Web Logging... yet again

I always think "How am I going to leave my mark on this world?" at the close of the year. It always seems my thoughts turn to writing; I mean really writing, like novels and stuff. The easiest way to develop writing"chops" in this day and age is blogging. It's accessible, I'm not confined to 140 characters and, by the looks of this resurrected site, it also lasts for a few years.

There's a right side of my brain somewhere, but, in order to provide a living for my family, it gets suppressed for most of the year by the "engineering" brain. Long have I wanted my creative brain to become my source of income - because it's fun. Whether that really happens or not isn't for me to decide (ultimately), but it never will if I don't attempt it - right? Right.

What you can expect to find on this blog are my daily experiences. My life right now is about Christianity, family, information technology (IT), church, home, homeschooling, Scouts, tae kwon do, leadership, reading, writing and music. My writing may appear to be random, so please bear with me and try to see the quirkiness that is me.

For now, I bid you peace. I'll chat with you all very soon.

Twitterpated

That word doesn't mean what this post is about, but it bears a resemblance. My blogging pal Jim Walton recently get me interested in Twitter; a service that allows you to follow the play-by-play of people's lives whom you want to "follow" by reading their posted "updates". Gather a few (or a few hundred) people along with your updates on your Twitter page and it almost feels like you're communicating with each other without actually engaging in a conversation.

This week, a group of Church IT folks gathered in Oklahoma City for a 3-day conference. Through Twitter, I was able instantly reconnect with them in a huge way. Thanks Twitter! By the way, my Twitter ID is '@stuco' if you're interested in tagging along.

Scripting All the Way

I've come to the point in Systems Administration where doing point-and-click operations for 50 or so servers is wasting more and more of my time. Starting today, I'm going to force myself to find and build scripts for almost everything I do. That way, I can begin automating the mindless tasks that need to be done every day and for the things that require widespread implementation, I can can affect more servers at one time rather than having to manually login to each machine.

Looking into VBscript with WMI and ADSI objects. Sounds impressive huh?

This Week's Purpose

This week, my Number One priority is to prepare for a 2 day/2 night campout with my oldest son at a Boy Scout ranch in Runaway Bay, Texas. Many of us City Slickers might prouounce it "n-o-w-h-e-r-e", but it's really a charming place "where the buffalo roam" and all that.

Happy Easter!

I hope you had a good day celebrating Jesus' resurrection. Our family was blessed to sit in the Overflow Venue which meant that at least one of the four services was packed to capacity.  The boys had a blast at both sets of grandparents' planned festivities and Lisa and I just enjoyed seeing our family celebrate Easter another year.

Hello, I'm a Mac User

Two weeks ago, I powered down my life as a PC user and got a MacBook Pro. I've used a PC for my entire computing existence and I work in the Windows world. Whenever I've tried to use or give support for a Mac, it always felt as if I'd never used a computer before - it seemed that different - and so I resisted.

Not long after the Intel Macs hit the scene, my business partner bought a MacBook and showed me how well Windows ran with BootCamp and Parallels. That day, I admitted that the Mac could well be the most perfect computing device because of its ability to run both operating systems. Still, I saw no need to switch.

Since working remotely from home, we've been looking for a decent video chat system, but everything we'd tested for the PC seemed to come up short. Recently, we added another member to the team who is a full-on Mac user and when we saw iChat do video, all of us were astounded. It just worked and worked good.

Off to the neighborhood Apple Store we went and I joined a growing subculture of "Windows Professionals who use a MacIntosh". After two weeks, I love my MacBook Pro. It operates so smoothly and even runs on my 30" Dell monitor at full resolution from the built-in DVI connector. People said that I would only be able to run the external monitor at full with resolution with the MacBook closed, but that's not true - I run both the screens at the same time. Too Cool!!!

Microsoft's beta of Remote Desktop Connection 2.0 for Mac allows me to flawlessly connect to all my Windows servers without missing a beat. VMware Fusion lets me virtualize Windows Vista whenever I need to use it. There's so much to like about the Mac. Trying not to sound like a zealot, I don't think I will ever go back to PC hardware.

