Andy Kopciuch's Blog
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Live Server, Teaching & Trick Shot Bowling
It has been an intense couple of weeks on the work scene. I've been adding a bun ch of features and fixes into the L&Y toolkit. I've added global contacts section, and events calendar, added full searching of the entire DMS (with google like search results). I've added features to the DMS interface, the library, the main dashboard, fixed bugs ... and I'm working on personal information profiles right now.
During one of my stints at the office I received a help desk call for the producers scanning being down. I became somewhat worried when I could ping the box, but not ssh in. The connection would simply close. Through some phone calls and discussion, it was found that one of the hard drives had failed. Good thing there was a SW RAID. Ray managed to make it on site, and swapped the cable and things were back to normal.
At our meeting to discuss our findings the next day it was noted in the report that we had recommended to replace that server. Bad things sometimes make us look good. Ray had assembled a new HP DL 380. 4 x 36 GB disks, xeon 3.4 processor, loads of RAM ... it's a nice little server. He set up the RAID and I was good to get in there. We stuck with the corporate solution and installed RHEL4. We ended up buying a new licence, and everything is registered and updated on the network.
Over a few days I moved things across from the old server, created new accounts, move RSA keys and all the typical stuff needed to set the server up. On Wednesday I told Dwayne, he came down and we shut the old server off. Assigned the new IP address, and tested. We tested in house scanning, and email submission from one of the plants. Everything seemed to work as needed. There were no hiccups, nothing out of the ordinary happened. We were all very pleased. Gregg was excited, and surprised at how quickly it went live. It was a real pleasure setting up this server.
In other areas of work I was aiding a consulting company with the setup of monitoring Oracle databases that are not available to the internet. This is a pretty standard setup ... I mean how easy do you want to make it for people to get to all of your data right? We we decide on a solution that they could SMTP what they needed out. I had to setup some mail relaying on old Solaris systems, but in the end it works like a charm. I was however really shocked at the lack of understanding of simple things like account permissions, and hostnames the people from this company had. I mean ... you deal with Oracle servers all of the time ... you must have done this before? They seem to know Oracle pretty well, just not the systems Oracle is installed on ... oh well.
I'm building a new PDC this week. I am pretty stoked about it ... uber nice server. RAID 5, lots of kick. Good stuff. I also get a helper with me. Neil starts on with Fortress next week, and we decided he can be of use working along with me while learning the ropes at the same time. I'm all for it.
Last weekend was my birthday. I didn't do much of anything ... I watched the Flyers loose. They have come back to tie the series 2-2 now. I lay around mostly, and was actually sick Monday and Tuesday. I think I was just a little burned out. Feel rejuvenated after a good run with the server switch though. This weekend is more of the same ... cleaning, hockey and some work. I do have to do the quarterly books tomorrow ... not looking forward to that.
After the hockey games tonight I left the TV on ... and right now there is trick shot bowling on. I never would have imagined such a sport existed, but there it is. I must admit it is mildly amusing ... nothing I could ever get hooked on though. *sigh* I have no life on a Saturday night ... maybe next month I will have a delayed birthday celebration. ¶ 11:37:00 PM 0 comments
During one of my stints at the office I received a help desk call for the producers scanning being down. I became somewhat worried when I could ping the box, but not ssh in. The connection would simply close. Through some phone calls and discussion, it was found that one of the hard drives had failed. Good thing there was a SW RAID. Ray managed to make it on site, and swapped the cable and things were back to normal.
At our meeting to discuss our findings the next day it was noted in the report that we had recommended to replace that server. Bad things sometimes make us look good. Ray had assembled a new HP DL 380. 4 x 36 GB disks, xeon 3.4 processor, loads of RAM ... it's a nice little server. He set up the RAID and I was good to get in there. We stuck with the corporate solution and installed RHEL4. We ended up buying a new licence, and everything is registered and updated on the network.
Over a few days I moved things across from the old server, created new accounts, move RSA keys and all the typical stuff needed to set the server up. On Wednesday I told Dwayne, he came down and we shut the old server off. Assigned the new IP address, and tested. We tested in house scanning, and email submission from one of the plants. Everything seemed to work as needed. There were no hiccups, nothing out of the ordinary happened. We were all very pleased. Gregg was excited, and surprised at how quickly it went live. It was a real pleasure setting up this server.
In other areas of work I was aiding a consulting company with the setup of monitoring Oracle databases that are not available to the internet. This is a pretty standard setup ... I mean how easy do you want to make it for people to get to all of your data right? We we decide on a solution that they could SMTP what they needed out. I had to setup some mail relaying on old Solaris systems, but in the end it works like a charm. I was however really shocked at the lack of understanding of simple things like account permissions, and hostnames the people from this company had. I mean ... you deal with Oracle servers all of the time ... you must have done this before? They seem to know Oracle pretty well, just not the systems Oracle is installed on ... oh well.
I'm building a new PDC this week. I am pretty stoked about it ... uber nice server. RAID 5, lots of kick. Good stuff. I also get a helper with me. Neil starts on with Fortress next week, and we decided he can be of use working along with me while learning the ropes at the same time. I'm all for it.
Last weekend was my birthday. I didn't do much of anything ... I watched the Flyers loose. They have come back to tie the series 2-2 now. I lay around mostly, and was actually sick Monday and Tuesday. I think I was just a little burned out. Feel rejuvenated after a good run with the server switch though. This weekend is more of the same ... cleaning, hockey and some work. I do have to do the quarterly books tomorrow ... not looking forward to that.
