It's quite late here, I don't know why I am still awake....

Worked on the movie rental application some more today. We've got a new feature going which shows the customers rental history. Pretty easy to create. Did a couple bug fixes and stuff. Brought out the AR-15 today, that was awesome, I love it so much.

Also called Apple back in Burlington, MA. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be working there because they don't offer full time specialist jobs at the moment, and that's the only openings they've got at the moment. Oh well, maybe something else will come up.

I've added 2 new modules to SceneJournal so that I can crosspost to both DeathNote and Scribbld...tested and working. I'm pretty psyched to move to SceneJournal as my main. Although, I'm not too happy with the amount of themes offered. Oh well...

Tomorrow, not much is happening. Probably going to work on the movie rental application some. I think Morgan and I have agreed that this movie application is the last of our ventures into geekery. We'll be cutting back on a lot of it, so we can focus on other things going on in our lives. Scribbld, SceneJournal, DeathNote will continue to run, but not much work will be done on them. As mentioned we'll continue to support them as best we can and with what time we have but since they're not really paying jobs, not much effort will be put into them. Of course they'll run! How else can we document our lives and read about yours! :)

Ok, it's like 3am. I should probably get some sleep so I can wake up at a semi-decent hour tomorrow :) I really want to buckle down and study Japanese at some point.

 Well, things are coming along...I've been really busy trying to work when the power isn't out...when it is out, then I'm completely lost haha. The DVD application is really coming along. At the moment, the base core code is complete and now it's just adding in final tweaks and bug fixes which is relatively easy. It definitely challenges my logic though because you've really got to think about what the program and code is doing and how to make it do exactly what you want :)

Employment-wise I've got a couple things going on. I was supposed to fly out to Texas tomorrow to meet up with some people for a potential job, but they didn't get my airplane tickets and hotel lined up yet...so it looks like it might be next week instead. That's okay though...Although I really have no idea what I'll be doing this week. Probably working on that DVD application but you can only do that for so long. I'll probably try to spend as much time with my horse as I can, seeing as how I'll likely need to sell him with whatever new job I get since it'll likely not be located here in Vermont.

Yesterday, Abby made and brought me some pizza, it was definitely amazing! :) Then we watched some TV and then she had to get some barn chores done.

I believe once I am done with this entry, I'll be heading out to the barn myself. Today's my last day of chores, so it'll be the last stalls I muck for quite some time :) I'm quite happy about that :)

Tonight, not sure what's going on, I'd love to go out to dinner and a movie, dinner is doable, movie not so much since there's nothing decent in theatres. We'll see...I definitely want to just relax, no code, no servers, no nothing tonight, just have fun and relax :)

I hope everyone had a nice weekend!!

 Been getting some really unusual music lately. Oddly I can stand it too haha. Brokencyde's new album is pretty hilarious. I made myself a ringtone from the Freaxxx song lol. I told Abby she could pick any one song and I'd make it into a ringtone for her when she calls me.

Friday I hung out with her. We went to her house, just chilled out, watched some movies, went for a walk. Saturday I finished up my final for Nutrition class, ended up getting a 94 on it and an A in the class overall. Quite happy with that. Then I met up with her around 12 and we went to her house, did some things to get ready for her party, took a nap, took a walk, watched some movies, then people started showing up around 5 or so...had a ton of fun at the party. I beat Bethany 21 to 4 in badminton. We did some four-wheeling which was badass, but we didn't get as dirty and muddy as I had wanted too lol. Bonfire was awesome, Abby and I laid out a tarp and watched the stars for a bit after everyone left, then we huddled close to the fire since it was kind of cold.

Sunday, we went and saw Transformers 2 which was pretty badass. That was too be expected though. Storyline, was eh...nothing to awesome...at least the movie was badass...after that we did chores at the barn and then went out to get some ice cream.

Today I spent finishing the add new customer bit on the DVD Rental script I'm working on. Also started in on the search feature which is pretty much complete. This week I'd like to accomplish finishing the edit customer part.

After I finished coding, I went to the barn to get my chores done. Then I went and Abby made me some pizza which ended up awesome. Definitely hit the spot and of course seeing her was awesome. Then I came home, and I've been playing a little Xbox since. I got a new free costume for LittleBigPlanet. It's the summer solstice one. I really want to get Killzone 2 for my PS3. We'll see, there's so many other things on the list. Haha.

