Well I finally made some progress at work, seemed like lately a lot of things were against me, the drive failure was bad, but I have really pushed forward that things need to change - and for this company as I told the President of the company is like cavemen, the moment something is different/wrong - they run back to the safety of the cave, but thankfully I have had some good luck with making him see the benefits of a few upgrades, the firewall was a great step forward, and now I have gotten him to allow me to move forward on a multi-megabit line!
We have picked up a 10Mbps/1.5Mbps - upstream isn’t what most would call “FAST” but since the bulk of our issue is mainly that of saturating a T1 connection (1.5/1.5) and having no where else to go but down, so with more room, we should handle the daily grind a bit better - or so I hope, if not, then there is a network device somewhere in the drop ceiling, and one weekend I am going to have a router/switch/hub hunt
Things are getting slowly better, less ALWAYS ON STRESS - a odd night of sleep last night which was more or less classic me, sleep early, wake up early, hit that 6:30am hour and the pillow calls again - but I made it thru the day, no worse for wear - and I got my first power bill, pretty much my only other “living” expense attached to the apartment… it was a big $110 - not bad, I had budgeted everything high, it was set at $200, so not bad a $90 extra into the budget, and I have adjusted my fridge/freezer settings, as well as setup a program in my thermostat.
So its all getting there, tonight is a web coding night, taking some casual fixes/work I have been doing in development, and some I haven’t and moving them to production servers to try and mend a customer’s customers - quite a bit of work, so should be a nice addition to the budget long-term, but since it is such a large amount and the customer is without additional help and he has a few people he is comping time for this blip, I am breaking it up, and also cutting a few hours out, more or less combining them into one big set of coding time.
Anywhoo - thanks to folks who have been checking in on me as always, I have a lot more to do this month, and this month is nearly over - so I am going to get to it, right after a bite to eat for dinner! Night folks!
Well today I got the call from the boss man back east, chatted about the meeting they had yesterday, got the skinny on everything - and I mean EVERYTHING, I think there were some concerns which could of been generalized, but straight out I now know how everyone in admin thinks - but a lot of it truly as he said it “perceptions” folks don’t ask me what I am doing, what I am working on, they just assume standing somewhere other than in my office means “playing around”. I am not going to lie, there are times I have had a friendly chat, but simple, quick, casual - not unheard of in an office.
But we discussed quite a bit, not the 2hr conversation from last week, but a hour long conversation which actually taught me some more of the inner workings of their system, as I really didn’t ever have much training on things - so got the skinny on working out some possible new functionality, and getting things up to par with the reports they used to have generated - which no longer work for me - got a budget of $500, got things sorted with “Personal” vs “Work” and also clarified my laptop use here at work, as it was questioned “Why” was I using it all the time, well it was part of the original agreement to allow me to keep my own business, because honestly if all I was making was the money from here? I’d be on one tight budget - but in conjunction with my business, it ain’t too shabby.
So things are mellowing out, and I imagine they will continue to do so, worked some on their “newsletter” and it is starting to look good I think, I am going to layout some things in Illustrator to import for the back page, but it should come out pretty nice and really allow them to have a product sent out that folks actually READ for once, good stories, eyecatching promos, etc. So I hope it will be well received, and if at all possible ready to go by this Friday.
Anywhoo - long day ahead, going to be sorting more of the programming they have in FoxPro, and see if I can better export these data dumps to Excel and maybe into Access or MySQL, and go from there, just need a clean customer list, and a clean OE file - but if I can do that, I can write a PHP app to import the data from the dumps, and a PHP app or two to generate the reports, so busy busy. Thanks for the continued prayers, I’ll post more on the event last night later, still quiet, but who knows if that’s good or bad. Time will tell.
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 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!
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.
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.
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!
and moving them to production servers to try and mend a customer’s customers - quite a bit of work, so should be a nice addition to the budget long-term, but since it is such a large amount and the customer is without additional help and he has a few people he is comping time for this blip, I am breaking it up, and also cutting a few hours out, more or less combining them into one big set of coding time.