After the hockey games tonight I left the TV on ... and right now there is trick shot bowling on. I never would have imagined such a sport existed, but there it is. I must admit it is mildly amusing ... nothing I could ever get hooked on though. *sigh* I have no life on a Saturday night ... maybe next month I will have a delayed birthday celebration. ¶ 11:37:00 PM 0 comments
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Features, Failures & Veggie Ground Round
So L&Y has a serious case of featuritis lately. Understandable given the amount of time it has taken us to get the toolkit system underway. Now that we seem to have a group of people using the system, we are also having some regular meetings with a group around a laptop / projector and going through things. It already does a ton of things for the office (DMS, BBS, LMS, In/out board, Commercial Prospects, Statistics, Calendars). There's a lot to be used, and a lot to learn. It just so happens that now when users are actually "using" it they all the disease which cause involuntary "can't it do it this way?" and "wouldn't it be better if".
I admit this is the kind of feedback I have been after for months. I keep telling them I am not an insurance professional. I have no idea what works for them ... I need to learn that. I can make it do just about anything, but what I think it should do is probably not best suited for you. I also realize this sounds like complaining. I really am excited about it, but every time we have a meeting my old TODO list gets pushed back, and the new TODO list takes precedence.
I am keen on adding some features into the PHPFWK framework. Reparenting of folders in the DMS is going to be nice. I don't have my list handy, but there's lots of cool things to be done. It's going to be so useful for them when it's all good and finished. I did just finish a global contacts section (searchable of course). And the DMS searching has google similar results. Nice.
So as I had been doing all of this work on new toolkit features one of the hard disks in the producers fax server died. Dwayne said he could hear the sand grinding 15 feet away. Maybe that's why I couldn't ssh into the machine. Pings fine, port scan shows the right services. I couldn't get down there, luckily Ray could. Pulled out the IDE cable on the master drive, the slave (SW RAID 1), picked up nicely. Funny how our report that afternoon suggested replacing that server ;-)
We also had a new server air shipped in. A nice Dell DL380, 3x36GB hard disks, double RAID 1. Ray has it all setup for me today. I'm going to go in and rebuild the server for them. I am downloading RHEL4-U4 to use right now. It was a task to track down the discs, and Dwayne couldn't burn the CDs for me before he left, so 4 hours of downloads later I might have disks. hi-ho, hi-ho ... you know the rest.
I got adventurous last night and was going to try veggie ground round (soy based replacement for ground beef). I decided to make some meat sauce (spicy Mexican style). I had the Mexican style ground round, some spicy salsa and all the veggies / sauces I would need. I turned out alright ... I however just wasn't in the mood for it after I was done. It tasted alright ... it does taste different. Maybe I'm just not into the "Mexican style". I mean I didn't want to throw up after putting it in my mouth, but I found it a little bit chewy. I almost would have preferred straight veggie sauce, no meat / meat substitute. I'm saving it. Will try again on another day. (At least it won't go bad in the fridge quite like meat would). I ended up having terrific tasty fish and potatoes instead.
Oh ... and NHL playoffs start on Friday ... better get my pools entered. ¶ 9:33:00 AM 0 comments
I admit this is the kind of feedback I have been after for months. I keep telling them I am not an insurance professional. I have no idea what works for them ... I need to learn that. I can make it do just about anything, but what I think it should do is probably not best suited for you. I also realize this sounds like complaining. I really am excited about it, but every time we have a meeting my old TODO list gets pushed back, and the new TODO list takes precedence.
I am keen on adding some features into the PHPFWK framework. Reparenting of folders in the DMS is going to be nice. I don't have my list handy, but there's lots of cool things to be done. It's going to be so useful for them when it's all good and finished. I did just finish a global contacts section (searchable of course). And the DMS searching has google similar results. Nice.
So as I had been doing all of this work on new toolkit features one of the hard disks in the producers fax server died. Dwayne said he could hear the sand grinding 15 feet away. Maybe that's why I couldn't ssh into the machine. Pings fine, port scan shows the right services. I couldn't get down there, luckily Ray could. Pulled out the IDE cable on the master drive, the slave (SW RAID 1), picked up nicely. Funny how our report that afternoon suggested replacing that server ;-)
We also had a new server air shipped in. A nice Dell DL380, 3x36GB hard disks, double RAID 1. Ray has it all setup for me today. I'm going to go in and rebuild the server for them. I am downloading RHEL4-U4 to use right now. It was a task to track down the discs, and Dwayne couldn't burn the CDs for me before he left, so 4 hours of downloads later I might have disks. hi-ho, hi-ho ... you know the rest.
I got adventurous last night and was going to try veggie ground round (soy based replacement for ground beef). I decided to make some meat sauce (spicy Mexican style). I had the Mexican style ground round, some spicy salsa and all the veggies / sauces I would need. I turned out alright ... I however just wasn't in the mood for it after I was done. It tasted alright ... it does taste different. Maybe I'm just not into the "Mexican style". I mean I didn't want to throw up after putting it in my mouth, but I found it a little bit chewy. I almost would have preferred straight veggie sauce, no meat / meat substitute. I'm saving it. Will try again on another day. (At least it won't go bad in the fridge quite like meat would). I ended up having terrific tasty fish and potatoes instead.
Oh ... and NHL playoffs start on Friday ... better get my pools entered. ¶ 9:33:00 AM 0 comments