Tomorrow, it's back to UVM. Ick. But whatever, it's money. I start my Japanese class in a couple weeks, I am pretty psyched for that. I need to write a letter to HR telling them what a fuck up my boss is. It's fucking ridiculous. :) Maybe I'll just move to Boston and work at the Apple Store. Who knows...Apparently Steve Jobs is back at Apple, he looks decent. Maybe he was secretly working on that tablet I so desperately want :)

I found out tonight that you can make ringtones in Garageband and since GarageBand can import songs I just used that instead of purchasing the song over again. So I made one from Brokencyde, Attack Attack! and This Romantic Tragedy. I'm loving it!

Haven't been riding as much because it's either been raining, or I've just wanted to come home and work on some web projects and things...or because Cub is lame which means Abby and I can't ride together...which has been quite fun the 4-5 times we've done so.

Only have to work tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday! Yay for Friday off, I am hoping Abby can spend the night on Friday, that would be most excellent. If not, I am sure she'll stay pretty late into the morning hours :)

Hope everyone has an awesome week!

Today was unusually amazing for a Monday. Woke up kind of late, sleeping in is nice :) Just wake up when I am done sleeping, took a shower, got ready for the day. I went out to my first consulting appointment. It was for a slow computer which is one of the worst to go out on because that really doesn't tell me anything, there's a million and one reasons as to why a computer could be slow. I ran my usual checks and applications to look for what could be causing the problem. I ended up telling them to purchase some new RAM for not only the machine that was having an issue but for most of their machines. One guy was running 512MBs of RAM, now mind you, these guys are graphics/print designers and sit and play in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign all day...and for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters nonetheless haha. I hope some people have heard of them :P So yeah, we're jacking them up to like 6-8GBs. 512MBs is ridiculous!

After that, I went out and had lunch with my mom, but not before I stopped off at my local gun shop and got my stock replaced...it's kind of ghetto, but whatever haha, it works. I saw the Bushmaster A3 that I really really want, so I am definitely going to be saving up for that. Maybe by the end of the summer I'll have enough money to drop on that (only $1200 haha). After that I found out my car needs like $900 in repairs, I hate cars. Haha. I wish I could just ride my horse everywhere. I'd definitely be down with that.

After lunch I hung out with Abby, we watched a couple episodes of Wildboyz and then I went to my second appointment. It was a good one though, cause it was for one of my old managers from Small Dog. He's looking to do some DVD rentals and needs an application to not only inventory the DVDs, but to handle rentals, returns and customer information. So it's definitely going to be a good learning experience. We'll be writing it in PHP & MySQL and there's a big possibility that he won't be the only people using it, considering I've seen little nothing else out there in the market. So it's going to be a really crazy ride this one!!

After that, I headed out to the barn, met back up with Abby and Bethany. Had some good times there. Abby made me a whole thing of rice crispy treats for me, which I "shared" hahaha. She's so wonderful to me, it's really nice to know there's someone out there who really cares about you...a lot. I believe she's coming over when I get home from work, we're just going to relax, maybe watch a movie or build our Sims a house hahaha.

Tonight, I've got a buncha homework to do. I might start working on an outline for the DVD project. Who knows...maybe I'll do neither and just watch a movie and relax :) Did I mention how amazing Ponyo on a Cliff By The Sea was!? Yeah, it was great, Miyazaki for the win...Did I mention how badly I want that A3...oh, cause I do ;) Thursday is Abby's birthday. I am going to order her some flowers right now...she loves lillys. <3

Today was super busy. Had a bit of consulting working in the AM, and then I went up to UVM. We flipped the switch on the new CDCI home page and it's looking good. I spent like 2 hours doing that. Then  attempted to find the room where my Japanese class was, but I found every other room number other then the one I needed. But I think I know where it is, it's one of the rooms that had students in it and the door was open....I didn't want to like walk in and stare at the door to see the number...I'd prefer not to look completely nuts haha. Either way...I'll find it.

The rest of the day, I spent working on web things, and such. Got home and spent way to long trying to install the new PSU into the server. morgan  and I are crazy haha.

