scott

Hectic Week

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Thursday was pretty much a repeat of Wednesday. I didn’t leave the office until around 8PM. I spent a large portion of my day helping (or organizing help) to get a project finished. The day was just a blur of activity.

Friday was hectic also, but not as bad as the rest of the week. I had to deal with AC issues in a computer room, and ensuring all projects are moving along normally. I was able to get out early enough to make it to my parents for my sisters birthday dinner. We ended up going out. It was nice to be able to unwind and have a steak, see my parents, niece, and sister.

Carrie gave me a ride to the subway while morgan sang me all the new songs she has learned!

Problem Solving Day

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Today was hectic. The morning was spent updating project plans for all the big projects I have going on this quarter. I spent a while doing that and still have more to do. Working with project plans always seem like a never ending task.

I went over some technical policies with my boss, and then began work on a server migration. I actually get to do some technical work on this move. Mainly because almost everyone else is busy and I really need to get the project moving along. We are trying to migrate our data in one office onto a new larger file server. I wrote a few robocopy scripts to sync the data off of our old file servers to the new one. The files are coping since this morning.

I also worked on some fault tolerance concepts regarding our file servers using Windows Distributed File Server (DFS). I was able to setup a replica of the DFS share we use for file sharing. Next I looked at modifying our login scripts to map to the DFS root in Active Directory. That helps if the server with the DFS root fails we can use an alternate one already setup in AD. I also looked at a bunch of other ideas along those same lines. It was very productive.

In the afternoon I had to deal with last minute changes to some security rules in order to complete a project. In the end we found a way to make everyone happy, but it took some time, and a bunch of network design explanations.

I got home a bit late, I ordered food. I was just too lazy to make dinner. Now I can’t believe it is almost 10:30.

Home Entertainment System Update

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In an about face I returned (by the time this posts I hope to have returned) the EyeTV 200. It was not as good as the Snapstream setup I have on my PC. It wouldn’t go full screen correctly on my 40″ LCD TV. It also didn’t have the ability to schedule season passes. I will go with the substantially cheaper option of getting another Hauppauge USB2 PVR off of ebay. There are not many of them but the price is right. I will plug it into my existing setup as a second tuner. If Apple comes out with a better DVR solution I will take a look at switching over, until then the last remaining Windows box that I rely on is my DVR box.

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Back To Work Monday

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It was hot at work. We turned the AC on in our office also. Just my luck that we are having AC issues all around. Our other office had an AC issue in one of the computer rooms, and our room in NYC was a bit hot. Not broken, but not at a cool 69 degree’s like it should be. I had to deal with that in the AM. Then I had some meetings and taking care of misc issues.

My group had to stay late to do a bunch of physical computer moves. Because so many people stayed it only took us an hour to do. I think everyone was working except for one phone that needs to get addressed first thing tomorrow. For the messiness of the job I am happy to report my Dockers where not ruined. We shall see how many issues we have related to the move from users tomorrow. That is the true test of if we did the work right.

Very Little Sleep

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I couldn’t sleep much last night. It was first too hot so I put the ac on. Yes I know AC in NY in January. it was rainy so I couldn’t open a window without getting my comfy chair by my window wet. Then I was nice and temperature controlled, but my allergies started kicking in with the extra dust of using the AC for the first time in months. It was not a fun night. It didn’t help that I was a lazy bastard and took a 2 hour nap on Sunday.

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Lazy Weekend

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So far this weekend has been absolutely unproductive, and I couldn’t be happier. Yesterday was reorganizing and then just lying around on the couch watching TV. Today has been a continuation on yesterday’s theme. I don’t know why but I got up early and just bummed around all day. Nothing else to report as of yet!

