tag:jeffblogs.com,2007-08-17://3 2008-07-23T23:02:17Z Connecting the dots one prime number at a time Movable Type Personal 4.12 tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1075 2008-07-10T23:00:14Z 2008-07-23T23:02:17Z

After the discussions with Trina I had scrapped my plans on bringing several computers on vacation and instead just brought my laptop and the Shuttle small form factor computer. It was a lot less equipment to pack and gave me...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com Shuttle small form factor computer. It was a lot less equipment to pack and gave me an excuse to play with this new device to fully review how well it would work as a server. I was feeling pretty good about my decision. Trina had not yet realized that I had a new computer and really how ticked off could she get about a computer the size of a small breadbox? That theory would probably have held water if I had not made one severely large mistake; I forgot to pack a monitor.]]> miles from home with a computer with a wireless keyboard and mouse but with no monitor. It was not as though I could just cruise home and get the monitor either. No I was now smack dab in the middle of Bedrock hanging out with the Flintstones. This was rural Idaho where just within the last 4 years they actually got phone service. I am not talking cellular phone service; I am talking about standard old landline. Just a few short miles from where I was staying was the last incorporated town in America to gain phone service. It was a pretty big deal too. No I had no choice but to try and find an outlet where I could buy a monitor. At that point I may as well put a big flashing sign over the Shuttle computer with a sign that read "Trina please lecture me on getting yet another computer". This was bad on so many levels that I was not even sure where to start. So what is a guy to do when he knows he is on the equivalent of marriage death row? Well I figured if I was going to get killed for getting another computer I may as well die in a spectacular flaming crash. If I was going to get a monitor there was no need to be stealth about it. I may as well get something incredible. I briefly considered getting a 30 inch LCD with picture-in-picture and capable of high definition video using HDMI or DisplayPort. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on whether you are now siding with me or with Trina) no such monitor was available. Instead I would have to "settle" for a 22 inch LCD screen with DVI connectivity. I placed the order and it arrived just in time for our arrival at our destination. I went with the Samsung 2253BW. My reasoning was two-fold. First it was in relatively abundant supply from several vendors that actually deliver to the desolate area of Idaho. Secondly it had most of the features I was looking at for a price I was willing to pay. I unboxed the monitor and set it up. I was impressed with the way it went together and was immediately looking forward to using it. With a resolution of 1680x1050 it is not quite enough to show a full 1080i high definition signal but it is more than enough to support a 720p stream. The monitor is capable of HDCP so I will get full resolution from a digital connection for high-definition viewing. I have been burned in the past for this oversight so this was extremely important. The monitor has a stated 170-degree viewing angle and I can attest that it is indeed accurate. The color and sharpness are first rate and the refresh rate is quite good. Overall I have been quite impressed with how it has worked. It is large enough that I can do detailed work on digital photographs but is not so intrusive that it overtakes the desktop. It wasn't the easiest purchase I have had to explain but it was worth a couple of days sleeping on the couch.]]> tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1074 2008-07-09T22:25:43Z 2008-07-23T22:26:34Z

We have now lived in Arizona over 14 years. A lot of our family still lives in Idaho and Utah. As a result we find ourselves making the trek from Arizona to Idaho quite often (more often than I would...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com We have now lived in Arizona over 14 years. A lot of our family still lives in Idaho and Utah. As a result we find ourselves making the trek from Arizona to Idaho quite often (more often than I would like that's for sure). We have gotten to where we have a fairly well mapped out path from point A to point B and back. This path is the result of trying just about every different roadway that goes between these three states. And what I have learned from all of this is that there really is no good way to get from Arizona to Idaho without subjecting yourself to a lot of small highways or back roads. I don't so much mind driving the back country but it does have its drawbacks. For example there are large stretches of road that have absolutely nothing on them. Driving from Flagstaff Arizona northward for example takes you across Indian Reservations that barely have phone service let alone rest stops or places to get something to eat or drink. Even cellular service is spotty. Digital phone service is impossible and analog roaming is even questionable. This situation remains in effect through part of southern Utah as well at least until you can get near the Interstate when there are at least some cellular towers to give you adequate phone service. micro-blogging services and thought they may hold merit for this particular problem I was trying to solve. Rather than calling everyone I knew or setting up a complicated calling tree to notify everyone of our current location I would instead update the micro-blogging services and those who were interested could subscribe to my timelines to see where we were. Using Ping FM would make this especially easy since this allowed me to update most of the more popular social network sites with my status. That way people could chose whatever network they were most comfortable; whether it be Twitter, Plurk, Pownce, Facebook, or any of the other countless services there were. Since I first wrote the post on micro-blogging I have since gotten a lot more interested in this technology. I have especially become enamored with Plurk. This service has become much better and continues to evolve. It so far seems to have been immune to the scalability issues that have plagued Twitter and does provide with a more intuitive way of managing conversations. Periodically through the trip I would send an email or text message to Ping FM and it would in turn post my whereabouts and whatever I happened to mention I was doing. What I had not anticipated was that complete strangers would see these status posts and comment upon them. It has been a fun and interesting experience as I try to explain the various points of our vacation. It was almost like sharing "What I Did On My Summer Vacation" while I was still on the trip. I plan to continue posting updates each day for the remainder of our trip. It has been helpful to family members wanting to know where we are but it has also allowed me to meet some new people and make friends I might not have otherwise done. I have gotten a new appreciation for social networking.]]> tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1073 2008-07-08T20:52:43Z 2008-07-23T20:53:48Z

