The end of last week and the beginning of this week have been about waiting and research.

The waiting began with the completion of a Windows Server with MS SQL setup. All of the updates and addition to the domain were completed and now the transfer of files begins from the dilapidated Windows NT file/sql server. About half way through the network transfer of about 200 gb of files, the old server decided to crash. Not only that, but it would reboot. Eek! So, we had to MacGyver the old harddrive, put in my workstation and start the transfer process again.

Hint: Using a workstation to transfer tens of gigs of files from a FAT drive to NTFS takes a long time.

Anywho, the transfer continues into day 3 and will be finished by tomorrow morning.

In the meantime, research continues on installing a source code sharing and protecting program, as well as an enhancement-requests tracking program. Both require a server that must be IIS-enabled. This is a constant source of concern for small businesses as security is always at stake with an IIS box. So, the decision must be made to place the software on local servers or farm it out to an ISP. Since there is no official, full-time Webmaster/Network Admin/IT technician, an ISP is the likely solution. This may change in the future, but since I am only a summer employee with one month to go, it’s not best to assume that tons of things will be done in four weeks that require the coordination of multiple managers.

In other news, France just advanced in the World Cup Finals. Vive le France, Vive le Quebecois!

I was still traveling back to Oregon on Monday, so work didn’t start back up until Tuesday. Needless to say, there was a lot of catch-up work to do. This was compounded by the fact that our other IT worker was traveling to Utah in order to train new customers to use FSI software. This left lots of little IT issues, such as switching SMTP addresses on the Exchange server.

In more exciting news, I finished formatting and installing Windows Server 2003 on the new Dell Xeon box. This led to the larger task of mapping out the network architecture. My Computer & Network Security class is definitely being used, as I have to use MS Visio to diagram our local network. There are quite a few servers, hubs and switches, so its definitely a necessary task. The diagram will be even more helpful should the company move locations, a likely event in the near future.

Until Friday, when our main IT guy gets back, I’ll be doing miscellaneous IT tasks. I was reminded of my paper route when I had to package up CDs and upgrade documents to ship out to customers. FSI just came out with a new software release and customers have to get the upgrade, along with instructions for installation depending on their current release version. For internal uses, a little database is going to be set up with all of this information, replacing the MS Excel spreadsheet that holds data about customer’s current version and ship date.

Its back to the grind for now.

Week 3:

I finished setting-up a new user’s workstation and domain accounts. The process started yesterday with discovering that the machine for an incoming employee had an unknown administrator password. This meant that a windows repair was needed. After that was sorted out, the Microsoft updates began and took the rest of the afternoon, no sp2 installed. Thanks to Slashdot, this morning found that more windows updates were on the way and will eventually need to be installed on other users’ machines.

The fun project began this afternoon where I was able to start installing Windows Server 2k3 on a brand new Dell server. This 600GB, dual-processor machine took a little while to finish the initial setup, but now that is finished and all that’s left is the updating and hardening of the server. Once that is done, I can begin copying over files from the soon-to-be-defunked, current windows file server. The new server will also house an MSSQL database server for software testing and development. Hopefully, most of these steps will be completed before I leave for a long weekend.

I shall be departing on Thursday morning from Portland for Nashville, TN. From there, it’s a short ride with some friends from high school to Manchester, TN. This will be our first time at the Bonnaroo music festival featuring Radiohead and many more. That means four days of music, comedy and camping before I’m back to the grind. This will be a much larger festival than last year’s Sasquatch Festival. There’s a few trade-offs. There will be no Arcade Fire or Wilco. Instead, we’ll get Radiohead, Beck, Tom Petty, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, Ben Folds, The Streets, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, plus Comedians Lewis Black, Patton Oswalt and more.

-Derrick

Hello all,

This is my first blog post to the dsjoo blog. I had another blog, almost two years ago, but abandoned it a while back. I had no reason to blog then and wasn’t even terribly interested in web design. In the past year though, that’s all changed. I began working in a new position at the University last fall. Since then the web world has opened up and renewed creative juices have been flowing. I now have multiple jobs, all dealing with web and database design. One at the University, where I, and coworkers, design websites for departments and then train content managers on maintaing the site. I also work at Scruple.net with a small group of friends,designing websites for local businesses. Right now, I’m interning at FSI, a steel fabrication software company.

All that and the year’s just half over. Hopefully more exciting things are come.

Au revoir

-Derrick

P.S. At this very moment, I’m typing this blog entry using the Performancing Firefox extension, very slick.