Combat job searching

Yesterday afternoon, in the middle of my continuing quest for permanent, gainful employment, our older son plopped down on the couch and began a session of Battlefield 3. It was actually an oddly pleasant diversion from the quiet of Dice, Indeed, Monster and Gmail. Well, except for the obscenities that a few players on the Playstation Network were using, it was pleasant. I have to say I'd like to try that game sometime- I can't do much worse at it than I do at the driving games which I enjoy playing.

Speaking of games, I installed Steam on the Windows 7 box last night, which began a domino effect in the Secret Underground Lair. I've been doing a bit of reorganizing in the Dungeon. The Dungeon is where the weight bench and weights live. In the Dungeon is a small, disassembled desktop shelving unit that has basket drawers. I got it some time ago for a since forgotten purpose, and it has been gathering dust. Actually, there were two of these units, so I had the brilliant idea of putting one of these together and substituting a top shelf
for the drawers. The end result is rather nice- there is enough room on the desk now for the keyboard or the mouse. The speakers are also on the lower shelf; it ended up being a very nice arrangement.

Concurrent with the rearranging of the monitor and keyboard, I installed Dirt 3 and Civilization V. Both of these are games I really love to play. I do pretty well with Civilization; Dirt, not so much. I also got out the old P Touch and began labeling equipment. Eventually, all of the major hardware components of the network- including routers and switches- will get some sort of network identification label, and the wiring will also be labeled.

And then everything will be mapped out in Visio. Of course. As I am working the next three nights, I think I'll do some database work tonight.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

News from the home front

I found myself with an unexpected night off, so I set to a task which I've been wanting to tackle for some time: doing a bit of organizing in the basement. Part of it was my mess, and the other part wasn't really "mess"; rather, it was a bit of consolidation of some grocery items. I had a vague plan when I started out, and it came together with hardly a hitch. I did discover one thing which I had suspected but had never known for certain- that is, the ends of fridge packs (a long cardboard box containing soda cans arranged 2x6) are not square on the ends! Armed with this new-found knowledge, I did just a tiny bit or rearranging and I had very neat bunch of soda. Its always nice when one can scratch an item off of the "honey-do" list, even if that list is only in your mind, and its what you think your honey wants done.

Another item, and this one was on the "real" honey-do list, was installing two software packages on Jennifer's PC. I should probably explain a bit about the division of labor in our home. While she is completely capable of doing all sorts of things to and on her PC, it is within my bailiwick to maintain, upgrade, service and have the final purchase responsibility of all things PC (we're talking personal computer here, not something else). So, I put the software into the optical drive and the software started to do its thing. This was not an ugly or painful install, with constant user intervention; no, rather, it was a lengthy install- close to forty-five minutes, which surprised both of us. A few days later, I tackled the second software package. And, in case anyone is wondering, these two truly qualified as packages, having many capabilities and being quite multifaceted- one was a home graphics suite, and the other was an optical disk/data management package. Whereas the first one was simply the digital equivalent of watching paint dry, the second one was straight out of Reboot City. I think there were three reboots, but who's counting?

I inserted the disk into the drive, and immediately our Avira antivirus decided it was time for an update. Stuck between a rock and a digital hard place, I clicked "Okay" and Avira updated. This did not seem to interfere with the installation- it just added time to the process. A lot of time when one is watching a progress bar. Finally, it was done. I turned my full attention to my installation, and the install manager informed me that before proceeding, I would need to get the latest updates to the program. No biggie- sometimes the updates occur during the install, sometimes when it is finished. Okay, let's get the updates and get this puppy installed.  A web browser opens, and I an informed that, before I can get the updates, I need to update Java.

Aaaaarrrrggghh!

Have you seen Iron Man 2? He has a cameo. He's something of a Silicon Valley bad boy, as well as the CEO of Oracle Corp.  Who is he? Why, Larry Ellison, of course. Oracle is one of the world's enterprise database powers, and Larry is The Man At Oracle. They also are the folks behind Java ("write once, run anywhere"). Well, a few weeks back, a Java security hole was announced, and all of the I.T. pundits, gurus and masterminds said either get rid of Java or don't update, as the patch seemed to make things even worse.  Being an on-top-of-it semi-I.T. gonk, I heeded the advice and did absolutely nothing with Java.

Until I needed to install this software. You see, Java is used by a lot of other applications, like the one I needed to get my updates. So, ... I updated Java. As far as I know, nothing bad happened, and the world is still spinning in its customary orbit. I finally got my updates, and a reboot or two later, I tested the program. All was good.