For the last eight days I have been fighting with my web hosting company trying to get them to restore my site connectivity after they had a hardware failure. For the first few days I had absolutely no connectivity whatsoever...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com eight days I have been fighting with my web hosting company trying to get them to restore my site connectivity after they had a hardware failure. For the first few days I had absolutely no connectivity whatsoever and was completely dead in the water. I spent nearly every waking hour working with them to try and get someone to take ownership of this problem and resolve it. Finally after several days of being down I requested that they move me to a new server so I could begin restoring things myself. They relented and moved my. Unfortunately they did not properly install the software nor load the PERL modules necessary for me to be up. It has been one of the most frustrating experiences of my life and I had come to the conclusion that I needed to find a new hosting provider. ]]> Now Hitting followed by Arizona Lanyards. I will next focus on Diary of a Diehard then move on to Jeff D Summers and 1 Photo 2 Share then this blog. I ask for your patience and suggest checking back often as content will be updated as time permits. This is not exactly what I had planned to do on my vacation but I guess that is the price I pay for going with a company like IX Web Hosting. If anyone has a recommendation for a new hosting provider that is relatively cost effective I am willing to listen to any and all suggestions.]]> tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1072 2008-07-07T20:18:51Z 2008-07-23T20:37:44Z

Today is the first official full day of vacation. I know I should really count yesterday since that is when we left Arizona but since that did not occur until after the baseball game and technically I am classifying going...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com yesterday since that is when we left Arizona but since that did not occur until after the baseball game and technically I am classifying going to the Diamondbacks as work (I love my job if that's the case), then today would truly be the first full day of vacation. And since this is my blog and my life I feel like I am empowered to define things however I want to. Wow, that sounded kind of like the time I got a new ball and decided I got to make the rules to the game or else I would take my ball and go home. That didn't work out too well as the ball went flat and we all had to go anyways so hopefully this time that attitude will work better. ]]> There is a local Harley-Davidson dealership in Orem Utah which just recently built a new store just down the road in Lindon Utah. Well that was definitely something that piqued my interest. I quickly got ready for the day and decided to go and check out the dealership. It is located very near Interstate 15 going through Provo. In fact it is located adjacent to the freeway just off the off-ramp. The dealership is being advertised as the largest Harley dealership in the western United States from a square footage perspective. The architecture of the building looks like something from the old west. It was made from old timbers and re-salvaged steel from Geneva Steel Works that was once located just down the road from the dealership. Pulling into the parking lot it was obvious that this dealer had barely opened; not for the day but for business in this location. There were still several trucks and crews working on the outside of the building and the landscaping. It was barely nine o'clock when we arrived and already the parking lot was mostly full. It seemed to be a combination of customers and workers. Trina and I made out way into the building. From the moment that we set foot inside our mouths dropped open. This place was indeed huge and made the dealership in Chandler look downright tiny. The interior mimicked the exterior done in an old-western motif. We were immediately greeted by several people offering to help. While I immediately went to the large displays of parts and accessories, Trina made her way to the motor clothes section. The stock was relatively sparse. I asked one of the sales people why and they stated that the dealership was not yet open. This was a soft opening with the Grand Opening planned for July 24. They have plans on stocking many items but most of them have just not yet arrived. I went to find Trina who was looking for a T-shirt for me to commemorate being at this dealership. The shirts were in short supply so I was not able to get the one I really wanted but I did find one that was pretty cool so I added that to my basket. I also picked up the dealer pin to add that to my collection. The logo for the Timpanogos Harley shop features a mountain goat riding a Harley. It is one of the better dealer logos I have seen. The main showroom is huge but unfortunately the number of bikes was very small again due to the dealership not being open yet. One of the cooler aspects of the dealership was the wall of windows that went between the showroom and the service department. You can actually stand and watch your bike being repaired. That is pretty cool especially if your bike is in to have accessories installed. I wish the dealership in Chandler had that. Also on the premises is a small café for riders who get hungry after a ride or while waiting for service. I didn't eat there but the menu looked good. Overall the experience was awesome and it was a fun way to spend a morning. I would highly recommend stopping by the Timpanogos Harley-Davidson shop. They are some of the friendliest people you can meet and the store is something to behold. This may be a standard stop on any future vacations we take to this area of the country.]]> tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1071 2008-07-07T03:58:29Z 2008-07-22T22:59:38Z

