Upgrades Galore

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Over the past few days I have completed building my first Windows 2003 Domain Controller for our NYC office. Last night I moved a few DHCP scopes onto it. I will finish that this weekend. I also moved our callcenter mail server to our data center. It completes my migration to IMail 8.0. It is a nice little mail program. Next up is moving NYC call center people to this mail server. That requires changing their email address’. No one will be happy about that. I am working on a migration plan now.

I also need to learn more about rsync. We are going to use it for some new things starting soon.

T-Zones

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So the cell number switch looks like it is done and working. Besides having my voice mail reset and loosing my T-Zones internet access everything worked. I had to call to have the internet setup again and then I was off and running. Lets see if my bill is screwed up because of this. I was not under contract and hope to remain that way. I like keeping my options open.

Still enjoying my Treo 270, but the battery keeps dying at night if I use it all day. Still waiting for the 600…….. and waiting, and waiting…….

This entry was written while listening to Stacies Mom from the album “Welcome Interstate Managers” by Fountains of Wayne

Number Portability Complete

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After waiting years for the rules to take affect, and 6 days from when I made my request I finally got the SMS message telling me my cell number had transfered from AT&T to T-Mobile. It actually worked. I was beginning to doubt it for a while. But it is done. I had to setup my voicemail over again, but other than that everything seems to be working fine.

I am not sure if I need to cancel AT&T service of if it is done automatically. I hope I have to call, that way I can delay for 20 days and not pay the contract cancelation fee.

Now all that is left is waiting for Handspring to release the Treo 600 for T-Mobile!!! That and letting everyone know my number changed back to the old one again. People don’t like me doing that allot!!!

This entry was written while listening to Make It Last from the album “Nasty Little Thoughts” by Stroke 9

A Clean Apartment

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Why is it that I clean my place right before the cleaning lady shows up? I don’t dust or use cleaning stuff, but I neaten up. I always seem to do it the day or two before the cleaning lady shows up. It is really weird.

I started cleaning because I needed to tidy up, but I finished because I will probably have company later. I don’t want this place looking like a whole in the ground. Of course it is kind of empty when it is clean and I still don’t have a couch or dining room table.

This cleaning frenzy also got me wondering how to you clean an iMac when the white starts getting dirty? My tan logitech keyboard is greying because of dust and dirt. This iMac is snow white, and I don’t want to think how dirty it will get over time.

My Web Site And Tech Projects

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I finally went out and I am trying Macromedia Flash MX. I have used dreamweaver and fireworks, but never mastered flash. Most of my website (my regular website, not the blog) is done with fireworks, and dreamweaver after I abandoned Frontpage XP last year.

I also updated some pages on my site using fireworks. They were only minor changes, but I haven’t worked on the site (except for the blog) for a while. Long weekends are good like that. I get to do stuff that I don’t normally get time for.

My next home computer project is to setup apache on a linux box (my dad gave me his old dell desktop to use) or on my new iMac. I also want to setup MYSQL on a machine so I can access my personal DB I have from any machine and not just my laptop. I currently have an access DB. Of course I have had this project kicking around since 1999, when I worked at Datastream doing SQL work. Then I was going to make a SQL 7.0 DB. I did, but never used it. This will eventually get done.

This entry was written while listening to American Girls LP by Counting Crows

Windows 2000 SP4

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I finally began upgrading servers at work with SP4 for Windows 2000. it has been out for ages, but I have waited to upgrade. All new servers deployed since September have had it, but I did my first upgrade thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is after all 1 of 4 days that my office is completely closed. I got most of our internal box’s, but have some more to do. We have been fully patched, but just were using SP3. You should be able to just keep applying hot-fix’s and not need to do the SP’s but I don’t think that is a good idea. Eventually you need to apply the latest service packs.

Thankfully everything went well. I also took the time to deploy more machines to our internal windows update system. This will save time for my team since they won’t have to manually patch every machine. That becomes a real pain in the ass after a while.

This entry was written while listening to Bouncing Around The Room from the album “2/28/03 D1 Nassau Coliseum, NY” by Phish

Number Portability Day 5

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I am on day 5 of my attempt to change my cell number to a new provider. After being told yesterday by both AT&T & T-Mobile that all roadblocks to transfer the number have been cleared, I still don’t have the number moved. I am now being told that YES there are no technical issues, but AT&T is just backlogged and having technical problems. I was told to wait another 24-72 hours. That would put me at 6 days. I have no idea if these people are telling the truth, but I have no choice but to wait. calling them and waiting on hold for an hour is not my idea of fun and I have done it several times already this week.

Impatiently waiting!!!

This entry was written while listening to All Star by Smash Mouth

Thanksgiving

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Had a nice thanksgiving. Not as many kids over at the Stein’s like there was during the jewish holidays. It was only Dara and Morgan. Both are so cute and fun to play with. Dara got so big. she is running around and talking. Morgan is crawling around, and trying to eat everything. Talked with Amy and Jared, Don & Lori, and plenty of others. Allot of the Stein family didn’t show this year. That is of course not such a bad thing since there are so many people. It was nice to keep this dinner down to under 20 people.

I saw Justin V for the first time in a while. It is nice to see him, but also kind of sad. He was one of my best friends in elementary school up until I was like 13. Now I never see him anymore. He dropped out of school, and drives trucks now. It is funny how some friends you keep in touch with and others you just let slip away.

The turkey was ok. I am not a huge fan of Turkey dinner. The desert was great. My sister made my cousin Syndie’s chocolate cracker desert. I had nothing else for desert but that stuff. My dad was upset since I didn’t try out the chocolate cake. He won’t have any chocolate or sugar stuff unless I tell him it is worth it. He is diabetic, so he saves up for stuff that I say is really good!

All in all it was a good day. Thankfully I didn’t get bombarded with questions about computer stuff. I actually got to sit and talk to Jared about video editing. he works for the YES network and does production stuff. We were watching the football game and he explained how they did all the graphics and other segments. It was cool.

Number Tramsfer Day 3

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So I am still waiting for my AT&T number to move to T-Mobile. T-Mobile says AT&T has an issue. AT&T says my account looks fine. I am back on the phone with T-Mobile trying to sort this out. I knew the process would take time, but this is starting to be not funny. I am 6 or 7 calls into this process and I have no end in sight. The crazy thing is I understand what they are trying to do. Forget someone who has no clue. they would be waiting forever for this to happen. I am being told to call back tomorrow, and have the rep get AT&T on the phone to fix the issue at the same time with me on the phone.

So far today I have had a good rep, and a really bad one. FYI, when dealing with people on the phone always get there names. T-Mobile is good since they give out their rep id so if you have a problem you know who you spoke to before.

This entry was written while listening to Crutch from the album “Mad Season” by Matchbox 20

Politically Correct Has Gone Too Far

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OK, I am all for attempting not to offend people. I also know that some people are more sensitive to things than others. What pisses me off is stuff like this CNN Article. NO ONE is trying to put down slaver or make any political statement by using these terms for computers. Is the “Slave” server going to get upset? No, of course it wont. If you know anything about computers, the analogy of Master/Slave designation fits in some scenario’s. That is why they use them. In others they may be called Subscriber and Publisher, but the terms are used in different scenarios.

Come on people, aren’t we getting carried away with this stuff? What angers me is that this article said that some tech companies are also listening to these requests. Are we all a bunch of cry babies all of a sudden?

OK, rant over. This was just so funny and stupid at the same time, I had to discuss it. Thanks Keith for pointing this article out. Of course you should have been working when you did find it!!!