DAN’S BLOG

Mom, Dad, and I went to SeeWorld today because it being dad’s birthday on last Sat. We used our year passes so it was free except the food. I had a good time. My parents got tired and cold in the evening so we left. Tomorrow we are going back with warmer clothes to watch the late night shows like House of Douse and the fireworks show, both of which end in 1 week. I like their Atlantis coaster. It’s the only rollercoaster I have been on that has an elevator. Went on it twice. I did the rapids twice too.
Oh ya, we had a lesson in dolphin sex education as a couple of the smaller type dolphins at Atlantis exit decided to sex things up while we watched them. LOL. Note the censor box as my blog is penis free. LOL

The rest of my tools came today. I now have a respectable network toolkit. It cost a lot less than prefab toolkits online. Those never have the specific tools I want anyway. Next task, rewire and label ALL the network cables so they connect to my patch panel. Then I’ll finally know which wires go where.

I am SOOOOO happy to report that Call For Help is BACK!!!! Starting Monday on G4TV. It will air every Mon - Fri at 8:00AM. Most likely LIVE. This is a wonderful thing! I am now wondering if this is simply the Canadian show broadcast here, or if they moved it to LA at G4. We’ll see I guess. I can’t wait. I’m going to have to find a way to record it now. 8AM is a bit early. Now I can resume yelling the answers at the TV like back in the glory days of TechTV. I miss TechTV. I miss it good.

GARRRRRR, this stupid UPS is driving me nutz. I can’t tell you how many times it has shut down my servers the WRONG way! I put new batteries in it. It will run my systems for about 35 min. However it still won’t recognise that run time in the software, nor will the LED bar stop flashing. I unplugged it to test stuff tonight and I have confirmed that YES it can properly shut down my 2003 server. However a couple min later it shut everything else off too the BAD way. The damn thing was plugged into the AC too!!! Then it was flashing 6 LED’s in sequence which means that the software told it to shut down. One would assume that the presence of AC power would cancel such a command, but NOOOO. I guess not. I’ll let it simmer overnight and see if it stops its flashy hissy fits. :-/
My next UPS will probably NOT be APC I am sad to say. I am very much not impressed right now.

My new UPS batteries came today just as I was writing the previous post. LOL. Time to Install them and see if it works.

Today I went in to school and took a random exam for Exchange Server 2003. Got a 100%. A random plus all my paperwork and the course certificate are required before I can take the actual Microsoft Exam. I expect i’ll go in to take the 70-284 exam some time next week or the week after.

Well if figures. I spend money on toys and then something important breaks, demanding more money to be spent. Grrr. My UPS (Uninteruptable Power Supply) decided to become an IPS (Interuptable Power Supply). A couple weeks ago I noticed that the fan in my UPS was running more often and under loads that it normally did not run under. Then about a week or so ago I recall all my servers suddenly rebooting. The UPS showed no error and all was “normal.” Ok fine. Now 2 days ago it totally shut off all my servers for one second and turned it all back on again, followed by BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP for 2 min. The “Batterys are totally screwed” LED was blinking this time. Today I did some tests to see if it really is the bateries.

With fully charged batteries and no load plugged into the UPS, it will run on batteries for at least 40 min or so I think. I couldn’t sit around and babysit it.
With fully charged batteries and 1 computer plugged into the UPS, it will run for 1 microsecond and then flat out DIE. I monitored the battey voltage and it dropped from 26V to about 15V for a fraction of a second. Almost too fast for my DMM to detect. Weird bahavior, but I guess my batteries are indeed dead and no longer can sustain their rated VoltAmps.

Time to go battery shopping for some 12V 7.2AH batteries. :-/

eBay, why are you so easy to use? Ok, I promise to stop spending big while jobless from now on…. maybe. I needed to get RJ-45 connectors of course and eBay was getting me the best prices. I can’t believe how expensive RJ-45 connectors are in this country. According to UK Mike, you can get 100 connectors in exchange for a piece of cheese in the UK. LOL. I also got some short patch cables to go between my patch panel and the switch. I’m not going to terminate 48 ends. My fingers will thank me.

- 25 CAT 5e Patch Cables 10 FT Ethernet YELLOW = $23.00 after shipping
- 100 Pieces Cat5e Rated RJ45 8P8C Modular Plugs = $10.90 after shipping