scott

SAW

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Today I spent time moving files to my new desktop. That is still going on. it will be a while before that machine is fully configured. Tonight I meet up with Cari and went to Outback for dinner. I tried their fried shrimp entr?(c)e. It was good.

We then hit the heartland brewery to wait for Gretchen and Jayson so we could all goto a movie. We were originally going to see the Incredibles. Unfortunately we are all retarded and didn’t buy tickets ahead of time. All the shows were sold out. In my defense I did say we should order them online before hand but got mocked by Cari for it. We ended up a different theater to see Saw. That movie was just disturbing. it was a great plot. Some of the acting was terrible though. Some crazy stuff in that movie. I won’t ruin it for anyone but it was just disturbing, but a cool kind of disturbing. Kind of like From Hell. it was crazy, graphic, and yet you sat there and took it all in!

Plan for later this week is to try and see the Incredibles.

HP, Vs Dell, Vs Gateway, Vs Etc…

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So for a while I have been thinking about if / when I should buy a new computer. My desktop has been causing major issues for me over the past few months. I have really not used it that much since I got my iMac last November, but recently I have had uses for it. It just keeps wigging out on me. I have debated going with a Powermac, another Powerbook or some combination of machines. Cost concerns prevailed and I ended up going out and getting a new PC. I still have my powerbook (writting on it right now) but my new desktop at home is an HP Compaq Presario. It has the glamorous name of the SR1230NX. This new box replaces my aging custom built AMD Atholon XP 1500+ machine that will be 3 years old next month. The new Presario is another AMD Atholon, running at 3200+. Not the fastest thing out there, but much faster than what I had.

I was shopping around on the internet, and just decided to goto best buy and get something in my price range. I got everything I needed, DVD-+R, 160 gig drive, media reader, etc. I also purchased a ATI All In Wonder Radeon 9600. A major reason for the new computer was to do DVR functions, so I needed a video capture card.

A new computer is a new thing for me. I haven’t bought (built) a computer in 3 years. Before that I was upgrading every 1-2 years. What is different about this purchase is that I went out to the store and bought a Compaq (HP) from Best Buy. I usually build them. Now a days it is just easier and sometimes cheaper to buy a model from the store. I only had 1 specific requirement for this machine. I wanted a video capture card as I mentioned. So I just bought a ATI All In Wonder card and put it in the new box. I also took my 160gig IDE drive from my old desktop and put it in this new machine. Now I have 2 160 gig drives, plus an external firewire drive on my powerbook. Man that is allot of drive space. I don’t know why I am actually using so much of it. The only thing I am really missing is more ram for the new desktop. it came with 512megs. I will upgrade it to at least 1.5gig or maybe max it out at 2 gig next week. That way I can use VMWare without a performance problem.

So far the setup of the new box has been going OK. I had a bit of trouble getting the extra drive in the box. These new machines are so small and they make it so hard to maneuver in them. I wiped the Windows XP Home edition that came with the machine and put my copy of Windows XP Pro on it. Right now all I have is a fully updated windows xp box with nero & VWMware on it. I am coping my data from the old 160 gig drive to the one that came with the box. Then I will format the old drive to start fresh. Oh I almost forgot. I also have the ATI media center installed. It has a TV program, viewers, etc. So far the software is great. It is allot better and more stable than the last version I used way back in 1999 with my original ATI All in wonder card. FYI, I still used that old 16 meg video card in my last computer. It lasted forever, but I couldn’t use the TV function because it was so buggy. I have high hopes for this new card.

Now I am off to do an updateathon of software installs on this new machine…

Blog Cleanup

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Last weekend I spent some time cleaning up this site. I went back and broke out allot of entries into more categories than work and personal. I also cleaned up the allow comments or not to allow comments options on my older posts. Now I hope not to get stupid comments from casinos or other spam comments.

By now I have had my Typepad site up for a little over 2 months. I think I am happy with how the site came out. I have refined the layout enough that I won’t tinker with it all the time anymore. The only think I don’t like is the color pallet. The original one I had I liked better. The problem is I cannot remember how I got to that color scheme. These are the stupid things I fret over in my free time:)

Wild Wild Wiki

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My department at work just deployed a wiki. I finally got Danny some time to work on it, and so far I am very happy with the results. Since getting the wiki online late last week, I have spent hours putting documentation into it. If you don’t know what a wiki is, it is a free flowing knowledge base sort of application. Check out Wikipedia for what a fully featured wiki looks like.

We are going to use our wiki as a knowledge base for all things technical. Eventually we hope to have our call center adopt the concept for the KB they have. So far I have placed a bunch of documentation into the wiki. I still have ton’s more to go. Tomorrow I will demo the site to the entire department. We need everyone to start using it, or else the concept will be a bust. I have high hopes for this. Gus is also very excited. It was his original idea to go with a wiki over other KB or forum programs.

So far the two or three people that have seen it can’t wait to use it. I will know tomorrow how well it is received by everyone.

I Need A New Mac!

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I have been eluding to my desire to get a new Mac. The lack of hard drive space is killing me. I see people in the train station (did so today again) with the 15″ powerbooks and I go “i want one”. I day dream about the power of a Power Mac when it takes a minute for my Powerbook to load a PDF.