Then I got it installed into the rack and found out the boot drive wasn't working...so I snagged a 500GB drive and installed that and it works. I'm going to have to test out that 300GB we got from ltdan  to see what the deal is...I'll probably end up buying another 500GB since I stole it from morgan 's machine hehehe. Woops.

So that's about it. Just wanted to clear my mind, off to take a shower and roll into bed now. Night all! :)

I'm currently attending some new employee orientation for UVM. We're watching the inauguration (I guess we're on break), but this morning we went over a few things, also took a trip around campus, did some UVM history stuff. It wasn't really that fun, although I learned a few neat things about the history of UVM. How that'll help me perform my job better, I don't know.

I actually got an email about the orientation last week or something, but some how it got lost. Trust me, being an IT person, I definitely felt like an idiot. Last night I was scrambling around to figure out when and where this thing was. This morning I finally got it all taken care of. I was like 30 minutes late to the thing, but whatever...I didn't miss the most important parts.

This weekend I went down to see Keith. I also got a new iPhone (since the silencer switch snapped off mine) and to get the topcase on my black MacBook replaced. Definitely was nice to see him. Last time I had seen him was when I went to do consulting with him at Yellow Stain, I mean Steel. What fuckers haha. The drive down was nice, I finally got through some Diggnation episodes, although not enough to really make a dent in my 700+ unlistened podcasts lol. There were cars off the road all over the place. I actually saw some lady go flying off. She blew by me, and in my mind I thought, "Yep see you in the ditch lady..." and sure enough 500ft down the road there she was. Sitting in a snowbank, haha. I made really good time though, considering the roads were crap.

So Monday, we went to the Apple Store, got all my stuff switched out. I think the girl who helped me, also helped me back in the Spring when my 8GB 1G iPhone crapped out. Keith works at this store too, so that made it a bit nicer too. I would much rather travel down there then deal with the AT&T Stores up here an/or Small Dog. Our Unicel stores just turned into AT&T stores so I have a feeling they wouldn't have the iPhone as a service part yet (but I could be wrong), but it's my best friend and seeing him is a lot of fun!

After my Apple Store appointment, I came home, hit up the barn first to get my stalls cleaned and then went back home. Emilie and I then went over to my parents, did some laundry and got some food. I also got a bunch of goods from my mom, some bacon, yogurt, granola, and some raviolis. I love going there, my parents are awesome.

This morning as mentioned was filled with some chaos as I had to figure out all this orientation crap. Since I'm full time now, I guess I've really got to hold up to my responsibilities, I've really gotta do well too cause I really like being able to work for the university and I am definitely going to take advantage of it. I'm hoping to take a bunch of classes, maybe this summer if not then, definitely in the fall. While I definitely DO NOT see myself working in the department I am currently in, I know I do not want to, I'd end up killing myself. So yeah, there's a master plan, there always is, and I believe this step into full time here, is just one of the steps that will get me to a higher and better place at some point. I've just got to do what I've been hired too, and all will be good. There just seems to be an overwhelming amount of things I've got to do, and rules and protocols to follow. I think I might be blowing it up a bit more then I should though. I am sure everything will be fine. :) It's just a lot for me all at once, it'll settle down :)

Last night after Emilie and I got back from my parents, we just put on our PJs, snuggled into the warn bed and started watching Gran Torino. I had no idea what it was going to be about. I'm probably 3/4th the way through the movie though. We ended up falling asleep, so I'll probably finish the rest when I get home.

So during this entry, President Obama is now really the president, someone who knows me messaged me on iChat, I have no idea who they are...I've filled out some health/dental insurance forms...

I am hoping this orientation isn't very much longer. I think the lady said something about the forms taking about an hour to fill out and then I hope that's the end. I then plan on getting some food and I'll probably just head home haha I might go back to the office, but I really just don't feel like dealing with these people haha

I've been listening to a lot of Asian Kung-Fu Generation lately. But I'd really love to get into some more JROCK bands and stuff. Does anyone have anything for me? Send me stuff!! :)

I AM SOOOO HUNGRY!!!!

We've got Gears of War 2.

Going to see Senses Fail & Dance Gavin Dance on the 15th - WotLK comes out soon!!!

Umm...I got one of the new MacBooks! It's sexy...although still in the box. Probably won't set it up until next week when I have time.

