Month: March 2005

Call Center Day

by

Today I went to Kingston. I had to meet the construction guys for an update. The work is coming along and should be done ahead of schedule. The cable guys still need to come and do their work, and the furniture needs to be setup but it is going along smoothly, so far.

I got an update on the new deployment method they are going to use for desktops. They are going to use RIS from Microsoft. For me seeing RIS actually working in a beta group was nice since I asked about doing this over a year ago.

Took Kai to lunch. I need to work on his review this week. it is late since I was sick this month.

The Kingston trips are always busy, but I never feel productive. I am beginning to think that the feeling of not “really” doing anything is because I am not getting what I want to get done, but helping out or doing stuff for other people.

Travel Day

by

Today was a travel day to Kingston. Dan and I went up there for several reasons. He wasn’t looking good. He had a cold or something. I told him that if I got sick since I sat next to him on the train that I would have to hurt him.

The day was busy. We headed back to the city around 4:30. The 5pm train we were aiming for was late and the 4pm train was late also. Since we got to the train early for the 5, and late for the 4, the 4pm train arrived a few minutes after we got to the station. Train math gets me dizzy too.

Dan and I sat in the cafe car and drank. I didn’t know they had a nice selection of alcohol. I had some Jack Daniel’s and Coke. The trip went by fast.

A bunch of people got together for Jim’s next to last night in NYC before flying out. I got back too late, and I was tired so I passed and went home to relax.

External Hard Drive

by

Ever since I upgraded the hard drive in my new HP computer (like a week after I got it last year) I have had 2 160GB hard drives lying on my desk. I haven’t needed the space since I have 2 new 250GB drives in there now. Since I am using my DVR more and more I decided to put the 160’s to use. I got an addonic’s external USB 2 drive enclosure. It is neat. For $40 you can put a normal IDE drive in it and make it a USB 2 drive. For me this is perfect since I have no more internal drive bays on my computer but I have extra USB ports. I will get another one of these enclosures soon now that I know they work as advertised.

Fresh New Circuits

by

We just got our new 3700 series Cisco router today. it will be used for our new 4.5 megabit internet connection we are getting for NYC. This replaces our 2 redundant T-1’s. this connection is basically 3 T-1’s plugged into 1 big router. less redundancy, but triple the bandwidth. We figured our corporate office can have some acceptable downtime. Since our uptime stats have been great on our current circuit it seemed like a good gamble. I hope that once this is done I can use my VOIP phone without getting terrible choppiness sometimes.

We hope the circuit goes live in about 1-2 weeks. Verizon will be out tomorrow (had to cancel for some reason today) to do the smartjacks. Like I always say, you cannot have enough bandwidth.

New Pillow

by

I have been having a huge problem sleeping recently. I think that it is part of the reason why I have been getting head ache’s but I cannot be 100%. I just know I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep. I decided a few days ago to try and get a new pillow. I went to Bed Bath & Beyond and picked up what you can call an ergromatic pillow. it form fits to your head when you lie down on it. It was not cheap. I don’t want to say how much I spent, but lets just say I hope this thing emits vallume to get me sleeping well for what I paid.

When I opened it up from its packaging, I got a little card that read “you may notice a “newness scent” when you remove this item from the package”. Basically this may smell, but just leave it out for a while and it will be fine. I thought that was the funniest thing I read all day. So I am following the directions and it is airing out now. I hope to sleep like a baby tonight!

Build Out

by

Our build out of our new downstairs space in our call center is progressing. I got the ok (or the if it was budgeted go buy it and don’t ask about it) to get supplies for the new space. We need new WIFI points, printers, etc. Phones and computers are already on the way.

The last major purchase is the UPS for our downstairs computer room. It does not have to be as big as the one we are deploying upstairs since all it has to support is a switch. Granted it is a huge mother f–king switch, but still.

Other work going on is a reboot of half of our smart jacks tonight. No idea why, but one of the LEC’s (Local Exchange Carrier for those who have no clue what I am saying) we use needs to upgrade some stuff so they need to reboot the smartjacks. Until they called I had no idea you could or would do that at all.

VOIP Rocks

by

I haven’t said anything nice about Broadvoice recently. It still rocks. It’s $10 a month unlimited in state calls plan is the only reason why I have a home phone. It is only $1.50 in tax, vs $9 in tax for the $8 dial tone service Verizon offers. And that gives me just dial tone. My $10 gets me tons of crap. The only issue with the service is the customer service. it takes forever to get someone on the phone. They are growing so I will cut them some slack for now. Thankfully I only needed to call when I had to make changes to my account. No problems so far. Lets hope it stays that way. Why Vonage can’t or wont offer some of the services Broadvoice does I don’t know. Hey vonage you would have gotten my biz if you had more than 1 phone you can simultaneous ring on, and if I could use any VOIP phone, and not just your adapter. My Cisco 7940 rocks! Can you get the weather report off your home phone? Do you want to?

Other cool VOIP products I am playing with now is Skype. Just being able to make phone calls from a pocket PC got me interested. I have the free service setup, but I have not had a chance to use it. Gus and others rave about it. I am traveling on thursday and will give it a try then. Added bonus, Skype works on the Mac or Linux!

New Servers

by

We got 3 new servers this week. G4 HP Proliant box’s. We got one 2U, and 2 1U. They will be for our Biztalk 2004 deployment. We have 1 box for QA and then the other two goto our data center. Jay was building and testing them earlier in the week. Due to issues with our original quote we are way behind schedule. I would like to thank HP for their great process for securing special pricing if you buy in volume. They even admit they have issues with it recently. We hope to finish the build out early next week.

Missed Appointments

by

I was going to meet up with Gus last night for dinner. Then I wasn’t. Then I was, but I ended up canceling. I started getting a migraine (very common recently) around 1 or 2PM Friday so I decided to go home and head off the problem. I left G a VM saying I was out of it and canceling. I feel bad since I never see him anymore. Except of course for going to the Apple store with him on Thursday and then to lunch. That was sudden and unexpected. He finally got a MacMini. I got a Bluetooth USB adapter for my Mini at home. Miguel got an Airport Express for his apartment. Jay and Danny just came along for the trip.

Since we never see Gus much we went to lunch down in SOHO. We found a little italian resteraunt. it was good and cheap, until we all digested it. Then it was not so good:(

I will try to reschedule with the G man sometime next week or so. Seeing him I realize how much things have changed at work recently. It really is a different place to be for me without him. In some ways more stress full, and in others less.

Sprawl Mart

by

Today I took a trek to Sprawl (Wal)Mart. For this trip we had Jay, Gretchen, & Danny. We all stocked up so much stuff that we had no more room in the truck and danny and I had to hold stuff in the back seat. This was on top of what I couldn’t get with my Freshdirect delivery on Thursday. I went from having no food last week to having a stocked fridge.

Besides a hair cut today I did not much else besides the trip upstate to the walmart. I still haven’t been sleeping so I was up before 9-am today. I met up with jay and gretchen for breakfast before our trip.

I am in the process of trying to clean my place now, but I doubt I will finish up.

PS if you don’t know what I mean by Sprawl Mart, you are not watching enough Simpsons!