My problem is I know I want a new Mac, but I haven’t decided what I want to get. Until then I am stuck with what I have. Now it is in great condition, but I am hitting the limits of its performance.

My current options are a single processor G5 tower, the newer 12″ Powerbook, or the 15″ Powerbook. When I make up my mind I will go and get one. You know what that means? eBay in my future for my current model.

Mac’s Are Great, But Slow

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So if you read this site you will know I am a fan of Mac’s. Now this is new for me. For years I was such a Windows snob. I was so against Apple in every way. Over the past 2 years I have become a fan of Mac’s. OS X has done it for me. it is a great OS. My Mac of choice is the Powerbook. I love them. I have had 3 of them. I upgrade quickly, especially since eBay exists it makes it easy.

So I have mentioned I love the Mac. Now the downside. They are slow. I don’t care what Apple says, my Powerbook 1GHZ with 640 megs of ram is noticeably slower than my 1.5GHZ Thinkpad with 768 megs of RAM. Now the powerbook was bought in February. The thinkpad is 15 months old. Apple always says that the megahertz doesn’t always matter. Well let me tell you, I believe them to a point. But when it takes forever (3-4x as long as it does on my thinkpad) to open a PDF file with Adobe Acrobat on my powerbook, it is slow. When I have iTunes, Firefox, and Microsoft Word open and word is sluggish to respond, it is not looking good for Apple. they can claim that Microsoft or others don’t optimize their software for their OS, but I as a user just see it being slower on a mac versus my windows PC. Now I tolerate it, but it is becoming a problem. Granted I want to upgrade to a faster powerbook, but I shouldn’t have to just because their is a faster one out there. I want to upgrade because I need more drive space, but I am also hoping that the newer machine is allot faster. The speed issue as I said is becoming a problem. What is the deal Apple?

Birthday Party Brouhaha

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I went to my cousin Arielle’s birthday party today. Well it wasn’t a birthday party really. She had her friends over for a sleep over party last week. This week was the family getting together. Now that is always an interesting thing. I took an early afternoon train out to New Jersey. I got picked up by my cousin Synde and her mom, my aunt Marian. We did some shopping for the party and headed to Synde’s house. I got there early. I didn’t mind. it gave me time to catch up with Synde, Wayne and the kids. Cerina (cannot spell any of their kids names correctly) is getting so big. She is such a barrel of laughs. Arielle is grown up also. She is 9 as of this week. I remember holding her in my arms as a baby when Synde and Wayne moved into their house. I feel old. Merric is getting big, but I am used to that now, so it is not as crazy for me.

Synde had 2 of her sisters over and their family’s for the party. Shelly and Samia. Shelly caused a huge problem by bringing Arielle a rabbit for her birthday. Now that side of my family can be flaky at times, but who brings pets to a kids party without asking the parents first? Wayne was like we can’t keep it. He was right, but Arielle was upset for the rest of the day, and Synde and Wayne were pissed at Shelly for the incident for the day.

Besides the people over I mentioned, Wayne had his “other” cousin Scott and family over. Shelly & Gill’s kids were over, along with Samia’s kids. Conspicuously absent where my parents and Samia’s husband. I am not sure what is up with my parents. They used to almost live at Synde & Wayne’s house, and now they have (in my opinion) bad excuses not to show up. It is very noticeable, to everyone but that is the way it is. My parents both have trouble with long car trips, but I really don’t think they make an effort anymore. There I said it. I have been holding that one back for a while. if my mom ever figures out the internet enough to read this site, I think she knows my opinion already.

Besides the rabbit incident I had a great time. I like seeing my cousin’s but I don’t like large or even small family gatherings. So I am usually low key at these things, but I do enjoy seeing my family. This is the group of people I have the oldest memories of.

I don’t get to see the family as much as I like. I need to get out to see Synde and the kids more. Our schedules are always crazy, and I am lazy. I am going to make an effort to get out sometimes before the holiday.

Right now I am on NJ Transit on my way back to NY Penn Station. Wayne gave me a lift to the train. Once I get to Penn I hope to get a cab home and get some sleep. I am tired, and I have about an hour till I get home.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention that Arielle got mad at me after she played with my Treo. Turns out I should have had her name in my contact list even though she doesn’t have a phone. She was not too happy that her brother had an entry and she did not. She corrected the problem and promptly returned the phone after she took some pictures. Man that kid makes me laugh!

Tonight is daylight savings time change. I need to remember to change my watch before I goto bed. At least I gain an hour of sleep tonight…

Friday Night Crazyness

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Friday night I ended up going out with Jayson, Gretchen, Jennifer, Cari, Nelson and others. We had a good time even though Nelson cannot shut up. We ordered pizza from a bar on 3rd and 23rd. We drank, ate, some people played darts. I did not. I have no aim without drinking, so I decided not to throw pointy things after a few drinks.

I have confirmed my previous suspicion that nelson can control what he does and says just as much as I can control fire. He just says what is on his mind. In principle I respect that, but he has some vulgar and not really funny things on his mind allot. he tries to be funny. Sometimes it is funny, but it is also just mean or insensitive.