Finally, after a week, the database is officially an Access 2007 endeavor. I've only done a little with it since then- nothing new, just updating the titles from the new table. I think I'm going to put all data entry aside until I get this part of the project completed, as it is normalization related.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

Don't panic

*I started writing this a day or so ago, but Blogger was having some serious issues, so I didn't get to finish it. It's sort of the digital equivalent of "the dog ate my homework".

It's only fitting that I mark Douglas Adams' 61st birth anniversary with a blog- or is it a blog entry? In either case, as my database is named Forty-Two, it's only fitting that Mr. Adams gets some props here.

I need to make a small disclaimer here: in real life, had we the chance to meet and talk, he and I would probably not have gotten along at all. After all, he described himself as a "radical atheist" and, while my faith is not radical, I am a Christian. I grew up reading and appreciating science fiction, though, and I'd more likely than not have major disagreements with most of sci-fi's heavy hitters. Harry Harrison is another favorite of mine, and we, too would not probably had many nice words to share, although I do love his writing. Gordon R. Dickson (the Childe Cycle, a.k.a. Dorsai) is another favorite, as is Roger Zelazny (Amber). Oh, well.

I've been doing some thinking and planning regarding the addition of the Lego data to Forty-Two. As it is currently formatted, the Excel data is not viable to move to Access cleanly, so I need to delete a few columns, and proceed with caution. I will also need to add at least one more table, which will contain the data that is going to be deleted.

More fine print- "Abandon hope!"

Fine print- "Are you sure?"

Speaking of databases, I've been contemplating for some time moving the database to Access 2007. I'm told it's as easy as "open" and "save as". We'll see about that... I know this works just fine with Word and Excel files. Maybe not as smooth with Access, I see. LOL! Looking on the bright side, it didn't Blue Screen on me, and the smoke detector did not go off.

Anyway, the deed is done, and the database has been saved as a 2007 file- apparently not compatible with earlier versions. No biggie, I suppose, as I won't be going back or updating in the 2003 version. The biggest thing I've seen in the short time I've had 2007 installed is that the files are much smaller than their 2003 counterparts- and when I say this, I'm comparing identical files that have been saved in 2003 and 2007 formats.

Midnight at the NOC

Saturday night. Quiet time in the quest for forty-two. I'm thinking of calling it a relatively early night and getting a little extra sleep in tonight. Hey- it can't hurt!

I've been in search of a software package for the past few days, and as a result the Secret Underground Lair  has started gain some floorspace as things are rearranged and kludge is eliminated. I took this opportunity to move the shredder next to my #2 PC. Our shredder is pretty nice- the throat capacity is something like 9+ sheets. I generally don't get anywhere near that, but extra capacity is nice for those times when one underestimates the thickness of the paper. What I found most distressing was that our cat is more fascinated by the shredder than terrified of it. So, the machine is off and unplugged unless it is in use.

Another byproduct of the software search is floorspace. I suddenly have ~9sq ft more of bare floor behind me. Now, in the scope of things, this isn't a great amount, but when it suddenly opens up, its a big deal. I can now get at all of the PC's easily, as well as what passes for our NOC (*Network Operations Center).

NOC

It's fairly difficult to see what is in that photo, but what is depicted is the "wiring closet" of the network. We're pretty much wired everywhere, excepting the wireless access point upstairs and the cable modem downstairs (which also has a WAP). Otherwise, the premise wiring is all gigabit ethernet. What I thought was pretty neat was my "rack" solution: I wanted something that would allow airflow around the router and switch(es), but did not want to spend a great deal of money. My solution came from our local dollar store- each tier of the rack was 1USD. They are the perfect width for my existing Linksys/Cisco eight port switch and four port switching router. I secured the four wire shelving units together with a pair of flat bungee cords, and a few screws on the bottom anchor everything to a 12 inch by 12 inch piece of scrap plywood. The whole thing is very stable. The ethernet cabling follows a piece of electrical conduit where possible, and hangs from repurposed paper clips- very inexpensive, but very effective. I'm thinking of replacing the paperclips with something more similar to a traditional tray: I've collected several (~12) 36- and 48-inch cardboard cores from a plotter's paper rolls. Depending on the difficulty, I'll either butt-splice them or duct tape them together for a nice, solid, neater-looking channel. That is definitely a "sometime later" project. After all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Database update: I'm slowly updating the main table with the new title table. This probably won't be done for another few weeks. The Lego spreadsheet is also coming along nicely- more than a quarter of the rows have new part numbers- less than 18K to go! The bad news is that it will need further modification before I import it into Access.

And, on a totally unrelated note, I installed Visio. I have not used Visio in some time- it was a lot of fun to use. I'm not sure what practical application I have for it just yet; at this point, its more for my personal edification than anything else.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.