DAN’S BLOG

Status update

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— Dan-Tron @ 12:04 pm

Well, I figure I ought to blog about some of the things that have been going on around here.

Work has been getting more or less crappier by the week. For those of you who have not already heard, my job as well as 2 or 3 other IT departments at work, are being in-sourced to Little Rock, AK. Basically a company within the company won the bid to take over a bunch of stuff. So of course lots of people will be layed off in the near future so that lots of less technical people can do their jobs for less. I used to be part of a team that monitored not only our own network of around 400 locations, but 4 other companies as well. A while back they took our 4 contracts. And now they are taking the rest. Personally I will be staying with the company to work in other capacities. I do hope and look forward to the possibility of other more interesting opportunities that might become available when the dust settles.

The new house is doing well. All the major fixes have been finished months ago but there are a few details remaining. Money is the limiting factor really. I have so many projects I want/need to do but I can’t afford to do them all at once. The house needs painted, the yards need cleaned up, I want to install more cameras with a security DVR, I have 3 ceiling fans and 2 bathroom fans to install. I have been trying to get some web cams worked out but I am usually too busy with other things or I am too tired to run cables after work each day.

I have some server problems to work out too. My main file server has a 600GB RAID5 array that needed upgrading. Today I replaced the four 200GB drives with four 320GB drives. This gave me 960GB of storage, nearly a terabyte. It was a somewhat inexpensive upgrade solution but is a major headache to implement. I had to make a full backup of all my data on an external 1TB HD using professional backup software to retain all my file attributes. The backup is now restoring back onto the array as I type. Once that is complete, I need to totally re-install the OS on that server to fix some problems it has. Then I can make that server into a web cam server as well. Also my Linux box is dying. This blog runs on my Linux box. It’s an old PIII 600MHz running Mandrake 10 Linux. It’s got lots of problems. Believe it our not, I have no other spare computers that would make an acceptable replacement. I am thinking of buying a $300 Dell to be my new Ubuntu Linux box. Once that happens, I can move the Linux box to my house and finally start on moving the rack from my parents house into my house. I dare not turn off the old Linux box now, for fear it won’t ever come back. LOL.

That’s all for now. Sorry for the long post.

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Jason’s Birthday and 4th of July

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Friends

— Dan-Tron @ 1:47 pm

Today was the 4th of July AND friend Jason Copeland’s birthday! To celebrate, a whole bunch of us went out to K1 Speed Indoor Go Kart Racing. It was AWESOME!!! This was my first time driving a go kart. I had the best time ever. The karts at this place are electric. They race about 10 to 12 karts at a time. We payed $50 for 3 races. Each race consists of 14 laps. I thought it was cool how the karts will not run at full speed until you pull into the track and the operators can slow down or stop all the cars remotely in case someone eats a barrier. They also have sensors that time your laps and you get a printout after each race that shows you your rank and stats. I can’t wait to go back there one day. After the karts we went to Jason’s place and had hamburgers grilled on tje BBQ. Finally for the evening, we went over to the San Diego Yacht Club . Jason’s parents actually own a Yacht! And they invited us on a little tour of the bay and to see the fireworks up close. Really close. There was a little engine troubles but we were able to get out there and see the fireworks and we made it back in one piece. It was a tremendous day! Here’s some pics and video.

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Server Stuff

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General

— Dan-Tron @ 3:01 am

My servers are in a horrible state. Right now everything is torn between two houses. I am dealing with a possible hard drive controller problem in my file server. I am in desperate need of making my 6-month full backup. My Linux box has tons of problems that are growing. Also I still need to figure out the best way to migrate the rack from my parents’ house to my house while maintaining web cams at both houses. It’s all complicated and will take some time, energy, and money. I have just started phase 1… Buy new hard drives. I am going to be upgrading my RAID-5 array to nearly 1TB of storage. I have also ordered a 1TB external HD for making off-site full backups. Once I have that done, I can work on moving servers around. Also I am going to be building a new Linux box from a spare PC that is much better than the existing P3 650MHz Linux box. I’ll be running a flavor of Linux that still exists! WOW.

