As you can see, the web site is back online today. After much painful and exhaustive work on my part, the site is back up. There is still more work I need to do, but I think the main problems have been solved or at least diagnosed. The rest of the problems don’t center around the web site but on my LAN… so I won’t bore you.
Anyway: it’s good to be back. Enjoy the site!
I have been told that I may now persue Cisco certification. I will begin with the CCNA program – that’s the ground level for Cisco. My goal will be to obtain CCIE but that might take years since it’s not my core job function to work with the switches and routers. So – it’s book study for me here…
Okay. Maybe I rushed to judgement about my company not springing for training. I am in class right now for Exchange Server 2003. I can hardly believe my fortune, but I guess they feel I need training. Of course, it’s not the course they originally wanted for me, but it’s one that’s probably more important and marketable. In fact, it’s on track for me and my personal plan for skills growth. And, it happens to be local. Now I can be home and be working as well.
Once this training is done, I’ll probably take the exam that goes along with it and try to get trained on the design aspects of Exchange. It would be great to be able to get on a project where these skills are utilized… that’s my next target.
2012-01-08 23:28:56
Sometimes the phone company does things you do not wish it to do. Like, for instance, what they have done to me. When I first moved here, I was able to get good internet service in a variety of fashions: DSL, cable modem, whatever… Since then, however, the phone company has done … ‘something’ … to my line. I am utilizing DSL as my hosting mechanism for this site and to connect to my work while I’m working from home. Unfortunately, that ‘something’ that the phone company has done has increased my line lenght so far as to make it unsupportable. So, I can only get slightly better than modem speeds – not for uplink, mind you – the site will go just as fast as it always has over the internet. But for me, working – if someone sends me a large file, it will take a LONG time to download it.
Not only that, I’m sure that if you have visited my site in the last couple of weeks, more than likely it has been unavailable. Yep. Bad link.
So – I am at a crossroads: do I cancel the DSL, try another service, try cable modem again [it works great, but is more expensive for fixed IP hosting], or try an alternate method like fixed wireless? Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a fixed wireless provider in my area, so I will have to tough it out with the tech support people until they tell me it’s not feasable and then I’ll probably call the cable company… again…
As you can see, it’s been a fun couple of weeks trying to straighten this out. And more work is yet to be done!
Don’t you hate it when your management tells you that you need to take a class – get training in something that would make you more marketable and really increase your opportunities – then, after you do all the research, find a class and get ready to take it, they so: “What? Travel? Sorry – we can’t pay for travel to take a class.” I guess it’s off, then. I wouldn’t have minded except that they got my hopes up. So, I’m feeling a bit down today. I had hoped that I would have the opportunity to grow my skills in a highly specialized area, but it looks like that won’t happen. Sometimes, I hate my job.
2012-01-08 23:28:55
For now, I will be working in Tucson, Arizona. A nice place, really… at least in Winter or Spring. Today was really nice. I got off a nice short [read: less than 3 hour] flight and took a slow drive to the customer site with the windows down. It’s odd, really. I can tell I really live in a big city when places like Tucson seem… well… quiet. I asked the receptionist in the office if today it was really quiet outside and she looked at me like I was insane. Aparently, this time of year is quite loud and busy for Tucson. Summer is when it’s really quiet.
Hmm… Don’t know if I could handle THAT much quiet. I guess I just get used to a certain background ‘hum’ that seems to be present in all of the larger cities I go to. I don’t get close to the ‘open range’ on most projects. It’s good to breath cleaner, drier air once in a while.
I think that’s what I’ll call this project from now on. When people ask my what I’m working on, I’ll say: “I’m working in Limbo right now.” I will go to Tucson next week for the second half of the week and all of the week after. After that I hear whispers about Australia and “other international sites” but nothing concrete. I wish I could actually MAKE PLANS!!! I think I need a new job. One where I can go home every night.
This seems to be the ongoing rant on my site. I guess I should have something more interesting to complain about…
Don’t you hate it when your computer begins to think for itself? It often develops a personality of it’s own – somehow, the whole is greater than the parts of the installed programs. Can self-awareness arise from having too many applications on one’s computer? I think it might happen. A sheer coincidence of random data producing what could only be defined as “attitude”. In fact, I think it has happened to my laptop.
Now, many others have seen the phenomenon, but I have always scoffed. This time, though, I know they did not lie. Nor were they mistaken. Computers are as stubborn as mules and fickle as teen-aged girls. I know this. I have seen it. After months of struggling with my computer, it finally dawned on me that I had given it too much information: that it had learned to think on it’s own. In my final effort to maintain superiority over the machine, I have wiped out my previous installation of Windows. I now have a clean, fresh machine.
One hopes that this one will not learn the habits of it’s virtual predecessor. If it does, I am in for more trouble.
Every once in a while, some dolt leaves some ‘comment spam’ on my site. This makes me angry. Most especially when it’s vulgar and inappropriate. So, I have implemented a blacklist. Comment will now be filtered for keywords and URLs containing inappropriate content. If you post, post nicely.
::: jeffphillips.org ::: 