We completed our packing and we were finally ready for our vacation. On Diary of a Diehard I discussed a little of what goes into summer vacation at our house. The planning is more representative of a large scale battle...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com packing and we were finally ready for our vacation. On Diary of a Diehard I discussed a little of what goes into summer vacation at our house. The planning is more representative of a large scale battle plan for a world war than it is for a family to go on vacation. I think a lot of that is as a result of having a house full of women. With just Dakota and me to represent the male population we are quickly outnumbered by the estrogen gang. Discounting the computer equipment for a moment, there is a substantial difference between how women pack for a vacation and how men pack for the same amount of time and same location. Take for example my son Dakota versus my daughter Whitney.]]> We are planning on being gone for approximately 10 days. Dakota has in his suitcase 2 shirts, 1 pair of shorts, and his swimming suit. Whitney on the other hand has what looks like 14 shirts, 12 pair of pants/shorts, multiple changes of underclothes, 2 pair of pajamas, every shoe that she owns, a make-up bag, curling iron, hair dryer, hair straightened, body wash, face wash, perfume, and who knows what else. Trina stepped in and required that Dakota pack a second pair of underwear and socks otherwise the boy would have just worn what he had for 10 days. She also made him pack his toothbrush which had not even dawned on him to pack. On the other hand Dakota had packed approximately 42 DVD movies to make sure he had something to watch on the way up and the way back. He also was all over my case to be sure that the Nintendo Wii was packed into the car. So even at an early age he has his priorities set correctly. He has his Diamondbacks hat on, his Diamondbacks sweatshirt (even though it is 112 degrees at the time we were ready to leave), a small bag of clothes, and a large amount of electronics. We got into the car and began our journey to Utah and Idaho. The plan was that we would go as far as Provo UT where we would spend a couple of days with our oldest daughter Ashley before going on to Idaho Falls ID to visit parents and grandparents. It is a 10 hour drive to Provo from Chandler so everyone was beginning to settle in for a long car ride. We had barely made it out of the Chandler city limits when I was already starting to be asked if we were there yet. Ah, the joys of car travel with children. I suggested that perhaps they should watch a movie to pass the time. Dakota informed me that they didn't have anything to watch. I asked what happened to the 40 movies that he had picked out. He explained that they had already seen those movies. This is the kind of thing that just drives parents crazy. Rather than listen to this banter for the next 9 hours and 45 minutes I decided that perhaps I should just set up the Wii in the car and let him veg out on video games. We pulled the car over and Trina took over driving while I moved to the back seat to get the Wii set up. I had cables and remotes and consoles strung out everywhere. I have gotten good at setting these things up and looked at this as kind of like my own personal pit row where I could connect electronics in less than 30 seconds flat. Everything was going like clockwork until I got to the Sensor Bar. I reached into the bag to retrieve it and found there was nothing there. I know I packed it; didn't I? I tore through the bag and every other bag within arm's length. That Sensor Bar was nowhere to be found. After a several frantic moments I came to the conclusion that I just flat out missed packing it. Now I had an unusable game console and restless kids. It was paramount that I needed to find a Sensor Bar and quickly. For the next 9 hours we must have stopped at every store between Chandler Arizona and Provo Utah looking for a Nintendo Wii Sensor Bar. It became almost a quest. Each store we went to we were met with confused looks and shrugs of shoulders. I began to think that it would be easier if I were looking for the Ark of the Covenant than for a Wii Sensor Bar. Finally in Springville Utah we came across one which I immediately purchased. Of course we were now within 15 minutes of our destination meaning we really didn't even need the cable anymore at least not until we started for Idaho in a couple of days. Remind me again, why do we go on vacation? tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1070 2008-07-05T21:38:52Z 2008-07-22T22:31:53Z

After my computer store excursion I had to go into stealth mode. Trina had returned from out of town and I was already in trouble for the handiwork she did know about. You would think that a wife would be...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com computer store excursion I had to go into stealth mode. Trina had returned from out of town and I was already in trouble for the handiwork she did know about. You would think that a wife would be grateful that her husband would do things around the house but not my wife. Of course her ideas for home improvement and mine seem to be diametrically opposed. She sees things such as landscaping, house painting, and minor repairs as at the top of the list. I am more inclined to think of rewiring the house with optical cable, running Ethernet over power line, or adding home automation devices as home improvement. I mean seriously who doesn't want to control their lights from the comfort of the computer or be able to set the thermostat from the Internet? Still I guess she does have a valid point. Our house is filled with technology goodness but my backyard still has not been fully landscaped since we moved in 14 years ago. I blame the electronics industry. If they would come up with cool landscape technology I would be all over it.]]> The idea of bringing out the new Small Form-Factor Super Computer at this moment seemed like a bad idea. She had already been snooping around trying to figure out where all these small boxes were coming from so the last thing I needed was for her to realize that we had yet another computer in the house. Computers already outnumber family members by an order of magnitude so it just seemed like a good plan to leave it slid under the desk until a more appropriate time. We are getting ready to leave on vacation tomorrow (after the Diamondbacks game of course) and I had decided that vacation would be the perfect time for me to do a little server building and configuring. So while Trina and the kids were busy packing such mundane things as clothing, jackets, and food I focused on the important things like computers, drives, switches, monitors, speakers, cables, keyboards, mice, and other indispensable things that have to go on vacation. When Trina began to see all of the computer equipment being gathered into the living room she began to question what was going on. I explained that I just needed to take a few things with me on the trip to make sure that I could get the work done that I had to do. This of course led to a rather lengthy lecture on how this was supposed to be a vacation. Well duh, I knew that. But just because we are on vacation doesn't mean we had to stop living. I did have to admit, looking at the pile of technology in front of me it looked more like relocating an IT department than it did a family vacation. I was told that I had to pare down the amount of computer equipment that I could take with me. There was just no way I needed 4 computers with all the various peripherals in order to go on vacation. So after Trina left the room I put two of the desktop computers back and slid the small form factor computer out from under the desk and added it to the pile. This worked out perfectly. She couldn't possibly get mad at me now. After all she just told me that I needed to take a smaller computer footprint on vacation so really this is her idea right? I am sure this whole Shuttle computer idea is going to fly with her. Trina is going to be so proud of me. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1069 2008-07-04T23:23:43Z 2008-07-21T23:24:52Z

