So. I've been wrestling with Drupal again for a few days (this is a spillover post from last week) and I think, like time-zones, I may have some kind of weird internal block about this. Arrgh! I have been trying to tweak the IMCE module to manage non-image files, so that I can get my hundreds of various PDF and PPT files (for the project documentation and meeting materials, respectively) linked into my ever-increasing list of completely ingested pages. Every time I tweak it, it does something new and unexpected, and I can't figure out why. For example, I want sub-folders called "docs", "images", and "logos" in the main shared folder called "files". I now have those three sub-folders in a new shared sub-folder called "files" (as in, it's now files/files/docs ) - which is not what I wanted. If I take out the "files" identified in the IMCE settings page for the shared folder, I then got the three sub-folders under a new folder 2 (my userid). Also not what I wanted. So now I have random folders everywhere except where I want them, and for some reason I can't comprehend, when I'm logged in as admin I can only see the files/u1 folder and not any other folder. (When logged in as myself, I can browse around all these empty folders, so that's a small positive.) Sigh.
I did successfully install the nodeaccess module, and think it'll be very handy for managing access to various bits and pieces of the site - but it still requires some work in the roles arena (such as, properly defining roles and then access permissions for those roles) that, again like the time-zones, I just can't get my head around. Then again, a new staff userID I created successfully blocked access to the selected page, so again, a small positive. (It didn't ask for a login, though.) Sigh.
The poor Drupal Dude is set up for a webcon with me tomorrow morning, to try and work me through these problems I keep having. I hope I don't blow all my remaining contract time with him just on these - I have so many more things to wrestle with. SIGH.
When I finally get a grip on all this stuff (because DAMMIT I will argh grrr) it'll totally be worth it. But, dang, some days I wish we'd just hired someone to do this all for me...! (The PM would never have gone for it but I can dream.)
The sun is setting (yes, really!) and it's 64°. Glad I kept my coat at lunch!
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
December 3, 2007
October 19, 2007
The Joys of Telecommuting
So, we've had a rather pernicious, nasty and lasting bug rampaging through our household for the last week and a half. I thought I'd managed to avoid it, despite having to split work days with my hubby to stay home with him for three days (plus a weekend of house confinement) - but Wednesday I woke up with a fever and a head full of sneeze. And thus it continued...
Thankfully with Mr. Man back in school, I've actually been able to work from home (not possible with a child addicted to keyboards. Trust me.) and want to take a moment to say: Yay for VNC. With one little VPN connection into my workplace, I've been able to have multiple windows open on my WinXP desktop, the Windows server, and two different *nix machines.
Sadly, I had to go through three different VNC clients before finding one that worked. My usual VNC workhorse abruptly stopped working Wednesday late morning and afterwards just refused my connection. Chicken of the VNC (and let me just say: I love that name) would open a window for me, but wasn't accepting any cursor input - as in, I could look at it, but I couldn't do anything. It wasn't until a friend sent me RealVNC that I was actually able to work - and it's been solid for me since Wednesday afternoon.
Between VNC, Adium, and my trusty email, it's just like being there. Except for the jammies and louder music, that is...
90° and quite sunny. Welcome to fall in the desert!
Thankfully with Mr. Man back in school, I've actually been able to work from home (not possible with a child addicted to keyboards. Trust me.) and want to take a moment to say: Yay for VNC. With one little VPN connection into my workplace, I've been able to have multiple windows open on my WinXP desktop, the Windows server, and two different *nix machines.
Sadly, I had to go through three different VNC clients before finding one that worked. My usual VNC workhorse abruptly stopped working Wednesday late morning and afterwards just refused my connection. Chicken of the VNC (and let me just say: I love that name) would open a window for me, but wasn't accepting any cursor input - as in, I could look at it, but I couldn't do anything. It wasn't until a friend sent me RealVNC that I was actually able to work - and it's been solid for me since Wednesday afternoon.
Between VNC, Adium, and my trusty email, it's just like being there. Except for the jammies and louder music, that is...
90° and quite sunny. Welcome to fall in the desert!
