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
Posted on 13 January '08 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
So things are leveling out in my mind, I think I have a solid plan for a server move which may take place sooner than later - the upgrades would give customers some nice upgrades to servers things like Raid 10 Drive configurations, 8 Cores, 2GB of Ram Per-Server, and in time some mini-upgrades in bandwidth and storage - and in time, some easy upgrade paths as well as ease of getting additional hardware for future deployments, and I actually get some assistance on server management in the deal too - so other set of eyes monitoring, doing upgrades, etc. Very nice indeed (aka more sleep!)
In other news, last night my sister called to tell me the police had called and found some of their gift cards, that they were still going thru things, but they’d call when they knew more - well apparently the hardworking folk couldn’t stop and excited about finding a laptop with all the other stolen goods, saw it on their list and they just had to call! So at 1:30am my brother-in-law got to chat with an officer about the laptop, and when XP asked him to login they asked over the phone “Are you talking to Michael Z?” sooo my sister will get her photos back! Hooray! Time for a upload party on Flickr 
so very excited about that!
So there is some good news updates for things, hoping today will provide me with a few checks to put in the bank, still a few stragglers, but today also brings the final push from moving folks from QB -> WHMCS on the TN side, so far so good, just going to empty out the final stragglers from ModernBill as well, and setup customers with outstanding bills to WHMCS as a final move thus I can get paid by some stragglers (college students mainly) - but just trying to stay positive about all things going on right now, who knows maybe I’ll get a call for a interview today and that’ll seal the deal for my job lol. So much to do, so little time.
Anywhoo - have a good Thursday folks, I am back to work here at the desk, going to make some calls, find some food, take a shower, then head back out into the wild world in search of Checks!
Posted on 10 January '08 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
Just got done with my Monday night TV (of course on Tuesday Morning) - but some good TV, though my stomach was killing me most of the watching, and my head is spinning even now as I write this so I’ll be brief - I think I may be sick and or quite simply exhausted. Been a long couple of weeks, some high stress, some just craziness in general - but it’s all mellowing down, well some of it anyway can’t all be perfect all the time, life wouldn’t be very interesting then would it?
Got some code done, but feeling bad started late this afternoon, so my brain has been worthless to say the least, well unless it’s replaying bits of movies in my mind as I see bits on TV, sometimes I really feel like Chuck Bartowski from NBC’s Chuck - I can recall big bursts of data movies, how-to, etc. not always a willed bit, but especially with various medias, I can replay movies in my head, know the lyrics to songs, and recall parts of books, however its really strong when I feel like crap - so it’s been a fun night, just not productive!
Anywhoo - I am going to wander over to my bed, lay down and cover up with a large pile of quilts and blankets and see if I wake up feeling better. Night all.
Posted on 13 November '07 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
So needless to say this day turned out pretty good. Got a pile of mail I’ve been waiting for, the post office has officially be delivering all my old stuff to the old building, which is good, because I was tired of it in limbo, some was dated the 20th of last month, so silly, but my hope is to get the last few Check based folk over to Credit Card or PayPal by the new year, some I know won’t change, but at the very least I want to eliminate paper invoicing ASAP.
Money did come in today, picked up 2 projects one starts next week, and I picked up a HTML gig tonight, which I just wrapped up, came out pretty nice, more or less a splice job, but nothing I couldn’t handle, works well in IE, Firefox, Safari, and across OS’s as well, so pretty happy indeed, got it approved, and just put it online about 20 minutes ago, so all within my 5 hour time frame, so all in all, not bad for $200 worth of work, just need a few of those on a steady basis in a month, and I’ll be sitting pretty.
Servers are looking good for a migration, I have one probably going here sooner than later, sort of a test subject I am hopeful of it’s test run and if things go smooth for a while, then my long-term goal is to migrate folks from this current DC to this new one, but as it stands, looking like more in the realm of next year, unless funds and time suddenly change.
