New Theme On Site

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Typepad upgraded their systems last night, and a bunch of new themes are out there. I treid one. I like the color palette but I have issues with how it keeps the middle (the posts) of the site so small. The other template I had kept the middle fluid so I could make it bigger if I made the browser window bigger. This one doesn’t allow that. I am going to keep it around for a few days and see if it grows on me, and others.

It is funny when a provider I use does maintenance and the first thing I think of is the time of day they did the work and the impact on their user base! I read their notice and was surprised they brought down the system at 5PM (8PM EST) on a friday. That is work that I would normally do at 1AM EST. It was just funny that I thought of that. I am too involved in technical operations I guess:)

I also uploaded all my Camera Phone Images from June.

Canceled Plans

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I had plans to hang out with my friends Rich & Amanda today. That was until Amanda sprained her foot last night. She was in pain and not up for doing anything. It was a bummer for me, but I ended up doing some work instead. Work you say on a holiday weekend? I actually like getting work done on the weekends, since I can do it in piece and quiet. I get the stuff that I know I need to do but can’t do it during the week.

Tomorrow I have plans to hang out with John, & Dave. Not sure if Jay & Gretchen will join us or not, but you never know.

Mail Server

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We have been having a problem with one of our Mail servers. It is the machine that holds a bunch of small domains we own, and our call center mail system. It wont allow us to log into terminal server. VNC keeps crashing, and LDAP doesn’t start. It serves up mail fine though. We have had this issue for a week or so. We have been trying to figure out the problem without causing more issues.

I finally broke down and configured the replacement box today. We put the new hardware up at our data center on Tuesday but had not had a chance to cut all the mail over onto it. I configured Imail, moved the mailbox’s and domains. All but our biggest domain is now cut over. Everything looks normal so far. I will cut the remaining domain over when our call center closes tonight. hopefully everything will go smooth. I should just need to update the MX record, and sync the mail. All the accounts are created, and copies of the mailbox’s are on there from a snapshot a few hours ago.

Keeping my fingers crossed!!!

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Hooky

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I played hooky from work today, well sort of. I had an early conference call so I did it from home. then it was do a bit of work from home. Then it was the AC wasn’t working again and it was hot, the day before a holiday weekend, so I decided to take the day. After work I went with Jay, & Danny to see War of the Worlds. I hated it. It had good effects, but I hated it everything else about the movie. I compare it to independence day, and that at least had some decent story. This movie was just bad. But it doesn’t matter since it will make millions, and Tom Cruise will continue to be crazy…

I also hit Macy’s for some shorts. it is shaping up to be a hot one at work, so I need comfy clothing that will allow me to say sane. The lines weren’t too bad, so I was happy.

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White Castle Sunday

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Sunday I bummed around the house most of the day. it was hot, I was still tired from vegas jet lag. Jayson didn’t need me to help move (thankfully). I went over to the new place in the evening to check it out. We ended up going to White Castle for dinner. I don’t have much “fast food” anymore so it was good. I ate the same amount of meat that both Jay and Gretchen ate combined. Not sure how I did it, but I was full afterward. I could barely walk the subway steps because I was so full. But it was good, so every once in a while it is ok to go crazy!

Their new place is allot bigger than the old one, but it is in Queens. I am over living in Queens. I am all about the easy manhattan commute and living (for now).

Outlook Extractor

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I found a program (actually several) that allow me to extract mail from an Outlook PST file to different file formats. We had a need at work to do this, and I also had some uses for it. All the tools worked great, but I chose Outlook Extract 1.3.x. I can pull out entire messages, and attachments into txt and html files, while keeping Outlooks file structure. I can keep the attachments with the email or dump them into a folder someplace. I am now extracting mail out of bloated 2gig PST files. What is funny is that I thought lots of 1kb files would be larger on the disk than the one big PST store, but I was wrong. It looks like the individual messages take up less space on the disk!

I’m Back Home

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I got home late last night, actually by the time I got to my apartment it was today. The flight home was uneventful. Jetblue is still aces in my book. I listened to music on my Powerbook for about 30 minutes and spent the rest of the flight watching the History & Sci-Fi channels. Mind numbing TV to calm the masses on long flights, hmm why didn’t anyone else think of that? Man it worked. I got ticked off every time the interrupted the TV to make an announcement. Who cares if we hit some chop, or a wing fell off, etc. I want to get back to my modern marvel’s, and this week in history!

I got to the airport early enough to catch some food. I like a flight when everything goes according to plan, and you have time to relax and not rush. I even caught a cab with less than 5 minutes wait to and from the airport. Why can’t all travel be like this.

I even unpacked already. That is a feat for me, since I normally leave the luggage sitting around for days (weeks) before I put it away and do laundry. I am so proud of myself!

Spa Day

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I had time in the late morning so I got a spa appointment. I like a good Swedish massage. A real one, not one with a “happy ending” like everyone joked with me about this week. My back gets messed up sometimes, so it is good to loosen things up. I need to go more often. A bit of steam room action (inaction), a shower and a shave and I felt awesome for my flight home.

Whenever I hit Vegas I like to do at least one day at the spa. It is relaxing, especially before a 4 1/2 hour flight home. Now back to waiting for said flight to board!

Convention Close

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Thursday was the last day of the convention. I missed one of the seminars I wanted to hit, and part of another to deal with a problem at work. I did learn a ton about DNS, and some other Cisco security tools at the seminars I made it to. Some of this stuff is so fascinating.

I hit the pool in the late afternoon. I didn’t get much sun. it was too hot. I ended up by the cafe by the pool for a quick snack, and some reading. it was very relaxing.

Thursday night we had the big Cisco convention party. It was cool. They rented out several rooms and the pool at the Palms. Hung out there with Joe for a while. We even played Halo. They were having a contest. Yes, Xbox at a convention party. it was a Cisco party!!! A bunch of tech guys and you need some sort of game. Joe was killing everyone we played. I was just getting killed. The top 18 players of the night (by highest stats of each 5 minute game played) would win an Xbox. When we left halfway through the party Joe had about 8 of the 16 slots taken up, so he should win a new Xbox to go allong with his other 2 that he has.

We met up with Karen at the Paris, and hung out at the lounge. This is where Jayson and Gretchen got really drunk at after their wedding (or so I am told). We had a few rounds and then we all went off to bed.

The New Razr

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I bought a new Razr (Motorola V3 Razr) last week. After a week of issues with getting it shipped, the place I bought it from on eBay came through and dropped it to me via Fedex Saturday delivery. I guess they had issues getting the phone unlocked like the auction said. After a (minor) fit by me the guy got the new phone to me before my trip. I charged it up yesterday and I am now trying to use it as my main phone. The Treo is not going away just yet. Since I cannot find a palm with a good keyboard the Treo will remain at least as a PDA for a while. I also do find times where I like to put the SIM in it and use it instead of the Razr. I did that with my old Sony Ericsson T-610 for the past week and a half.

First impressions on the Razr is NICE! Besides the address book, I find the phone very nice. Slim, good sound quaility, nice screen, etc. It was trivial to sync with my Powerbook.

Like I said the only issue I have is the address book. I don’t like that it doesn’t have 1 contact for each person, with a sub section for each phone number. Instead it has a different entry for every phone number for every contact.

Setting up the Razr to be a wireless modem for my Powerbook was also simple. I found the scripts for the phone allong with some nice tips off of some guys blog and he was dead on.