It appears we suddenly have a requirement for 4 new servers. These aren't just replacing existing servers (which need replacing...) but will take on all new tasks. Two are for internal use, meaning that they'll do things like host Microsoft 'Dynamics' CRM 3.0, Exchange, MSSQL and SharePoint. One will be for the new SAB Server (http://www.wificom.com) and the other will be for a cPanel (http://www.cpanel.com) webserver.
I hate having single task boxes. I know there are pros and cons, but having racks full of hardware that sits around idle for 90% of the time shits me. I'd rather see a server at 50% load most of the time and have space to stick my wine.
I guess I should give IBM a call and see what kickbacks.. I mean deals they can cut me for getting four servers. I think we'll need another 2 more by the end of the quarter anyway.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Townsville complete and 6 days remaining till RadTrip '06
Yes, it's only 6 days until RadTrip '06 begins. I really can't wait to take the week off and simply forget absolutely everything about work and just sit back and hang with my mates drinking and eating. I've given the BBQ its yearly going over, resetting the plates by scrubbing off the old oil and preping with good quality olive oil at 200°C.
I'm going to keep the big beer fridge for the week, but afterwards I'll be swapping over for a smaller bar fridge and building a shelf with a sink as a new prep area for the BBQ.
The installation at the Cluden Park Motor Inn went smoothly and without issue. The phone guys where there a fair bit longer than I had anticipated but the cat5 cable runs too longer due to the weird layout of the building. I have to get them back out there again to run more cables to two more computers again this week.
Because there wasn't any in-room installations to be done I had the configuration of the core equipment knocked over in short time and all the tests done by lunch on the 2nd day. So I went and did a few site inspections with the sales guys Thursday arvo just to clarify a few things.
I'm going to keep the big beer fridge for the week, but afterwards I'll be swapping over for a smaller bar fridge and building a shelf with a sink as a new prep area for the BBQ.
The installation at the Cluden Park Motor Inn went smoothly and without issue. The phone guys where there a fair bit longer than I had anticipated but the cat5 cable runs too longer due to the weird layout of the building. I have to get them back out there again to run more cables to two more computers again this week.
Because there wasn't any in-room installations to be done I had the configuration of the core equipment knocked over in short time and all the tests done by lunch on the 2nd day. So I went and did a few site inspections with the sales guys Thursday arvo just to clarify a few things.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Bounce trip to Townsville
Brisbane to Townsville and back in a day is a rather hectic affair.
The flight out of Brisbane was for 8:40am arriving at Townsville at 10:40am but it managed to arrive 10 minutes early which were absorbed by the rental car folk dealing with their crashed booking system.
Planted my arse into a Nissan Pulsar with 9,000km on the clock and took off towards Wulguru. 20 minutes later I'm walking into the reception at the Cluden Park Motor Inn and saying hi to Vicki. Now spelling Vicki with an I on the end is apparently rare. I know this because my mother has the same name. Vicki was surprised that I remembered how it was spelt.
The site inspection took about an hour. I have quickly learned to take photos of absolutely everything that is even remotely associated with a possible installation - these take time. Turns out that there isn't any method of installing the equipment into the rooms neatly. So I will have to make up kits for the guests to use to connect themselves up with. Not perfect but the best solution given the situation.
After that I called the Coast Guard and made a time to meet them at 1:30pm, this gave me an hour for lunch which consisted of HJ's Country Chicken bagettes at Tim's place. After using him for his toilet facilities and chatting about his absurd addiction to Silkroad Online I ventured off towards the Townsville Port area to have a look at the Coast Guard building.
Half an hour later I arrived at the Coast Guard. Its an odd building as it's a two story concrete box sitting in the middle of no where on the breakwater. Its destined to be relocated to another water side location so not a lot has been done with the building for quite sometime - apart from the occasional repaint. What is odd is that it was designed to have a third and possibly fourth floor added so the roof is solid concrete. This poses a slight problem for me as I can't easily stick a hole in it for the antenna cable. I'll have to run the cable outside and up for about a meter.
While at the coast guard they were keen to show me around their million dollar vessel with twin 400hp screws and spacious interior - I wouldn't mind one.