October 4, 2007
Three Beautiful Things
Hat tip to the 3BT blog...
1) Having a pain-free morning. (They're rare.)
2) My husband telling me how much he loves his job.
3) A tech support call that actually solves the problem.
And my fourth beautiful thing today: I finally get to order my new web server (we'll be going the Linux route), along with a new computer cabinet for the other servers (which have to move) and a UPS to charge 'em all... yay for hardware!
It's a lovely 86° with rain in the forecast... fingers crossed!
1) Having a pain-free morning. (They're rare.)
2) My husband telling me how much he loves his job.
3) A tech support call that actually solves the problem.
And my fourth beautiful thing today: I finally get to order my new web server (we'll be going the Linux route), along with a new computer cabinet for the other servers (which have to move) and a UPS to charge 'em all... yay for hardware!
It's a lovely 86° with rain in the forecast... fingers crossed!
August 24, 2007
It's Friday so it must be blog-reading day, right?
Well, no, not today. Dang it. Well, maybe this afternoon...
First (well, second, after the coffee brews) I have to rename a SQL database, which turns out to be nontrivial. And this is in SQL Server 2005, which I have just about 0.0001% experience in, so I'm just a tad nervous about it all. At least at this point if I screw it up it'll only take two or three hours to rebuild it and some shrugs from the few test users, instead of being faced with a lynch mob (as in, better now than later). Yes, this is related to the EDMS from Hell, although in all fairness this is because of my own mistake in not thinking a naming convention through. So, my mistake, my pain in fixing it.
Then I have a major software upgrade (on a package I don't actually use, I just provide admin support) to perform. The thing about this one is, since we installed this package over a year ago it's worked beautifully and has required no support. Which means I have zero familiarity with it. Hopefully, the upgrade will work as beautifully as the product has so far... fingers crossed.
Ah, the coffee's done. Now I can face SQL with caffeine-induced courage. Plus, I have a bonus donut... that always helps.
Chance of rain today! Yay!
First (well, second, after the coffee brews) I have to rename a SQL database, which turns out to be nontrivial. And this is in SQL Server 2005, which I have just about 0.0001% experience in, so I'm just a tad nervous about it all. At least at this point if I screw it up it'll only take two or three hours to rebuild it and some shrugs from the few test users, instead of being faced with a lynch mob (as in, better now than later). Yes, this is related to the EDMS from Hell, although in all fairness this is because of my own mistake in not thinking a naming convention through. So, my mistake, my pain in fixing it.
Then I have a major software upgrade (on a package I don't actually use, I just provide admin support) to perform. The thing about this one is, since we installed this package over a year ago it's worked beautifully and has required no support. Which means I have zero familiarity with it. Hopefully, the upgrade will work as beautifully as the product has so far... fingers crossed.
Ah, the coffee's done. Now I can face SQL with caffeine-induced courage. Plus, I have a bonus donut... that always helps.
Chance of rain today! Yay!
July 18, 2007
Vendor Make-up
I spent the day with two representatives from the company that makes our EDMS (that we were having such problems with) and I'm quite pleased with the progress we're making. It is no longer unthinkable that we may be using the software again before the end of the year. Not only are we starting to get real results (as in, "hey, we could duplicate your problem here and found the cause" kind of results, although they would have been nicer to have last year when we had the problem) but they brought me a brand spankin' new Dell server to use as a testbed platform. (Pity I have to give it back in September!) I'm feeling very positive about what we've worked out so far and the progress we made today, and given that most of the engineers have stopped spitting whenever the EDMS is mentioned, I'm hoping things will work out all right. (I still believe in this product; eternally optimistic, that's me!)
It's currently a lovely 86° and we got 0.03" of rain today! Too bad I voted for no rain in our office pool... ah well, would rather have the actual rain than the points!
It's currently a lovely 86° and we got 0.03" of rain today! Too bad I voted for no rain in our office pool... ah well, would rather have the actual rain than the points!
