Archive for November, 2005

Thanksgiving 2005

Published by
Nif
at November 26, 2005 in Food and Drink. 0 Comments

This year David and I had a two Thanksgiving extravaganzas.

First, we headed to the apartment of my bosses son and daughter-in-law.  My boss had invited us over for a drink and we showed up towards the end of their dinner, much to my dismay.  Fortunately, no one really cared and we were set up with a glass of wine and a small plate of food which I treated as appetizers.  Just a little turkey and asparagus.  There was the usual family differences and even being an outsider it was easy to tell exactly what people though about each other.  It was kind of weird.

After two hours, which went amazing quickly for sort of crashing a dinner party, we took our leave and jumped in a very expensive cab to Brooklyn for the real dinner.

We walked up to the door rang the door bell and pushed the open to to enter into the  empty room.  "Steph?"  The table was set, there was food everywhere, but no people.  Surreal.  Then, fortunately Steph and company came up from the lower apartment and quelled our fears of being in the wrong house and the festivities began with a nice glass of Cava.

The rest of the night was a blur of cooking in Steph’s beautiful, new kitchen, eating, drinking and socializing.

Click here for pictures. or select the  "Thanksgiving 2005" photo album on the Sidebar.

Frustrations with Website

Published by
Nif
at November 26, 2005 in Information. 0 Comments

This is proving much more difficult than I’m used to.  It’s usually a little easier for me to figure out computer stuff, but this whole process often has me scratching my head.    I decided to transfer my domains to www.1and1.com  upon the recommendation of a friend and got the Home Package rather than the Business Package.  First, I was told that the domain wouldn’t transfer because it hadn’t been registered for 60 days yet with the previous registrar.  So, I had to figure out how to redirect it which was easy - just put in new DNS name servers for your hosting site.

Then, I downloaded the wrong MoveableType package and used the one my friend downloaded.  We installed it on the server and it wouldn’t configure.  After numerous trips to the Customer Service website and phone calls we determined that the ability to run Perl scripts was necessary and that the new and improved Home Package allowed this.

After two more rounds of email and two more phone calls (one of which I was on hold for 30min with no updates) they finally fixed the problem.  I never really got told what the issue was though and received an email saying that in order to run MoveableType I would have to install the files.  Hmmmm, the files had been installed for 4 days.  However, the amazingly uninformative emails from Customer Service no longer mattered.  The mt-check.cgi ran correctly now and I was able to continue.

So, after the check script I was supposed to initialize the database.  Check - that’s done.  Now for the moment I’d been waiting for since Tuesday (it was now Saturday) - the initial login.

Nothing.

I tried all possible login ids:  TypePad, TypeKey, a new TypeKey account with the same results - user name or password not valid.  Arrrgh.

Finally on Sunday (today) I was reading through the MT help forums and low and behold the answer appeared.  Every new installation of MT has the EXACT SAME user name and password which you need to immediately change to make your site less of a target.  Duh, Carl even mentioned this to me and in the daze of a glass of cider, red lentils and the James Bondathon on SpikeTV I forgot about it completely.  I didn’t even see it while perusing the installation instructions. 

Now another hurdle has been cleared and I can go forward…

Conference Calls

Published by
Nif
at November 17, 2005 in Geospatial. 0 Comments

So.  I never write about work because even though I love to complain about it I just don’t think it’s a good idea to advertise what may be perceived as my desire to not be paid.  Really, I want my job - it’s not that bad - in fact there are many great things about it.  Did I mention that I get paid? 

But I’m sitting here on a conference call for which the agenda was not sent until 12pm for a 3pm call.  As I don’t immediately open my email if I am working on a project or perhaps just not at my desk, I didn’t see the email until 10min before the call. 

Lo and behold, there was something on the list that was directly related to what I do and gee, I didn’t know about it, didn’t have time to discuss comments with my boss. Since I don’t have the authority to tell people what to do anyway, I considered just not talking on the call.  But I didn’t, I opened my big mouth.  It didn’t really matter-they will do what they want or what their bosses want regardless of what information may be presented and what they may or may not know.

What a depressing post, but this website ..the Overheard in the Office may provide a nice outlet for posting about work related things.  It’s indirect and everyone can enjoy.