Growing up the Fourth of July was the highlight of our summer. We lived in a relatively small town in eastern Idaho. We were a mere 90 minutes from Jackson Hole Wyoming or a little over 2 hours away from...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com Growing up the Fourth of July was the highlight of our summer. We lived in a relatively small town in eastern Idaho. We were a mere 90 minutes from Jackson Hole Wyoming or a little over 2 hours away from Yellowstone Park. Being that close to the Wyoming border is not especially impressive or noteworthy and would normally best be left unsaid. There was a brief time each year that was of importance to us. That time was around the Fourth of July. In Idaho we were allowed to have some types of fireworks but it was limited. We could have sparklers, cones, and ground blossoms. In Idaho we were not permitted to have firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles, or anything that went airborne. Wyoming had a much more liberal look on fireworks. I often wondered what it must be like to be in the state legislature in the cowboy state. That had to be kind of like being a sheriff in the wild west. They seemed to pass just enough laws so that the citizens didn't kill themselves but they did not seem to mind arming the people with weapons of mass maiming. As a kid, that makes you just about one of the coolest adults on the planet. When we were young my brother and I would have to try and talk our parents into a road trip just over the state line into Wyoming. It was probably the only time in our lives where we actually suggested a family outing to some historical place since we knew we would be driving right by the little store and fireworks stand that was interestingly placed as close to the Idaho border as possible while still being in Wyoming. Later on when I was old enough to drive then I became the transportation for my brother and all of our friends as we made a trip one Saturday to the middle of nowhere to get just "a few" fireworks. My parents didn't usually condone the possession of illegal fireworks but with the proper supervision we somehow got away with it. When we moved to Arizona all of that changed. Arizona does not allow any fireworks. Their theory is, we live in the dry desert. The last thing we need is a bunch of exploding things igniting everything around it. So my kids never grew up knowing the trill and the danger of holding a firecracker or exploding balls of fire launched into the night sky. We still make a trip every now and again to Idaho. Mostly during the summer to escape the Arizona heat. There have been times that we have been there over the Independence Day holiday. When we are, I try to make that drive to that same little fireworks stand over the border to pick up "a few" fireworks to celebrate the birth of our country. Sometimes "safe and sane" is appropriate but "dumb and dangerous" is a lot more fun when you have a roman candle and a lighter in your hand. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1068 2008-07-03T23:22:19Z 2008-07-21T23:23:19Z

Well it is July 3. It has been 4 days since my shared web host went down leaving my sites down and unavailable. It has been 2 days since a new server was configured partially restoring my web presence. As...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com Well it is July 3. It has been 4 days since my shared web host went down leaving my sites down and unavailable. It has been 2 days since a new server was configured partially restoring my web presence. As you know from previous entries the server was misconfigured when it was created and IX Web Hosting failed to load two simple PERL modules for connectivity to MySQL and to SendMail. These are not some obscure module that only I would use; these are standard modules that pretty much everyone on the planet would expect to have loaded. I have been working with the "technical support" personnel for IX Web Hosting to get these modules installed to restore my sites to full working order. There are three ways for you to contact IX Web Hosting technical support. There is phone support, live chat, and by entering a problem ticket. When I first had the problem I created a problem ticket. I've learned that the entire technical support department revolves around these problem tickets. Without a ticket your problem does not exist as far as these people are concerned. Ignore the fact that their technical support site says that any of these three methods will work. If you don't have a ticket, the phone representative or the chat representative will send you to the web to create a ticket. In fact I am not exactly sure I understand what the purpose of the phone and the chat representatives are since they cannot really do anything other than tell you to wait patiently and quit calling. IX Web Hosting used to have one of the highest caliber of technical support staffs around. They would respond to you quickly and you could always rest assured that things would be taken care of. Within the past few months I have found that downtime has continued to increase while the level of service and the responsiveness of the service has deteriorated to the point of being laughable. During this particular outage I was told that at a minimum I should expect a 24 hour turn around on any question asked. That is not to say the problem will be resolved in 24 hours, just that it will be looked at within a day. Of course that seems to be just a guideline not necessarily a rule. The technical support department closed my problem ticket in the middle of the outage because they did not read the details and just assumed that the problem was taken care of after this length of time. I had to reopen the ticket which started over the clock at zero meaning another extended wait. This morning at 7 AM local time after 29 hours my problem ticket moved from technical support to the System Administrative Department. These are supposed to be the guys who actually do the work. Technical support is not allowed to actually touch the servers, only an admin can do that. So when your ticket is drawn in the ticket lottery it should be grounds for celebration. This means that sometime in the next 24 hours you might actually get someone to look at your issue. At least that is how it is supposed to be. Since I had been down for this long I mistakenly thought that I would be moved to a higher spot in the queue and get the problem resolved. I went to the chat client to see if they could give me an estimated time that the admins would fix my problem by installing these two simple PERL modules. I was told they were working to get it fixed "as quickly as possible". I am not sure that phrase means what they think it means. I have been told for 4.5 days that my problem would be fixed "as quickly as possible". I should have then guessed that the estimate for resolution would be in the next week or so. With the Independence Day holiday quickly approaching I wanted to make sure that service would be restored before everyone left for a 3 day vacation. I was told that technical support was based out of the Ukraine so as not to worry there would be someone available. I am not sure if this is a holiday for the Ukraine but I can assume that it must be since no one seems to be available that can answer a question or fix a simple problem. My problem ticket shows "on-hold" and "processing ticket" when I look at the status. It says that it has been forwarded to server administration for resolution and to please be patient and wait for a response. It doesn't say wait for resolution, it says wait for a response. It might be that if the admin has a question he will just update the ticket with his question and the game starts over again. The ticket moved to this "on-hold"/"processing ticket" state at 7 AM on July 3 so by 7AM on July 4 I should actually be back fully on line; yeah right. Update: It has now been 32 hours and the ticket remains in that state. There has been no contact at all from the admin. I have gone back to the live chat and asked for an update. I was told that I needed to be more patient and that they would get to it when they could. They have a lot of problems to deal with and it doesn't help when I am not patient. Hmm, down for 5 days, no contact with server people, no end in sight to the outage. I guess my impatience is the cause of this problem huh? I asked if there were even any admins working today and after a long delay the chat representative came back with this answer "sure". I asked for escalation of this problem due to the long time it had been opened and was told there was no such thing as escalation and I needed to be patient and wait. I have contacted the president of IX Web Hosting and complained about their lack of service. One of the managers from the CR department has offered to extend my hosting contract an additional 10 months. I am wondering if that offer came about because that is how long it is going to take them to actually fix this problem. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1067 2008-07-02T23:21:10Z 2008-07-21T23:21:53Z