July 6, 2007
Drupal and Themes
So, I'm now running Drupal 5.1; I started this project at 4.6, and I have to say, WOW. I'm very pleased with the improvements, especially relating to the administrative interface. It's a lot easier - either that or I've finally learned all the steps! - to install and enable modules. I know there are more modules to be installed but I have TinyMCE and IMCE reinstalled, and it was easy. I can only hope the rest of this voyage of discovery goes as well!
I've been looking for two themes I can use for my templates - one for the front page, and one for the rest of the site - so I've spent a lot of time browsing the Drupal Themes directories. My consultant dude said it's much easier to tweak an existing theme to what I want than to try and write it from scratch, which is what I was trying to do. (It seems I have a tendency to start at the hard end of a task, sigh.) I think I've found two that will work, and my goal for today is to get the front page module installed, and both these themes, and then figure out what to do next.
Thunder and lightning and roaring wind last night, but no rain... at least not at my house. Sigh. It's 97° now with a 40% chance of rain - fingers are crossed!
I've been looking for two themes I can use for my templates - one for the front page, and one for the rest of the site - so I've spent a lot of time browsing the Drupal Themes directories. My consultant dude said it's much easier to tweak an existing theme to what I want than to try and write it from scratch, which is what I was trying to do. (It seems I have a tendency to start at the hard end of a task, sigh.) I think I've found two that will work, and my goal for today is to get the front page module installed, and both these themes, and then figure out what to do next.
Thunder and lightning and roaring wind last night, but no rain... at least not at my house. Sigh. It's 97° now with a 40% chance of rain - fingers are crossed!
May 24, 2007
YADU
That'd be "Yet Another Danged Upgrade". I've spent the last two days wrestling with a recalcitrant PC, reformatting it and reinstalling Windows and Office. (Good gravy, there's a ton of updates to do when you do that!) After much swearing and growling, it finally dawned on me that the CD/DVD drive was dying... once I replaced that things at least went a bit faster! Feel a bit abashed that it took me a day to figure it out - sigh.
I have to say, HP does a very nice job on the internal arrangements of their workstations. Easiest side panel to remove I've dealt with lately, and all the bays have snap handles for their slots (no screws or wrestling with rails, just pull a nice bright green tab and pop, it's out - or pop, it's back in!) There's also enough space to actually get a hand in to fasten connectors, which is always nice. (Can't say that about my old Vaio desktop, I don't think you could fit a cat in there if you tried.)
In between swearing, rebooting and feeding disks, I've been working on my talk for SLA. Time for more shameless self-promotion! Please come participate in my talk on Tuesday the 5th, 2:30pm, Conference Center 704... yes, I won't just be talking at you, but with you, so come join the fun!
I have to say, HP does a very nice job on the internal arrangements of their workstations. Easiest side panel to remove I've dealt with lately, and all the bays have snap handles for their slots (no screws or wrestling with rails, just pull a nice bright green tab and pop, it's out - or pop, it's back in!) There's also enough space to actually get a hand in to fasten connectors, which is always nice. (Can't say that about my old Vaio desktop, I don't think you could fit a cat in there if you tried.)
In between swearing, rebooting and feeding disks, I've been working on my talk for SLA. Time for more shameless self-promotion! Please come participate in my talk on Tuesday the 5th, 2:30pm, Conference Center 704... yes, I won't just be talking at you, but with you, so come join the fun!
May 21, 2007
A Good Monday
Well. This morning I was finally able to get the Drupal backup module installed and working; nice module package, I have to say, although if you follow the instructions in the install file, it doesn't work! (ARRGH. Thanks for the straight info, Cary.) And the upgrade to CentOS 5 has gone extremely well - although I ended up not exactly doing an upgrade, but doing a reinstallation (thanks, Mike, for the info) so that I could keep the data on one partition untouched (kind of crucial if you don't want to lose all your stuff). Would be interested to try an upgrade in the future to see if it gives the option to leave one partition alone, but I just wasn't interested in trying that path today, just in case.
Final package updates are installing now, and I'm feelin' pretty pleased!
