Google Apps for Domains
by Mike on Mar.10, 2010, under Computer Science
Well it’s been a couple months now since I switched entirely over to Google Apps for Domains on my personal domain and almost two months since I migrated my mom’s business domains over. So far I am quite pleased with everything, I mean it’s not all that different than what I had presented to me through my normal GMail account. I have found the integration of all the Google Apps exceedingly useful esp with respect to grouping and so on. For my mom I went a step further and set her up with a premium account, mostly due to the large volume of email that she works with. Also as part of the premium package comes the support, which is a weight off my shoulders since I used to use one of my private servers for her email and thus had to support everything. With the premium service she also has full Outlook integration as well as integration with her BlackBerry Tour. With all her emails, contacts and calendar data shared between the web interface, Outlook and her BlackBerry she finally feels completely mobile which was one of the big deciding factors in moving to a cloud based offering. In fact this integration has allowed her more mobility and the ability to use a calendar. This used to prove difficult since she would be forced to manual sync such data across devices and often much of this data was not backed up in any way. Now she works day to day without worrying about if she’s going to loose contacts or emails since everything is housed offsite in the cloud. I have often had the what if’s, like questioning how well Google maintains a backup system but for them to want to have such a paid offering as Google Apps for Domains I have to think that they must have a good backup or redundancy plan for stored data. I also went off my personal experience over the last many years with GMail, in which I have never lost an email or contact with out specifically deleting them. All in all the service has been wonderful and even though I once more need to go over how everything works in Outlook with her again, I can confidently say I’m pleased with the offering and the quality of service received so far.
She’s ALIVE!!!
by Mike on Mar.10, 2010, under Cars
So over the last few weeks I finally got all the parts together to get the brakes hooked up and working again on the RX-7 and so this past weekend I pretty much lived in my garage. I spent time, checking over every bolt holding the suspension to the car, making sure everything was tight and solidly mounted. I had to take a little time to make sure that all the suspension was seated correctly, since the first time I sat her down after the springs and shocks were in she sat a little crooked due to not having let the rear settle completely. I then went through the books to make sure the Watt’s Linkage was hooked up and oriented properly and lastly I put the pads in place and checked the tightness on all my brake lines and prepared to bleed them. Now I did have a couple hiccups in the process, first I realized that MazdaTrix sent me 3 of the same line for the rear so I was forced to, for now at least, re-use the originally line that went to the axle. I still need to call them about this, but have been exceedingly busy at work this week. Next I had to do a quick rebuild of the carb since the needle valve springs collapsed, this then lead to several hours of carb tuning to get the float levels back to where they should be. Once all that was done and the brakes were bled, she successfully completed several test runs around the block and a trip to the gas station. Now during this time I learned why disc brakes have springs and shims, for without them the pads chatter like mad in the bracket and it sounds as though the rear of the car is going to fall out, luckily I had ordered that hardware kit and was able to get it in last night. Now here is the last catch, and this one is a real kick in the pants, when I went to put the hardware on the rear discs I noticed that the inside pad and disc (as well as the whole inside of the wheel) was covered in a oily substance, I immediately knew (due to the smell) that it was gear oil. Now sadly, due to having to wait for parts for the RX-8 (tho they just came in today) I’ve been having to drive the RX-7 the last couple days and will again for two days when the RX-8 goes in to have the exhaust updated. Thankfully it would seem that there is little to no damage incurred from this but it does mean I will have to pull both axles and replace the bearings and axles seals on both sides. Once that is done I’ll be left with tightening up the steering with new endlinks, idler arm and possibly a pitman arm and creating a sealed battery box. Once done all of that, I will be taking her to attend her first new Solo2 event with the new suspension, which though I haven’t said much about feels absolutely amazing. I do feel that she will need a front sway bar at least but all in all I’m very pleased with this setup as a novice in Solo2. In any case I’ll conclude this post here and post an update later with more information.
PS: I will be posting up race schedules and so on soon.
Sun + Oracle
by Mike on Feb.12, 2010, under Computer Science
So it’s been official for a little more then a week and the whole Sun site has already changed over. I will admit some of the pages are much better now then they were but then some are more confusing and difficult to navigate. I especially like how the forums have changed tho, no loss of data and much easier to use. I’ll also admit I like how everything is very uniform now, before I was often bothered about being asked to login in multiple times as I go between sections. But it’s to be expected with any merger.
To me the good news was around the Sun + Oracle line up and the idea of a Complete Solution. I was very worried through this whole process that this could be the end of the Sun hardware line and the SPARC processor. I know it may not be the best processor on the market but there is something great about it, especially the UltraSPARC T-series processors and there overloaded execution lines and built in para-virtualization layer.