Yesterday I ranted about IX Web Hosting and how I had been down for days while they attempted to try and resolve a hardware problem they were having. Late last evening after the Diamondbacks game I arrived home to find...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com Yesterday I ranted about IX Web Hosting and how I had been down for days while they attempted to try and resolve a hardware problem they were having. Late last evening after the Diamondbacks game I arrived home to find that the sites were still unavailable. I again reached out to technical support at IX Web Hosting to get a status. I was told that my sites would be restored "very soon". Since "very soon" had encompassed 3 days so far I wasn't real confident that I would be up any time during this millennium. I expressed my frustration and asked if I could please be moved to a different server. Even if I had to recreate all of my sites myself it would be better than looking at an error screen. The technician was shocked that I would want to move servers since this one was being repaired and would be available shortly. Yeah he should come and hang out on my end and see what it is like.]]> Diary of a Diehard and 1 Photo 2 Share and received similar error messages. I quickly determined that IX Web Hosting had not installed the DBD::mysql and Mail::Sendmail PERL modules on this server. I went back to the tech support line and explained the situation to the technician. Of course this was a complete waste of time since he could not help me. This was a job that only an administrator could do. I was asked to update my open problem ticket with the information. I had already expected this was the case so I had done that while he was typing. I was told that an administrator would be doing the work shortly. I again pressed to determine how long "shortly" was. I was told within the hour. Since it was after midnight I decided that I would give them until morning. I asked the tech if he thought that this would be done before 8 AM. I was assured that was more than adequate time and that I should expect resolution well before that. I went to bed a little calmer knowing that by morning I would be able to have my sites working again. When I got up this morning I went to the computer to verify that everything was cool. I ran the test script to verify connectivity to the database and mail services. The results came back that the modules were not installed. You would think that after 3 days I would not have been surprised. I mean how naïve did I have to be to think that these people would actually be able to meet their promises. I went to the tech support line again and explained the situation to the technician for about the 12th time. I was once again told that this was a job for the administrators and that they would be getting to this "as quickly as possible". I explained that I had heard that before and that I needed a definite time of when this would be fixed. I was told "shortly" which again did not meet the definition of definite time. I asked again when this would be completed considering that I had been promised that it would be taken care of within an hour and that was 8 hours ago. The technician came back with the timeframe of 4-6 hours. What? Did he seriously just type 4-6 hours? You mean to tell me that it takes a total of 12-14 hours to load two simple PERL modules that should be loaded by default anyway? Wow, I need to work for these clowns since it would be easy to meet expectations if all they ask is to load a couple of modules in half a day. I explained that I had been down for over 3 days and that I really needed these modules installed so that I could get back to work updating my sites. This of course means nothing to these people and the technician just quit communicating. So here I am 4 days later with a site that is limping along; one that I cannot update and users can barely use. Large chunks of functionality are unavailable and there seems no end in sight. Each passing moment brings more anger and frustration focused squarely on IX Web Hosting.]]> tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1066 2008-07-01T23:19:24Z 2008-07-21T23:20:19Z