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Cousin Jennifer’s Graduation

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Family

— Dan-Tron @ 7:36 pm

Today I went with my parents in the RV up to UCSB in Santa Barbara. It was a 4 hour drive but it was fun. I brought my laptop and blackberry. I was chatting and streaming video to UK Dave part of the way up. We attended the graduation of my cousin Jennifer. She has achieved her Doctorate in Sociology with an emphasis in womens study. She had a Vegan-ish BBQ party at her apartment for lunch before the ceremony and for dinner after. There was cake. Lots of cake. Here’s some photos.

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WordPress upgraded

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General

— Dan-Tron @ 6:27 pm

I just upgraded to WordPress Version 2.5.1. So shiny. You probably won’t notice any difference. Oh well.
I have not upgraded in a long time an it needed done. Also I want to see if they made any progress in the area of uploading images. I and my parents need a better way to upload images to our blogs.

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Cell Phone

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Technology

— Dan-Tron @ 10:14 am

I finally did it. I’m no longer a total outcast and freak. I am now among the rest of you billions of people whom have cell phones. I like to call them pocket monsters because they eat the money right from your wallet. I have always avoided getting a cell phone because I didn’t NEED one. Yes it would be convenient at times, but did I NEED one to LIVE? No. Why spend extra money like that. Also everybody has one. It’s not like the old days where if you had a cell phone, you were a somebody and COOL! No, now if you have a cell, you are normal and if you don’t have one people look at you like you’re from another planet. I should know.

All ranting aside, I got me a Sprint Motorola Q. It’s comparable to my work BlackBerry 8830. So far I like it except I found that you can’t copy an paste text, it does not auto caps my sentences, and the d-pad style navigation sucks monkeys compared to my work BlackBerry which does all of the above and has a trackball. However, because it runs Windows Mobile, I can install more apps and have more fun with it than my BB which is locked down by a corporate BES policy.

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Housewarming Party

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Dan's House

— Dan-Tron @ 9:55 am

This past Saturday was our Housewarming party. There must have been around 40 people in all that came! Thanks everybody! It was a blast. We grilled up hamburgers and hot dogs. Some people even brought me a few gifts. The whole event was larger and more fun then I ever expected. I should buy houses more often. LOL. After all the family, neighbors, and coworkers left, my friends all stayed to hang out. Joe cooked onion soup for dinner.

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Almost Party Time!

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General

— Dan-Tron @ 9:30 am

I am planning my big Housewarming party on this coming Saturday. So we have all been real busy the past couple weeks getting my house ready. I think it is basically done. Here’s some of the things that have been going on lately:

I bought some ceiling fans for the bedrooms and some exhaust fans for the upstairs bathrooms. I have not had much time to install them.
Dave washed off the rest of the vertical blinds. Yes, i know they are pink. But they do keep the neighbors from looking in and it saves us from having to look at the neighbors.
I moved the network equipment from beside the dryer to the server room. I racked it up in one of Dave’s racks which will do until I move my big rack in.
I wired the living room for Cable and 3 network drops. It was quite challenging because all the walls are insulated and hard to get to.
I bought a plunger and mom tested it out… on my face.
Jake is now living here. He has settled in quite well. He is now indoor only.
I installed a much more modern looking recessed eyeball light above the stairs.
I got a super deal on a discounted floor model hanging light for above the foyer.
I have replaced ALL the light switches with new white “Decora” rocker switches. Don’t lick the wires! And yes, I did replace them without turning off the power.
Dad painted and installed new flooring tiles in the downstairs bathroom. That bathroom is so nice looking now. It has been the dumpiest room in the house for far too long.
Mom and I planted some flowers out front to make the place look pretty.
Mom cleaned up the garage!
I painted and rehung the downstairs closet doors.
And Jake managed to jump onto wet paint and leave tracks allover the place.