Work

Queue This

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So the more I work in the technology field, the more I realize what I don’t know. I learned about a totally new type of product last night. Now I need to become an expert in how it is tied into Windows 2000 Active Directory. The product is MSMQ or Microsoft something or other messaging queue. it is really interesting stuff, but I never dealt with it before. This is one of the many new projects I am learning about.

I am knee deep in setup stuff for our new Kingston office. I have the Active Directory model set. Now I have to build it. I ordered the first batch of 25 desktops today. They wont ship till August but we locked the price and model in. We are waiting on some better deals for flat panels before we order them.

Our cable guy’s finally called us back today. Joe is going to kingston on thursday to meet with them and make sure the plan is set and the work begins and finishes on time. I am still waiting for an install date on our long distance T-1’s. We keep getting the run around from our carrier. I am freaking out that the LEC verizon goes on strike in August. And yes, they will strike. both sides of that argument are no where near an agreement. That will get messy.

late night

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So here we are at work at 9 Pm. We are waiting until midnight to run our network upgrade. I am fed and waiting for the work to begin. We are trying to watch a movie soon. I am not sure if we will get to it.

So we never got to watch that movie. I ended up not being able to write a blog entry, and I am finally sitting down and able to do so two days later. Depending on how you look at our schedule we could say things were successful, or not. We got most of what we wanted to do completed. one big peace was not done, but I think we were a bit agressive with what we thought we could do in one night, so I am happy with our results. We had some problems allong the way, but we were able to pull through and get the project complete.

The whole thing took almost 6 hours. We (keith and i) started at midnight and didn’t leave our Data Center until almost 6-am. The rest of the team was at our office.

I was able to go home around 8AM. We waited until our call center opened and things were working normally.

The crazy thing was I didn’t go right home to sleep. I had 2 dunkin donuts on the train and went to get a hair cut. I grabbed a quick shower and then fell asleep till like 5:30PM. I was too tired after that to do anything. Hopefully my sleep cycle is not totally screwed up. Time will tell.

Busy at work

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I am tired and don’t want to write allot, but I have allot to talk about. So I will be brief.

Went to kingston today. Got there late, and didn’t leave till late. Was very productive with Dan & Joe. We got 2 POTS lines installed and our local Verizon voice T-1 installed.

AT&T had a massive outage out west that caused us all sorts of havoc while I was out. We had issues reaching sites on the west coast. Still no RFO (reason for outage). I am waiting on that.

Also I was just told that we hired 2 more developers that start on monday. I need to order computers and stuff for them. That will be fun since we are doing a late night (overnight) tomorrow.

And lastly the above mentioned overnight tomorrow. I need more sleep and we are doing an overnight install. that will be interesting. Because of the overnight I may not be doing any blog entries for a few days. if I do they may not post right away. It depends on how tired I am thursday and friday. More later…

Work as Usual

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Monday was work as usual. We had our new Kingston Help-desk guy start. Gave him the really brief overview of stuff we do. After lunch he sat in on a training class for Call Center people. I bet he wasn’t happy about that.

We got our 2 file servers for kingston. They are nice. I am building Windows 2003 Server on them right now. Not 100% sure if we will use 2003 though.

We are planning a huge system upgrade at our data center that I mentioned last week. We hashed out issues still outstanding regarding that move. So far we have no show stopper issues. I gave it a go and await getting final approval for the work to proceed. We will meet again tomorrow to make sure no new issues creep up.

Keith is not happy because he thinks we gave away too much in the design changes to our development team. Or rather to accommodate issues they had. I think this is Phase 1 in a multi stage project. Once we complete this, we work for Phase 2 changes that may require reworking some site code. The work we are going to deploy represents a major step for us though. Sorry I cannot go into too much detail, but certain aspects of work are better left off the open internet!

Staff meeting day

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Another mid week staff meeting day. The mornings are always shot doing this stuff, but it is needed. I have allot to bring up today. We (keith) is about done with the new switch configuration for our data center. We need to schedule a deployment of that. It will be a big deal since so many network paramiters are changing.