I have previously lamented about my struggles with IX Web Hosting who I am currently using. When I wrote in March I explained that there may be a bit of downtime to my sites due to being moved to...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com lamented about my struggles with IX Web Hosting who I am currently using. When I wrote in March I explained that there may be a bit of downtime to my sites due to being moved to a new server. My sites had to be migrated because the server was still using some very dated software and I needed something that was actually published this century. The server migration went fairly well or so I thought. As I started to dig into the configuration I found modules missing that made my blog unavailable. This was a simple problem but it took IX Web Hosting a week to get things straightened out. Finally I was back up and I tried to forget the problems I had had.]]> Friday June 13th. At that point I was frustrated enough that I had come to the conclusion that I needed to make a change to my hosting company. I began to research the various options at my disposal. At the same time I was maintaining my IX Web Hosting account and the sites hosted there. I figured that I had a little time so that I didn't make a mistake and rush into something I would regret. Besides, it wasn't like my sites were down or anything right? Yeah I really should not have made that last statement. This past weekend I got up and turned on the computer. I was going to post a blog entry here and one on Diary of a Diehard. I opened a browser window and navigated to my web site. Instead of the page I was given an error message claiming that the site was unavailable. Oh great, here we go again I thought. At first I considered maybe this was a local problem. I rebooted my computer, my router, and my cable modem. No such luck, I still could not get to my sites. Maybe this was a DNS problem. I instead entered the IP address to my sites expecting to see the page load. Again I received a network error. I went to the IX Web Hosting site and attempted to log into my control panel. I was again presented the network error page. This was strange. I went to the support center and entered a problem ticket. Like usual several hours later I received a reply stating that the server had some emergency problem and that administrators were working on it. I opened a chat window to talk to a representative to see how long this outage would last. I was told there was a problem with a RAID controller and that there was an ETA of a couple of hours. I was irritated that IX Web Hosting didn't have on-site spares but a couple more hours wouldn't kill me. I waited rather impatiently for the sites to return. After two hours I tried again and got the same error message. I understand that things sometimes happen so I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I promised myself I would double their allotted time before requesting status. Two more hours came and went and my sites were still unavailable. I went back to the chat client and asked for a status update. I was told the server had drive issues as well as RAID and would only boot into safe mode. The new ETA was that it would take 4 hours for service to be restored. This would mean that my sites would be unavailable for 12 hours. I was not happy but there was not much that I could do. I found other computer work to do to kill the time until I could get on and update my sites. I was now sitting on several entries that needed to be posted and data that needed to be updated. At four hours I checked the sites and they were still unavailable. I decided I would let it go another couple of hours. At that time I checked again and continued to receive the error message. I went back to the chat client for yet another status. The problem ticket I had initially opened had still not been updated so it was clear that system was not getting me anywhere. The technician at this point had no idea how much longer this was going to take and suggested that I wait until morning; great, a whole day of outage without an end in sight. I was seriously ticked off. The next morning I checked and what a surprise, my sites were still down. I went back to the chat client and again asked for an update. I was told 2-4 hours. Seriously, I was told that again. I explained that I didn't really trust their estimate and asked if they could please just put my sites on a different server while they continued to troubleshoot. I was told that was not possible. They cannot move me until they get the server fixed. They have no idea why they can't move me; they just know that can't happen. So there I sat for another 4 hours waiting for a miracle to happen. The miracle didn't show up and I was still down. I went back to the chat window again and explained that my sites had now been down a day and a half. There was a canned apology along with an estimate that it would be up in 4 hours. I don't have to tell you that those hours blew by and my site was still unavailable. I went back to the chat window and demanded that something be done. In this amount of time you could drive from the IX Web Hosting data center to Dell, buy a server, drive it back to the data center, configure it, and get it on the network. There is absolutely no way it should take this amount of time. I was told that the administrators were doing everything they could and that it could be several hours before it was available. I asked for a definition of "several" and was told up to 12. I went to bed last night thinking at the worst case the sites would be restored by 10 AM which was 2.25 days since I found them down. Of course 10 AM came and went and the sites are still not available. This is beyond ridiculous. When I protested that this downtime went well beyond the 99.9% uptime guarantee I was sent to billing who provided me with a credit of 2 months on my service contract. What good is that going to do me? Why do I need to extend my contract when they can't even keep a simple server up? Not only that but the promised credit was not posted to my account so I have no idea where this actually went. It is now imperative that I find an alternative for web hosting. The technicians at IX Web Hosting obviously have no clue what they are doing or are not empowered to solve the problems they encounter. The customer service is grossly understaffed and incapable of fixing anything. Further they do not seem to know what the administrators are doing and set false expectations with the customer. What they lack in customer focus they make up for with rudeness. I cannot put into words how bad their service is. If you are a current customer I suggest monitoring your service closely. If you are considering web hosting I suggest you look elsewhere as the aggravation is not worth the cost savings you may receive.]]> tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1065 2008-06-30T23:17:53Z 2008-07-21T23:18:52Z

The Harley-Davidson Owners Group has come up with a concept they declared Million Mile Monday. They set aside June 30, 2008 as a day to get everyone out on their bikes. The goal was to collectively try and accumulate one-million...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com The Harley-Davidson Owners Group has come up with a concept they declared Million Mile Monday. They set aside June 30, 2008 as a day to get everyone out on their bikes. The goal was to collectively try and accumulate one-million miles worldwide. The miles could be pretty much anything. Some would use their bikes to commute while others had planned a long journey that would incorporate this date into their plan. At the end of the day members were invited to log into the H.O.G. web site and enter their miles. It is a cool idea really. What better way to remind people how great it is to ride a motorcycle than to get them out on the road. Hopefully it would also increase the total number of riders on the road for at least a day. This should in turn make other drivers more aware that the motorcycle population is not a niche market but is much more mainstream than they had previously imagined. Perhaps then drivers would be more conscientious than they have been in the past. Initially I had huge plans for Million Mile Monday. I thought about taking the day off from work and loading up the Night Train and heading out for an epic ride. Those plans were dashed when I realized that this date fell during the time that Trina and Whitney would be gone and I would have Dakota at home alone. For a moment I considered putting Dakota on the back of the bike and making it a father and son outing. It seemed like everything was working against me on this. First there was the fact that I was still pretty sick and with all the medication driving a bike a long distance was probably not the smartest thing. Secondly, this was the day that Trina actually returned to town and I needed to go and pick her up. I wasn't exactly sure she would appreciate me pulling into the parking lot on a motorcycle since she would have all of her camping equipment with her. Then of course there was the small fact that it was to be 114 degrees today with a 15 mile per hour wind making the wind chill about 120 degrees. I swear it feels hotter when the wind blows in Arizona. Regardless of all this I was committed to be a part of Million Mile Monday. So after making sure Dakota was settled and checking the clock to verify that I had time before Trina came back into town I grabbed my helmet, my leather jacket, my gloves, and jumped onto the Night Train. It felt great starting it up and rolling down the driveway. Before long I was out on the road; the sound of the exhaust serenading me. Each passing mile brought a bigger smile to my face. The trials and troubles I had been enduring seemed to melt away every moment I was in the saddle. After an hour or so I knew I needed to get back. It took every ounce of strength that I had to turn the bike around. Not because I was weak but because I knew that once I parked that bike I would again be thrust into the real world and my fun would be over. Sometimes obligations get in the way of what you really want to do. I pulled back into the garage and parked the bike. For a moment I sat there as the silent engine cooled. It had been the best part of my whole day and I have the Harley Owner's Group to thank for that. It may be hot and I might not have felt the best before but I was feeling pretty healthy now. Maybe I need to make every day Million Mile day. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1064 2008-06-29T23:15:09Z 2008-07-21T23:17:18Z