After that I had about an hour to kill before I needed to be at the airport so I went back to Tim's place and veged out a bit more. Once at the airport I dropped the keys off for the car and waited an extra 20 minutes because of some issue with some luggage some guy had on the plane :/.
The flight back was fine although the landing was a bit hairy due to a huge cross wind - the plane had to accelerate when close to the ground to defeat the wind - makes for a slightly rougher landing. I quickly made my way out of the airport and paid the $28 for parking. The trip home was pretty good, no jams and managed to keep to the full speed limit. Arrived back at home at 7:30pm.
The flight out of Brisbane was for 8:40am arriving at Townsville at 10:40am but it managed to arrive 10 minutes early which were absorbed by the rental car folk dealing with their crashed booking system.
Planted my arse into a Nissan Pulsar with 9,000km on the clock and took off towards Wulguru. 20 minutes later I'm walking into the reception at the Cluden Park Motor Inn and saying hi to Vicki. Now spelling Vicki with an I on the end is apparently rare. I know this because my mother has the same name. Vicki was surprised that I remembered how it was spelt.
The site inspection took about an hour. I have quickly learned to take photos of absolutely everything that is even remotely associated with a possible installation - these take time. Turns out that there isn't any method of installing the equipment into the rooms neatly. So I will have to make up kits for the guests to use to connect themselves up with. Not perfect but the best solution given the situation.
After that I called the Coast Guard and made a time to meet them at 1:30pm, this gave me an hour for lunch which consisted of HJ's Country Chicken bagettes at Tim's place. After using him for his toilet facilities and chatting about his absurd addiction to Silkroad Online I ventured off towards the Townsville Port area to have a look at the Coast Guard building.
Half an hour later I arrived at the Coast Guard. Its an odd building as it's a two story concrete box sitting in the middle of no where on the breakwater. Its destined to be relocated to another water side location so not a lot has been done with the building for quite sometime - apart from the occasional repaint. What is odd is that it was designed to have a third and possibly fourth floor added so the roof is solid concrete. This poses a slight problem for me as I can't easily stick a hole in it for the antenna cable. I'll have to run the cable outside and up for about a meter.
While at the coast guard they were keen to show me around their million dollar vessel with twin 400hp screws and spacious interior - I wouldn't mind one.
After that I had about an hour to kill before I needed to be at the airport so I went back to Tim's place and veged out a bit more. Once at the airport I dropped the keys off for the car and waited an extra 20 minutes because of some issue with some luggage some guy had on the plane :/.
The flight back was fine although the landing was a bit hairy due to a huge cross wind - the plane had to accelerate when close to the ground to defeat the wind - makes for a slightly rougher landing. I quickly made my way out of the airport and paid the $28 for parking. The trip home was pretty good, no jams and managed to keep to the full speed limit. Arrived back at home at 7:30pm.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Bundaberg Installations
Over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I installed VDSL based in-room broadband systems into the Bert Hinkler and Reef Gateway motels in Bundaberg. The installation at the Reef Gateway went smoothly but the Bert Hinkler didn't have the phone line with the DSL as Telstra said it would.
The lead up to the installation was going fine until I discovered the equipment was not ordered until 2 days before hand - apparently a fax order was sent the Friday before but wasn't followed up. As the equipment did not arrive until 6 hrs after I was due to leave for Bundaberg, my entire timetable was out by half a working day, for which I had to make up for. The PFY came up with some equipment that was left behind in my rush out the door, he turned out to be of good assistance, distributing the equipment to the rooms and tidying up the install after I was done. In the end I was only 1hr behind - dropping the rental car off at 6pm instead of the intended 5pm. Thursday was Australia Day, a public holiday for most, if not all...
There is still a few things that need to be done up there which I will finalise myself tomorrow, other things involve running data cable etc and that will take time that I don't have. I will leave that task up to the local contractors.
These installations are fkn hard work. Crawling under desks and drilling holes to fit cables, screwing adaptors to the underside of tables and shifting mini-bar fridges from out of their cavities to make use of their power point isn't particularly easy nor enjoyable. I'm no stranger to hard work I stacked and sorted scaffolding/formwork and made thousands of treated pine garden products in my early days and that kind of work was great - just get in and do it. This kind of work is difficult- organise everything, resolve all issues that arise and then continuously monitor the contractors and underlings while trying to get your own tasks done. Yet somehow the clients always like me, must be doing something right.
