Wednesday, April 18, 2007
SATA, Short Rates & Karma
I needed to build a short term box for some big storage. I was given a bare bones machine, with a couple of extra 500GB SATA drivers. Told the board had 4 SATA connectors on it. SO I figured use the 80GB drive included for the OS, and use the 500GB drives for space. Well after pulling the case off to install the drives I found only 2 SATA power connectors. Oh well. this is not a real important production server. So use the 2 large drives themselves. I went about using Dapper as normal. Too bad the installation hung the first time. I thought I may have set up something wrong in the partitioner with LVM or something. Lets try it again. Hung again. So I started wondering about the LVM with SATA drives etc. So my idea was to install on one drive, and manually add the other one with LVM afterwards. That's something I wanted to "refamiliarize" myself with again anyways. No go. Then I figured there was a problem with dapper and these sata drives or more probable the onboard sata. I gave Edgy a whirl, and it installed no problem.
I went about adding the second drive manually. And It was eventually a go as well. One thing I realized after was to resize ext3 filesystems, they must be unmounted. reiserfs_resize can do it's work in place. Which is cool. So I did one more install using LVM in the ubuntu partioner, and choose resier as the file system for /home. All seems good, although I was disappointed that dapper was a no go with the SATA (I want the long term support).
That being done, I have massive amounts of work to do with bikerpak. As of my last meeting with AJ we talked about some issues with Jevco's system not allowing multiple vehicles on one policy, yet our new system does. So I needed to manipulate the data containers to track a controlling vehicle ID across multiple policy version. In addition to that, I needed to change the transaction containers to now also maintain multiple details of each vehicle ID as that's how they need to see them in the borderaux. meh. That all being done at the same time, also needed the Short Rate calculations. Mid term changes are base on a pro rated table because the motorcycle season is not a full year, so you have 0% earned premium during Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb. but mid-term changes may only effect a single vehicle on our multiple vehicle policy, and only for a portion of the policy term. Does this sound confusing yet? It gets a little snaky, but I finally have it all working the way it needs to ... I think. I hate short rate calculations. It affects everything. The quote, PDF generation (values), data containers, transactions ... _everything_. So I had touched a great deal of the base code all at the same time. testing was fun, as something gone wrong was harder to track down along the path of "where did it go awry?".
I was so mad at having to rework so much code on Monday I had to get out of the house. I went to my local Boston Pizza Lounge where I can still smoke. I grabbed a free cup of coffee and played the VLTs for a bit. Turns out I won $600. I wasn't even that happy about it I was so mad at work. Well I finished things later that night, and yesterday decided to take the day off. I went out and bought some new shoes and sandals, a new TV remote (as my old one had bit the dust a little bit), some pillows, and just general junk I had not gotten in a long time. I went down south and talked with AJ. We conferenced with Briggette in Montreal, and our deadline got moved to May 1 (YAY). So I was feeling much calmer than the day before. I decided to treat myself and buy a new jacket. It was a brand new sales clerk, and he had some troubles with the till. The total was $104.49. I gave him a fifty, three twenties, and two quarters ($110.50), so I expected $6 in change. He gave me $56 in change. I brought to his attention that I only gave him $110 and that I should not be getting fifty back. He was confused. The manager was right there, and figured out he had punched in $160, and just did what the till told him to. The manager thanked me for being so honest. In addition to feeling good about myself, I now had a new jacket, and a $25 gift card for the store. SWEET! This is where the karma comes in. I could have said nothing and kept the $50, but I did not. I then went up the street to another local pub to play the slots. I won another $600!!!! I guarantee my good deed entitled me to another win. I could have taken the fifty, but I believe I would have lost that, and much more had I done that. karma baby! What goes around comes around.
On a more sombre note. Let us all pray for those affected by the tragedy at Virginia Tech the other day. Thoughts go out to the families and friends of those who's lives ended so suddenly. God bless. ¶ 9:00:00 AM
I went about adding the second drive manually. And It was eventually a go as well. One thing I realized after was to resize ext3 filesystems, they must be unmounted. reiserfs_resize can do it's work in place. Which is cool. So I did one more install using LVM in the ubuntu partioner, and choose resier as the file system for /home. All seems good, although I was disappointed that dapper was a no go with the SATA (I want the long term support).
That being done, I have massive amounts of work to do with bikerpak. As of my last meeting with AJ we talked about some issues with Jevco's system not allowing multiple vehicles on one policy, yet our new system does. So I needed to manipulate the data containers to track a controlling vehicle ID across multiple policy version. In addition to that, I needed to change the transaction containers to now also maintain multiple details of each vehicle ID as that's how they need to see them in the borderaux. meh. That all being done at the same time, also needed the Short Rate calculations. Mid term changes are base on a pro rated table because the motorcycle season is not a full year, so you have 0% earned premium during Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb. but mid-term changes may only effect a single vehicle on our multiple vehicle policy, and only for a portion of the policy term. Does this sound confusing yet? It gets a little snaky, but I finally have it all working the way it needs to ... I think. I hate short rate calculations. It affects everything. The quote, PDF generation (values), data containers, transactions ... _everything_. So I had touched a great deal of the base code all at the same time. testing was fun, as something gone wrong was harder to track down along the path of "where did it go awry?".
I was so mad at having to rework so much code on Monday I had to get out of the house. I went to my local Boston Pizza Lounge where I can still smoke. I grabbed a free cup of coffee and played the VLTs for a bit. Turns out I won $600. I wasn't even that happy about it I was so mad at work. Well I finished things later that night, and yesterday decided to take the day off. I went out and bought some new shoes and sandals, a new TV remote (as my old one had bit the dust a little bit), some pillows, and just general junk I had not gotten in a long time. I went down south and talked with AJ. We conferenced with Briggette in Montreal, and our deadline got moved to May 1 (YAY). So I was feeling much calmer than the day before. I decided to treat myself and buy a new jacket. It was a brand new sales clerk, and he had some troubles with the till. The total was $104.49. I gave him a fifty, three twenties, and two quarters ($110.50), so I expected $6 in change. He gave me $56 in change. I brought to his attention that I only gave him $110 and that I should not be getting fifty back. He was confused. The manager was right there, and figured out he had punched in $160, and just did what the till told him to. The manager thanked me for being so honest. In addition to feeling good about myself, I now had a new jacket, and a $25 gift card for the store. SWEET! This is where the karma comes in. I could have said nothing and kept the $50, but I did not. I then went up the street to another local pub to play the slots. I won another $600!!!! I guarantee my good deed entitled me to another win. I could have taken the fifty, but I believe I would have lost that, and much more had I done that. karma baby! What goes around comes around.
On a more sombre note. Let us all pray for those affected by the tragedy at Virginia Tech the other day. Thoughts go out to the families and friends of those who's lives ended so suddenly. God bless. ¶ 9:00:00 AM
