Month: April 2006

Performance Issues Resolved

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After like 4 passes at the configuration of our network (switches, firewall’s, load balancers, etc) Danny found an abonormality that we wanted to correct and see what happened. On our core switch side we had the port where our Pix went set to full duplex 100meg, but on our Pix (configured years earlier than our core) it was set to auto. Turns out the Pix does not auto sense the 100meg full, but does not error out in the situation. You don’t even get lost packets, but you do get some collisions. Well some is an understatement.

Later in the day we set the port on the pix to be full duplex 100meg and within a few hours our metrics back to normal. This little change took us weeks to find. This is not the first time I have been burned by a port mismatch. Knowing that we even took steps to prevent this, or we thought we did.

It is frustrating to find such a little issue that does not show with errors causes so much problems..

Rough Days At Work

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I have had a few rough weeks at work. Hopefully a fix that went into place today will make things better. I know I am getting worn down, and I think others around me are also. We just don’t talk about it. Not much I can really talk about on this blog. I have written more extensively on my Work blog (password protected for my protection).

Because of the extra work, not much else to report on the social front.

New, New Watch

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I finally got my new Omega Speedmaster Professional X-33. it came in to the store and I picked it up on the 31st. I haven’t had a chance to write about it until now. It is basically the newer version of the one I had bought last year used. It was a bit more money (just a bit) but I was able to apply the price of the used on towards the new one. Having the warrantee, box and a brand new item really is better. I know I had a good deal on a used one, but with something that I use all the time and never leaves my side such as wrist watch I really want/need a new one that I can rely on.

So far it is working perfectly. Kind of like a precision swiss watch (sorry for the pun)! I will post photos in a few days. My original Speedmaster Professional (circa 1969) goes back onto the night stand as a backup. And yes I have become a watch guy, or so it seems. I used to be happy with my Timex indiglo, but I am now light years past them!

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Netflix Throttling Shipments

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A few months a go (January or February) I signed up for Netflix. I always thought it was a great concept, but I was always worried that the DVD’s would take forever to get to me and I wouldn’t get my moneys worth. I changed my tune after renting a bunch of stuff from Blockbuster. They where costing me more, for renting the theoretical amount of DVD’s I could rent at Netflix for a month, and I can’t stand Blockbuster. They are one of those companies like Walmart that think they know best and edit certain movies for content. Blockbuster, if I don’t think the US government knows best in the what I should and shouldn’t watch department, I don’t think the I trust you to edit crap for me. You aren’t filtering content for “family values”, they are just your interpretation of them. My mom took me to an R movie when I was as young as 12 and I turned out just fine. She did it because she knew I wanted to see it, and checked it out ahead of time. Maybe parents should act responsible like that instead of relying on you to edit crap. Had to get that off my chest, but that is a bit off point. OK, so not a fan of Blockbuster so I tried the free 2 weeks of netflix.

in the begining it was great. I would send in a movie and they would get it the next day. They would then send me out a new one that day and I would get it the next. The whole process took 3 business days. I started getting into a rhythm of watching the movies the day I got them or the next and sent them back on the third day. Then problems started. Netflix would not get the movie for an extra day or so. Then they wouldn’t ship them out for an extra day or so. And the worst would be they would take an extra day or so to get to me. The worst return time I saw was 4 days before they said they got something. Friends of mine have seen articles on the internet where people are claiming netflix is throttling heavy users. I am starting to believe it, or at least question their methods and claims of “unlimited” dvd rentals in a month.

Now my reasoning for signing up with them was if I got 2 movies a week it would still be cheaper than going to the video store. For a while I was doing slightly more than that number, but with the rate the turn around stuff I don’t see that happening anymore. I would be happy with at least 8 DVD’s a month (i have the 2 dvd package and 2 per week x 4 weeks in a typical month). If they can’t do that I will have to look at other options. But even if they can meet that requirement, I will still get pissed if they take forever to ship or receive something. It is just an emotional response to perceived bad service. And no I am not over reacting. If you email me saying I will get something one day and I get half of it, and the other half comes days later when they both where shipped at the same time I have to wonder if you are playing games with me.

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Site Issues & Network Disasters

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I took yesterday off to catch up on some sleep. I ended up by the office in the late afternoon to go with Jayson backpack shopping. Our website performance (or alleged) issues continued on. All of our research boils down to we don’t think there is anything wrong, or shall I say anything new wrong. We know our application needs to be improved. That is why the development team has spent over a year designing and building a next generation application. I think certain business people are missing there numbers and blaming the issue on a site problem. They got one bad metric and they stomp all over it. It has been a long week.

