Lord Andrei's Blog

So, I’ve started actually using the technology at home for an actual purpose. I started building up not only my own web sites, but helping others administrate and host as well.

As a result, I’ve also been putting some more money and work into my home system. Well, that was until today.

This morning, my server system went down. And it went down hard. I think besides losing one of the old hard drives inside (happily none of anyone else’s important served data), I think the power supply has also gone south. The system started spontaneously powering off within 3 minutes of boot time.

I called tech support who basically tried to get me to manually eject the CD with the power user’s tool (read: a paperclip). When this failed, they actually had me remove the DVD/CD and Main Drive assembly. And in the process of doing that, the ‘molex’ power plug for the main drive unit came apart in my hand.

So.. my sweet server is now off at the shop getting checked. This happened just as I was putting in a redundant backup system. The idea being, if the server were ever to go down.. at least I’d be able to continue to serve on a backup machine 😛

Good idea.. A few hours too late.

So… I have my laptop, and my net… But all the server work I’ve been doing is currently unavailable. Well, I do have a local copy of apolo.com (minus the last code change)… I theoretically could serve it from my laptop.

So, to make up for the pain and suffering, I’ve decided to let myself join the herd and bought myself a copy of Neverwinter Nights. Everyone and their brother has been talking about it. (As if I don’t have enough online and offline distractions already)

The install came on TWO Cds. I’m really not much of a ‘game player’. I’d forgotton how games tend to basically ‘take over’ the computer. Which was a little annoying as I was recieving AIM messages but couldn’t toggle over to respond.

Well. it’s the 30th.. So quiet time I guess.

I miss my copmuter. I hope it gets better soon. 🙁

I notice I haven’t posted in a while. It’s not that it’s been exquisitely busy… I think primarily the holidays took a bit of life out of me.

I’m mostly mended from my pre-x-mas excitement. It’s been a slow process. This wasn’t completely due to the sickness, but to the array of meds they put me on. I think the worst of which was the steroid. These little bastards were innocuous little green pills. I really mean little. But the result was that mood, energy, appetite, were all somewhere in Fresno.

I’ve also been working from home for most of the holiday season. I’m dealing with some bugs in my code that deal with a dual processor machine and happily I have one at home to do said repairs on. I’ve also been doing alot with getting some internal projects of my own organized.

I’ve been working on a completely new website for the household/business. SO, I may as well formally announce the beginnings of Apolo Productions Web presence. The site is: http://www.apolo.net

The site is written almost entirely in PHP, SQL, and CSS. I felt that these were technologies that I needed to learn and add to my little box of tools. There’s not alot of content, so any suggestions are warmly welcomed. There are a few other sites that I’m now hosting as a result. I figure I have the server space, the connection, and the administrative abilities… might as well share the resources.

Some other stuff i’ve been working on computer wise includes doing some family research (Which is now server on the site at http://www.apolo.cc/family. As well as organizing as many files and as much data as possible. Yesterday, I also decided to once again try to install Win XP home into VPC 6.0. The amusement there is that I got a message yesterday saying that the setup would complete in 37 minutes. This morning, it is down to 19 minutes 🙂

I’ve also been creating havoc in the house by adding a new wireless router modem. I’ve added a D-Link AirPlus Extreme G Wifi modem. Yes, even I can admit that the Apple Airport doesn’t offer me the configurability that I need. After several long hours I think I’ve been able to finally get my Airport express back online with the new network… but I don’t know if the Airport Extreme will return to the network or make a showing on Ebay.

Unrelated to this has been the excitement that has been the sale of H’s house. Many people knew that we had something that was ‘in the works’ but we really weren’t talking about it. I’d never dealt with a house purchase or sale before. My goodness the paperwork is obscene. We didn’t want to post anything until it was done as in realllly done in case something weird happened at the 11th hr. I have gotten to deal with more strange forms and people in the last month that I ever wanted to.

So, one last thing on the horizon. I have to run into the bay area next week on Wednesday night. Partially I’m thinking of hitting one of the Casinos that evening. (Waves up to ts4z to invite him along). Ah yes, Poker. I’m still playing regularly. Computer Games, Online, with friends. I seem to be in a growth phase. This means that I’m absolutely sucking at the game. Bad play, bad beats. I understand the game fully, but online, I can not win to save my own life at all. I’m hoping it’s just a natural learning process. Otherwise, I may have to reconsider because I’m just not playing as well as I thought I should be.

Well… that’s the overview for now. Good times.

*waves*