Well, this past weekend we had some fun at the datacenter.  We drove down to US Internet, the datacenter where we house all of our servers.  The purpose of the visit was to install 4 new servers, and migrate all of our servers into a new rack.

Up until now, we had been leasing a 1/4 rack (or 10U of rackspace) and we upgraded to a full (42U) rack by ourselves.

When we got to the datacenter around 8:30pm, they knew we were coming, but there was a miscommunication between my account rep and the support staff, so our new rack had not been set up.  So they called in one of their lead network engineers from home, who came and set up our new rack for us.  While we waited, we went to Bakers Square to grab a bite to eat.

10:30pm, we were finally able to start moving servers.  We first installed the rackmount shelf that we brought down, as well as the 4 new servers we brought.  Then we started migrating our servers one by one from the old rack into the new rack.  This was a fun and tedous process.  A couple of times, we installed the rack rails upside down and had to fix it before we could mount the servers properly in the new rack.

We finished moving servers around 2:30am and started working on cable management.  Re-organizing the network cables and power cables in the rack to make everything neat and organized.  I worked on the cable management while Tim (my system administrator) started installing FreeBSD on one of our new servers.  We hit a snag with the installation, since the installer didn’t want to see the network to download the packages.  So we decided to let it be and come back with the full 6-CD set to install via CD, and configure the network after FreeBSD is installed.

We didn’t get out of the datacenter until after 4am.  By that time, both Tim and myself were pretty brain dead, as well as tired from moving the servers around inside the racks.

We took some pictures of the process, and they’re in my photo album.

ETA on getting FreeBSD installed on the trouble server is Thursday… at least it’s a new server, and there isn’t as much of a rush to get it online. Better to make sure everything gets installed/configured properly the first time, than living with a rush job/mistakes later on.

Well, I’ve known this for a while, but it hit me as odd/good for some reason a minute or so ago, so I thought I’d post it.

I like cheese.

I’m sitting here eating stick after stick of string cheese, and drinking iced tea.  And it is very satisfying.  I don’t know what it is about cheese, but it must have some addictive properties.  I’ve also been known to make a meal out of half a block of colby-jack (marble-jack) cheese.

Very well, move along…

Well, since I’m currently looking for a new car, I thought it would be a good idea to get pre-approved for a small auto-loan.  Unfortunately the bank came back and said they couldn’t pre-approve me.

So I hopped onto www.freecreditreport.com to see what my credit rating was.  I was shocked to find out that I have a 469 credit rating.  I guess in the craziness this fall (selling my house and renting a room with a couple other guys), and with how busy I’ve been with my business, I forgot to pay a couple of my credit cards.

Now I’m on a small quest to repair my bad credit.  Luckily business is doing well enough, and is cashflow positive I’ve had no need for credit.  But I want to fix my credit for use in the future should the need arise.  So I’m taking an inventory of things that I own that I don’t make use of very often, or any more. I’m going to sell these on Ebay to generate some cash to completely pay off my credit cards. (I only have about $2500 in credit card debt).

Next, I’m going to look at what I can do to lower my monthly expenses, and get all of my accounts in order.  I guess some places didn’t receive my forwarding address, so I haven’t been receiving all my mail since I moved this fall.  I’m going to set up online bill pay, and try to get all my bills to occur on or around the same time each month, so they are easier to keep track of.

It’s going to take me a few months, but I hope that by next summer, I’ll have a good credit score once again.

Well, Since I totalled my car over new years (took out a road sign when I went into the ditch during a snowstorm), I am now on the hunt for a new car. Right now, I have my sights set on a Saab. I’m currently deciding between 3 cars, but I think I’ve made my choice. I just need to call the person and schedule a visit. (And have the shop do a quick one-over on it).

Here are the cars I’m looking at:

1997 Saab 900SE Turbo (Black) (Manual) – 136,000 miles – $5000
1999 Saab 9-3t (Cayenne Red) (Auto) – 104,000 miles – $6995
2000 Saab 9-3t (Silver) (Auto) – 89,000 miles – $6995

The 2000 9-3 has 3 minor accidents listed in its carfax report, so I’m a little warry of that one, otherwise it looks like a spectacular car for a great price.

The 1999 9-3 is the only one of the 3 that is not fully loaded (Leather heated seats, sunroof etc). And now that I’ve been looking at Saabs, seeing so many that are loaded, it would be a shame to get one thats not.

So I’m leaning towards the ‘97 900SE. It’s a little bit older, but from what I’ve been reading on some Saab Forums, the 900SE is a nice little car. Average lifetime for a Saab is also 250,000+ miles. It’s fully loaded, and looks a little bit better to my wallet than the others.

