journaling: enabled

Well, I promised a post relating to work stuff not going so well … and while this is late, better late than never I think.
One of my summer projects has been to upgrade the core Macintosh labs and the Educational Technology Center to Mac OS X. This required basically re-working everything that makes the Mac labs work, including rebuilding the servers that the software is stored on. I had to learn a new software package called ‘radmind’ that was developed by the Univ. of Michigan. I built a development server so I could start building things. I wanted the production server ready-to-go by Aug 1st … this was something the networking staff had to do. Well, it’s Aug 17th and the server isn’t done. The person who has primary responsibility for it is on vacation this week, so it falls to one of the other already horribly overworked staff to deal with (mn). I did have a chance to talk to her about it and indicated that I really did need it real soon because I couldn’t start doing software upgrades until it was in place. Anyway, it is looking like I will be working next weekend since I won’t have the chance to start anything this week due to server non-readiness. Installing Mac OS X on 80 computers isn’t my idea of fun.
In other work news, the faculty/staff file server was upgraded last weekend. Unfortunately, not all the data was transferred to the new server correctly, so I’ve had to spend time working with networking staff to figure out how we can fix it. I have a good idea of how to do it, but it will take a little while and I need to upgrade the machine that will be doing the copying ‘cuz 10mbits/sec ain’t gonna cut it for this task.
I do have some good work-related news. I finally got my KVM switch so I could re-arrange my office. I need to get hold of tech support ‘cuz my keyboard isn’t working real reliably with it, but I like my new office arrangement. I need to finish tidying up in there of course.

My server project is progressing well. I have XFree86 w/Enlightenment up and running (for those who don’t know, this gives me pretty windows to use). I have DNS and DHCP up and running as well. I discovered tonight that I lost the file I was keeping my configure options for various packages (apache, php) in, so I have to figure those out again from scratch. Tomorrow’s project will be getting the web server back up and running (DNS was needed for this). I think I might skip MySQL support in PHP for the first pass and just re-compile and re-install it later. Oh yeah … and I built Mozilla Firebird.
Hopefully early next week I should have mail moved back over to the new system and I can ditch the temp box.

I felt like being tidy tonight. When I got home after having dinner with liz4jc4ever and Paula, I poked around on the computer for a little while and called my dad to wish him a happy (56th) birthday. Then I did some cleaning. My computer room is slightly tidier, as is my kitchen and my living room. I didn’t get a chance to get to tidying up the bedroom as much as I would have liked to. At least I feel like I can live here again without going nuts.
Tomorrow my motherboard and CPU for my server upgrade should arrive, so I expect I’ll spend a fair chunk of tomorrow evening playing with that, hopefully enough to get it operational to the point that I can start installing software on it Saturday morning, but I’m not sure. I think I’m going to have to get it up and running with the 8.5GB drive for booting (as it is now) so I can put the 20GB drive into my temporary server (which currently doing DNS, email and DHCP) and copy data over to the new 160GB drive, since I can’t seem to get FreeBSD to recognize partititions on the 20GB drive (and I don’t want to risk losing what’s there). It shouldn’t take too long to get it operational enough to do an SCP, and once that’s done I can remove the 8.5GB drive and put the 20 in.
Events I’d like to see this theatre season…

• Blast! — Sep 30 – Oct 12, 2003
• Rent — Apr 6 – Apr 18, 2004
• Les Misérables — Jun 16 – Jul 4, 2004
• Stomp — Oct 28 – Nov 2, 2003
• Phantom of the Opera — Jul 14 – Aug 8, 2004

Okay … I managed to get a 160GB drive yesterday at Best Buy (they’re actually no longer keeping hard drives behind locked sliding glass doors). After I get rebates back the cost is $100. Now I just need to order the motherboard, cpu and some RAM. I might try and get them shipped so they arrive Friday so I have some time this weekend to do some playing with them.

