Etcetera – Page 10 – TechUnplugged

June 4, 2004

Backup, Backup, Backup…..

I don’t know how many times I have seen it and today was no different. A customer who lost almost all of their data due to a Hard Drive failure is now faced with sending the drive to a clean room. It turns out that their backup system has not been backing up since March. I can remember years back telling the customer to invest in a RAID setup. No matter how many times I told them the cost well out weighed the time required to retrieve a server from tape let alone the peril of complete data loss. It is always amazing when I receive blank stares followed by “I don’t remember that!”, when you jog their memory about the RAID conversation. Plus it always happens at the worst time and you have to stop everything your doing no matter who you are helping. A had to leave a regularly scheduled client early and travel uptown to get to the downed server because it was urgent. I spent several hours rebuilding the server’s OS and installing the backup software. At which point I started cataloging tapes starting from what should have been the most recent. When I started to see the dates of the backups I gasped and it must have been loud, because a crowd gathered to see what was wrong. The only option left to the customer was to spend between $1700-$6000 for a six day turn around visit to a clean room. You can get it done much quicker if needed however that is when they put a gun to your head and extort money from you literally. If the customer decided to go the emergency route that number balloons to between $9000 and $20000.

Let that be a lesson to you all, listen to the IT guy that’s what you pay him for. That’s like a doctor telling you have cancer and you need to have an operation and chemotherapy to make sure it is gone completely. You then tell the doctor “I’ll opt for the operation but will pass on the chemotherapy.” Like Duh!

May 27, 2004

I’ve Got Gmail!

Wow, I finally got my hands on a Beta account on Gmail. I have only just activated my account and briefly used it, but boy am I impressed with its functionality. Just think of a 1 Gigabyte Mailbox, that’s right 1 Gigabyte. I never have to delete another email again (Spam excluded). It even allows you to search through your archives easily. I’ll keep you updated on my experiences with Gmail as they happen.

BTW.. My Gmail account is: johnwitt@gmail.com

May 13, 2004

After The Show

Well I finally made it to the show, it took nearly 2.5 hours to make it there. The Henry Hudson Parkway was flooded around Dykman St. Only one lane was opened during rush hour, so traffic was backed up all the way to the Saw Mill River Parkway. I tried maneuvering around it by getting off Dykman and taking side roads to 181st St. I don’t know which was worse, staying on or getting off. We had planned on going out for dinner and having a couple of drinks before the show, however we only to had enough time to throw a slice of pizza down our throats before the show. We happened to walk in just minutes before the show began. The theater was hot as hell, it felt like the AC wasn’t working or on its minimal setting at best. The show was absolutely phenomenal, those songs will be ringing in my head for the rest of the week. Speaking about ringing… For the love of God, if you’re going to a Show or a Movie TURN THAT FREAKING CELL PHONE OFF!!!!!!! It wasn’t like one person had his phone on, phones all around were going off during the show. Talk about being impolite, even after intermission they made an announcement about turning phones off. No sooner did the curtains go up for the second act did phones go off again whether audible with a ringer or vibrating away in someone’s purse. All in all even with all the traffic, and inconsiderate people it was still a fun evening.
BTW.. whats up with that Swatch Billboard? I think that’s just taking things too far. If you don’t know what Im talking about, click Moblog on the menu above and click the image of the billboard. I’ll let you figure out the rest. It reminded me of a Greg The Bunny episode when he exclaims “I’ll give it to her bunny style!”.
Good Night.

May 12, 2004

Fiddler On The Roof

Well my wife and I were getting to walk out the door to go see Fiddler On The Roof on Broadway when this huge thunderstorm hit. This was one of the worst I could remember not so much for it duration which was short but for its intensity. My wife went to turn of the air conditioner in the bedroom when lightning hit right outside the window. It just about threw her to the floor and gave her a Don King hairdo. Were going to sit here for a little and let this pass no sense going right this moment because rush hour is in full swing. I have been looking forward to this show for a bit and I hope I am not disappointed. Talking about disappointment, I had tickets for Willie Nelson at the Beacon Theater for Sunday and it got cancelled. I listened to my voicemail this evening and there was a message from Ticket Master letting me know the show was canceled and no rain date had been set yet. I haven’t booked any other concerts for the summer yet and bought these tickets like 2-3 months ago. I have never seen Willie perform live and was really psyched about see him live with great seats. Oh well, maybe next time. I’ll let you know what I thought of the show in my next entry.

Ciao, time to hit the road.

