scott

Data Center Update

by

After working all day Saturday, Monday night, and Tuesday night, we are about 90% done with our move to the new cage. We have 3 servers and 3 desktops (don’t ask) to move, along with a core switch and the firewalls. We will do that Thursday night. The new cage looks good. Some of the cable management could be better, but Jayson assures me that it will be cleaned up when we are done. We already started taking apart the old cage. it is/was a mess.

Since Saturday I have done nothing else but deal with this move. Once it is over I will be very happy. The good news is we think we were able to squeeze out even more space savings than we originally thought. that is good news since we are planning on expanding with a bunch of new servers soon.

Sleep

by

My sleep habits are all screwed up now that I worked nights two days in a row. Tonight I don’t have to do an overnight. We got allot done yesterday so we didn’t have to go in today. I do have to go back one more time on Thursday night. I got home at 6AM this morning and slept till 2PM. Now it is midnight and I am not tired. I figured I would write a bit and then hopefully sleep would come.

My building’s maintenance crew gave me a new AC unit today. The on in my living room was not cooling. Now I am nice and cold while I sit here and write! When I called they said it would be a while for them to send someone out so I ended up going to the office for a few hours. It was that or goto Starbucks and pay for internet. At work, it is free (for me)!

I went over to Macy’s after work to try and do some shopping, but the lines were really long for the changing room. I decided to try back some other time.

I also went over to the Cingular store. I still think they are an evil company, but I bought a pre-paid SIM card to test out their service. I have been having intermittent reception issues with my T-Mobile phone. So much so that this week I have been using my work Nextel and leaving forwarding calls to that. The pre-paid SIM was cheap, so I will try it for a few days and see if I like it or not.

I also re-organized part of my living room. I had for a while 2 monitors on my desk. They took up allot of space. I had another half of the L of my desk with nothing but piles of crap on it. I cleaned it off, bought a power strip and put my 20″ Apple Cinema display on the other desk. Now I have my powerbook plugged into that and I have more room. I also moved my printer to a shelf out of the way. I still need to clean up my place, but I am lazy since I have been out of it with these weird hours. I keep telling myself I will clean this weekend.

Besides that, I tried to rest allot today. More exciting things this weekend, I hope!

Nights

by

I have been working nights all week so I have not been able to write anything. I got home at 5:30AM this morning, and just woke up about an hour ago. The weird work schedule is necessary for allot of reasons, none of them I can discuss here. See the work blog for details. All good things though. I will write more when my head is clear and my living room AC is fully functional!

Birthday, Days

by

Yesterday was my brother in laws birthday, and today is my Dad’s. We are going out to dinner to celebrate. Not sure when, not sure where, but we are going. Not much else planned for this lazy sunday. I am just trying to get every bit of rest in before the crazy week looks like will happen next week. I need to work nights 12-4AM for a project, so I will have my sleep habits all screwed up.

I am sitting here planning on writing, and now that I am actually taking time to write I don’t know what to write about:( I have a list of stuff I want to write about, but nothing that I seem in the mood for. Weird. Maybe something will come to me later!

Working on a Saturday

by

I worked most of the day today. Busy, busy, busy. See the work Blog for details. After a late lunch at outback I was tired. I didn’t go to the beer garden for Dave’s birthday like I hoped. I ended up relaxing at home and walking to Best Buy.

I am now updating my version of Beyond TV to the latest revision, and at the same time looking through the TV guide for anything on TV that looks good to record over the next 2 weeks.

While running my software update I have been giving serious consideration to dropping the Tivo in favor of a second computer based DVR (PVR). My reading has proven that I can plug a second USB Video capture card into my desktop and use the existing Beyond TV software to record 2 shows at once, or watch one and record another. Some would say that is overkill, but even my mom who has a Time Warner DVR has asked to watch something and record something at the same time. Right now I have 2 cable box’s with one plugged into my Tivo and another one into my computer. The thing with Tivo is it costs $12.95 a month. With a video capture card going for a little over $100 depending on what I get the device pays for itself in 10 months. That is assuming I get no money for the Tivo I have.

I am still pondering what I want to do.

More Nice Palm Software

by

I am trying out the 30 day trial on two awesome pieces of Palm software. Both sync with my mac! The first is an upgrade to something that I have had for years, Landware’s Pocket Quicken 2.5. the new version is slicker looking. Not sure if the added features are worth the upgrade, but since I want to use it with Quicken 2005 on my Mac they require the upgrade. If you use quicken to keep track of your finances having this to make quick updates on the road is invaluable. Without it I would have no clue where my money went!

The other program I am using is Splash ID 3.x from Splash Data. It is a Password Safe like utility that has a Windows, Mac, Palm, & Pocket PC clients. I can use the DB on my mac and sync with my palm and then use it on my Windows machine. It is not free like Password Safe, but it works everywhere I need it to, and it has an import/export function. It took me 20 minutes to export my website links, and user names out of my access db and imported them into Splash ID. Now everything is secure and safe!

As it stands now I will be buying both products when their trials wear off!

Data Center Work

by

Yesterday I got the call (email actually) that my companies new cage in our Data Center was ready for use. Jayson and I quickly got a Uhal van to move all the new gear from our office up to the new cage so we can stage everything. I ended up doing most of the lifting since Jayson had to stay with the truck. He couldn’t find parking. After dropping everything off at the cage we took the truck back.

Today we (along with Jon) will break out the gear and mount the shelves and rack kits. This will set us up for the server move later next week.

I am not used to being up this early on a weekend. Hopefully I am fully awake for the work:)

Incremental Update

by

I admit I have done it again. Last week I quietly went to the Apple store and got a new Powerbook. It has been over a year since I bought my previous one. I was going to try and not upgrade but the price was right and I was so tempted. I went from a 1ghz 12″, to a 1.5ghz 12″. Several other improvements in the Powerbook lead me to the upgrade. The old one is already sold and off to its new owner. One of the guys in my group upstate bought it. So Chris gets a near perfect condition “pre-owned” mac, and I get a new one for virtually nothing!

So far I love the new machine. I am slowly moving everything over to it and using it as my primary machine! As the title says, this is not some major upgrade, but it is a really nice incremental upgrade to an already fantastic piece of hardware!

Too Much To Talk About

by

I could go into so many things that went on this week. Had a great holiday weekend. Ended up hanging out with a bunch of friends Monday night in Little Italy.

Hung out with my friend John on Tuesday. He is finally working in Manhattan so Jay, Danny and I meet up with him for a few drinks. John, Jay & I ended up back at Dan’s for a pickup game of Texas Hold-em poker. At one point we had like 7 people playing. Not bad for 30 minutes notice on the game. I had a head ache all day Tuesday, but after dinner I felt well enough to go play. I am happy I did. I doubled my money!

Being out late every nigh has taken its tole on me. I am tired. I have been going to bed at 1AM every night for days. I need to get a good night sleep. Hopefully I will be in bed by 11PM tonight.

Today I got up early for a trip upstate for a BBQ. It was fun.

Tons more to write about, but I am going to bed!

Weekly Roundup

by

Took a little doing to get back into the routine this week. The week has since flown by. Wednesday was busy preparing for the inevitable colo cage move coming up. Hopefully our provider will be ready with the new cage tomorrow so we can stage things this weekend.

Today was a BBQ in our call center to celebrate the opening of the first floor of the office.

Tomorrow is dealing with the COLO and meeting about our bug tracking system, Bugzilla. Much more going on, but I am tired and will write more this weekend…