The past month or so, I’ve been working on revaming our Free Blog Hosting service. When the new version of the script came out, I decided to re-launch the service under a new name and brand. The new service is called Blovi.com. I’m really happy with how the site is turning out so far. It has many features, such as free blogging with over 50 customizable templates, the ability to podcast and moblog, as well as forums and photo galleries.

Now I’m working on marketing the site. I’ve had Jack write up a blurb about it on ISpyJack.com, as well as exchanging links with a few other sites. But I’m going to try a new marketing tactic. One that is tried and true in many industries, and that is submitting a Press Release. Right now, I’m researching what all should go into a press release, and will be submitting it to PRweb soon.

It’s kind of exciting, doing a press release, yet it’s daunting at the same time. Since so many news agencies will be looking at it, and possibly publishing it, it seems like a big task. Well, I hope all goes well.

Today I stopped by a local computer shop, Rockbochs Inc. My friend Chad runs the place, and he gets the best prices on stuff anywhere in town, and even online at times. Well I stopped by to pick up a couple older computers from him. P3 450mhz and the like for about $20 each to use as development boxes for testing various setups/software before implementing it on our regular servers.

While I was there, I asked Chad if he had any older, cheap laptops. I wanted a laptop to run linux on to use as a test machine. Run network diagnostics etc on it to scan our client’s networks for vulnerabilities. He didn’t have any old laptops, but he had a cheap one. So I ended up getting a brand new Dell Inspiron 1200 from him. It’s a 1.3ghz CeleronM, 256 ram, 30gb HD, 14″ screen etc. It’s not the fastest car on the block, but it will do the job. And at the price of $550, I couldn’t complain.

One of the problems of shopping at Rockbochs, is that you can buy stuff from them for so cheap, that you end up spending more money because you buy more. In the past 6 months, I’ve spent thousands at Rockbochs. Buying things like my Digital Camera (Cannon S500, 5.0 Megapixel), a 19″ Dell LCD monitor, and 2 17″ Viewsonic LCD Monitors, the Rack we now use in the office to house some local servers, oh and the Xbox we use to host www.xbochs.com. I also go to Rockbochs to buy equipment for clients. I’ve gotten at least 4 UPS’s from them for use with various consulting clients, as well as other various hardware/comptuer purchases.

Now I get to configure my new laptop, I’m installing Open SUSE 10 on it. It will be a nice new tool and toy. 

Well, today was a pretty fun day at work. I needed to take a break from all the projects I was working on to give my mind some rest. So I put together a nice new site. I got the idea for the site after playing with the camera that was dropped off for us to play with yesterday.

I spent most of the afternoon working in flash, well, learning how to use flash, and working in it at the sam time. I put together a neat little flash video. All in all it took me about 6hrs to make the entire video, and that included the time it took to learn what to do in flash.

You can see what I put together at ISpyJack.com the video is found on THIS page.

Well, enough sitting in the office, time to head home, eat, and watch Alias on DVD.

So today, a client of ours that we do some consulting for (actually a lot of consulting) stopped by to get an update on the wireless project we are working on. He also dropped off an Axis PTZ 213 Netcam to play with. So we spent a couple hours playing around with it, and then decided to throw it up on the T1 for the world to experience.

You can check it out for yourself at: http://ptz.utaria.net

Username: view
Password: camera

Feel free to have a look around our offices, yes you can control the camera.

Enjoy!
~Aaron

The past few weeks, I have been forming a routine to start my week off in the right direction. Every Monday, I meet with my friend Jeremy at the local Perkins for breakfast. Jeremy is a friend, a fellow business owner, and a strong Christian. We meet each week to talk about business ideas, see how each other’s past week has been, and see what each of us has for the week ahead. We also uplift each other with prayer and keep each other accountable.

I just got back to my office from this mornings breakfast with Jeremy, and I have a very bright outlook for this week. I have an opportunity in front of me that will grow my business very quickly, but I am in need of financial support to do it. Jeremy gave me the number to the Northeast Entrepreneur Fund, an organization that helps stimulate business growth here in the Northland. He also encouraged me to step forward and call the bank, which I had been thinking about.

One of the things that really struck me today as I talked to Jeremy, is that I need to take action. I’ve already given God control of the steering wheel to my life, but I still need to hit the accellerator to move forward. God can’t steer me in the right direction unless I’m already moving. I need to step forward in faith, and God will open or close the doors that will send me where He wants me.