On the software front I’m curious to see how this affects the future of OpenSolaris and other Sun projects. I feel many will be kept on, but I feel like this could be the end for some like Darkstar and Glassfish. I’m especially curious about the fate of xVM server since Oracle already has Oracle VM which is based on Oracle’s Linux and Xen. I personally feel that they should go with the xVM Server stack since it’s based on the Solaris kernel and I know that in the last year a lot of work has been put into reconstructing the Solaris kernel to include virtualization technology around memory and networking. I also feel, even tho I love Linux, the Solaris kernel is better suited for the enterprise and will bring more to the table then the Linux kernel especially with how well the Solaris kernel handles SMT.
Well only time will tell, I’m looking forward to the ”Oracle + Sun Transforming the Industry” event coming up in March. The ball is most definitely in Oracle’s court and I feel like Oracle is positioned to really put the pressure onto many competitors, I can only hope they leverage this. It is comforting to think that Oracle is not a company that likes to let things sit so I feel like in the coming year we will be seeing a lot coming from this.
Productivity
by Mike on Jan.11, 2010, under Cars, Computer Science, Life, the Universe and Everything
So in the past week I’ve been wicked productive, finished a few VMware Accreditations and got a bunch of work done on the web servers. The VMware training wasn’t bad, a little dry and some of it I ended up skipping and just taking the tests but I did learn some new stuff haha. I do like all the new vSphere offerings and the whole cloud mentality, even if some business find it to be very different from what they are used to since certain departments or lines of business in the company only own VM’s and not the underlying hardware all the time. I also like the new VDI offerings. VDI and remote connections have come a long way from the days of a burning green terminal connected to a mainframe. With the new protocols VMware is using now even video and other multimedia can be played back with little to no issue.
In other news, I’ve been working hard on the new Discount Pulls online catalog and quoting system so we can try and step up sales as well as working on another side project with a couple friends. Discount Pulls is looking great, I decided to use an existing open source e-Commerce solution called osCommerce. It’s quite a nice commerce engine that can be easily modified and tailored to your needs. I’ve done a bit of customization to it so it looks and works how we will need it since sales will not be directly processed through the site. I also found a nice site with some free templates that could be used with the site and picked a nice one out to use till it is worth revamping the looks of the site. Can’t wait to get it fully operational but that could still be a couple weeks away, tho I am about ready to build out the product database for the site.
So I spent the New Years holiday in Disney World with Amanda. That was just awesome. The parks were more then packed, some setting records for highest attendance to date but this didn’t stop us from having a great time on rides, shows and of course the Disney fireworks. Those fireworks were insane, and just beyond awesome. Anyway, I’ll let the picture do the talking about the trip, they new Disney: New Years 2010 album will be up in the photography section in the coming days. Would have had it up sooner but takes a while to work with over 400 pictures to build a nice gallery that really shows the trip and has a flow that follows our movements through the parks.
Lastly before I go, I would like to simply say that the RX-8 (who is hence forth named Zooey) is a blast to drive without power steering. Why no power steering you may ask, well lets just say that the Electric Power Steering harness may at times be susceptible to moisture damage and or corrosion. This has caused the rack to shutoff due to a perceived short in the harness so now I must go over the harness and test for shorts and clean all the connectors and seal them with di-electric gels. That being said, I still do like the feel of the raw un-adultered steering, well except when I’m sitting still then it can be a bit of a pain in the butt haha. I’ll update when I get it sorted out, may also post up a “how-to” on the forum side of the site.
Photography
by Mike on Jan.08, 2010, under Life, the Universe and Everything
I added a page that links to my Picasa Web Albums! Check it out, may be adding a simple banner ad to the top of the site as well, but nothing obtrusive. Anyway, that’s all for now.
Well I Switched Blog Engines
by Mike on Jan.06, 2010, under Life, the Universe and Everything
So I switched to WordPress from Serendipity and found that I couldn’t import my old posts so I just copied them out of the database server directly. I know they all have the same time stamp now but oh well, no big deal. So i feel that WordPress will make a nice engine to run my personal page from. I will be adding a forum as well so I can still cover projects online. Anyway, just a short update for now, have a lot todo to get this all together again.
I Haven’t Forgotten
by Mike on Jan.06, 2010, under Life, the Universe and Everything
So things have been quite busy for me lately, between work and the cars and travelling and training. So I about have my RX7 done, only a little more to go. I did find out my dad sent me the wrong springs for the rear so she sits too high lol. But I’ve got new springs on the way and I still need to get the brake lines and cables for the car. It is still nice to see her sitting on her own feet tho, and I even got to roll her out a few weekends ago so I could clean up the garage and all. So a few setbacks still but it’s coming together and in anycase we’ve hardly had the weather so far this summer to really take her out and have fun anyway. Especially since she has no air system in her, just a general outside vent otherwise it’s windows down and that doesn’t work to well in the rain. With that said I’m looking forward to having her back on the road and ready to go in August and be able to enjoy the tail of summer and then all of fall with her on the road. As far as the cars go I also was able to swap out the shocks in the RX-8 and what a difference that made, now I have only the swaybars to put in and she is all set for now till I finally give in to building up that motor.