I should never be allowed into an electronics store or a computer store unsupervised. There are just too many gadgets and I have too many ideas to be trusted to not come out of one of these stores without spending...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com yesterday I was going to need some new parts in order to make the necessary repairs around the house. I am usually ok going to Home Depot or Lowe's by myself. Well ok that might be debatable especially after the whole rewiring the house and adding home automation fiasco of 1999. By the way, the switch explosion was not among those that I had previously messed with so this one was not my fault. That's my story and I am sticking with it.]]> I went into the local computer store to find a new hard disk and optical drive to replace the ones that had failed. The moment I entered the store I knew I was in trouble. It was like being in a candy store. The aisles were filled with a cornucopia of goodness. There were new video cards, speaker systems, flat screen monitors, mother boards, cases, anything my heart could imagine and I can imagine a lot. I quickly lost focus as to what I had come to get. My attention was instead drawn to a toy; one I could not possible live without out. I have been building custom computers for the past 6 years so I am very comfortable with the concept of combining components to create the perfect blend of performance and cost effectiveness. Trina would of course argue that I am way too slanted to the performance side of the equation. I keep telling her it is all relative. I mean I haven't built anything requiring a raised floor data center; yet. Most of my builds so far have been large desktop systems used for video editing or computational modeling but that is not what is drawing me on this particular trip. This time I am looking squarely at the small form factor. My thoughts were that this would be perfect to create a small test server so that I can get more comfortable with managing a dedicated web server/database server/mail server. What would be better equipped to do that than a SFF? And since Trina is out of town I can only assume that she is cool with me taking on this project. I ran back to the front of the store and grabbed a shopping cart. Just because the computer is a small form factor doesn't mean everything has to be small. I picked up a Shuttle P35 bare-bones system which includes a 400 watt power supply. I added to that an Intel quad core processor capable of being overclocked. I mean who hasn't dreamed of overclocking a server before? I added to that 4 GB of RAM (you can never have too much memory). I then added a couple of hard disks for storage. I bought a 320GB drive as the primary drive and 1TB for data. Hey if you are going to build a server you may as well go big. I picked up a second 1TB drive to replace the one I came in for in the first place (see I didn't completely forget why I was here). I also got a couple of DVD burners with Light Scribe technology; one for the server and one to replace the broken one at home. That one may be difficult to explain. I can't for the life of me think of a justification for having Light Scribe on a server but I'm sure I'll come up with something. Finally I needed a video card so I bought an Nvidia 9800GT card. It has awesome frame rates which I am sure will be useful in a server. Ok maybe not but it did sound cool. With a basket full of parts I made my way to the check stand and out to the car. Now all I needed was to get this thing built and slid out of the way before Trina got home. This is one of those things that it might take a while to try and explain. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1063 2008-06-28T23:12:37Z 2008-07-21T23:13:48Z

I should learn never to open my mouth. First it would mean a lot fewer nights spent sleeping on the couch. Second I would probably find myself in a lot fewer weird and unusual situations. In this particular context I...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com I should learn never to open my mouth. First it would mean a lot fewer nights spent sleeping on the couch. Second I would probably find myself in a lot fewer weird and unusual situations. In this particular context I would have had a much easier day and I wouldn't be in nearly as much pain. A few days ago I noted that Trina and Whitney had left town leaving Tiffany, Dakota, and me at home to fend for ourselves. I also noted that part of the challenge that I had was to find something for Dakota to do so that he was not so bored. Yeah, that was a really bad thing to say. No sooner had I written that then the entire universe started to crumble around me. Ok, maybe not the whole universe, just that little piece that Trina left me in charge of during her absence. The problems began last night as we were leaving the house to go and see the movie Wall-e. The kids had gone out the door and were standing on the front porch. I reached over to the light switch to turn on the outdoor lights so we would not return to a dark house. I hit the switch just expecting the light to turn on. Instead there was a loud pop above the kids head and they ran to the front lawn not knowing whether they were about to be engulfed in sparks, flames, or a shower of glass. I was still in the house and was likewise freaked out as sparks flew out of what used to be a working switch. I swear it worked when Trina was home. There in the afterglow and among the aroma of ozone I realized that I now had something to do for Dakota and me. We were going to be entering the exciting world of electrical repair. I went to the breaker panel and turned off the breaker until we could get to this problem the next day. We came home to a darkened house after the movie. Only part of the house was without power (thank heavens for circuit breakers). The kids headed to bed and I decided to do a little computer work. I went to the roll-top desk and flipped the computer switch. Instead of a slight beep and the sounds of a hard disk spinning up I was greeted by the screeching of an undead banshee. The kids came rushing out of their rooms to see what I had just killed. I immediately pulled the plug to the computer. This was a sound that you rarely forget and I knew I had just lost a hard drive. Since I have 2 hard disks I opened the case and unplugged the drive. I restarted the computer to see what other damage I might find. After a thorough test I found that the DVD burner was also not working correctly. So let's recap, in the course of one evening I was now on task for replacing a bank of light switches in the living room, a hard disk and optical drive in the computer, and a set of knobs for the kitchen cabinets. This was not turning out to be a good day. I decided rather than incur any more damage I would just go to bed. I turned off all the lights and avoided anything else that might have a switch associated with it. I was obviously switch-challenged today and the fewer I came in contact with the better I would be. This of course was not without incident as I was completely in the dark trying to navigate my way upstairs to the bedroom. I think I must have found every Hot Wheels car and Lego block that Dakota owns with my bare feet. I should probably add first aid and finding a band-aid to my list of things to do. It's no wonder Trina hesitates leaving me home alone. I should come with my own warning sticker. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1062 2008-06-28T05:01:59Z 2008-06-28T07:02:55Z