It's been a lovely day weather-wise, too - our high has only been 90° and there's been a light breeze all afternoon. Aaahhh....
Final package updates are installing now, and I'm feelin' pretty pleased!
It's been a lovely day weather-wise, too - our high has only been 90° and there's been a light breeze all afternoon. Aaahhh....
May 18, 2007
Upgrade Hell... again
Yep, I'm back struggling with upgrades, this time on the web dev platform. I want to upgrade to CentOS 5, as a test for our main server, but before doing that I want to be sure to get a backup of what I've been able to set up so far in Drupal. But I can get neither the command-line mysql backup nor the within-Drupal backup module to work... ARRGH.
It's now officially too late on a Friday afternoon to spend any more time beating my head against this. (Yeah, it'll be SO much better on a Monday morning....)
Looks like we're only going to get up to 96° or so today... with a whopping 7% Rh! (Yeah, yeah, "dry heat", blah, blah...)
It's now officially too late on a Friday afternoon to spend any more time beating my head against this. (Yeah, it'll be SO much better on a Monday morning....)
Looks like we're only going to get up to 96° or so today... with a whopping 7% Rh! (Yeah, yeah, "dry heat", blah, blah...)
May 2, 2007
Oh, I WANT one....
(Yes, the post title is a recurring theme.)
Star Wars Flash Drives. Yes! (I can't decide between Chewie and R2D2.) I can only imagine that owning one of these would up my Geek Score. found via Folderol
Star Wars Flash Drives. Yes! (I can't decide between Chewie and R2D2.) I can only imagine that owning one of these would up my Geek Score. found via Folderol
Web Design Survey
"People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession." Want more data? Then contribute some data! A List Apart's first annual Web Design Survey is now available - go take it!
April 11, 2007
When Servers Die
When servers die, especially unexpectedly, the server caretakers suddenly have pressure, panic, and lots of "That's not acceptable" flying around. Of course, the server that went belly-up was the one with the most amount of data on it... And learning that the controllers and power supplies for the server are so old that they aren't made anymore, well, that was fun too.
This is why regular backups are important, people. Even if it's "old stuff" that you may think no one wants anymore, back it up. Because as soon as it's unavailable, you'll find out just how many people are looking at it. Much scrambling has been done to get the data on a different server and back accessible to the public again; we seem to be in decent shape now, but there's still a lot of work to be done. At least folks are getting web sites again instead of "Site not found"! Thank heavens terabyte storage is coming down in price. We're gonna need some more on the new system.
But, hey! It's not an EDMS crisis (everyone actually seems happy right now, which makes me nervous). Nice to have something different to stress about for a while. (OK, not so much.)
It's a gorgeous, sunny 80° outside, with a light breeze. Aaah, springtime in the desert!
This is why regular backups are important, people. Even if it's "old stuff" that you may think no one wants anymore, back it up. Because as soon as it's unavailable, you'll find out just how many people are looking at it. Much scrambling has been done to get the data on a different server and back accessible to the public again; we seem to be in decent shape now, but there's still a lot of work to be done. At least folks are getting web sites again instead of "Site not found"! Thank heavens terabyte storage is coming down in price. We're gonna need some more on the new system.
But, hey! It's not an EDMS crisis (everyone actually seems happy right now, which makes me nervous). Nice to have something different to stress about for a while. (OK, not so much.)
It's a gorgeous, sunny 80° outside, with a light breeze. Aaah, springtime in the desert!
April 9, 2007
Oh, I WANT one....
Check out Perceptive Pixel's new multi-input touchscreen technology for HCI* (not much at the website yet but I'm assuming that's going to change). ZOMG!! I am in such drooling technolust for this thing... Read more about Jeff Han and his vision for the future over at FastCompany. This is not your father's touchscreen interface...
*Human-Computer Interaction
*Human-Computer Interaction
Ah, Mondays...
And it's only just noon!
Got in this morning to a zillion error messages from the RAID arrays on our major data archive machine, which also happens to host some of our web sites. It seems the SCSI controller is failing... what joy. The RAIDs are still rebuilding... guess migrating those last few web sites to the other server has just moved up on my priorities list.
