McBlog

Revised membership system has been installed and everyone’s happy with how we’re working with the vendors. General support work taking a lot of time, but that’s to be expected.

Major downer was accidentally deleting about a week’s worth of data for one of the team – trying to do too many things at once and I didn’t make a backup before I started bringing his laptop over to our domain. One stupid mistake and whoops :(

Started the documentation project to ensure that information about how the network is configured and maintained is written down (incase I go under a bus, etc).

Also started working on a new Linux file server that’ll be using SAMBA. I’m recycling one of the really old NT servers that’s really not much better than a workstation but I’ve shoved more RAM in it. It’s still less powerful than the latest workstations we’re buying but there’s no budget for new gear and we need to split the file/print services and Domain Management off the main server (it needs all it’s power for data only).

I wound up doing two five hour sets at the after party from the last Platinum party. No major gigs at the moment (I should be at Strike Bar this Sunday night) but I’m getting very positive response so far to the new “Ten Pin Divas” mix, even though it is somewhat more commercial than my usual mixes.

The Fabergè party went well but we could have done with more people through the door. The after party got very silly and a little too expensive in the end. Still, all experience and we’re learning from it, that’s for sure. Now to prepare for the next couple of events…

The Fabergè party went well and it turned out that my car didn’t need any work. The guys down at MIDAS took all the wheels off, checked everything and couldn’t find any problems. They put the wheels back on and took it for a spin – no silly noises. Guess the act of inspecting the wheels must have cleaned out whatever was making the squealing sound. Fortunately MIDAS don’t charge for inspections only so I’m not out of pocket. WHEW!

Almost time to leave the office and go do the final work in preparation for Fabergè, the latest party from Platinum Exclusive. Not had much sleep last night because we were in the club getting everything ready. Hope this all works out – things are still not 100% ready.

Add to this, the car I’m driving has been making wierd squealing noises from the front right wheel. I’ve dropped it into a MIDAS for checking as it’s probably the bearings – shouldn’t be too expensive but I could really avoid spending money on stuff like this right now.

Put Nykolai and Rocio (his mom) on the plane to Argentina this morning. Been up since 3am to pick them up from her place, get them out to the airport and then head into the office early, work all day and get a pile of things sorted out before going down to the club to get through meetings and preparation for the next Platinum Exclusive dance party.

Still got to get the Platinum members area up and running as well as prepare some export/import routines for the WOK -> Movable Type conversions over at c2o. All this plus work for the union and the actual party itself on Friday night. I must be mad :)

One of Melbourne’s “classic” days today – alternating between rain and dry in the morning with some moments of bright sun and heat then back into the cold wind and grey skies. Perfect time to spend waiting in the offices of lawyers and government departments…

Yes, Nykolai’s all ready to travel. I managed to get his passport sorted out last week and today we did the “permission to travel” form – had to go and get it notorised then go into a government department to get it stamped and authenticated for use when he and his mom travel to Argentina.

I’ve got installations of the Movable Type system down to a fine art – very simple now. Of course, that means it’s time for something else to take over and that looks like it will be the need for a way to export data from our WOK sites so MT can import it. Not sure how well MT’s importer will handle bringing in photos.

Add to that how we’ve been using the GoreCoreNet (intranet at the office) to develop sites then deploy them into “real world” test/release. Unfortunately, JC’s doing a lot of copying and pasting to move templates from the intranet out to the testing/working sites. I need to find some way of removing that.

Have finally managed to get mrtg installed but am still figuring it out (and SNMP :) so I can track the right things. I want to have it running and gathering data so I can see where we need to work to get the best results, etc. Once that’s in, I can start doing the Clam AntiVirus and Spam Assassin upgrades.

Managed to get our WSIS Portal domain defined and the initial space ready to go (with MT loaded, of course). Now Andrew and Justina are doing the layout and loading content. Next issue is to find out how well we can share data with the rest of APC who are using the Action Apps system for their CMS.

NOTE: The WSIS site is under construction and not available for public access at this point.

Ran out of time to do the proposal for training in Sydney – guess it wasn’t to be. Oh well, lots of other things to do yet :)

Went to the last of the “music in the park” sessions that have brought so much fun to our Sunday arvos. It was a beautiful day – a perfect end to the summer sessions – blue skies, some clouds, very warm and lots of sun. I got there part way through Andrew Garton’s set and stayed for a while. Andrew was followed by Steve Law then the music settled into a series of DJ’s as darkness fell around us (whoops, there goes daylight savings – gotta adjust to less light).

Felt good to be in a park again – playing frisbee, playing soccer and catching up with friends. Nykolai was with me and he had a blast too. Definitely sad to see these sessions ending, not that I got to as many of them as I wanted…

Rolling our CMS platforms over to the Movable Type engine (aka MT). I’m in the middle of producing an exporter to take data out of our custom CMS tool (the WOK) and format it so MT’s importer can load it all up. Hardest bit is matching the different structures and methods for doing basically the same thing…

Also trying to get mrtg loaded so I can monitor where our bandwidth is going, plus upgrade to the latest Clam AntiVirus and Spam Assassin.

Add to the above our involvement in a local WSIS monitoring and information portal, plus trying to prepare a sponsorship proposal for a trip to Sydney for some training – no rest for the wicked.

And it was going to be a nice, relaxing month… :)