Tsky Blog

The joys of Middle Management

2009-06-29 (23:36:50)
All the responsibility, none of the power.. that's the name of the game. It's always nice to know you're going to be kicked from the bottom and the top of the pile for things that are not your job to be kicked over. At least it's fun to pull a "Plague"-esque line of "THANK YOU!" when you're getting shouted at. (Watch Hackers if you don't know what I mean).
So today I have had a very proud moment amidst the dross of people shouting and complaining at me (for deciding I'm doing something they don't like / will make them have to do their job / actually WORK for a living / because they don't actually read what is listed as summer work and make it up in their heads). Aliz got a 2:1 degree after four years of hard work and dedication. Proud, Proud, PROUD g33k am I that Aliz put his hand to work and showed everyone that he is not only a person who overcomes his past but he is also a person who is exceptionally bright and gifted. I'm so glad I kicked his ass back in 2001 for hacking my network and set him on the path of educational enlightenment! Well done you l33t d00d.
Summer is rapidly approaching and the work list is growing still. Not entirely sure we're going to manage it all in the timeframe we have - as long as they don't decide they're not paying the site managers more than 4 hours a day we'll be ok. If they start pulling that line again, it'll be October before the network is back online.
Note to self: purchase sixteen pallets of red bull for the IT team over the summer out of departmental funds.
2 responses [ view now ]

Go Go Glasto!

2009-06-26 (21:26:22)
Glastonbury again... yay! This should help me to pick myself back up after a week of dross again in the job. I actually got told off for.. wait for it... things WORKING today. Very bizarre episode involving boss saying things weren't working and *I* made him look like an idiot not having technical support.. yet.. speaking to all other staff to figure out what went wrong.. NOTHING DID!?!?!?!
Let's file that one under the heading [strange stuff I've been blamed for].
You ever wonder what it would be like to be one of those idiots who didn't actually do their job, care about systems, wasted budgets and let the place burn a hole in the ground? Seems if you care, are conciencious, try your hardest and be supportive you just can't win.
Anyhow, not to dwell on the dark things.. it's almost time for the Ting Tings live, I've got a beer in the hand and a laptop in the other waiting for my VPS to be provisioned with the CORRECT version of linux so I can rebuild the client databases (why oh why is it so difficult?!).
Just found a load of old digital recordings of songs I did about five years ago, very rough things that were test tracks - need to try and rewrite them.
Not liking the fact my Win7 kit might start rebooting every two hours unless I shell out the hundred quid for the licence - hmm time to reinstall linux I think! ;)
0 responses [ view now ]

Regaining sanity

2009-06-19 (22:53:13)
It's been a long week, a hard week and one that marks a clean start to a lot of things. The old gray matter has just about completed it's reboot cycle and has run a system sweep and defrag and I appear to be running on the correct clock cycles now. Normal service will resume just as soon as an AV scan runs with the latest virus definitions...
Tsky BASIC 640Pb Free
Ready.>
So, yeah, the server STILL hasn't been provisioned again (starting to get a little peeved) though I have been credited with time in lieu for the downtime. I just want to get my services back online dangnamit! I really like this company, but this recent episode has shaken my confidence in them, so imagine what that is doing to my clients. Rewriting failover code into my latest release in the event of similar failure of a node in the future.
Tried the new Promethian Active vote system thing today and was actually (_gasp_) impressed by it. Of course the price tag is the usual liver, kidney and left leg syndrome but the product does actually contain a lot of really cool new features. Shame the SMT don't see it as useful, you can't please all the people all the time.
So on to other items of the agenda - mail systems, cache and proxy, firewalling and VLE.
So, yeah, the VLE training starts next week. Monday next week. With me running the sessions. Guess I should brush up on Moodle a little bit more before then ahead of the usual plethora of exotic and uninteresting questions related to how to do x, y and z. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind running training sessions - I just haven't had much chance to sort through the latest version of Moodle and figure out all the bells and whistles yet with everything that's been going on recently.
Still really loving the Windows 7 experience so far. Really like the XP Lite experience too on the old P3 500 Dell laptop I've started using for coding while on the move (it's extremely skinny and light).
I am thinking about taking my bike test more and more, given the current costs of fuel and the amount of equipment I actually need to carry to and from work. Keep looking at cheap dragster style bikes in the 125 bracket - maybe I'll finally get around to that in the next 12 months.
I think I need a DVD / Pizza / Coffee coding session soon - it's been too long and I've a paper pad full of notes and ideas that need to be brought to life.
1 responses [ view now ]

Build it and they will come mkay....

2009-06-16 (17:28:25)
In the continuing saga of virtual private server death I am still awaiting provision of the new box (as are several thousand other companies and individuals) after the realisation that there was no way they were going to recover the data from the old box after it was issued the delete command through the management interface. Oh fudgeknuckles and bellgrinders! There goes an evening for me reinserting some of the latest data I hadn't taken a backup of. *sigh*
Anyhow, it's just something that has to happen and there's no getting around it. It's just as well my SLA covers such items I suppose, but it really annoys me that without spending a fortune on multi-homed boxes and redundant architecture this will always be inevitable.
On to better things - started looking at rebuilding bits and pieces of open source software I shelved a while ago. Nothing spectacularly complicated, just something to force my brain to start working again with. It seems that I need a little additional work to overclock my brain and get everything started up again after the recent meltdown and subsequent emotional mess. I'm drawn back to the Muppets for inspiration and life-focusing. Maybe that's not such a good idea, but they've always been good to me so - hey - I'm not going to argue with the logic of Gonzo and Pepe.
I'd love to have a million pounds in my bank right now to figure out what on earth I want to do with my career and suchlike, but it's lamentably not going to happen anytime soonish, so until then - time to get the coding fingers out, don the hat of thought, the mug of inspiration and the soundtrack of rawwwwk.
Fire up the linux server, I'm coming home.
1 responses [ view now ]

A week of learning and chaos

2009-06-12 (13:31:18)
After a week of utter chaos with virtual private servers and data loss I'm still trying to pull everything together properly and get systems back online. It's at this point in time I wish I'd implemented the multi-homed data-centric services I had originally planned but didn't have the time/funds for! Ah well, such is the way of the world.
Discovered the joys of Wordle and it's word mapping facility which is now being constructed for a custom Tshirt.
Really need to get a little more sleep and maybe start to catch up on all the odds and ends that are racking up on my desk. Need pizza. Need Coffee. Need help. *Sigh*
1 responses [ view now ]