Old MacBook for sale:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&item=250321656992

Today was a rather uneventful day. I did get to configure an iPod touch with a Cisco VPN, rather interesting. It's nice to know that now the 2.0 software does support Cisco VPN IPSec stuff. Other then that, nothing to wonderful happened. I finally remembered to bring home my saddle & bridle so that I could clean it. Hopefully I can do that either Friday or this weekend sometime.

Tomorrow at work we've got no work, but rather some wellness thing we need to attend. I don't think I shall complain as I am getting paid to not work, sounds good. I think emilie is going to come and pick me up too, which is going to be awesome. Today there were absolutely no seats on the bus on the way up to work.

After work, I did work at the barn, was nice seeing my horse. Apparently they had some hail there, but he didn't mind it, I guess the skimpy fly sheet worked for even that. The other horses, were like, "ahhhh!! what's this stuff hitting me!!". LOL.

Anyways, as the subject of this entry mentions, SPORE! I did get my hands on a copy, and yes I've been playing it since about 8pm this evening. It's an amazing game, I think I shall definitely purchase the Galactic Edition as this game definitely deserves my $50 or whatever. Emilie loves it to, we're definitely going to make some awesome stuff.

I finally got the Xserve rebuilt, my MacBook and Emilie's MacBook rebuilt. Everything but that Cisco switch has been fixed. At some point either on Friday or this weekend, I've got work on that Xserve for Keith and I's consulting appointment next weekend.

Hrmm, so Emilie and I are going to watch a movie now!

This weekend went by waaaay to fast! On Saturday Emilie and I went riding. Definitely had an awesome time, really got a good ride in. Around 10pm or so the main database server locked up and everything went down. Totally suckass, so I had to drive like 20 minutes to where the servers are located and had to manually reboot it to find out the boot system RAID set had become degraded. No idea how it happened, but the rebuild only took 2 hours which wasn't too bad. The last time that happened to me, it happened on a 500GB set and took like 12 hours to rebuild lol. I do apologize about that! emilie actually came with me to keep me company, we finally got home around 12am haha

Sunday, not much happened, I've been playing as much Star Fox Adventures as I can, pretty fun game. I am ~20% done...worked at the barn and then went to my parents for dinner. Had an awesome dinner...I got a bunch of new movies and some new anime too (picked it up off the server while there).

Today I went back down to Boston with Keith. He had a second interview with Apple, he said it went very well, so that's awesome. We hit up Fire & Ice and the way back. Had some amazing food as usual. I highly recommend anyone who lives in Boston or visiting Boston to go there, you will love it! Really good price too, a lot better then I thought it was going to be.

I snagged an iPhone 3G, and it's quite nice. emilie got my old 8GB iPhone.

Tomorrow I've got consulting down south, so that'll be nice, of course I doubt it'll be nice weather, oh well. I think I might go riding tomorrow too. I got paid from the appointment at Yellow Steel in NH, yay!

I believe that's all the news I've got for right now! :) OH, Emilie and I saw Ex Machina, AWESOME!!!

Been pretty busy with consulting and all. If it's not going out to places then I am usually at home working on emails and returning phone calls or consulting over the phone.

*** Auto-save has saved me!! ***

Ok, so anyways...I've also picked up another stall at the barn so that gets me 1 hour total and that means about $120 per month of board I don't have to pay so that's really nice, especially with all my other expenses right now. I did cancel my Netflix account. I told myself I would once I had an empty queue and that finally happened. I've pretty much killed anything I was subscribed to minus Anime Insider (because I already paid for it) and our Internet services.

Had to run to the animal hospital this morning because that weird video issue had resurfaced. I basically told them it was most likely a hardware issue and that they needed to bring it into the repair shop so they could properly diagnose it and order parts and have them replaced. It's definitely going to cost them though, possibly $500-$600. Ouch.

I've not been working on any websites as of late. I still have 2 websites to check into their own repositories. I did remove like over a gigabyte of media from the repositories. There's no sense in keeping it in multiple places...I guess for backup purposes but since it's just a repository, I'll let it be that and not a backup.

