I have been trying for over a week now to find something bad about this new company I am looking to house servers, I want to make sure that I am not jumping into bed with some random company which in the end lets my customers down and provides them bad service and in turn makes me look bad, but so far all customers who utilize them review them as top notch, I did find some negative comments but over a year ago, but some comments today really give it large amounts of praise.
So the plan is to look seriously about a migration, while its a “big” thing, it’s not really, it’d probably be pretty smooth - just still need to do some testing, but I think my plan to move should start to form, and I am really excited to offer customers greater stability, new hardware and software, plus a 1 Gigabit connection to both the internal network, and external network, it’d really speed up services overall - plus it’s actually a slight savings compared to now - so it’d be a great roll-over to add in PHP5 and Apache2.
Some more serious budget looking to do, I mean it’s not that bad, but I want to look at things and know exactly what I am looking at, plus I do want to add in some new storage, bandwidth options for folks, so off to it!
So promptly (okay it was 6:02pm) CompUSA staff got us all our copies of Leopard, I was out the door by 6:07pm, and of course then traffic was horrible, etc. etc. but I got home before 7pm, and now I am backing up the MBP which really doesn’t have a LOT to work with, as the iTunes library is backed up on the linux box into a mt-dappd server, and most movie work is done via the desktop, photos are a few, but nothing major - so I am using my external USB drive to back up the few GB of info.
I did have a good laugh with a few Mac nerds loafing around waiting for 6pm, but no major crowd and no one fighting one another, but there was a Mac Prophet spouting Mac propaganda, mac this, mac that - dude was all over the place, he even whipped out his MacBook and showed people things - and the people were all trying to find a way to escape - were Mac users, not Mac Fanatics.
The plan is a backup of this rig, then a clean install of leopard. More later - if it goes smoothly, then the iMac gets a upgrade later once I get the MBP stable with all the apps I need
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 in browsing ol CompUSA this early AM I saw they had OSX10.5 for $99 - it’s $129 up front like I’d get it from Apple, but 2 things - 1) It’s a quick pickup. 2) It’s a $30 rebate - so I’ll have to wait a little for the savings, but a deal is a deal, going to go in this week before Friday and make sure they’ll have it in stock, if not I’ll just wait till they do.
Didn’t get much sleep last night, just a lot on my mind, and a lot of things I am trying to get sorted - things that shouldn’t be in my life, and trying to get things in my life that should be there - busy busy - I just really want to get things in a little bit more stable area than they have been the last 3 months, and the billing migration is one of those things, once things all settle I am going to be able to login via a mobile login via the Dash and do what I need from the road, anytime, anywhere - so a major plus indeed.
Health wise things are going okay, lost some weight, been trying to be a little more active when I can be, but also trying to be good on what I eat, but that also ties back into the budget, as it’s odd that foods that are “good” for you tend to cost more than those you can just pickup and eat… go figure but I am going to keep at it, and try to keep the pounds coming off this ol computer nerd.
On the other side of health, as you can see by the time stamp, its 2:30 - and yes, I am awake, after migrations that go past 5am, I tend to take a few days to level out, but migrations that end up waking me up 2 hours after I goto sleep, several times, for several hours, that’s another story all together lol - but I am just glad it’s done - it has all leveled out it seems, got no calls Saturday which was a plus, but all in all, it seems good - plus beyond the obvious bit of getting paid, it’ll be nice to throw in some additional services from the migration as there were a TON of outdated scripts, I am going to release a similar upgrade service via FH/TN as many folks install via auto-installers like Fantastico, Installatron, etc. and they don’t keep things upgraded, which leads to hacks, which is not a good thing now matter how you look at it.
Work side, I am wanting to work on infrastructure again - it’s been 6 months since the last big shake-up, de-commissioning old servers, migrating to new ones, the move went pretty well, but with everything getting audited via the migration to the new billing system - my hope, my goal, is to add a few more servers to the fleet using virtual servers, which means a BIG BIG BIG Server - I am thinking 4-8 Core, with 6-8GB of ram, storage is the one thing I am looking at seriously, as I want something super redundant, but also tolerant of 2 disk failures, so needless to say, this is not going to be cheap in the least. Part of me wishes local bandwidth was better, and more affordable, I’d love to build a datacenter in town and really do it up the way I have in my head.
Anywhoo - slowly rolling up on 3am here, I am feeling a little hungry, and the ol muscles are sore from what I am guessing is a cold as I’ve been running a temp most of the day, so I am going to go find something warm and tasty to eat, and then I think I am going to try sleep again - have a blessed Sunday folks.