Watch Issues

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So my experience with my watch took a turn for the worse. I realized on Friday that the alarm wasn’t working since I took it in for a battery replacement. Turns out when I turn the backlight on it makes a weird buzzing sound. I bet that has to do with the fact that the alarm does not plan at all. I took it back to Tourneau (since I bought it there and they changed the battery in the first place). They looked at it for a second and said I had to send it in. To say I was ticked off would be an understatement. I was furious. They changed a friggen battery and then the watch (not exactly a timex) didn’t work right. So I explained that to them. They gave me the song and dance about it is an electronic device, bla bla bla, things happen, etc. I understand that, but it wasn’t like the dam thing just stopped working. I gave it to them for a 10 minute piece of maintenance and they give it back to me not working. The clincher was that the watch had to go back to Omega for service. They said that would take 6-8 weeks. Having no other options I gave the watch in for service.

At least I got an answer to an age old question I had. You can get really horrible service at an expensive store just like you would at Walmart. I will probably be sporting my Dad’s old watch until I get mine back. Not the end of the world (i will admit that), but just an annoyance!

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Video Redux

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I finally took the time to look at an article that shows how to convert video from my DVR program to a format that works with my video iPod. Turns out it is a free video extractor (windows only) that will convert almost any video file (i am using a generic mpeg-2 file that worked flawlessly) into a compatible format for use on the video iPod. I ran a test this morning and it worked flawlessly. I programed my DVR computer to convert a bunch of other shows I have. I also programed my desktop to convert a bunch of misc video’s (a lot of them) to the same format. The conversions take allot of time so I am going to let them run overnight. While I sleep they will perform.

I also broke down and bought an Elgato EyeTV 200 for my Mini. it is not as elegant a system as my Beyond TV, but I wanted to use my Mini as part of the home entertainment center. Since my DVD player was going I removed it and now I have my Mini & my Media Center PC as my only components of my home entertainment center. The Tivo is now in the bedroom, and it will be gone as soon as I watch whats left on it. Tomorrow I hope to go through video’s I have and encode what I want to keep for use on the iPod and get rid of the rest. The other advantage of this conversion is the space savings. An hour long video in MPEG-2 is about 2 gigs, in the H.264 codec it is less than 500 meg. Not a bad savings.

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No Staff Wednsday

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Just as the title says my department had a no staff Wednesday, well almost. The moons seemed to align in such a way that half the group took off today for whatever reasons they had. The rest of us got allot done! I had the typical meetings and other misc tasks to do for the day. Nothing major to report.

I headed out early to get my watch fixed again. After adding a link to the band because I thought the watch was too tight for months I realized after 2 days that with the extra link it was way too loose. Loose enough that I can live with the slightly tight fit the other way. I also brought in my recipt for when I bought the watch and got the battery replacement refunded. Not bad.

Also note to self, never take the Q train all the way to 57th street since it stops in the tunnel and waits for a free slot to park. and other trains that you want to connect with pass you in the tunnel getting us (kings we) pissed off…

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Dinner With The Family

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Meet up with Carrie, Morgan, and my dad for dinner at Sante Fe by my sisters house tonight. I didn’t really eat much. I started feeling out of it towards the end of the day. I was not hungry but nibbled on some chicken fingers while everyone ate. I went to see the family more than the food. Morgan still rocks. she is too cute for her own good.

At luch I had to get my watch fixed since I went to a store that couldn’t help me yesterday. Cost me $28 bucks but I could get that money back when I bring in the receipt from the purchase of the watch. I also had a link let out since the watch was a bit tight since I got it. now it is too loose. Go figure?

I had to cut out of the office a little early to meet up with the family. I am spoiled by the 20 minute commute now that I get frustrated with the 45-60 minute trip to Forrest Hills. The funny thing is I know it isn’t a bad trip, but compared to what I am used to it sucks. Of course to see my niece I would do double the trip. She is worth it, but only in small doses. She is allot of energy.

Even with the not feeling good it was a nice visit. My mom heard about the trip and jokingly got upset that I meet up with the family when she was out of town. She is in Florida relaxing with her friends for the week. It seems like retirement is nice!

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