All the staff, in both locations, is now (as of two hours ago) back working with our data in the new flat shared network drive format. We'll see how that goes this week. I'm going to scrub the server of every vestige of the old EDMS product, right down to the registry, and then do a fresh, new installation with the latest service pack, then start to rebuild the vault with the data in the flat structure. We'll see if that helps with some of our past problems. And we just had a lovely hysteria moment (at least I did) - one of the assemblies was opened out of the flat structure on a machine that's had the old EDMS completely wiped from it - and it gave *exactly the same errors*. Ha! (Whimper...)
In the meantime, as if this wasn't enough for a Monday, the big color printer has decided to stop talking to anybody...
At least the weather is beautiful - 78° and sunny, with a light breeze. Aahh...
Got in this morning to a zillion error messages from the RAID arrays on our major data archive machine, which also happens to host some of our web sites. It seems the SCSI controller is failing... what joy. The RAIDs are still rebuilding... guess migrating those last few web sites to the other server has just moved up on my priorities list.
All the staff, in both locations, is now (as of two hours ago) back working with our data in the new flat shared network drive format. We'll see how that goes this week. I'm going to scrub the server of every vestige of the old EDMS product, right down to the registry, and then do a fresh, new installation with the latest service pack, then start to rebuild the vault with the data in the flat structure. We'll see if that helps with some of our past problems. And we just had a lovely hysteria moment (at least I did) - one of the assemblies was opened out of the flat structure on a machine that's had the old EDMS completely wiped from it - and it gave *exactly the same errors*. Ha! (Whimper...)
In the meantime, as if this wasn't enough for a Monday, the big color printer has decided to stop talking to anybody...
At least the weather is beautiful - 78° and sunny, with a light breeze. Aahh...
April 2, 2007
System Rebuilds R Fun
Or, not... At least this one is going well. New drives are in, and the RAID array is 50% rebuilt. We should be back accessing our data files by Wednesday, I hope! After that, a break, and then after that, continued work with the vendor to fix our EDMS. Either that, or I start investigating a new product for us to use... whee.
ObGeekRef: A Brief History of Programming Languages. I had no clue C++ has been around since 1983. Article is from 1995; how many more entries would it have now?
Spring is over; summer is ascendent. It's 90° and sunny, and that's pretty much the forecast for the rest of the week. Time to break out the shorts!
ObGeekRef: A Brief History of Programming Languages. I had no clue C++ has been around since 1983. Article is from 1995; how many more entries would it have now?
Spring is over; summer is ascendent. It's 90° and sunny, and that's pretty much the forecast for the rest of the week. Time to break out the shorts!
March 16, 2007
The end of an era?
We've been using this one particular electronic document management system for going on three years now. It sounded like the perfect tool - manages CAD and Office files, provides for version and revision control, has a very customizable workflow to manage various processes, etc etc - but there's only one problem.
It's never really worked, not the way it was supposed to. Some problems have been small ones, easily fixed, while others have been rather hugely mountainous; yet we keep chugging along, applying upgrades, and blowing time better spent on actual productive work on trying to fix whatever the Problem Du Semaine is. I think we were handed the last straw today; my staff gave an almost unanimous vote of no confidence in this package. Next week I'll be investigating how to manage certain processes automated by this program and moving all our files back to a basic flat file system.
I'm really torn. I think the potential here is awesome, and after all the sweat and tears I've put into it over these last few years it's hard to think about walking away. On the other hand, my users are not able to get their work done. We've just lost - just this week - 3 days total worth of 4 FTE's time. That's effectively 12 days of work lost. We seem to have approached - nay, smacked full into - the "it's just not worth it anymore" wall.
I'll be spending some significant time Monday on the phone with my dedicated technical support person, but unless something astonishing and amazing happens in the next week, I think much as it pains me we're going to be walking away from this product. Even though I can't find (yet) anything else that does what it does, we'd be better served with a networked flat file system than by this mess.