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 a good start to a new week, some things came down the pipe money wise which help lighten some of the stress on my life, which was a awesome blessing and I must say, God is Good - also some billing things got sorted tonight with a customer, so that too I was very happy about, it’s not 100% done yet, but at least things are rolling in that direction and the client seems generally happier in responses.
Throw in some good options in Credit Card processing & Domain/SSL options, I am very excited - this week with not only some good meetings to get some money rolling in, but also the launch of Crazy October for the month starting on Wednesday, I am pretty happy about the possibilities this month, as well as the remainder of this year bring - still have to get the budget sorted out, still need to continue to find ways to increase product revenues, but all in all, its going forward.
Faith wise, one thing I haven’t really talked a TON about as of late, I have been working on a lot of things, really trying to let go of some old things, and try to grab onto some new ones - and one thing I really want to do, is find a home church again, I wander now and again as it stands, but as of late the CoC or “Church of Chuck” has been my standing place of worship - but I’d like to find someplace to really plug-in as a member for a while, and work my way up to “Work” within the church, not that I am against it, but I am still working on the whole boundaries bit with regards to not letting folks take advantage of my Time, Talents and Treasures - it’s not a easy road for me as I do like to help folks, but I look back at church experiences past, and as a Pastor’s Kid my family and I really stepped up and stood in the gap sometimes, when we probably should of simply stepped aside - so baby steps.
What else, trying to really empty the ol brain here as I am trying to wrap up and call it a night - iPod conversions go well, all 3 seasons of The Office are encoded to “Low Rez” aka iPod Screen Size format, so a nice 90mb per episode vs. +200mb - quality is perfect for the iPod, and it’s nice to have episodes on hand if needed - but hoping things on the budget front continue to level out as I’d like to pick up a few classic albums from Amazon.com’s MP3 store, Guardian’s album “Swing Swang Swung” is a classic favorite, I am leaning to simply buy the MP3 album - granted the old disc is $2.99 elsewhere, saves me time, and one more CD case to have lying around.
So here’s to hoping this week is a good one, I know with some things on the docket, it will not be perfect, but I do appreciate the prayers, and the ocasional IM’s - I know I am not the greatest chatter in the world these days, but I do appreciate the quick note, random hello, etc. So feel free to bug now and again!
Not a great night last night, finally got to sleep, lot of tossing and turning, which led into some bad dreams, waking up a lot, and then just when I got back to sleep for the 400th time, my phone rings - never fails, work stuff on a weekend but such is life I suppose - but I got to spend some time with the crazy blonde girl I lovingly call Goofball, my niece and I cooked some brownies they are delightful, but evil… we added chocolate chips to them so they just emit evil and temptation… and I’m almost out of milk.
The servers are looking good, but I have a slew of updates I need to do, going to schedule a maintenance window for this upcoming Friday - some patches are out I want to deploy, but they do require some restarts, which will also allow me to do some other configuration upgrades as well, so I need to draft up a newsletter and blog note on the FH blog, but also let TN customers know as this is going to affect all servers - my hope is under 1 hours of outage across the board, and if I can wing it, I want to toss in the memory upgrade as well, so an additional 4gb? maybe just 2gb, we’ll see.
The weekend is slowly ending though, I can feel it.. I wish it had been longer, just feels like I got no real sleep under my belt, and with a busy week coming, I had hoped for more sleep - plus I had my mom point out a job in the paper, not sure I want to apply, but the pay is good, just as usual ASP coding requirements + VB - not that I don’t know a little bit of each, just not my favorite programming environment - but for $3k a month doesn’t seem too bad, and since its for the high school district, it’ll add more to my retirement plan I have thru them already.. not sure, 3 days to decide before the job application period closes.
Anywhoo - I am going to sync the iPod and go lay down, watch a few episodes of the Office Season 1 & 2 as they are now converted to iPod-format, My Name is Earl discs are the next thing on the shelf to convert, already did 1 disc when I got the iPod, but more to come! Keep me in your prayers folks, lots going on in the ol brain, lots coming up here this week, and all I feel like doing is going to sleep for a month! (ah one can dream) - night! (or afternoon for you realists!)
For now I am going to read some more, and run some more numbers. More later maybe.
but such is life I suppose - but I got to spend some time with the crazy blonde girl I lovingly call Goofball, my niece and I cooked some brownies they are delightful, but evil… we added chocolate chips to them so they just emit evil and temptation… and I’m almost out of milk.
