Month: February 2005

AD is New Again

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We had problems with one of our active directory servers the other day. No big deal since we had more than 2 of them. A redundant back died. We rebuilt it, but that got us looking at our other AD servers wondering if we wanted to rebuild them. I tinkered with the new box today, and looked at our AD layout to see how we can juggle servers a bit.

This change in box’s also got me to start our project of moving our servers to a new ip block. This is mainly for tidiness. Our other office is newer and has a better internal ip layout. We are just taking our office and getting it up to standards with the call center.

Virtual Machines

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I launched my first “live” virtual machine today. it is not really live. It is actually a dev box, but users other than my team are going to use it. To me that makes this our first official VM. It has been mostly ready for a few days but I wanted to tweak it a bit before I turned it over to the users.

I am waiting on purchase approval on a more powerful box to put VMware on. For now we are fine, but if we want to put several VM’s on a server we will need more power.

Tivo To Go, Got It, Don’t Like It

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As if by weird fate I wrote my waiting for Tivo to go post a few weeks ago and never posted it. I put it up yesterday. Then I sat my lazy ass down in front of the TV and what was the first thing that Tivo showed me? It had a big message saying hey you got the latest software on me so now you can go and use that to go crap you have been bitching about. So that is what I am trying now for the first time. I am copying a 30 minute episode of the Daily Show onto my laptop.

First impressions are that this will suck and I will never use this software. I have a 100 megabit switch and it is saying it will take 50 minutes to copy a 30 minute show. What is that all about. I turned off my wireless so it should be going at 100mbit. that would mean 5-10 minutes TOPS for a show that size. But now, it is slow! More news as it develops. At this rate I will be sleeping by the time this show copies.

New Cell Phones

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We are expanding the team. That means we need more cell phones. We figure if we want people to be available all the time (on call) then we need to provide a cell phone. We like Nextel. Direct connect is addictive. We can add a phone to our account for like 10 bucks a month (plus tax). Not bad. One emergency and it pays for 6 months or more of service. That is my opinion at least.

We picked up 2 Motorola flip phones for some of the guys who don’t need Blackberry’s. Our sales department is also interested in Blackberry’s so we may get them some on our account. many of them have Blackberrys from different carriers already, but new people would get the nextel’s.

Why can’t Palm or Microsoft make a product as good or better than RIM? I have been waiting over a year for Blackberry software on my Treo. I am still waiting…

Big Brother Is Here

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Big brother is here. Yup, the large networks and cable companies are soon going to try and control when and for how long I can keep recordings of shows that we make. Check out this article. This will become a bigger problem when everything goes all digital. for now someone like me who uses an analog device to convert to a digital mpeg-2 file is safe since I don’t get any broadcast flags. Thanks Snapstream!

PVRblog noted that someone reported not being able to fast forward on a PVR during a show. No one knows if this was a bug or a taste of future “features” of DVR’s provided by cable companies.

A few years ago everyone I worked with had Tivo’s. Now I look around and I see people with DVR’s from their cable companies. I say screw the cheaper easier buy DVR from my cable company. The things they are looking to do scare me. But my parents, my sister, and several friends all have Time Warner DVR’s.

Free Space On Treo

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Since my 650 is on order I need to make sure that I have free space in order to upgrade to it. The 650 basically uses more space for the same amount of data. So I need to make sure I have at least 33% free space than I already have, or else I will run out of memory. I am currently syncing my Avantgo Channels onto my memory card. I am also seeing what else I can offload to the memory card. The problem with that is that the dam memory card access is slow.

So basically I bought a $600 device with virtually no memory. I can buy a 32 meg memory card for like $30 or less but I spend $600 and only get 32 megs of memory (only 24 megs of usable space).

I gotta say I thought the Treo 650 would be my perfect phone. now I am thinking I will use it until HP gets their act together and comes out with a smaller GSM Pocket PC phone. Some company always has to take the perfect device and mess it up somehow. Thanks Palmone!

Vindigo Vs. Zagats

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I have had both Zagats and Vindigo over the years. I have bought yearly subscriptions to both systems. When Zagats was actually featured on Vindigo all was well with the universe. Now I pay for Zagats (since it is no longer on Vindigo) but I miss some features. the other day I wanted to check movie listings. Rich and I were out and wanted to see what was playing near him. it took me 15 minutes to find a site that I could browse to on my Treo. if I had Vindigo I would have downloaded all my listings already. The question is whether or not Vindigo’s restaurant review is anywhere as good or as comprehensive as Zagats? Or is the movie section of the free Vindigo good enough for me to keep paying for Zagats and just use the free Vindigo?

Once I get my Treo 650 I will download the Vindigo trial and give it a whirl.

Saturday

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Today I went to my dad’s to get my suit. he then dropped me at Rich’s so I could hang out. Rich is right by the subway so it was a snap (in theory) to get home. We went to Pizzeria uno and then walked around Austin street for a while. We then went back to his place and amanda and I got our ass’s wooped by rich in 90’s trivia pursuit.

I got home a little while ago. I cleaned up my apartment. it really needed it. Now I am winding down and writing a bit. Then I will watch the latest episode of MI-5 that I am Tivoing now. Besides the cleaning a nice relaxing day.

A Server of My Own?

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Jayson has been playing with Linux in VMware. He was going to make a good virtual machine and run a website off of it at him apartment. He has been having problems with it and called me up to take me up on my free computer offer. I have 2 old Dell’s P3 700’s. I got one from an old company I helped out that went out of business and the other is my dad’s old machine. Neither are good for a desktop but as a linux server they would be perfect. All we need to do is put it together (i had to cannibalize both when I was working on my Tivo, long story) and bring it over to his place.

Once built I can host my website and hopefully mail on it. I could get by with Miguel’s server, but I like to have admin access to box’s I host stuff on. I feel more in control. So if this box works, I will put my mail and website on it. this blog will remain at Typepad, but my photo site and other stuff would go on that server. I am still pissed with RCN that I cannot host the website in my apartment without paying $20 extra a month.

Lets see if this project actually gets done, or if it is just another pipe dream.

Unlocked Treo 650 Price Increase?

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What the f–k is up with this? Palmone made a “mistake” about pricing? Sure for weeks they allowed rumors go around that the price of the unlocked version would be $599. They announced it and left the price on the site for over a day, but they made a mistake and the price really was $699. How f–king stupid do they think we are? Thankfully I put my order in on Wednesday. News.com reports that they will not raise the price if you already had an order in before price increase. If they screwed me I would never have bought another PDA from them again. I am still skeptical until I actually get my Treo and see the credit card bill.

This whole ordeal is very frustrating. The bigger problem is why the hell is no other company making a device close to this form factor that actually competes with the Treo? They have had over a year to do it, but the best people can come up with is this? I have used Gus’ it is huge compared with the Treo. So I am pissed at Palmone for being dicks, and I am pissed at everyone else for not making some real competition.

I am using a bit of expletives in this post, but I was a bit pissed that I almost got charged an extra $100 for something because some large company decided to be a bunch of ass’.