What a rotten end to a rotten week. TGIF, baby. And it's only 94°!
It's never really worked, not the way it was supposed to. Some problems have been small ones, easily fixed, while others have been rather hugely mountainous; yet we keep chugging along, applying upgrades, and blowing time better spent on actual productive work on trying to fix whatever the Problem Du Semaine is. I think we were handed the last straw today; my staff gave an almost unanimous vote of no confidence in this package. Next week I'll be investigating how to manage certain processes automated by this program and moving all our files back to a basic flat file system.
I'm really torn. I think the potential here is awesome, and after all the sweat and tears I've put into it over these last few years it's hard to think about walking away. On the other hand, my users are not able to get their work done. We've just lost - just this week - 3 days total worth of 4 FTE's time. That's effectively 12 days of work lost. We seem to have approached - nay, smacked full into - the "it's just not worth it anymore" wall.
I'll be spending some significant time Monday on the phone with my dedicated technical support person, but unless something astonishing and amazing happens in the next week, I think much as it pains me we're going to be walking away from this product. Even though I can't find (yet) anything else that does what it does, we'd be better served with a networked flat file system than by this mess.
What a rotten end to a rotten week. TGIF, baby. And it's only 94°!
Upgrades R Us
Well, so far nothing's blown up...
Today is the much anticipated Electronic Document Management System Upgrade Day. I kicked off the day with a very large cup of coffee and a series of backups of the SQL databases and the vault archive itself (always back up everything you can think of, and then everything else just in case, at least twice before doing a major upgrade). Then... the server upgrades. Woo hoo - they went very smoothly! There was much joy. I even had a good connection to our replicated server in New Mexico and was able to upgrade that server on the first try. That brought on the first happy dance of the day. Whew!
Along with the upgrades to the EDMS, we're taking this opportunity to apply service packs to the Windows servers; one down, one to go. Also, the new EDMS offers a Content Index service, so I've just gotten that set up and started... it'll be nice to be able to search within our document vault not only by title or state, but also the actual contents of the files themselves. Very nice - can't wait to try it out.
And, thanks to a batch of change requests that were finally approved Wednesday, there are a substantial number of structural changes in our WBS, which leads to many, many changes in our systems database, ICD charts and most importantly, our vault structures. So since everyone is locked out of the vault anyway, I'm using today to get those file moves done. They can take a very long time to do because 90% of the files being moved are SolidWorks 3D CAD files - if you've ever had to re-path a part in SolidWorks, you know how important the referenced paths are; the move function is designed to repath the references as part of the file move, so theoretically after the files are moved, the assemblies that call the files already know where their new homes are - but it takes quite a while for assemblies as large as we have. So while I'm waiting, I'm able to get the clients updated on all my staff's machines, and read some journals and blogs that I'm way behind on.
Today is turning out not to be the Hell on Wheels Day I fully expected when I left the house this morning. For this I am immensely thankful!
It's 90° out there with a whopping 9% Rh. Wheee!
Today is the much anticipated Electronic Document Management System Upgrade Day. I kicked off the day with a very large cup of coffee and a series of backups of the SQL databases and the vault archive itself (always back up everything you can think of, and then everything else just in case, at least twice before doing a major upgrade). Then... the server upgrades. Woo hoo - they went very smoothly! There was much joy. I even had a good connection to our replicated server in New Mexico and was able to upgrade that server on the first try. That brought on the first happy dance of the day. Whew!
Along with the upgrades to the EDMS, we're taking this opportunity to apply service packs to the Windows servers; one down, one to go. Also, the new EDMS offers a Content Index service, so I've just gotten that set up and started... it'll be nice to be able to search within our document vault not only by title or state, but also the actual contents of the files themselves. Very nice - can't wait to try it out.
