend will be nice enough to kick down some $$$ for recent assistance in a server migration, but sadly that may not come, but a man can hope!

Server work wise, getting ready to lay out a firm plan for a PHP4/PHP5 hybrid system for customers, I still need to do a few more test runs and app tests of things, but it looks promising! Also looking at a long-term data center growth option, there are a few very very appealing options wither some prime bandwidth - but that comes with a cost, which I am not against paying, but making sure a quality plan is in place, and that this new DC and NOC are well staffed and qualified, as I don’t want to jump into bed with another company only to find that 12 other people are in the same bed, and my customers suffer.

So lots to do, lots to read up on, lots of bills to chance, bills to pay, and potatoes to eat (I really am craving potatoes), but the day is off to a good start, morning shower shortly, followed by some traveling I am thinking! Okay, off to it!

While sales are down, and I’ve seen some customs leaving, I am hopeful - it’s a battle to stay that way, but I am doing my best, because I do like this job, it’s not a high-payer for the most part, but I really want to expand things and make some great options in hosting - enter the latest configuration I have found - it’s very exciting, and expansion wise offers some great functionality!

While I have honestly considered simply going to a reseller platform via other companies, it’s not the control I want - I like the ability to get in, put my hands in things so to speak, and really see what’s going on, and have the access to help customers get things fixed up, and make adjustments to server based software installs, plus I can see problems and work on them, vs. rely on someone else to truly monitor things - not to say some of the companies I have reviewed wouldn’t do the job, but I just don’t want to throw my customers to the wolves.

The new setup would work great with the various backup upgrades I have in mind, at some level it’s a little more expensive than things are now, but it offers greater stability it looks like, granted it’d be after the first of the year for deployment of this if I do go for it, but for now I am running the long-term numbers, and if I can get the affiliate programs running, I am hoping to really expand things with increased sales, and services.

I honestly am not sure, but for the first time in a while, I am excited about the infrastructure of hosting - just some amazing deals currently so I’d really like to see some of this stuff thru, but sadly unless sales increase, it won’t be anytime soon - but the migration of billing systems continues, soon MTT will stop working, and IMB will follow suit in time, just want to streamline that for starters, and get funds up from the folks who should be paying or haven’t been paying due to difficulties with the old system, so hopefully if I can wing the full move by month’s end on both sides of hosting (FH&TN) then I will have a better picture of things, and I can get rid of my old Authorize.net - and funds will balance out a bit - which would be nice.

Anywhoo - just random excitement, hopefully I can continue to build up upon things, time will tell. For now I am going to read some more, and run some more numbers. More later maybe.

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.