The lead up to the installation was going fine until I discovered the equipment was not ordered until 2 days before hand - apparently a fax order was sent the Friday before but wasn't followed up. As the equipment did not arrive until 6 hrs after I was due to leave for Bundaberg, my entire timetable was out by half a working day, for which I had to make up for. The PFY came up with some equipment that was left behind in my rush out the door, he turned out to be of good assistance, distributing the equipment to the rooms and tidying up the install after I was done. In the end I was only 1hr behind - dropping the rental car off at 6pm instead of the intended 5pm. Thursday was Australia Day, a public holiday for most, if not all...
There is still a few things that need to be done up there which I will finalise myself tomorrow, other things involve running data cable etc and that will take time that I don't have. I will leave that task up to the local contractors.
These installations are fkn hard work. Crawling under desks and drilling holes to fit cables, screwing adaptors to the underside of tables and shifting mini-bar fridges from out of their cavities to make use of their power point isn't particularly easy nor enjoyable. I'm no stranger to hard work I stacked and sorted scaffolding/formwork and made thousands of treated pine garden products in my early days and that kind of work was great - just get in and do it. This kind of work is difficult- organise everything, resolve all issues that arise and then continuously monitor the contractors and underlings while trying to get your own tasks done. Yet somehow the clients always like me, must be doing something right.
Monday, December 19, 2005
To Canberra I go
Once again I find myself waiting to leave for Brisbane airport to leave to some far away land, well, kinda far away, further than I normally go anyway. This time we're going to Canberra, where our esteemed federal government resides. I'm going to have to restrain myself from doing something silly like throwing a urine filled water bomb at the prime minister - he's on holidays now so I guess the chance won't arise anyway.
I will be installing stuff at two locations - Quality Inn Dickson and Quality Inn Woden. So if you find yourself in dire need of in-room Internet access while staying in Canberra, then those are the two places to try. Both sites are Ethernet type installations, fairly simple and straight forward as long as the cabling is done correctly and the distances between the MDF and rooms isn't huge.
The lead up to this trip was just as disorganised and stressful as the Cairns trip. No one thinks ahead very far and given that they don't think of anyone else either. I just configured the two Cisco SOHO97 DSL routers and two Colubris MSC3200 this morning when the Telstra DSL activation info came in - the day before the installation will take place... I've already put in place procedures that will prevent such issues in future - basically making sure the sales people hand off all technical tasks to the technical people, one would think that was expected, but obviously not.
Don't know what airline I'm flying with, I'm hoping Virgin given the last Jetstar flight from Cairns. Although I did appreciate that Jetstar provide you with fragile (aka, don't play tarmac footy with this one) tags for your laptop bag etc when booking it on as baggage - although Virgin could be treating all baggage as fragile...
I'm currently reading a book about the Australian SAS - The Amazing SAS: The inside story of Australia's Special Forces. It provides good insight to what our leet lads get up to and how they operate. Although the book could do without the stupid Liberal/Howard government propaganda bullshit - personally I don't see any need for it given the subject, what ever happened to the abstraction between the government and the military? Anyway, I won't be too critical until I've read a few other books about the subject, however I have read a few books about the British SAS and there wasn't any mention about their government apart from what was necessary to explain the finer points.
I will be installing stuff at two locations - Quality Inn Dickson and Quality Inn Woden. So if you find yourself in dire need of in-room Internet access while staying in Canberra, then those are the two places to try. Both sites are Ethernet type installations, fairly simple and straight forward as long as the cabling is done correctly and the distances between the MDF and rooms isn't huge.
The lead up to this trip was just as disorganised and stressful as the Cairns trip. No one thinks ahead very far and given that they don't think of anyone else either. I just configured the two Cisco SOHO97 DSL routers and two Colubris MSC3200 this morning when the Telstra DSL activation info came in - the day before the installation will take place... I've already put in place procedures that will prevent such issues in future - basically making sure the sales people hand off all technical tasks to the technical people, one would think that was expected, but obviously not.
Don't know what airline I'm flying with, I'm hoping Virgin given the last Jetstar flight from Cairns. Although I did appreciate that Jetstar provide you with fragile (aka, don't play tarmac footy with this one) tags for your laptop bag etc when booking it on as baggage - although Virgin could be treating all baggage as fragile...