On another note I was just sitting down to figure out what I wanted to eat for dinner last night when I got a call from Jayson that an internal website was offline and someone called about it. Turns out several several servers where down. They where all plugged into the same switch module. I ended up having to go to our data center and meet Jayson to fix the issue. It was as simple as re-seating the module and it started working again. To be safe we moved all critical systems off that module onto another switch module. I didn’t get home until after 1AM today. So for a day off, I worked almost a full day’s work. Nice!!!

Parallels

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As if they read my blog last night Parallels has released a beta of their Virtual Machine Workstation for Intel Mac’s. This is the product I have been waiting for. If it works, I will spend the money and buy it. As I write this entry I am installing Windows XP (SP-2) on my Core Duo iMac. So far the install has moved along quickly. That is a good sign, since that is how VMware installs of OS’s go when running from an ISO disk. Since VMware and Virtual PC are my only products I can compare it to I will. Virtual PC always took forever to install on a G4. I know Virtual PC was emulating, and this is a VM. I understand the differences, but I can be thankful for the speed!!!

I get to hopefully play with this once the VM is finished installing. Ironically I took the day off today to relax. Oh well, playing with a new toy or software is sort of relaxing!

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Boot Camp

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Every news site on the internet is talking about Boot Camp. It is an awesome idea. It really is, but since I am very picky I will be honest when I say it is not what I wanted! Really. I think having Windows on a Mac is a necessary evil. I just don’t want to have to dual boot. I have 2 Windows XP desktops at work (as of today, that number does change week by week) to augment my Powerbook for things like MS Access, Visio, Active Directory tools (when I am lazy and don’t want to use remote desktop), and other Windows only software. I honestly don’t use those machines very often. The main reason I use Windows at work is to run Vmware admin tools for my ESX and GSX servers, and Workstation to test desktop software installs. For home use I use Windows for 1 thing (not counting my dvr) and that is Quicken. I can’t stand quicken for the Mac. To dual boot for one or two applications would be a pain.

What would really be fantastic is a virtual machine running in OS X that would load up Windows. Lets face it, you own a mac for reason. I don’t want to deal with Windows if I have to, but I don’t want to run it all the time. Having a virtual machine that you can turn on and do one or two things with, and then turn off would be better to me than rebooting into XP. I tried virtual PC 5, 6, & 7 on the PowerPC, and it was so slow. Now that Apple has an Intel chip a virtual machine could be a viable option. Don’t get me wrong, Boot Camp is a great idea. I just think there are better things to come, I hope!

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Mac Linux Tools

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Yesterday’s issues did have one positive (well sort of) piece to it. I had the need to install a bunch of network monitoring tools on my powerbook. I know that allot of software from Linux/Unix has been ported over to the mac. I have used a bunch of it, but when you actually go looking for stuff and almost everything you try to find has been compiled to work on the mac you have to think, cool!

Some of the new tools on my Powerbook are now: NMAP, XNMAP, Etherreal, MTR, and more. I of course have the Darwin Ports install on the computer, but I honestly haven’t even cracked the surface of what I can run on it.

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Long, Long Day

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I had a really long stressful day at work. Absolutely nothing I can discuss here. I did write a long entry on my work blog, but since it is password protected and private it can’t be really discussed. Lets just say when I finally left the office it felt like I had ran a marathon. I was just physically and emotionally wiped out. I did get a chance to relax a bit in little Italy with Jayson, Scott, & Gretchen for dinner. They where cool enough to wait for me to finish work before ordering dinner. Thanks guys!

Due to one of the big issues I was working on today I am canceling my trip to our other office tomorrow. I need to make sure things are on track here.

I am still having trouble sleeping. I was up again last night. Not as long as some nights last week but it still sucked. It also didn’t help that I got woken up at a quarter to 1 with a problem at work. I wasn’t on the phone for long but the damage was done. I can’t get pissed about stuff like that because it is part of the job, but man I was actually sleeping. It is so rare these days. I was hoping for an early night tonight but it didn’t happen. I am off to bed now, but I wanted to write a bit before I goto bed. it does make me relax a bit when I write a little.

Brewery

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Jayson’s brother Scott is in for a week on vacation. He stopped by the office and hung out for a while. The more I talk to him about some of the cool stuff he does at his job with NDS and ZEN I really wonder why we didn’t use it, then I remember that it is Novell. They do have some really cool remote deployment options.

With Scott in town, we meet up with John at Heartland Brewery for some drinks and food. Danny also came out for a bit to hang. It was a short, but rather expensive night for me. 1 drink, food, plus their awesome desert sets you back.

Still having trouble sleeping so I am trying to get to bed early.

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