Anywhoo - thanks for the prayers, sorry I missed a few late-nighters last night on IM, I was dead tired and passed out, been trying to keep “normal” hours lol - which means in bed by midnight and up by 6am - not sure how it’s possible, or why - but I have been doing it for a few days now, it’s not so bad, but I do appreciate the prayers, and they are working and then some, nearly $700 in checks came in today, so pretty happy to see things bouncing back indeed, but now it’s that time, to wander away from the ol workstation, and read or watch a movie till I pass out. Night folks.
Posted on 7 November '07 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
So I am going to start me a Leopard upgrade on my iMac (lostfruit) the MBP (myfruit) is doing well, and of course I’ve already started fiddling with scripts, tweaks, etc. one thing I love is you can now choose what app is run when a DVD is inserted! For a long time I liked VLC over DVD Player as it could handle dual monitors better, I haven’t gotten to test things yet on dual monitors, but I have to write a Applescript to handle VLC auto-starting my DVDROM, it’s a pretty simple script, just need to write it, and put it in place.
I have been working for the last day or two, to really clean up Lostfruit, it’s my oldest Mac in house, and thus has the most …. “Data” on it (read: Junk) - but on top of that its the home for iTunes, Business Email, Books, Photos, Negatives, etc. SOOOOO - A quality backup has been a big thing, and while my weekly script covers the big boys, Mail/Pictures/Music/Docs - it didn’t cover everything I want to be 100% sure I have, everything, and anything I need (first time upgrading this badboy!) of course iLife was a odd one on myfruit, as its part of the “restore” disks with Mac’s not a separate disk to install things with (iLife came pre-installed), same with the iMac - so some magic to work via Terminal but it’s easy enough.
Probably another hour or so before I get it rolling, need to get some large folders over, and then with everything shut down and server sessions moved to myfruit, I’ll do one last rsync of all critical things, and when that’s done (shouldn’t take long) I’ll drop in the DVD, say a prayer, and move forward - but I think one thing that’ll change, I am going to drop Thunderbird, unless it magically runs better under 10.5 than it does under 10.4, but my plan is to migrate email to Mail.app - the new version is pretty snazzy, and have it all in one place and easy to access/manage.
No word back on the job, kind of hoping to hear something first of this next week, but there’s always that chance I won’t get anything back at all - but such is part of the game I suppose, but there is a few more options out there if not, and it’d really help get my cash flow up, and things really rolling for me, and help me get some things taken care of in my personal life (Re: Payoff Car, Get Apartment, Buy a Cheesecake) - so hopefully things happen, if not then its continuing this nose to the grindstone bit with hosting, and work hard to get customers coming in!
Anywhoo - I am off, just wanted to take a quick break and post something, but now it’s off to the wonderful world of upgrading! (Yay!) Next time I post from this station will be using 10.5! Hooray!
Posted on 27 October '07 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
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
Posted on 26 October '07 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
So today is the day where all nerdy mac users upgrade to leopard - I imagine around 6, I’ll be over at CompUSA to snag my copy for $99, but with various issues reported like some noting that Software Update is broken, not 100% sure how soon I’ll install it on the iMac, but since the MBP is really just a portable rig and I can always re-install 10.4 I am going to start there and see how it goes. Already have my rsync backup scripts written to sync up the various “must have” directories on both machines, I’ll do some fresh syncs probably to the new NFS Exports I made on my Ubuntu rig last night, lot better speed than rsync was giving previously.
In other news, no word back yet on the job - granted the site does say I’ll only hear back if they are interested in me, but I am going to remain hopeful, but none the less, life goes on - and I have customers to tend to, servers to manage, people to chase down about their bills being overdue (yay! lol) but who knows, I figure if I don’t hear back in the next week or so, then that’s that.
Anywhoo it’s friday, I am almost alive, and today will be a good day… or else! thanks all for the continued prayers on the job, if anything changes on that front, I’ll let you all know! Take Care!
Posted on 26 October '07 by Chuck Brown, under General. No Comments.