I'm currently reading a book about the Australian SAS - The Amazing SAS: The inside story of Australia's Special Forces. It provides good insight to what our leet lads get up to and how they operate. Although the book could do without the stupid Liberal/Howard government propaganda bullshit - personally I don't see any need for it given the subject, what ever happened to the abstraction between the government and the military? Anyway, I won't be too critical until I've read a few other books about the subject, however I have read a few books about the British SAS and there wasn't any mention about their government apart from what was necessary to explain the finer points.
Monday, December 12, 2005
In cairns
So here I am sitting in my motel room at the Best Western Cairns. It's a nice motel, I recommend it - room rates start at $89.00 per night.
As you know we arrived here yesterday afternoon at 3:45pm - the plane was 15min early. I like bigger planes, the VirginBlue Boeing 737-400 was far more comfortable to fly in compared to the Metro I flew to Coffs Harbour in. Having hot air hostesses to perv on is definitely a big plus in my book anyway.
After checking in at the Motel we passed the rest of the afternoon sticking Ethernet cables in these holder thingies - merely a better way of presenting them to guests. Once we were done with that we drove over to the CBD and had a walk about the place. They must have known I was coming that night so they put on a big Christmas show with song and dance and hot chicks wearing translucent tight white pants with g-strings. I couldn't remember what they were singing, carols I think.
Neil suggested an Italian place to have dinner, and while we were looking at the menu a nice chap having dinner with his wife said they had great food and that they were regulars. I discovered that they were the owner of the Paronella Park tourist attraction located just south of Innisfail. I had been there about three times, and was amazed that I was dining with the owners many years later. They provided me with a free group pass for when I head up there on holiday over new years - I'm chuffed.
Anyway, the Italian restaurant is called LA Fettuccina and I highly recommend it to anyone who happens to find themselves in Cairns hungry. Excellent food, great service and don't forget to have the Gelati with a port - best dining experience to date I reckon.
LA Fettuccina Italian Restuarant:
1 Shields St
Cairns
QLD, 4870
Australia
Today was fairly smooth, all the equipment got installed as expected. Although the maintenance guy didn't stay around long enough for me to brief him on what was required - I mentioned to him what was needed to be done but I guess he felt he didn't need to be shown. As it turns out I'll have to make another short trip up here again in the very near future to complete these two jobs - so I can finalize any loose ends then. Hopefully no one will steal the adaptors between now and when they're fixed to the walls.
I spend dinner with Neil and a Mr R Spencer, who is one of the seven Cairns Magistrates. He had some good stories to tell, although be it that they were a bit sickening - I admire the resilience of our public legal system and the shit they must have to put up with on a daily basis. We had dinner at a Turkish place just across the road from La Fettuccina. It was okay, although I had higher expectations from lastnights experience.
Tomorrow the sparky we're working with is going to pick me up at 8am (*groan*) and drag me out to Trinity bay where we'll install Sea Change Beach Front Apartments. Should turn out pretty much the same - however there are no adaptors to install into each room, just a cable and holder.
Wednesday we'll be doing a few sales/site surveys in the morning and then flying out that afternoon. More about that later I hope.
As you know we arrived here yesterday afternoon at 3:45pm - the plane was 15min early. I like bigger planes, the VirginBlue Boeing 737-400 was far more comfortable to fly in compared to the Metro I flew to Coffs Harbour in. Having hot air hostesses to perv on is definitely a big plus in my book anyway.
After checking in at the Motel we passed the rest of the afternoon sticking Ethernet cables in these holder thingies - merely a better way of presenting them to guests. Once we were done with that we drove over to the CBD and had a walk about the place. They must have known I was coming that night so they put on a big Christmas show with song and dance and hot chicks wearing translucent tight white pants with g-strings. I couldn't remember what they were singing, carols I think.
Neil suggested an Italian place to have dinner, and while we were looking at the menu a nice chap having dinner with his wife said they had great food and that they were regulars. I discovered that they were the owner of the Paronella Park tourist attraction located just south of Innisfail. I had been there about three times, and was amazed that I was dining with the owners many years later. They provided me with a free group pass for when I head up there on holiday over new years - I'm chuffed.