Keith and I are going to see Hellboy II on Friday, so that should be awesome. On Tuesday we hit up our Gamestops and picked up our copies of Unreal Tournament III. We'd pretty much been talking about that game since the summer of 2004 and we're just getting it now (actually I've had the PC version since it came out). Anyways, we pretty much played from 12pm till 10pm. We took a good dinner break but we pretty much played all that time. It's definitely a lot fun fun, we did versus, campaign and we finished up with a few online matches. Definitely an awesome game, although I almost prefer it more on the PC, it seems to run fasters, probably because you're using a mouse and keyboard. That's not to say the 360 version is slow, cause it's not...I also played a couple rounds of COD4 with makkintosshu, good times.

So, here's some not so great news. Just last year, Starbucks was opening about 7 stores a day, now they're closing ~500-600 of these stores...I'd definitely have to say either people are fed up with them, or the economy is really going downhill. It could even be a combination of both, but to have a company that was opening that many stores a day 1 year ago, to now, where they're up and closing 500 of them, not good.

The original mommy kitty at the barn is pregnant again...the barn is turning into kitty mania. I love kitties though. The horses are doing well. I snagged the leg straps off my dilapidated winter blanket and I'll use those for my new fly sheet. Nippet's blood tests came back and he's coggins free, which is awesome. I love him. I just need to copper tox his feet for a bit, they're getting a little messed up, so when I get paid which should hopefully be soon I'm ordering a big thing of fly spray refill and some copper tox. Other then that everything is great.

I ordered a bunch of new airsoft gear:

1 Coyote Brown MOLLE vest
1 Multicam Jacket
1 Multicam Pants
1 Small Med Kit
1 MICH TC-2001 Helmet
1 multicam helmet cover
1 multicam hat
1 Coyote Brown Hydration Pack
2 Multicam name tapes
1 multicam American flag reversed
2 Coyote brown name tapes
1 G&G Fan kit for goggles
1 Sanyo 9.6v battery
1 big to small battery cable

A lot of it is coming tomorrow so I am excited about that. It'll be like Christmas in July :)

I managed to get my hands on the latest 2.0 firmware for the iPhone and I've been installing a bunch of apps! I've got the Facebook app, Twitterific, Apple Remote, Things and I am thinking about getting Cro Mag Rally. I remember I used to play Cro Mag Rally with my friend instead of going to class in middle school. So much fun. It would be awesome if they had network play on the iPhone/iPod touch version. Currently I don't see how Things syncs with the desktop version so I will assume it doesn't but it MUST. I have a feeling they'll get it working, just not right away in this version. As far as I know Things is still in beta so they've got some time to get it just right (not that it's not amazing right now, because it definitely is)! The Apple Remote application is pretty much the first application I wanted about 1 week after the iPhone came out....er actually I wrote it about 3 months BEFORE the iPhone even came out! See the article here. Ha HA!

Umm, so that's about all for right now...I've got to go research some servers and I really want to play Bad Company. Good day all!

It's been a busy couple of days. Mostly working from home, just researching and getting things together for people. Yesterday I put in like 2.5 hours, today about an hour, maybe a bit more. I just can't handle this heat, I am about to just go sit in the bath tub or something because this is ridiculous.

The horses are pretty pissed off too, they're dying out there. It's just way to hot. Currently there's a tornado watch in effect for Vermont, they always say that, but nothing happens. I mean this is Vermont, come on. I would be very surprised to see such a thing here. I've been enjoying the ice though, we got this like no brander cones and they're actually really good believe it or not. I've mostly been staying indoors too, even though it's still way to hot inside. We've given the horses baths, so hopefully that should help cool them down momentarily. Nippet was being a complete asshole about, so I gave a few good smacks, didn't really seem to help though...even Buddy was better about it then him was I found to be unusual. Definitely haven't been riding them in the heat, hopefully it cools down soon because I really need to get riding.

I've been trying to figure out if I can get into the Equine Science program at UVM, of course it's taking forever...I might as well as make some phone calls, because these people don't seem to check their email. I have a feeling even if it is open to me, I won't be able to get in because I didn't take calculus or chemistry in college, in high school I did do chemistry, but screw calculus. I really dislike mathematics, of course you really need to know if for that program, so we'll see.

I've finally gotten Subversion up and running and I really like it. I'm just a bit annoyed that I have another step in my process, instead of just making changes to a file, uploading it to a server and then synching it across the servers, I now have to make changes, commit them to Subversion, then upload it to a server and synch it across the other servers. So it's like an extra step, but it makes sense, it just sucks. But I am sure it'll come in handy when it comes time to update the whole code base and such. Or when I break something I can just go back a version. I am using this new OS X application, Version, which is WOW. It definitely makes my journey into using Subversion quite easy.