I also have a conference call with our VOIP intergrator regarding our project. I think we are about ready to set an install date. Our CEO wants us able to test calls on Augist 15. I am not sure if that will happen, but the big bossman wants us to try, so we try!

Eventful road trip

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My Kingston road trip on tuesday was eventful. I got allot done regarding the new AC units and electrical setup for our computer room. I also found that both data T-1’s are technically in the room we need, but the smart jack for one is somewhere else. After running around the building looking for the dam thing I cannot find it. A smart jack is the terminating end of a T-1, be it data or voice. We want the smart jack in our telecom room because if we have a problem we have easy access to the smart jack. I am working on fixing the problem with our provider.

I am also getting our cable and construction people talking to each other so we get the data cables done in time.

Dan and I found a good greasy spoon diner near the office that we can eat at. Our waitress was so friendly that dan kept saying she would be a perfect CSR.

The drive back was interesting because we both tried to get allot of work done. it is weird being on the cell phone with someone else in the car trying to do the same thing. You got 2 people holding 2 different conversations at the same time. It is just weird.

I have other really big news regarding Kingston that I want to mention but I need to wait for something else to happen before I discuss. Lets just say good things are going on!!!

I didn’t get home till late last night. I was catching up on all the missed work I had since I was out most of the day. I need to have a social life during the week…

the short vacation is over

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The holiday weekend is over and I was back at work today. Thankfully we tracked down one of our two missing T-1’s today. I am going up to Kingston tuesday to sort things out. Dan and I are driving up tuesday morning. It will be interesting, since dan is an interesting driver!

I have some other issues I need to take care of while I am up there so it should hopefully be a productive trip. I am also planning on being up there next Wednesday to oversee our next T-1 install. I won’t let this screw up happen again.

With my cell phone and wireless internet, it is almost like I am in the office! Who am I kidding!!! It beats being totally out of touch on some island.

Got a bunch of Kingston related issues worked on today. And I survived an almost 2 hour long management meeting. I felt very productive today. Hopefully tomorrow I get the telecom issues taken care of.

Not all fun and games

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Yesterday was not all fun and games though. I had two issues with our FTP site. Neither of which turned out to be a problem with the site per say but user’s thinking they had problems.

I am also trying to track down a missing T-1. Verizon claim’s they installed a T-1 Circuit for us in the telecom room we told them to install it in. Well Dan was up in Kingston on Tuesday and sees no smartjack. I have 2 guys today looking for it. The problem is that Verizon is coming out again today to do another T-1, and I don’t want them to screw it up also.

I have finalized our server selection for kingston. Unless something crazy goes on our file servers will be Compaq Proliant ML360’s. I was not wowed by the IBM warez, and Dell has not been great to deal with. Our Compaq vendor is eager to work with us, and Dell makes me feel like we are a waste of their time. Probably just a vibe I get, but I don’t get the best pricing right out of the box from them. I don’t like to do second guessing on my pricing.

Glenn our CEO is going to take my old Verizon V60i off my hands. He wanted a new phone since his star tac is beat up. I saw what he was going to get from someone else and told him he needed to take the V60, it was much better.

We are still hunting for a new Help-desk Manager for kingston. We think we may be close but we are not there yet.

Monday was busy

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Work was busy. I did tests of our notification system. I started to get a migraine during our management meeting and took two furiset’s. Thankfully the migraine didn’t materialize. So much going on at home with the move I don’t have time to go into detail about todays work.

Work, softball, and head ache’s

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Today we have another company softball game. It is supposed to be 97 degrees today. I think that I will pass on going to this game. I don’t need to kill myself in the heat when we have not one a game yet. Well, we did win 2 games by forfeit when the other team didn’t show up, but that does not count in my book.

Also today is tons of interviews. I never know what to ask people. This lot looks good though. We will see what happens after today and tomorrow.

I woke up with a small head ache, but it seems ok right now. I forgot to take my Nadolol. I am supposed to take it daily to prevent migraines. Missing it one day here and there doesn’t usually cause a problem, but I don’t like forgetting to take it.