And, thanks to a batch of change requests that were finally approved Wednesday, there are a substantial number of structural changes in our WBS, which leads to many, many changes in our systems database, ICD charts and most importantly, our vault structures. So since everyone is locked out of the vault anyway, I'm using today to get those file moves done. They can take a very long time to do because 90% of the files being moved are SolidWorks 3D CAD files - if you've ever had to re-path a part in SolidWorks, you know how important the referenced paths are; the move function is designed to repath the references as part of the file move, so theoretically after the files are moved, the assemblies that call the files already know where their new homes are - but it takes quite a while for assemblies as large as we have. So while I'm waiting, I'm able to get the clients updated on all my staff's machines, and read some journals and blogs that I'm way behind on.
Today is turning out not to be the Hell on Wheels Day I fully expected when I left the house this morning. For this I am immensely thankful!
It's 90° out there with a whopping 9% Rh. Wheee!
January 30, 2007
and wacky hijinks ensued...
so, I converted over to the new Blogger templates and promptly lost half my stuff *sigh* so I've rebuilt everything, and the blog should - if all really did go well - be back to what I wanted. Apologies for any strangeness if you were trying to view the blog this morning.
Have made no progress on the CMS installation because mySQL keeps yelling at me... I believe I've missed a simple step somewhere (it's always that random comma or semicolon that trips you up!) and I'm just not seeing it. I can't stare at it any more this morning, I'm ready to put a shoe through the monitor. Arrgh.
It's cold, and grey, and drizzly. Precipitation is good.
Have made no progress on the CMS installation because mySQL keeps yelling at me... I believe I've missed a simple step somewhere (it's always that random comma or semicolon that trips you up!) and I'm just not seeing it. I can't stare at it any more this morning, I'm ready to put a shoe through the monitor. Arrgh.
It's cold, and grey, and drizzly. Precipitation is good.
MacWorld Gets It
Macs & libraries together! In the January 22 issue of MacWorld, in an article titled "Find the good stuff fast", one of Sarah Milstein's recommendations is... us!
Use your local library
"A lot of the great stuff that lives on the Web is kept in places that normal search engines can’t find easily or at all. For specialized databases of newspaper and magazine articles (often including the articles’ full text), academic abstracts, and much more, try your local library’s Web site."
Read the whole article here.
Use your local library
"A lot of the great stuff that lives on the Web is kept in places that normal search engines can’t find easily or at all. For specialized databases of newspaper and magazine articles (often including the articles’ full text), academic abstracts, and much more, try your local library’s Web site."
Read the whole article here.
January 11, 2007
OS: The Upgrade
So, as part of the whole "let's install a CMS and see what it can do" process, I realized that my dev server was a bit out of date and needed a whole upgrade. I didn't realize this all at once, but over a couple of days of struggling to upgrade mySQL. Finally, it hit me like a Homer Simpson moment: D'oh! I was running CentOS 3, with the versions of mySQL and php (and everything else) that went with it. CentOS 5 is due out soon, so it was time to upgrade to 4.
As I type, the webdev system is churning away. As my first experience with upgrading an OS in this system, I have to say I'm impressed with the user-friendliness of the process. Of course, knowing which CD image to grab is a good first step *ha* but after that, it's a graphical process with handy little "What's going on now" information panels. (I like knowing what it's doing.) So, by CoB today, I should be (if all goes well, and I didn't just jinx it!) running CentOS 4 along with mySQL 4.1.20 and php 4.3.9. These will allow me to install the selected evaluation CMS applications and get on with it! (Plus, it gives us some needed insights into how the upgrade to the live server will go... although we're going to put that off a bit longer.)
w00t, as the kids say.
As I type, the webdev system is churning away. As my first experience with upgrading an OS in this system, I have to say I'm impressed with the user-friendliness of the process. Of course, knowing which CD image to grab is a good first step *ha* but after that, it's a graphical process with handy little "What's going on now" information panels. (I like knowing what it's doing.) So, by CoB today, I should be (if all goes well, and I didn't just jinx it!) running CentOS 4 along with mySQL 4.1.20 and php 4.3.9. These will allow me to install the selected evaluation CMS applications and get on with it! (Plus, it gives us some needed insights into how the upgrade to the live server will go... although we're going to put that off a bit longer.)
w00t, as the kids say.
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