I’m sure that by the time you finish reading this (granted: you DO finish) you’ll be asking me how I considered this to be a starting point for my blog. Please believe me when I say that I don’t. It’s been harsh these past few months, but if you read between the lines of this post you will understand. It takes a little time.

So one thing I’ve noticed at my place of employment is how many times the words “reboot”, “restart,” and “reset” are used. I can understand this when it comes to PC’s, phone, and even the occasional printer or two. However, conversations like these tend to show up:

Me: So what happened?
Them: It seems the IVM service was not running. It just froze up completely.
Me: What did you end up doing?
Them: Restarting it. Didn’t work too well. It cause whatever task that was running to completely fail. We may have to soft-watch. (Note: Soft-watch is our term for “possible visit, typically an overnight stay”)
Me: Any idea what caused it to fail?
Them: Not really, but I think… insert inept mumbling from here, until… so they just unplugged it and plugged it back in.
Me: Right…

So after all that, a “simple reset” took care of the task? Give me a break! Really, if resetting the whole universe were the solution to everything, don’t you think people would have tried it by now? Now I know I have my fair share of restarts, but it’s typically after a user wanted something updated, installed, whatever. Where did the days of uptime go? It’s like the number of hours spent performing updates and the such has dramatically increased for absolutely no reason. Even our servers, which are heavily relied on during the hours of 7am to 6pm, can sometimes be restarted in the middle of the day.

I’m putting some of the blame on the heavy reliance of Windows. Out of all the servers we have (both physical and virtual for a total of 32), only 6 utilize something other than Windows. Eh, go figure.

More to come as I “reboot” myself this weekend…

Have you downloaded Firefox 3 yet?

I have, and so far I am enjoying it. Soon enough it may be “goodbye Internet Explorer!”

Just in case you weren’t in the loop, today is the official Firefox 3 Download Day.

Today, Mozilla, the creators of the well-known and loved browser Firefox are scheduled to debut the latest release of the project. Firefox version 3 is set to include over 15,000 new features and improvements compared to version 2. Firefox is currently the #2 most used browser in the desktop market, with number 1 being Internet Explorer. Todays goal is not only to break the record of the most downloads in a 24-hour period but to also spread the use of the widely popular browser to more desktops than ever before with an attempt to surpass that of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Hey, anything’s possible…

I installed the last public beta only days ago… I can’t believe I waited so long! Even if they don’t manage to surpass the Guiness World Record I can guarantee that this version of Firefox will make a huge impact on the web browsing experience for everyone.

If you’d like to support the cause, check out the page over at SpreadFirefox

“Oh no, not another game from these guys at iminlikewithyou!”

“STFU!”

Gemmers is another divine intervention straight from the minds of iminlikewithyou, featuring… uh… gems!

The object is to match 3 or more of the same colored gems.  Clicking on that match removes them.  Of course, between the speed of the rising lines of gems, and the fury of weapons you can use at your disposal it could put games like Tetris Attack to rest.

(Put my game back, fool!)

Unfortunately, Gemmers is still in beta so don’t go crying to mommy when the game crashes right when you were about to win.

Oh yeah, like all others… there’s stats!  See you there.