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!
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.
Needless to say, I was excited to stay up past my “bedtime” so to speak, but I don’t really have a real bed time but I wanted to stay up as the first round of invoices ran tonight via the new system, and it went wonderfully! Only a single little glitch, but nothing that was a REAL show stopper, but it got things rolling good.
My long term plan is to phase out the old billing system overall, but I love the PDF option, great for printing, great for customers - so I am very excited and hope to have all customers migrated over by month’s end if at all possible - but for TN I hope to have it’s migration and activation setup and running by Friday, only a few customers migrated to Digital Billing, but with this I hope to make the push for all customers lingering on Check -> Credit Card.
All in all my hope is to get things all rolling sales wise again, I have been fighting burn out for a while - this job can be unforgiving, while I love to serve customers, not all respect it, and I think in the time fighting against burning out on this job, I have come to realize and respect that not all customers see my service as “above and beyond” and that’s fine, but I look at customers who have been with me for several years and know that it is customers like that who keep me sane!
I do hope that over the next few weeks money will level out, and I can get things going - I do hope that by the end of the year to be seriously looking at this nice 2 bedroom apartment, granted I could probably swing for a single, but honestly, I want 2 rooms so I can have a office and secondly a place to sleep - so I can really have a spot to simply “walk away” from and not have squish everything into one spot - so my hope is things continue to progress forward, and with the addition of Exchange Hosting here in the next few days, I hope to pick up some more clients, plus I am finishing up some tweaks to offer my DSPAM interface I wrote in PHP to manage users on the filter per-account holder who’d have access to all domains they have paid for, just a few more tweaks in the PHP and I’ll be good to go.
Anywhoo, thats all I have! Going to go find me a light snack, and then setup a plan for tomorrow, mainly the move to get folks ready to move on over to the new billing + continue writing content for TN. Good times. Have a Good Week folks!
thanks all for the continued prayers on the job, if anything changes on that front, I’ll let you all know! Take Care!
but I am going to keep at it, and try to keep the pounds coming off this ol computer nerd.