( WWDC Thoughts )

Hrmm, so besides roasting alive here, things have been well, I've been watching a lot of HorseGirlTV and catching up on old (we're talking 2005/2006) issues of various magazines. Haha I am a slow reader lol.

I believe that's all for now, I am going to get something cool to drink/eat.

I just purchased a demo video iPod from Small Dog Electronics. It's got a couple scratches but hey, it's a demo unit, I cannot really complain. It's in pretty good condition, as a matter a fact I think I am the one who tested and made sure this iPod works, so now I really can't complain! It's 30GB and black.

The reason I bought this was because I was testing another video iPod and I actually was watching Aeon Flux on it. I know many people were complaining about how small the screen in and crap like that, but it's really not that bad. I have had a Sony PSP for about a year now and even though that screen is noticibly larger then the video iPod, I can manage watching full length movies on here. Poo poo on the people that complain it's too small. If it's too small then don't watch movies on it, don't buy one, stop complaining, jeez.

So the reason for buying this was to obviously watch movies. In order to do that I have to convert them into a format that can be read by the iPod! I know when the iPod video first came out that a bunch of Apple sites ran articles on which programs to use for this sort of thing. Of course the searches provided on those sites/blogs are horrible so I wound up using good ole' Google. I came across one application which is 100% and works great called, iSquint. You can view the programs home page here. it converts tons of different video types without the need of installing the extra codecs. It took me about 1 hour to convert The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe AND The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on my PowerMac G4 1.25GHz DP machine. So I am pretty psyched about that.

But what if I have a DVD that I want to convert to something usable by the iPod. Whenever I've done a DVD-RiP I have used Handbrake. It has always created the best rips for me and it is so simple to use. Click, click, wait, done! So I searched up Handbrake on Google and found their home page. Apparently they have a nice little program which is based from Handbrake but converts just for iPod and Sony PSP!! It's called Instant Handbrake and works mostly like the original version but makes video files just for the iPod and PSP. So now I am ripping Seabiscuit and it says it's going to take 3 hours which seems a little much. Usually it only takes and hour to do this...so we'll see.

Overall I am very impressed with the video iPod. It's great for on the go or just watching movies at my desk here...even at the retail price of $299 for the 30GB it's a great gadget. Now I can watch video podcasts too!

Update: I've been getting some videos from Gamespot.com and they're all in WMV format which doesn't really play nice with Windows media files. I tried to use iSquint to convert it since the iSquint website said it worked with WMV files, but it really doesn't so don't let that fool you. Maybe it's just the WMV9 codec or something, who knows. So I went through 10 other Mac based applications that said they would work with WMV files and they didn't. So I figured well, maybe Microsoft Windows would play nice with its own types of files.

I borrowed my girlfriends Dell with Windows XP SP2 and installed this application called WinAVI, which was free and quite easy to use. It worked perfectly fine and then I put the videos on my iPod.

Now there is one non-free program for Mac called Flip4Mac and it says it can convert WMV files into something the Mac can better read, but I believe it costs about $30 that I don't have...plus most of my movies aren't WMV format.

Heya everyone! Sorry I've not updated in a while (at least a real update). I've been trying to comment though, but with all this crazy business, it's been a bit hard.

Last Friday I headed down to Mass. to play some more airsoft games and I had a training. Friday, got down there around 8-9pm and we just grabbed some pizza and watched Rescue Dawn and passed out. Saturday, the 3 of us (Greg, Jess and I) went out to IHOP. It might have been the first time I've ever been there but I am not 100% sure. It was good though, minus the fake syrup (I guess living in Vermont has made me spoiled). Good stuff though! Then we went back to their place and Jess went to work and Greg and I decided to drive over to Federal Airsoft. It was about an hour and half drive, but worth it. Greg ended up getting a TM 1911, it's really nice although it's not my type. I got more for the Glocks. So we hung out there for probably 2-3 hours, Craig's always got good stories to tell, so that's fun. Got home around 7pm or something and hung out for the night, I can't exactly remember what we did.