Anyway, the Italian restaurant is called LA Fettuccina and I highly recommend it to anyone who happens to find themselves in Cairns hungry. Excellent food, great service and don't forget to have the Gelati with a port - best dining experience to date I reckon.
LA Fettuccina Italian Restuarant:
1 Shields St
Cairns
QLD, 4870
Australia
| Ph: | (07) 4031 5959 |
Today was fairly smooth, all the equipment got installed as expected. Although the maintenance guy didn't stay around long enough for me to brief him on what was required - I mentioned to him what was needed to be done but I guess he felt he didn't need to be shown. As it turns out I'll have to make another short trip up here again in the very near future to complete these two jobs - so I can finalize any loose ends then. Hopefully no one will steal the adaptors between now and when they're fixed to the walls.
I spend dinner with Neil and a Mr R Spencer, who is one of the seven Cairns Magistrates. He had some good stories to tell, although be it that they were a bit sickening - I admire the resilience of our public legal system and the shit they must have to put up with on a daily basis. We had dinner at a Turkish place just across the road from La Fettuccina. It was okay, although I had higher expectations from lastnights experience.
Tomorrow the sparky we're working with is going to pick me up at 8am (*groan*) and drag me out to Trinity bay where we'll install Sea Change Beach Front Apartments. Should turn out pretty much the same - however there are no adaptors to install into each room, just a cable and holder.
Wednesday we'll be doing a few sales/site surveys in the morning and then flying out that afternoon. More about that later I hope.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Coffs harbor in Two Days
The last two days were spent in Coffs harbor. It was actually my third journey into New South Wales this lifetime, although the first two trips were to Armidale to visit family.
The trip started with Neil calling me the morning we were due to go to the Air Port saying that I was the one driving, not him as was originally planned. I don't know why I let other people plan my engagements. So eventually we make it to the Brisbane Airport where I managed to make it to the coffee shop at the Gate 1,2,3 departure lounge before the lack of caffeine claimed my life. I must say the two young ladies running the show were both attractive - and effective barristas. I can make this safe judgment because the plane was 30min late because of 'technical issues' - I took advantage of the coffee facilities.
Once the airline was prepared to test out their newly repaired plane on me, they herded us onto a bus to drive the 100m out to where the Fairchild 'drain pipe' Metro 3/23 awaited. At that point it was starting to rain - it made take off a bit more interesting as a cross-wind had kicked up a bit and caused the small aircraft to float around a bit just after the wheels left the ground. Apart from that the flight was okay. I will have to say that the Etymotic ER-6i Canalphones worked flawlessly at blocking out most of the noise generated by those 700kW Garret Turboprops.
Once we arrived at the Coffs harbor Airport we hired a small Toyota Corolla hatch and buzzed over to the 'Jetty' for a quick peak at the ocean. I must say I was taken back by the beauty of the 'cove' like shoreline of the far eastern coasts of Australia; I think I rather them than beaches. We then proceeded down the coast to the Opal Cove Resort for one reason or another, we really didn't need to go there then - another reason why I like to make my own arrangements. After doing nothing of much use there we went off to what would become my home for the night - the Zebra Motel.
The Zebra Motel is a Best Western property consisting of two 2-story buildings in a L shaped configuration that host 46 rooms. The two buildings wrap around a central reception/restaurant building, with car parks separating each. Yes you guessed it, its like every other Motel on the planet. The theme of this particular motel was that it had a African style - like the restaurant was called 'Zulu's' and there are was African paraphernalia littered around the place. We were there to sell a VDSL (Very-High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line) HSIA (High Speed Internet Access) solution to them. Oddly enough, they seemed quite interested and we might hear back from them in 5 - 6mths time. They had only acquired the place two weeks earlier. The bed was comfortable.
Neil got to stay at the Opal Cove resort, it only costs $10 more than the motel and honestly the rooms were pretty much identical. However the resort had all the resort type things like grossly overpriced food and drinks, stupid games and a view that you would kill small, cute kittens for. The cove was a wonderful setting between two enormous bordering rocky cliffs and a perfect beach with a small estuary placed perfectly near one of the rocky cliffs on the northern side. The resort consisted of 135 rooms with 6 conference rooms, a wedding/function room, huge multi-level reception that included the restaurant/bar and games areas. All with ocean views (bar the conference rooms). They too were interested in our VDSL solution and wants everything done by Christmas - no chance of that happening as far as I'm technically concerned but hey, who am I to dispute that...
