Author: Jeff Phillips

Back Into Debt…

We’ve gone and closed on the new house today! All the paperwork is done and we’re ready to begin the move in. That’s where the real stress will happen. Luckily for me, my parents are coming up to visit and help us unpack and clean up the old place before we have to vacate it.

Now that we spent years paying off credit cards and a car loan to be debt free, we’re jumping head first into the largest loan I have ever had… Ouch…

I’m really excited, though. We just bought some new smoke alarms/CO detectors and will also be replacing some door knobs with prettier ones and sturdier locks.

I’m sure there will be more later…

Long Time No Blog

I’ve been slacking off. It’s just that simple.

I do have some excuses… Wanna hear ’em? The server’s been broke and I’ve been working to fix it so I had no time to blog… Work’s been kinda busy, so I’ve had no time to blog… We’re moving to a new house soon, so I’ve had no time to blog…

These are all true, but if I’d really wanted to or had something to say, I probably would have made time. There’s just no excuse that’s good enough.

However, after fighting a long, arduous battle with my server, it’s now up and running very well. It’s rock solid and the environment is all mostly virtualized [5 computers out of 8 are virtual] and faster than it was before. There will be some down time, though. When I go home tonight I have to move the server back into the closet where it lives.

And then, there’s the “data center move”. We bought a new house and will be moving in a couple of weeks. There will be some down time for that. Not much I hope, since there will be a week’s worth of overlap in my Internet service.

We’re really excited about the new house – we won’t have to be at the whim of the landlords and can chose when we move next.

Maybe, I’ll have some more time to blog after the hecticness of the next few weeks passes…

Server: Good

After trying many things including getting the product team involved in diagnosing the problem, I decided to rebuild the server from scratch. That seemed to correct the problem of Hyper-V not working correctly. No one is sure why, but my guess is that the install got corrupted for some odd reason.

I have to say, though, that getting the product group involved was kind of cool even though they couldn’t help – which wasn’t their fault, but the fact that I didn’t have the equipment to do the kernel level debugging that they needed to do.

Now, however, the web site is back up and running on the new Hyper-V box!

The New Server and Virtualization

2012-01-08 23:30:27

In the process of upgrading to the new server, I had hoped to go straight from Virtual Server 2005 to Hyper-V. If you’ve been following, I’ve completely virtualized my environment except for my work laptops, firewall and our desktops. [Although I’ve created a dedicated virtual desktop to manage my finances.]

Things took a turn for the worse, however, when I discovered that I couldn’t start the virtual machines [this included the web server] on Hyper-V. I tried copying them to the other server, but with no luck. So, I had to install Virtual Server, which is nowhere near as good or fast. So, in order to achieve Hyper-V-ness, I have migrated the web server, removed the other server from the domain and uninstalled Virtual Server. I’m now rebooting the server in the final stages of the Hyper-V installation.

Once it’s done, I’ll install a new server to take the place of the one I couldn’t convert…

Although, I’m now having some weird “general access denied” problem when creating a new server. Looks like I have more research to do. At least I can leave the server up and running while I work on this.

New Server

The new server case has arrived and I have put all the parts into it and it starts up nice. It’s good to have everything fit where it’s supposed to…

One problem, though: it’s LOUD! I think OSHA would have to classify this machine as hazardous to your hearing. I think I’m going to have to put this box in the closet with the other rack servers. At least it works, though.

Once it’s built on a single hard drive, I will shut down the main server and move the large array to the new server and turn it on… I’ll then shut down the old for good. It should be rock solid, then.

Well, it had better be…

The Hunt Is Over!

The townhouse we put an offer in on is now going to be ours! The owners accepted our bid and we’ve now begun to go through the whole home-buying process.

This morning we stepped through the whole inspection process and were pleased to find out that there is nothing wrong with it… aside from a couple of very minor cosmetic issues. Woo-Hoo!

Next, we have to work on an appraisal and movers and setting up the utilities for when we move in…

Even More House Hunting

After a rather disappointing bout with a house we thought we could afford but when we ran the numbers found that we couldn’t, we’re back on the hunt for a new abode.

The REALLY disappointing thing is that the single family homes are so old and small for the price that we are now looking at more modern townhomes. These are a compromise since Laura wants a yard. More important for us, though, is good interior layout. We have yet to find one of the old houses’ floor plans that we like. Most would have to be redone at great expense for us to feel at home. Tiny bathrooms and falling-apart kitchens are two of the big let downs with these houses.

So, we’ve moved to townhouses. We’re going to look at a few today. Let’s hope we find something.

I’m Back!

I’m sure you noticed that the web server was down… or if you didn’t, you may have thought I was just being quiet. Not so! The web server’s host server crashed last week while we were in Seattle… not to return. I’ve been able to get it up and running temporarily, but I will be installing some new parts in the server to make it more reliable. Then, we’ll see how it works.