On Sunday, we pretty much woke up, geared up and headed down to Bridgewater. We had to wait a bit cause they were still doing paintball and stuff. Training started like 45 minutes later then it should have which probably means we missed a lot of stuff. We got this really great book though which talked about many CQB tactics and stuff. I'll be reading through it when I finish my zombie survival book. So the training was cool, although a bit lame since we were using like "caution" tape to make rooms and walls, it would have been better if they actually had a real facility, oh well, it was only $10, so it wasn't a complete monetary waste.

After the training we got to game and it sure was fun, the first game we had good light, but about half-way into the second game it started to get dark which kinda sucked haha But it was a lot of fun. About 9PM it all ended, maybe a little bit after then, and we were home by like 10:30-11pm. Basically just passed right out haha I was soooo tired and sore.

Monday -- I left Mass about 9am. Stopped by emilie's work and we went out to lunch, got her just in time too hehe. Then I went and worked at the barn, we're back to our normal 3 stalls, which is nice, I did enjoy working more though, more money too $$$!! Monday night, just watched TV, read my book, nothing special.

Tuesday -- Had a bit of consulting in the AM, the clients drive was actually dead (it made sounds worse then I've ever heard, clicking AND squeaking LOL). So I'll be going back there with Ark to replace the drive. In the afternoon emilie and I went to see Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I only made it like 3/4th the way through the audiobook, I wanna listen to them all...but the movie itself was okay. It definitely didn't feel as epic as The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It was good though, just not as fantastic as the first. I wonder why they're doing them out of order too?? As far as I know, The Magicians Nephew was the first one...anyways. Went to my parents for dinner and got some laundry done too. Just read books last night and sleep quite well...

Today I am going back to the vets (the client from yesterday) to replace the drive...I probably will just be watching since eMacs aren't my thing and they can kill (literally). Then I am driving down to the Apple Store in Salem, NH. If anyone wants to meet up, just say the word! I'll be down there from about 3:30 till 5pm I would think. My iPhone is crapping out on me. I am going to see if I can pay them an extra $100 (maybe just my $100 gift card) and upgrade to the 16GB and give Emilie my 8GB and then we can sell her 4GB. Dunno if they'll go for it though since it's a replacement unit...I also might get a black Macbook and sell this PowerBook. Anyways, it's going to be a looooong day haha

Have a lovely one kids!

Hey all,

It's very possible that it slipped my mind to post in system about me removing scribbld2 from the server rotation as it had some bad hardware. In the near future I'll be replacing the hard. I've been monitoring the server logs and graphs over the last month or so and it shouldn't make that much of a difference, even during peak usage times. At least I am hoping so! There's one thing that apparently didn't get done and it was to remove BOTH scirbbld2 entries from the DNS records, so at times people would try to connect to it, and it would go very slowly if at all. I do apologize for that, this morning I've been able to surf the site and it's been much zippier now that the DNS entry has been removed. I do hope the same goes for you, feedback welcome!

In other news, it snowed a little bit on the way to my consulting job the other day...not cool, too cold!! The job was really easy, mostly just going over some questions and some documentation. Then I had a few call backs, I did get paid yesterday which was great! Then I stopped at Small Dog, picked up an AppleTV 160GB for my consulting job in NH next week. Also stopped at my parents house and picked up the stuff Craig shipped up (another magazine for my assault rifle, an unjamming rod and the RIS slides). For some reason Apple sent me another APP certificate along with a pin, dunno why haha

So I basically hacked apart the AppleTV in an effort to remove the airport card, thus completely disabling the WiFi in the unit. Very very simple to do, they're really easy to ope. You just have to make sure you CAREFULLY remove the rubber bottom, or you'll destroy it. But yeah, got that done, and let the guy know that it was definitely doable.

Played some more GTAIV, it's a lot of fun, I love how real it's getting to be, I did a couple missions, and then I messed around and pissed off the cops :) Also played some Call of Duty 4, did pretty good, getting closer to level 44 haha I believe I've got the Desert Eagle unlocked, so I've got to upgrade my classes to use that instead.

Read some more of my Zombie Surival book last night, getting into what weapons are good and which sucks, apparently SMGs, and assault rifles are no good, but bolt lever rifles are...and .22s suck haha

So today, I'm helping Keith move 21 bags of mulch, will have to borrow emilie's truck to get the job done, but it'll be cool. Then I am going to pull apart the 160GB AppleTV I got yesterday (I pulled apart my own yesterday) and do it up, save time for onsite stuff. but that's about all I have to do today, I am getting my stuff from AirsoftGI from UPS< should be here shortly, another Classic Army MA15A4, some BBs, helmet, charger, batteries and a couple of other things...I am pissed it took so long, I ordered on the 22nd of April and it's just getting here now, although that's about a week, I wanted it sooner!

