I realized that I forgot a couple segments from my last post. Probably the most significant one was that the server in our office went down just before I left on vacation. I am not, technically, our IT person. However, I do have a long history of fixing stuff that is IT related and we have a service contract with Dell for IT support. Hence, armed with a couple of cell phones and a sense of adventure, I worked with Dell to determine that at least one of the server's hard drives was bad and got it replaced and then determined that the remaining hard drive was corrupted and I needed to destroy and rebuild the entire array.
In theory, this should have gone more-or-less smoothly, as we had a complete backup tape that had gone off the night before. We backup every night and the backup was good and the tapes were brand new. So, I had a lot of positives in my favor. Plus, we have high level technical support at Dell. As such, you only work with the folks in the U.S. that speak English and really know a lot of stuff. I had a huge negative, however, Windows 2003 Small Business Server, which ended up being a thorn in my side and kept me in the office from 8AM Wednesday until 6:30AM, the next morning (Thursday). (This was the Thursday before I flew out to Costa Rica, and I still had not packed.) Who needs sleep, right? Apparently, I did. Because I distinctly remember going home and leaving a message for the person I knew would come in first that morning - not very long after I left, actually - to call out IT guy, with a detailed description of what I had attempted. I also had Dell notate the case file.
The heart of the problem was that Windows was not restoring correctly and nothing we tried seemed to be working. I kept having to start from scratch each time, and that usually took about another 40 minutes or so, to get to the point where I could try to restore again and then that part took about an hour. All of this led to some interesting comments and Tweets in the middle of the night that night. So, for any of those people that received comments from me at around 3 or 4AM that night/morning, thanks for writing - you gave me something to read.
While this was going on, I was still on decongestants and antibiotics for whatever odd sinus thing that had infected my body right before my trip. I am guessing lack of sleep was not the best course of treatment for all of this, but.... I did refuse to go to work for the remainder of Thursday and left the rest of it up to our IT guy. I felt a little vindicated that it took him a long time to fix it, as well. He spent all of Thursday in our office and when I cam in Friday morning, it still was not completely working. In fact, he ended up having to take it back to his office and work on it there. While I was in Costa Rica, however, I received an email to let me know that the server finally came back up.
I am still not fully convinced that the server is operating at 100%, but it is definitely functioning. I have us calendared to buy a new server in the first half of next year. Heck, for the amount that we ended up having to pay the IT guy, we probably could have just bought a new server.
Given my ability to become completely consumed with IT, it has been suggested that I consider taking a class or two in it. So, I am considering it. That and Spanish. I am horrible at foreign languages, but I feel like in South Florida, I have a better chance of being able to practice it and use it on a more frequent basis, and I think it would help me in my future travels.
In theory, this should have gone more-or-less smoothly, as we had a complete backup tape that had gone off the night before. We backup every night and the backup was good and the tapes were brand new. So, I had a lot of positives in my favor. Plus, we have high level technical support at Dell. As such, you only work with the folks in the U.S. that speak English and really know a lot of stuff. I had a huge negative, however, Windows 2003 Small Business Server, which ended up being a thorn in my side and kept me in the office from 8AM Wednesday until 6:30AM, the next morning (Thursday). (This was the Thursday before I flew out to Costa Rica, and I still had not packed.) Who needs sleep, right? Apparently, I did. Because I distinctly remember going home and leaving a message for the person I knew would come in first that morning - not very long after I left, actually - to call out IT guy, with a detailed description of what I had attempted. I also had Dell notate the case file.
The heart of the problem was that Windows was not restoring correctly and nothing we tried seemed to be working. I kept having to start from scratch each time, and that usually took about another 40 minutes or so, to get to the point where I could try to restore again and then that part took about an hour. All of this led to some interesting comments and Tweets in the middle of the night that night. So, for any of those people that received comments from me at around 3 or 4AM that night/morning, thanks for writing - you gave me something to read.
While this was going on, I was still on decongestants and antibiotics for whatever odd sinus thing that had infected my body right before my trip. I am guessing lack of sleep was not the best course of treatment for all of this, but.... I did refuse to go to work for the remainder of Thursday and left the rest of it up to our IT guy. I felt a little vindicated that it took him a long time to fix it, as well. He spent all of Thursday in our office and when I cam in Friday morning, it still was not completely working. In fact, he ended up having to take it back to his office and work on it there. While I was in Costa Rica, however, I received an email to let me know that the server finally came back up.
I am still not fully convinced that the server is operating at 100%, but it is definitely functioning. I have us calendared to buy a new server in the first half of next year. Heck, for the amount that we ended up having to pay the IT guy, we probably could have just bought a new server.
Given my ability to become completely consumed with IT, it has been suggested that I consider taking a class or two in it. So, I am considering it. That and Spanish. I am horrible at foreign languages, but I feel like in South Florida, I have a better chance of being able to practice it and use it on a more frequent basis, and I think it would help me in my future travels.
1 comments:
my head would have melted
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