Technology

Core 2 Duo Macbook

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I have no self control. I think it simply boils down to that. That explains why I went out and bought a brand new Core 2 Duo Macbook (in black). My Macbook (Core Duo) is only 6 months old, but it is now in the process of going up on eBay. This Macbook is now the latest in a long line of Mac laptops I have purchased in recent years. It is my second Macbook, and is by far the most powerful computer I have had (desktops included) so far. I upgraded it to 2gig’s of ram (the extra memory from the last Macbook was usable in this one). I also got a fast 180gig hard drive upgrade for it!

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VMworld Update

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I had a great time at VMworld. I learned allot about what the topics I went out to the convention for. Now I need to put concept into an actual working system. I also have to convince the powers that be that they should spend the money on some of these projects because the have a great ROI in the long run. More details on some of my ideas later.

I also signed up for the beta of version 2.0 of Ace. They claim that it will work on Linux hosts, so that makes it a viable option for one of the security enhancements we are looking at. More news on that if/when we get the beta.

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A Row to Myself

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For some lucky reason I got an entire row (3 seats) to myself on my return trip back to NYC. I am presently at 39,001 feet and have traveled 2,222 miles (make that 2228 miles between when I saw the display and actually wrote the number since the display updated). I am over Lake Erie near Detroit according to the map. I got another refitted 757 with the setback LCD’s. I realized again that I don’t watch regular tv, and only use my DVR. that is because almost nothing on is worth watching. I have a few hours of TV I watch a week and that is it. 24 channels with nothing on. Go figure.

I had to take a Butabitol again today (yes I spell it differently each time I write it since I can never remember the dam spelling) on the plane. I felt like a head ache was on its way. Normally I would have waited or taken an alive instead, but since I had 4+ hours plus waiting for my bags ahead of me I couldn’t chance getting sick in flight. it probably was a cop out to goto the meds’, but my worst fear in the world is being somewhere so far away from home and not able to get home in time for me to crash with a bad migraine. Being stuck on a plane 2,400 miles from home kind of sets the stage for that potentially happening, so I played it safe. So far, so good. I am a bit hot, but I am surviving for now. I have about an hour or so left on the flight.

I spent most of the day at the airport. I was done with the convention earlier than I thought and I couldn’t get a earlier flight, since the next earlier one would have been too early. since I got an entire row to my own it turned out ok (so far).

I was able to get some work done on my laptop at the Delta lounge on my Verizon Air Card. I had several calls with Jayson reviewing issues. He is stepping up and taking charge of the ops team. It really helps. I am nudging him along but you cannot complain about the results. On the other hand there are others than need to get a bit motivated, but I can’t talk about that right now.

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Wireless Broadband Woes

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This weekend I broke out the Verizon Wireless Broadband card I have for my work computer to test it to ensure that it worked for my trip. Turns out it didn’t. I spend about an hour reinstalling the software a few times and troubleshooting as best as I could. I ended up giving up and called Verizon on Monday for help. My knowledge on the subject and my volunteering all that I did got me right escalated to a level 2 guy and then a relatively quick answer for my problem when he was stumped also. It turns out when you actually know as much or more about the system you are calling about you tend to get the tech support guys to get you to someone higher up quick. Something (they didn’t say what) wasn’t provisioned on my account properly even though the card worked a week and a half ago when I used it last.

So far the card has been working for my trip. I do have to say (hopefully I won’t jinx myself) that the coverage and quality of service on Verizon is better than what I had with T-Mobile. I am just personally not a fan of the company and some of the customer service practices. Won’t go into them here, but you get the idea if you read past posts. In general the service is still great though.

I will blog about the details of the trip in other posts to come.

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P2V

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Since we had such good luck with a P2V (physical to virtual server conversion) a few months ago, we decided to try again with another critical server that we would all feel better if it was on different hardware. it is another of those box’s that would be a nightmare to rebuild so virtualizing makes sense. the only problem is that after two attempts we have yet to complete the conversion. The issue at first was the CD drive was busted, and we couldn’t fix it before our maintenance window ended.

The second try also was a bust since we ran out of time to let the conversion to run. We are regrouping again and will try a different tool instead of the P2V assistant from VMware. We are going to take a look at the Platespin tool. We have been using it to do V2V (virtual to another virtual server) on another project and we love the fact that it requires almost no downtime during the conversion. We are investigating the different tool this week. Hopefully news soon.

Yes, allot of writing about virtual stuff. It is on my mind recently and we are doing allot with it. it is some amazing stuff.

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And The Kids Get A Computer

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I finally setup a day to goto my sisters and give my niece a computer. I took my dad’s old dell that I had and cleaned it up and put windows xp back on it. I gave her my 17″ flat pannel I wasn’t using, and also my altec lancing speaker set. It was my excuse to go out and buy Bose speakers for my computer set at home.

Surprisingly the setup was not that bad. Coping over some of Morgan’s music too the longest. The computer setup fine, and the router they already had (even though it wasn’t in use until today) remembered all its settings.