In other news I’ve been spending a lot of time in Manhattan at Thomson Reuters for various training and soon to build a slew of Red Hat Linux servers. I had never really been to NYC or Manhattan before so I’ve been enjoying the heck out of it and getting to see the sights. I even took a trip up the Empire State Building which was amazing. I have found that peoples attitudes vary so much around that city, I have more then once felt like the people in the city had become so desensitized and closed to everything around them but then I find glimmers of hope and smiles and a passing ‘hello’ from people on the street. So my next trip looks to be on the 20th of this month (July) and I’m really looking forward to it.
Lastly I have also been working heavily on my Sun Training including having taken the Solaris Admin 1 course and will be taking the test very soon, hopefully before the Solaris Admin 2 course next month. The courses have been amazing fun and I do look forward to any and all upcoming ones that I will be taking. Now sadly Sun has messed up my partner login on there site and I’m still trying to get it resolved but to no avail, I get no response from email or anything regarding it. I am hoping to have this done before I take the test since I want everything to stay on one account and not spread across several.
Any way, I’ll try to keep up on posting and maybe get some pix of the car up and all. But for now, peace out.
Sun
by Mike on Jan.06, 2010, under Computer Science
So I was quite pleased with the announcement that IBM would not be buying Sun Microsystems. I deep down want them to stay as an independent company, but understand that times are tough. I have found that they have an amazing product lineup that includes some great innovative technology. I am currently working on my SCSA and SCNA as well as other smaller Sun certifications. So far I have covered many of the offerings they have on their web training portal. I have also begun working with the Java CAPS application framework. This is a pretty slick system them can pull together all the different information sources inside a company allowing for the reuse of old code to build new applications allowing for a smooth migration path.
Java CAPS uses several Sun offerings to interconnect between databases and other systems. It can then take this and allow new Java programs to integrate and offer new ways of working with old data. I’m currently working on a project that will use this system to interconnect several kinds of old databases and allow for a new way to process information across these sources and then serve up the information in a modern way; over the web, through email, or even over mobile connections. I will talk more on this as I proceed and will probably have several articles written up on my main page as well for others to reference.
Back Online!
by Mike on Jan.06, 2010, under Life, the Universe and Everything
It took a bit but I got everything back online now, as well as having finally put up a site for <a href=”http://www.otaku-wired.net”>Otaku-Wired</a>. I haven’t finished populating it yet so don’t look just yet. All the new servers are running well including the new MySQL dedicated server. Next up will be upgrades to my OpenSolaris server, I plan on updating it with 2 quad-core Xeons to replace the single little dual-core that is running it now. This should boost my stability and reliability. After all this is complete I’ll be able to start looking into a HA setup and in the future a DR setup.
In other news I have begun my trek down the bath for full Sun Certification. I am going through the storage side right now but I should be done that soon. The webinars are a little dry but I’m pulling through. I’m looking forward to the class time and learning about some of the more indepth features of Solaris. To continue my own learning on the side I’ve begun setting up to have a SunRay server running off the T2000 in the lab. As for other certifications, I am studying for Security+ and Network+ at the moment.
Wait there’s more. I have been making great progress with the RX-7 in the last few days and am shooting to have her on the road for May, I believe this shouldn’t be too ambitious and am working hard to meet it.
Lastly I have made some good strides with the BizBazaar and should be giving more updates on it soon as we work toward going public.
Thanks for reading, have a great day!!
WooHoo! New Servers Up!
by Mike on Jan.06, 2010, under Computer Science
Took some time but I got a block of 13 IP’s from Comcast and was able to bring a series of new OpenSolaris servers up and running.? The migration had a few hiccups but everything worked in the end.? I had to make good use of the Blastwave repositories to get things like Postfix and Courier-IMAP back up and running.? I now have everything neatly divided among different servers and VMs on one of three networks, my home LAN, the DMZ, and a little corp network I just brought online.? This has allowed me to have 2 separate web servers, a postfix mail server and a MySQL server.? Soon I will be bringing a few more servers online that are related to a project I’ve been doing with a few friends.? Wish I could say more about it but I can’t at this time, but the server structure I’ll be bringing online will allow for a robust web site featuring dynamically created pages using PHP and MySQL.? This is getting to be a fun project which I will have to document here.? I think I may even go over some of the issues and such that I had to overcome when I did the migration from the Ubuntu server that was handling everything to this abstracted model I’m using now.? But that will have to be at a later time, for now I must go.? Peace out.