Okay, today I didn’t get a single &#*# thing accomplished at work that I started out the day needing to do. I got stuck as the permanent staff backup to the HelpDesk student staff for a 3rd day in a row, only I was also “workflow coordinator” today as well. Basically anybody who had an “emergency” or crisis relating to their computer or network account went through me today. Not fun. To top it off, some things that were done this weekend didn’t turn out quite as planned and some of the loudest complainers on campus were affected by it. I’m going to try to make myself pretty unavailable the rest of the week so I can get some stuff accomplished.
In other news, I would like to go and get one of them nice 160GB Maxtor drives at Best Buy ($99 after rebates), but am not sure if anybody is going to have them in stock by the time I get there (tomorrow afternoon). Based on past experience, they don’t like giving rain checks either. Another possibility would be to get a motherboard that does RAID 0/1 and get a pair of 120GB drives for $60 ea. The third possibility would just be to get a 120GB drive for $60.
I’m still trying to get my server rebuilt with FreeBSD 5.1. It’s proving to be a pain in the @$$ because several packages say they’re installed but aren’t really, which causes problems when other packages that depend on them check for their real existence. This is particularly fun when building XFree86, since it has a buttload of dependencies. Of course, if I upgrade my system, it only makes sense to go through this all over again so it’s optimized for the new processor.
As far as my weekend goes, I enjoyed the company of beldurnik, czar_sonja and liz4jc4ever seeing Pirates of the Carribbean on Saturday afternoon. It was good. On Sunday Liz and I went to the Beldenville Old Car Show in Ellsworth (yeah … that makes sense, Beldenville is 4 miles north of there after all), then we drove to Durand to visit my good friends Brandy and Jake and their little ones. I had fun playing with Walker. Brooke (or Brookie as she likes to be called) didn’t seem all that interested in playing with me. Kinda has the “eww! boy germs!” thing going on I think…. even though she’s only 2. Walker is a little drool machine. My leg was baptized at least twice… and I apparently sat in a spot at one point because my bum was wet in a location that wasn’t exactly … yeah… nevermind that. Anyway, Jake and Brandy are doing well and have a nice house that overlooks a river valley (which is pretty hidden in the summer due to all the trees). Jake is doing some consulting-type work and Brandy is doing web stuff and being a stay-at-home mom. Most importantly, they’re pretty happy with life.

pondering upgrading trinity (my server) … currently has a K6-2/350 w/320MB RAM and 28GB of hard drive. It should also be noted that I have an external SCSI tape drive (6-tape autoloader). I found a motherboard bundle and wonder what those with experience in this area think of it? I am also considering getting a Serial ATA hard drive for my storage needs rather than a regular ATA, since it appears FreeBSD supports SATA.

My Apple IIgs now has working 5-1/4″ floppy drives! I can play my games again. I played a little Sabotage today while checking out which of my 10 or so yr old floppy disks still work. Now I need to figure out how to get some more games.

I haven’t posted in a while, but I wanted to post this because I think it makes me feel a little better letting people know about it for some reason. I received the following from a close friend this morning who is expecting her first child:
—
Dan and I had an ultrasound at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis today. They determined
that the baby has a kidney that is cystic (has cysts on it) and will someday need to be removed. They
also discovered that the right ventricle and 2 valves of the baby’s heart are not working (called
tricuspid valve atresia). There is not much they can do until the baby is born. We will be having the
baby at Abbott. A neo-natal team will deliver the baby and then the pediatric cardiologist will
immediately take over. The baby will probably not be able to breathe when it is born (the blood from
the right ventricle goes to the lungs). That is why he/she will go to the cardiac team. A shot will be
given to the baby immediately to keep blood going to the lungs and an operation will happen within
the first 2-3 days of life. 2 more operations will happen (at 3 months and 3 years old). So………a
kidney’s not that big of a deal. We are doing the best that is possible. We just need to remain
positive.

Trish
—
I am hoping everything turns out alright.

Sorry about the posting drought folks. Been quite occupied lately and not in the mood to post for the most part. liz4jc4ever has spent the past week at my house since she’s out of the dorms (or “residence halls” if we want to be PC) but can’t move into her apartment yet. I haven’t accomplished much this week at home. Work has been crazy as usual and I took today off just to get a break from things. I was frustrated with this past weekend because I was so occupied with stuff (travel for the most part) that I didn’t get anything accomplished at home.
Tonight I went to the Yanni concert at Xcel Energy Center with my dad. It was fun. While I can’t say that I am a *big* fan of Yanni, I do enjoy a good amount of his music. I really enjoyed the concert. I don’t think I’ve seen a group of performers who were so consistently into what they were doing as Yanni and his orchestra. Of course performers in other bands will appear that way when the camera is focused on them, but for the most part it wasn’t needed for Yanni. It definitely made the show more enjoyable.
I am experimenting with a Sony DVD +/- R/W drive from work in my computer. It’s made for a PC but I’m trying it in my Mac because I have been thinking about getting one (drive that is, not a PC). I burned a DVD+RW this afternoon, and the burner reads the disk but the DVD-ROM drive in my laptop does not. This is okay with me because I wasn’t planning on using DVD+RW disks anyway. I am going to go to Woodbury tomorrow to pick up some blank Apple DVD-Rs and some Verbatim or Maxell DVD+Rs.
I need to start thinking again about how to deal with rebuilding my server. The web stuff and file server stuff isn’t a big deal, but I really need to keep email service available since I host my domain’s email myself.