I'm currently writing this post using Windows Live Writer on Windows Vista running in Unity mode through VMware Fusion on a MacBook Pro Dual Core with 4GB of RAM. Mail, iChat, and iTunes are all running on the Mac side. How twisted is that? AWESOME!

Today My Chair Broke...

... clean off its swivel pedestal thing. I'm sure it would have been hilarious had anyone been around to witness the spectacle - luckily for me, nobody was present.

I was on the phone with a client and leaned back in the chair to close the office door. The seat part tipped and I supported myself with one arm on the floor and the rest of me suspended in mid-air, still in the chair that was clinging to the thread of metal hopelessly attached to the base. I can only describe my situation as a bad Break-Dance move captured with special effects of The Matrix.  
The amazing part - I was able to continue the conversation without the other party suspecting anything. Still, I think I'll try the salad for lunch today.

SQL Server 2005 Express SP2 Problem

I'm putting this out there to see if anyone can help me with this very puzzling issue...

I installed SQL Server 2005 Express SP2: it went very smoothly, no errors, rebooted, perfect. I uninstall SQL Server and all of the supporting programs: again no errors, rebooted, fine. The problem is that the SQL Server service is still installed and running (???). Also, all of the program groups and utilities are still installed and working.

I know I have to manually uninstall (rip out) SQL Server, but am unable to easily find the "How-To" for it. Thanks to anyone who can help.

French Horns

Their sound reminds me of dreary, wintry days in Lancashire. It's actually a good memory as I was raised to look forward to coming home from school and enjoying and good meal. Now that I think of it, the sound of French Horns reminds me of those old Ready Brek commercials.

Drowning in Hot, Milky Tea

The entire Cowen Household is sick today. It's the usual "warm-one-day, cold-the-next" winter that we experience every year in Texas and our bodies have had enough. We're not quite at the stage where we need the heavy meds (accompanied by the pain of even getting a doctor's appointment), so we're trying several over-the-counter and homeopathic remedies. You know, Tylenol, Alka-Seltzer, Zinc-up-the-nose and tea... lovely hot mugs of Ty-Phoo with plenty of milk.

Data Center Move

This should be a riot! Four of us are moving 20 servers, an EMC storage unit, 5 devices 3 miles down the road in the middle of a rainy night. No cover, just plastic camping tarps and only 10 hours to do it. After that I've got firewall and DNS settings to reset. As I said, should be a riot.

Feel the power

A new Dual Xeon Quad-core server arrived at our door last night fresh from Dell. It's a fairly loaded machine with 3 GHz processor speed, 16 GB of memory and 1.3 terabytes of disk spinning at 15,000 RPM.

This is actually a prototype machine for us to see how much virtualization we can squeeze out of it. The only thing we can do in the next round to increase performance is double the memory, but we're anxiously awaiting Dell to release the Dual AMD Quad-core which is supposed to put Intel to shame when it comes to running virtual environments.

This should be a fun (and noisy) day. The non-technical translation of the above is that this computer is very super-duper.

My Bill is Overdue

Thanks to my Mother-in-Law for alerting me to this... My old blog at www.castingmynet.com displays a message (to the world) stating that my hosting bill is overdue. As delinquent as that may appear, I really did intend to let the account lapse and I'm back over here at BlogSpot, where my bill is never overdue, because it's a 100% FREE account.

Converse All-Star Boys

I've always wanted a pair myself... Hint Hint :)

View from the Top

Incidentally, that was the title of my 1984 high school yearbook. 

Christmas Lights

Time to get down and put up the lights.

I love working from home

One of the biggest reasons I like working from home. A lovingly prepared breakfast by my family delivered with kisses and not interrupting my workflow. Most mornings are like this - I'm one blessed dude

Google: Gold Beyond Page 1

Do you ever venture beyond the first page of a Google Search? Sometimes I'll go to page 2 but hardly any further. Tonight I was desperately searching for something and the Page One Results (POR - my own acronym, thank you) looked so bleak that the next logical action was to rewrite a better query. Instead I clicked on the second 'o' and found the treasure of knowledge I was looking for.

Good Morning Sonshine!