cdcstudios.com | portfolio v7.1

I order anything from UPS and it gets mangled. 6 months ago I ordered a 1u rackmount server and got a repack box (due to too much damage they put it in a new box) that had a 4″ diameter hole in it. Also the server was smiling it was bent so badly.

Last week I ordered a 22″ viewsonic from my midwestern campadre Nick Singley with PC Mall (best sales, vendor guy ever!) and got it today with a hole in the side of the box and styrofoam hanging out (see below for a pic). I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt and try it out but if there is one single solitary dead pixel I’m getting a replacement.

In other news, the pesky database bug has reared it’s head again here meaning I’m likely going to be changing hosts or servers with the host. This hardware seems unstable lately.

Anyhow I’m going to get back to fixing workstations, servers and doing my best to spread the word(s) (literally) of a presenter @ Ignite Portland (I think it was Kelly Guimont) who said “but is it wrapped in bacon good”.

So I’ve hit a point where I’m happy with the background for the site. It’s about as close to what was in my head as I could get given the amount of spare design time I’m allowed at home (word to the wise: babies (especially those that can walk/run/climb) do not let daddies work on their computers).

I’ve still got a bunch more work to do (cleaning up the widgets, tweaking here and there, bringing the iphone theme to be more in line with the main theme (based upon n-design studio’s excellent iTheme) and putting the big ass links list I had back up. I’d thought there was a plugin to help manage large link lists but I seem to have lost the link (alliteration much?). Anyhow enjoy the new site and now that I can more easily update the themes I cando things like release more plugins and new wallpapers.
In other news, just a few days till Ignite Portland hits and I’m quite excited to hear all of the presenters, plus hopefully meet more awesome folks to talk tech with.

In totally unrelated news I’m currently turning into an Obama fan, partially because the cynical part of me is intrigued and partially because Randall Munroe of xkcd fame is endorsing him and Randall is the awesome.

Now I’m off to enjoy my xbox 360 and play some Burnout :)

I was just featured on Portland On Fire! For those not in the know, Portland on Fire is a site started January 1st that each day showcases a quick profile of a Portlander. Totally free and refreshingly open. There’s quite a few awesome people on there already (especially me…erm yeah). Anyhow if you’re a Portlander you should head over and register to participate.

The man behind the site is Raven Zachary, who I just met at my first ever barcamp meetup. I’d always meant to get “into” the whole being proactive about how I feel about technology and the entire FOSS movement but never had the right mix of desire to do so and actual availability. Overall I’m totally thrilled I got to go and am really looking forward to far more interaction with the Portland Techie community. This city is so friendly and culturally diverse and the tech community here is phenomenal so it’s an amazing mix to me.

In other news you may have noticed that the site is back to looking like it did. Well this is hopefully only temporary since I just noticed all of my plugin posts have gone poof (those will be coming back shortly) due to a database issue. I’m also experiencing a few problems with a rogue htaccess script setting a few pages to show directory structure (not that I can actually find the damn htaccess. I wiped all of them by hand which makes me think the issue lies with something on the server. If only there was a resultant set of htaccess policies tool I could use.

Well I’ll get going now but this has been a great week and will hopefully keep going to make a great year :D

Oh one last thing my son is apparently a Sithlord. Don’t believe me? Here’s proof:

So I’m going to start this off quite simply and succinctly. I am so enamored with OSX Server and the Apple Remote Desktop tool that returning to a Windows based network literally makes me want to cry. This is the greatest server setup I’ve ever dealt with. It’s amazing, simple, stable and all around just great. Other than that I’m dealing with the typical getting systems updated and correctly configured.
Right now I’m in planning stages to overhaul the account management and equipment management policies. So far it’s going swimmingly and I hope it contiues to go as smoothly.

Overall after the first week I’m totally thrilled about the place. My boss is great, my Corp. IT Director is great, my tech Mike is awesome and everyone else I work with seem excited to see what I can do about cleaning up the network and making it a faster, more reliable stable one.

In other news, still looking for a house down there and so to minimize the costs of a car rental and wear and tear on my friendships with Jason and Angela I’m going to relocate temporarily to a extended stay hotel until I find a house (I figure this will also motivate me that much more to find a place quickly since hotels are spendy :D

I’ll try and get a more verbose posting up with a daily rundown but that might end up moving to it’s own blog at dreamflicks.com

Lates.