I liked Coffs harbor for its beauty, both the seaside and hinterland. Its still a small town, surrounded by little seaside villages and in-land hamlets. I could probably spend a few days there checking things out in more detail and possibly hunt down some decent size block of land to plunder when money permits later on. You are bound to drive though it if you're migrating up or down the far eastern coast, I recommend you stop for a bit.
The flight back was better than the first, however due to 'weight restrictions' our luggage was left behind for the next flight to pick up. I received that via freight at lunchtime today. Lucky I kept my car keys on my person and didn't do the usual thing of throwing them into my bags.
The trip started with Neil calling me the morning we were due to go to the Air Port saying that I was the one driving, not him as was originally planned. I don't know why I let other people plan my engagements. So eventually we make it to the Brisbane Airport where I managed to make it to the coffee shop at the Gate 1,2,3 departure lounge before the lack of caffeine claimed my life. I must say the two young ladies running the show were both attractive - and effective barristas. I can make this safe judgment because the plane was 30min late because of 'technical issues' - I took advantage of the coffee facilities.
Once the airline was prepared to test out their newly repaired plane on me, they herded us onto a bus to drive the 100m out to where the Fairchild 'drain pipe' Metro 3/23 awaited. At that point it was starting to rain - it made take off a bit more interesting as a cross-wind had kicked up a bit and caused the small aircraft to float around a bit just after the wheels left the ground. Apart from that the flight was okay. I will have to say that the Etymotic ER-6i Canalphones worked flawlessly at blocking out most of the noise generated by those 700kW Garret Turboprops.
Once we arrived at the Coffs harbor Airport we hired a small Toyota Corolla hatch and buzzed over to the 'Jetty' for a quick peak at the ocean. I must say I was taken back by the beauty of the 'cove' like shoreline of the far eastern coasts of Australia; I think I rather them than beaches. We then proceeded down the coast to the Opal Cove Resort for one reason or another, we really didn't need to go there then - another reason why I like to make my own arrangements. After doing nothing of much use there we went off to what would become my home for the night - the Zebra Motel.
The Zebra Motel is a Best Western property consisting of two 2-story buildings in a L shaped configuration that host 46 rooms. The two buildings wrap around a central reception/restaurant building, with car parks separating each. Yes you guessed it, its like every other Motel on the planet. The theme of this particular motel was that it had a African style - like the restaurant was called 'Zulu's' and there are was African paraphernalia littered around the place. We were there to sell a VDSL (Very-High-Bit-Rate Digital Subscriber Line) HSIA (High Speed Internet Access) solution to them. Oddly enough, they seemed quite interested and we might hear back from them in 5 - 6mths time. They had only acquired the place two weeks earlier. The bed was comfortable.
Neil got to stay at the Opal Cove resort, it only costs $10 more than the motel and honestly the rooms were pretty much identical. However the resort had all the resort type things like grossly overpriced food and drinks, stupid games and a view that you would kill small, cute kittens for. The cove was a wonderful setting between two enormous bordering rocky cliffs and a perfect beach with a small estuary placed perfectly near one of the rocky cliffs on the northern side. The resort consisted of 135 rooms with 6 conference rooms, a wedding/function room, huge multi-level reception that included the restaurant/bar and games areas. All with ocean views (bar the conference rooms). They too were interested in our VDSL solution and wants everything done by Christmas - no chance of that happening as far as I'm technically concerned but hey, who am I to dispute that...
I liked Coffs harbor for its beauty, both the seaside and hinterland. Its still a small town, surrounded by little seaside villages and in-land hamlets. I could probably spend a few days there checking things out in more detail and possibly hunt down some decent size block of land to plunder when money permits later on. You are bound to drive though it if you're migrating up or down the far eastern coast, I recommend you stop for a bit.
The flight back was better than the first, however due to 'weight restrictions' our luggage was left behind for the next flight to pick up. I received that via freight at lunchtime today. Lucky I kept my car keys on my person and didn't do the usual thing of throwing them into my bags.
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