Oh yeh, I finally got my PSP hacked! I just played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, which I haven't played since umm, maybe 1999 hahah or whenever it came out. I love that game so much, it brings back some crazy memories! I also got a bunch of other games on there, and they seem to work, except Driver, but I'll figure that out! Mad thanks to PSPCrazy and confining.

Alright, over and out! Have a nice day everyone!

This past weekend, I got to try out some of the new features that come in Mac OS X Leopard Server. First lets back up a bit to Tiger Server.

OS X Tiger Server is the first piece of server software I've used from Apple. I come from the world of Linux where most of the configuration is done by hand, you have to edit your own application configuration files. There's no pretty GUI or buttons to click on. Tiger Server saved a lot of time because all I had to do was type a few things in, click 'Go' and I could have a very resourceful server. In just a matter of minutes, I could be running a web server, file server, DNS server, VPN server and more! Apple really made Tiger Server easy to setup and manage. Thy provided some really great tools too.

With Leopard Server they've made it even EASIER to setup and manage. I think Apple has really extended the potential of Leopard server, they making is so Leopard Server has a place in the home as well as large companies. They continue to provide some really awesome tools to manage it and it includes loads of new and cool features.

When I setup Leopard Server, I did a fresh install (no upgrade) so I am not sure if some of the things I am talking about will apply to people who choose to upgrade from Leopard Server.

Upon boot up after you install Leopard server you can choose what type of server you want. There are three options, Standard, Workgroup or Advanced. Each of the three types just had a bit different configuration in which services it uses and sets up for you. While I think this is great for people who like things done for them, I prefer to configure each service by hand (I guess that's the Linux-side of me coming out). People who really just want the easiest way to manage their server should probably choose either the Standard or Workgroup configurations. This will also allow you to use some of the new and nifty tools that Apple has included with Leopard Server. Unfortunately when you use the Advanced server type you loose the ability to use some of those tools (you can still use Server Admin, Workgroup Manager and command line utilities though). I am torn between letting Apple do all of the hard stuff so I can use the new tools (using the Workgroup server type) or just using the Advanced server type and handling everything myself. I'm still deciding but I have to say I think it's great Apple is making their server software usable by most anyone with some experience in computer and networking.

So after choosing the type of server you want, Apple will go about and work its magic, setting up the services and configuring them for you.

For my tests I choose the Workgroup type, so I got the iCal service, web server, iChat service, Mail service, Time Machine backup service, the Open Directory service and a few others. I have a feeling most people will choose the Workgroup type, because it includes a lot of services while still being able to easily manage it.

One of the new management applications that comes with Leopard Server is called Server Preferences. It looks very similar to System Preferences, but it allows you to easily manage the services on your server. Over the last 2-3 years I've gotten very used to using Server Admin and Workgroup Manager to manage all my services and users, so if I choose to use the Workgroup server type on my live server, I'll have to get use to doing everything through the Server Preferences application. It's definitely a great tool for people who are new too OS X Server.

A few of the things that I am really looking forward to actually using is the wiki server, the iCal server and possibly the Time Machine service.

I run a couple wikis (think of Wikipedia.org but on a much smaller scale) so I would love to move them into this service. I have a few shared calendars that need to actually be editable by more then just one person, so the iCal server will surely help with that problem.

The last thing, Time Machine backup service sounds really interesting but at this point I don't know enough about how it works to rely on that as my only backup service. It sounds really great that client machines can backup to the server rather then a local disk. It saves me from having to buy multiple external drives for each client, instead I can just point them to the server and use that as my backup location. I guess I'll just have to do some testing!

In the few days I spent playing with Leopard server, I have to say that I am really impressed with how easy Apple has made it for someone to setup and manage a fully featured server. They include some great tools and some really new and much welcomed features.

Here's a few PDF files that I found quite useful when setting up Leopard Server, check them out cause they're very useful.

Getting Started with OS X Leopard Server
Installation Setup & Worksheet