All of us ended up at Dan’s to play scrabble and poker for a while. I showed Danny, Jayson, Anthony and Nelson how to play Texas Hold-um. We didn’t play for money. Jayson surprisingly did well. I did good, but not the best.

After Dan, and others finished their game of scrabble Dan wanted to play Hold-um for “real”. Not many of us were in for it, but Cari, Dan, Jennifer, and I ended up playing. I ended up being the big winner, but pissed everyone off by leaving at 11:30 before everyone was done playing. They couldn’t win back any losses. Jenn was like, “i will make everyone remember that you left early”. My response was, “ok. I will remind everyone that you lost big time”.

It was in general a fun night. Nelson is still an ass, but I get along with him anyway. he is in he means well, and doesn’t mean to be a dick, he just is sometimes.

I Do Not Like Politics

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I really do not like politics. For that matter I cannot stand the news. I haven’t watched a news show for years. That is funny to me since my mom always said I used to watch the news when I was little. Now it is so easy to see whatever angle the news is trying to take. I cannot stand it. I read news from Reuters or AP, and that is about it. Even that is sometimes one-sided.

Everyone seems so passionate about this election. I have friends who are volunteers for the Kerry campaign. Other friends and coworkers have their own opinions. From observing people I know I have got 2 questions. One, why then is there such a large percentage of people who are still undecided? Come on, how many months do you need to decide who to vote for? Second what is going on with our political system? I am neither a democrat nor a republican. At times I have agreed with both sides, and disagreed with both. Why then is both sides moving more to the right or left (in my opinion)?

I wont vote for Bush, but not for any of the reasons most people sight. But I am not really compelled to vote for Kerry either. He will get my vote because he has one thing going for him, he is not Bush. Normally I don’t write about politics, and I think that is a good idea. Politics, religion and operating systems are way to polarizing topics to discuss. As a tech guy I will talk about OS’s, but that is the russian roulette I will play! What scares me more than anything is not that Bush is president, or will be re-elected, but that if he does win 50+% of the public actually voted for him. That will get me wondering.

If you want to understand my opinion of world politics today, you should watch the Daily Show with John Stewart. Yes a comedy show actually portrays the situation in our country better than any news show. I get more realistic news from John than from anyone else. His time on crossfire last week was priceless. All I can say is thanks to the internet, I was able to download and watch it. To watch real political pundits or whatever they are called attaching him for being soft in interviews was crazy. Stewart is correct in saying shows like that suck. I may be paraphrasing there, but you get my drift.

Ok, like I said I don’t like to talk about politics’ but this post was written out of frustration with the universe today. I will now resume my normal ranting about some cool gadget, or the Simpsons. Hey the Simpsons new season starts in 2 weeks!!! Was that a good segway?

Pimped Out Desktop

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Between meetings, cleaning my office, and real work I tricked out an old desktop today. Jayson and I seem to accumulate computers at work. He has 1 for normal use, it is a tricked out P4 so he can run multiple VMWares. He then has a laptop, and I think a desktop is collecting dust under his desk as a Novel 6.x server for testing.

My computers in the office are my laptop, a desktop that is nicely configured for VMWare workstation and burning, etc. I also have an older box setup to run Suse 9.1. I had another machine that I customized for testing, but it finally pissed me off enough today that I needed to replace it. The hard drive is going on it. So I replaced it. then the IDE controller got all flaky on me, so I gave up on it. I took an older (almost 3 years) P-4 1.5 GHZ that for some reason had a gig of ram in it and but a newer burner in it. Cleaned it up, and now it is a Windows 2003 server I am going to use as a test box. We hate that we have desktops proliferating in our office, so I threw on a test copy of VMWare GSX server on this new “super desktop” I built. I am proving that this server software is worth the money to go buy and put on a nice dual processor machine.

Right now I have several tests of software I need to run. First up is Ipswitch’s Collaboration Suite of software. It looks like their Imail mail server on group ware steroids. My company wants exchange like functionality, but they don’t like the cost in software, hardware, and manpower needed to get exchange. This product looks like it will do what most people want to do, and that is share calendars, contact lists, etc right in outlook.

Immediately we need to test and then deploy Intuit’s Track It. We are planning on using it as our support and helpdesk ticketing system. The software arrives tomorrow, and we need it deployed (if we decide to go with it) by January 1, 2005 in order to support some changes we are planning in our support structure for the new year.

Another focus I had today was getting the specs needed to setup another VPN tunnel to a partner of ours in India. That was a fun conference call.

Then I had a bunch of meetings about some data migrations we are planning, and a failover drill that is 4 months in the making.

Gus and I also went over a power point I am making for a big presentation next week. He had some changes and I created a few new slides. Have I mentioned I don’t like power point? The funny thing is when I first started out on the helpdesk all those years ago, I actually was very good at power points. I just haven’t done them in a while.

All around a very busy day. I didn’t leave work until 7:30PM tonight. I need to make dinner now. I just felt like writing when I got home. Some days (most days) I don’t feel like writing right away after I sat at a computer all day, but today I did. Go figure?