You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2008.
It has been a while since I have written about IHost, but things are pretty bad right now. They have been having some big issues with one of their SQL servers, luckily not the one I am on, and there has been zero response out of the support. They much just be drowning out there.
I haven’t posted to my eve-igbtools.com site (eve-online) in some time, and finally got around to writing some new code (which felt great by the way to be working on my own stuff again), and wanted to post it. It turns out that I can no longer access the database from home or work. Two IP address I have given them in the past to allow access to the server, neither worked. On 1/18 I opened a trouble ticket (the only way to contact them) explaining that I don’t have access to the database. No response. I reply to the ticket on 1/26, still no response. I tried to call on (i believe) the 26th and receive a message that the call can’t be completed. I can’t even access my control panel. Now I am a little scared. Luckily the CP came back in a few minutes, but the phone was still not working. Could be local network problems, didn’t pay the bill, who knows, but this is annoying. What bothers me is that there is no feedback from them. They have a customer site to show and explain statuses and there is nothing written there. I tried their line later that night and I did receive their, off hours message, some ray of hope.
What prompted this post, is I just tried calling their 800 number again and received the cannot connect message. Thought it may be a routing issue between my office and them (it did work from home), so I used the cell phone, same thing. Last stupid thought is that they are using Vonage business and Vonage has their routing messed up from the outside world, but I can reach it from home since I am calling using Vonage. Far fetched, but it could be the case with my past history with phone companies.
I should just bite the damn bullet and setup a server for myself and be done with it. I am tired of relying on these service providers who always seem to run short. Nobody, I mean nobody has replied and said, “Use company X, they rock and wont cost you your second born!”
What to do??
Now that my body has purged itself of some nasty virus, I am back to cleaning up my life. This time it was in the basement where I spent some time removing old hardware. A 21 inch monitor which a funky wave at the top of the screen. It’s just too damn big anyway. Three computers (don’t laugh too hard), dx4-100, k6, and Sun Ultra 10, all gone. Get them OUT, I just can’t take the clutter. I am so bad at this too. I look at my first laptop (which I didn’t pay for), I can’t use at all anymore, and have a hard time getting rid of it. I mean I can’t run anything on it, it’s a freak’n 386sx-25 with 2MB of ram. It still runs if you believe it, though the 40MB HDD sounds like it’s going to break apart. I used that thing in my last years in college. Well, GONE, in the trash, enough is enough.
I even got my wife a little involved this weekend, she filled a whole bag (one of those tall paper yard waste ones) of kids close that have cluttered up their rooms forever. By my estimation there is another 12 bags of clothes on an unused bed. All in good time, keep the momentum going. Purge, purge, purge!!!!!
Every have a time that you constantly run but never get anything useful done? The IT staff is gone, there is just me and one other developer and he will not work out side is box, so I get everything else, everything. I am trying to update an application which hasn’t been used in two years and is now needed. It takes time and dedicated thought to get everything setup right for 2007. I dig in, get most of the application up into my head, I start pounding away at the keys–I got it, here we go this will do it. BAM, “Could you please help me, my mouse doesn’t work” I hear on the other side of the phone which just blew everything I had going in my head onto the adjacent wall.
“Sure, be right there”, I say. Can’t allow somebody not unable to work during the busiest time of year… So I truck on over to the helpless user.
On my journey through the office, which is always a dangerous and scary thing to do, I hear my name called and “Quick Question”, I start to shiver.
Let me tell you about quick questions, the answers are never anything close to being quick. Sure the asker may be able to express their question in ten seconds, but it will take the next thirty minutes to explain the answer and probably another task to add to the ever-growing list.
Throw it in FogBugz, I’ll get to it.
So I continue on to my helpless, mouse-less user who must get running or the company will just fold now and we will all be out on the street (sarcasm). I hear from afar, “Hey, did you get my email about the new report requirements?”
So now I am thinking, sure I saw the email in my inbox, but no way have I opened it, no way; It’s just too depressing to see some huge new report requirement, which somebody surely new about two months ago and is now given to me one week before in needs to be delivered, ugh.
Great start to the year, the Family spent New-Years eve at a water park, still cannot forget it snowing outside, while we swam inside watching it snow. Since January 6th or so, it started, one-by-one, we all caught a virus. A really nasty one at that, it’s just starting to clear up and now we are dealing with it’s aftermath of destruction on our sinuses. My wife and the little one, both have sinus infections now, and I know my head is pumping out a good gallon of gook a day. What a great start to the year…
Welcome to 2008. It pretty much feels like 2007 doesn’t it? Well I have a bug up my ass and I want it gone (it’s itchy you know?). My bug, you ask, the purging of all the crap I have been collecting, “Just in Case”, since the early nineties. Yes, early nineties, what a waist of space.
I know it has bothered my for some time–having to look through multiple boxes to find stuff, tripping over other household members crap to get somewhere. Well I am done with it and I have Steve to thank for it. No, I don’t know Steve, but for some odd reason his blog has interested me over the last couple of years. He wrote toward the end of the year that he is purging his house. My initial thought was, that interesting. Then I started to read what he has been doing, throwing away all them old drives and cell phones and other ‘stuff’ we all seem to gather over time.
I still wasn’t sold, how am I going to go through all this ‘stuff’ of mine when I am away from the house thirteen plus hours a day, and spending time with the family on the weekends.
“Anyway, I may need that some day.”
There was this other link in Steve’s article, a link to Paul Graham’s site, an essay titled, of all things, Stuff. A very interesting explanation of this all this ‘stuff’ we have packed into our homes, and the pseudo value we place on it. And most importantly how our ‘stuff’ starts to run and dictate our lives. It was enough for me, time to purge!
I have started this weekend, starting with my desk and the two thousand receipts which clutter a corner of it because I may need to reference them some day. You know I never do, I let them gather up until I can’t take it anymore and throw them in the trash or use them as starter fuel in my fire pit (a wonderful gathering place). Well it’s a start, next off to some boxes sitting on my desk and close by. Boxes of old computer ‘stuff’, documents, check stubs (I have been on direct deposit for ten years, I don’t care what my check said in 1998, really. I can’t remember the last time I actually went back to reference one of the twenty million check stubs I have stashed away. These will be purged too, they just need to be destroyed as the older ones contain a social security number, etc.) and who knows what else. Out of all the boxes I went through, I think I kept 1% of the stuff within. Mostly manuals to appliances and gadgets. When I go though this ‘stuff’ again, I am sure I will throw them away too, I am sure they are available online.
It’s a slow start, but a start nonetheless, plus I have gathered a full garbage bad of ‘stuff’ already. I am already thinking about all the different ‘stuff’ to purge from my house. My mind’s eye running amuck identifying ‘stuff’ crap, I don’t need and haven’t used in years. Even though my main reason for keeping it is, “just in case I may need it”, and my other favorite, “Man this was expense when it was new”. Of course, it’s worth nothing now, I would be lucky to get a dime on Ebay (no, I am not an Ebay fan by the way).
Here’s to a cleaner, uncluttered, nobody-wants-that-suff-anyway, 2008 <clank>!
Stuff From an IT Slug 