With Trina and Whitney out of town that leaves me home with Tiffany and Dakota. Tiffany is now working full time so rarely do we even see her with work and then going out with her friends. That leaves me...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com With Trina and Whitney out of town that leaves me home with Tiffany and Dakota. Tiffany is now working full time so rarely do we even see her with work and then going out with her friends. That leaves me and Dakota at home. There is nothing quite like having an eleven year-old boy around to make you realize how old you really are. That kid has nothing but energy. The depth of that energy is diametrically opposed to the shallowness of his attention span. Approximately every 5 minutes he has to tell me how bored he is and how there isn't anything to do. That wouldn't be so bad but I am really trying to get some work done and the last thing I need is to stop and try and find something for him to do. And it's not like just anything will relieve the boredom. Oh no it has to be highly entertaining. There is no way I could possibly suggest that perhaps he could clean his room or possibly empty the dishwasher. No chores are definitely not on the list of fun things to do. As a result he is practically driving me crazy. So tonight I decided we all needed a break. Today marks the opening of Walt Disney and Pixar's new film Wall-E. I'll admit we are definitely a Disney style of family; especially the theme parks and the movies. Since going to Disneyland or Walt Disney World was not in the cards or the budget we had to settle for a movie. Don't tell anyone but I have been eagerly awaiting this movie to be released. I had heard several people say that the artists and writers at Pixar felt that this movie was the best of all they had come up with. Given their track record that is very high praise. Beginning the moment that he woke up Dakota began pestering me as to when we were going to go and get the movie tickets. He and Tiffany had already determined that we were going to the 7:30 PM showing and Dakota wanted to make sure that we had the tickets. I had already anticipated this was going to happen so before Dakota got up I had gone online and purchased the tickets in advance. All we had to do was pick them up at guest relations when we arrived at the theater. I thought this would pacify Dakota but no. He paced the floor checking the clock about every 10 minutes until it was time to leave. When we arrived we made our way into the theater arriving a full half-hour before the scheduled start time. The place was already packed and we ended up sitting at the very top in a corner if the three of us wanted to sit together. Obviously I was not the only parent that was trying to defeat summer boredom with their kids. I thought the movie was very good but both Tiffany and Dakota felt as though it was not as good as some of Pixar's earlier films. They came to the theater expecting to see something like Toy Story set in space. This was more like the short films that Pixar makes. The story revolves around two robots who have very limited dialog so the movie really makes you think to relate to the characters. That doesn't mean it's not good for kids, it just means that you are not faced with senseless mind-numbing comedy. There is enough sight gags and funny situations that kids of all ages will enjoy it but I think this film more than the others holds a lot of interest to adults in the audience. Personally I would take this over something like Monsters Inc or A Bugs Life. Cars is my all-time favorite Pixar film mostly due to the great characters. I was relieved to hear John Ratzenberger's voice part way through the film. I was worried that his streak might be broken but it remains intact. He has now had a part in every Pixar feature film they have developed. I would definitely give Wall-E a big "thumbs-up" as a must see. It's a great story and unbelievable animation. tag:jeffblogs.com,2008://3.1061 2008-06-26T20:40:32Z 2008-06-26T22:32:15Z

I sat down to begin composing this blog entry. The words just seemed to start to flow and I was feeling pretty good that this was going to be a great post. I had finished the first couple of paragraphs...

Jeff Summers http://www.jeffdsummers.com June 24th entry. No wonder it sounded so familiar. I thought that just meant that I was in the zone and focused. Now I realize that I am having a side effect from the medication they gave me for my bronchitis. I hate when that happens. Writing while on medications is definitely different than what normally happens when I write. Usually I can almost visualize the words on the paper and I feel as though I am just a scribe to some higher power that is guiding my words. While on meds I feel more like I am wandering around in a daze surrounded by fog. I'm definitely going to have to pay closer attention otherwise some of these posts are going to sound like Jethro Tull lyrics which I still believe he makes up as he is singing the songs.]]> bought a motorcycle. Boy, it's like this woman never forgets anything (except that I wear a size 44 when shopping for an authentic Arizona Diamondbacks tenth anniversary jersey). So this morning it should not have been too much of a surprise when I got a lecture from Trina that made me promise not to go too crazy while she was gone and to please not destroy the house. I swear, she has absolutely no confidence in me. Shortly after dropping Trina and Whitney off I came home and began getting ready for the day. I went into the kitchen and decided to make breakfast. I went to reach for the drawer handle to get a knife out and realized that the cabinets and drawers do not have handles. I brought Dakota into the kitchen so that he too could see my discovery. "Dad, those drawers and cabinets have never had handles." Are you kidding me? We've lived in this house for 14 years and I'm just now realizing that there are no handles on the cabinets. Well we need to fix that. For the next several days I will be doing my best to solve the case of the missing cabinet drawer handle. Trina is going to be so surprised to find out that we have been missing cabinet door handles. Why don't people tell me these things? ]]>