I also got to spend some time with my nephew Zachary. He is very playful for a 4 month old. he just doesn’t like to be put down. I don’t mind that he likes being held, but I guess that Carrie and Michael do. They think he is being spoiled.

Morgan and I also got to hang out. She was in a good mood, and playful. I like that since I get free hugs. you have to take them when you can with a 3 1/2 year old. Overall it was a fun day. I just hope I don’t have to deal with that much technical support on the new computer.

Content Management System

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I am looking for a content management system to use at work. We want something that will be easy to allow end users manage and update content on. So the goal is to get something setup by technology that we can simply hand off and not worry about the management of the site. At first we thought a wiki was good enough to setup, but media wiki required too much learning curve to use. This project is a side research project right now, but it would be nice to figure something out and get it up sometime soon. I think I am going to play with a few CMS’s on my own website and see how the functionality looks.

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Windows Vista RC1 Take 2

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I know I said I thought I was pre-determined to not like Vista in my original post about it, but there are plenty of annoying things that just scream out at me. Some stuff looks nice also, but all that I have found that I like are all UI things. No real substance.

My first major complaint is that the control panel is different. For example all the elements you could previously get via the display control panel are now separated. So you have to go looking for the control panel option for the screen saver, screen size, desktop, etc. It is annoying. I also looked for 15 minutes and could not find where the option to NOT let Vista log me out after an extended period of time is kept. In XP and older versions it was configured in the screen saver options.

The major thing that drives me crazy is how you have to install software. Since at work everything is on a network drive I have to say ok to launching something from the network, and then I have to say it is ok to install something, since Microsoft likes to ask me if I really want to do what I am telling the OS to do. That is nice in theory, but if you get too many dialog box’s you tend to just say yes to them and not read them. I thought they (MSFT) figured that out with 2003, but apparently they didn’t learn their lesson. In fact they decided to take it a step further. Jayson says this all the time, but by turning off all the options of a browser by default does not make it more secure. Users will just say yes to the warning box when they try to run something. They will also look less at each box the more of them they get.

Now on a good note, I was surprised how quick Office 2003 applications such as word and excel opened when launched. I didn’t get a chance to use the apps since I really don’t work on a windows box anymore, but I was happy with the snappy performance. Of course the performance better be that nice on a 64bit AMD 3000+ with 2gigs of RAM.

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Mooing Macbook Pro

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My Macbook Pro has been causing me problems for almost a month now. It sounds much louder than it should during normal operation. Every once in a while (more often than not now a days) it will start getting much louder like an engine for a while. After a while it eventually goes back to normal, but as I said normal is still way too loud. Last week I got fed up with the sound (when my office is quiet all I hear is this dam laptop and it drives me crazy) and had it taken in to a Apple service center. I got it back in the middle of this week, and early on it was apparent that the replaced fan did not do much good. Yesterday when it started sounding really loud again I knew whatever they replaced didn’t fix the issue.

I called Apple support today and spend almost an hour on the phone. At first the level 1 support guy was giving me the normal song and dance about how they need to bring it to a depot and take a look at it. He couldn’t shed any light on what was going on. Something must have clicked because after a while he put me on hold and sent me to a specialist. I actually spoke to someone who knew what he was doing. Now it is hard to explain a noise problem. The system functions without any issues, but it is just abnormally loud. I can’t localize the sound. It seems random when it gets really loud, but it is constantly emitting a low hum that it should not. I know it shouldn’t because at work we have a few Macbooks and Macbook Pro‘s. My luck that my personal computer would be messed up. The guy I spoke to supposedly made some special notes on my ticket and I am now waiting for a box to arrive to send it in. They said something about the logic board, but they will run it for a while when they get it to see if the can reproduce the issue. I hope they can, but based off of how often it happens to me I don’t think there will be a problem with them reproducing it.

Now I have to go without my work computer for probably another week. It isn’t too bad since I have my personal Macbook I will bring to the office. The downside is that I normally leave my Macbook on at home when I am at work and run a bunch of different processes. I shouldn’t complain too much since I at least have a laptop to use. I know I get a bit spoiled with the gear I have access to at work. I just hope this unit comes back and works. More news when the unit comes back!

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Photo Albums

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The driving force to get me to try a new web hosting provider that I mentioned in my post “Spoke Too Soon” was to get an easy to use web album management system installed. Not simply using some client side image formatting system like I had been using. Granted my most recent photo layout tool, RapidWeaver was good. It was the latest in a long line of editing tools such as Frontpage, the generic export feature of iPhoto, some php photo album generator, picasa, and more. The ability to have a true photo management system powered by mySQL running on a server sounded great. I stumbled upon Gallery by accident the other day.

Once I looked it over a bit and found a hosting provider that would script the setup in a minute I setup a new hosting account. I was uploading photo’s in 5 minutes. Now I haven’t got everything exactly the way I would like it, but I am working on it.

Now I will continue to use RapidWeaver for my general website creation, but since most of my content is photo albums Gallery will come in handy.

More updates after I get more content into the system.

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