May 9, 2004

Lan Party

This weekend I went up to Conneticut for a Lan Party hosted by Long Island Counterstrike and Gothic PC. It was a really fun day of mostly Counterstrike. There was a turn out of about 30 players. I got into a CounterStrike Tournament and played on Team 4. As things turned out Team 4 just owned the night when it came to CounterStrike. The last couple of rounds in the last match were tight, but in general we just ran over our competition. The food was great and so were the caliber of the players. If your an avid Counterstrike player and looking for a good server with great people go visit the link above and go to one of their many game servers. You won’t find a better time any where else.

On a side note: I hope you don’t take the incredible amount of ownage against you Hocka. You just happened to be at the wrong place as that bullet whizzed by your head. LOL. Just felt the urge to add that.

April 18, 2004

Kill Bill: Vol 2, or rather Kill Me Now Vol 1.

I was out having a great time last night. The Guinness was flowing like water, everyone at the bar was friendly and out to have a good time. I cut my evening short by catching a midnight showing of Kill Bill Vol. 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter in this short series. Being somewhat inebriated still couldn’t aid me in the train wreck I was about to witness. The first movie was full of action, in the second it was almost if Quentin Tarantino was trying to make up for it in his newest release. The……..movie……..was………so……….slow, it was all story with snippets of action. Something you would not expect from Quentin Tarantino. I have gone to so many movies that I can almost see a formula of sequences that are used basically for every movie. I can tell usually within the first 15-20 minutes how a movie will end. Quentin Tarantino goes out of his way to use the usual Hollywood formula to making a movie and yes within the first 15 minutes you know how Bill will die. It felt like some Hollywood mass production machine stamped this out and Quentin Tarantino just signed his name to it. I would avoid this at all cost, wait for the DVD. If you must trek to the theater to see this make sure your on some hallucinogen or some other mind altering drug, because that is the only way you would be able to enjoy it.

April 17, 2004

What a beautiful day!

I am working in New your City today. What a gorgeous day it is, the sun is out and its about 70 degrees. The drive in from White Plains was great, sunroof open and The Red Hot Chili Peppers playing on my Ipod blaring through the cars sound system. Life seems to be great at times like that, why couldn’t it be like that always. Well I’ll be couped up on the 9th floor of this building for the next several hours. At least I got my Musicmatch Artist Match going and can listen to some more RHCP while I’m working. I am the only one here so I can kick it up a couple of notches. I don’t know what it is, but I have been in a RHCP mood for the past couple of days. The task I have before me is deploying about 10 Dells out to end users. I am creating a master system since I have another 10 systems arriving next week. After I finish the master system, I’ll just create a Ghost image and broadcast it out to the remaining systems. Then I’m bolting to enjoy the rest of this glorious day at an outside bar over several pints of the black stuff!! (Guinness for those not in the fold…LOL)

Ciao..

P.S. After reading this step away from the computer and go outside. There are other things besides that tube with a keyboard.

April 6, 2004

Long Overdue

This is a long overdue update to my blog and site in general. I have been extremely busy as of late. I am still recovering from my surgery the pain has more or less subsided. Last week was a pretty bad week for me I had 2 root canals and a stomach virus to contend with, which basically put me on my back for the week. I have been making it up over the weekend paying visits to my clients while their office were closed and was able to get a lot done. I getting ready to roll out about 12 new workstations to one of my clients (picture can be seen on moblog). So I will try to keep this up to date as much as I can between work, bar hoping and CounterStrike. I have to bolt leaving the city before traffic starts to back up.
Ciao.

February 11, 2004

Kind of back

I had shoulder surgery done on Friday to repair a torn rotator cuff. I was told that after a day or two I should be back to close to normal. Well it has been four days and I am no where close to normal. It seems it will take a while for me to heal and a lot of physical therapy for me to have normal motion in my arm again. I can’t even raise my arm a couple of inches without pain. I can’t sit in front of the computer for any length of time without getting nauseous. I can’t tell if it’s from the pain meds or the antibiotics but even smelling food makes me feel queasy. I should have taken my camera with me to the hospital; there were a couple of good Kodak moments that were missed. Especially me in a little blue cap

January 26, 2004

Im Back…..

Sorry about my brief abscence, however I have been really busy. I just finished doing a network move for one of my clients in Yonkers. If you would like to see some pictures of the job you can visit the moblog by using the link on the menubar above. Last night I spent some time putting a bookcase and a bar together that we purchased from IKEA earlier in the week. I will put some pictures up later of the bar, it came out looking really cool. Later today I have an electrician coming over finishing up a job he started 5 months ago, to give me more power in the apartment for all my equipment. Yeah, 5 months dont ask you’ll only get me started on a rant. We’ll that what has been going on in a nut shell.

Ciao