Thank you, XKCD, for codifying how I help people use their computer programs.

Everyone else, please take note.

Posted at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)

Yes, I do plan on seeing District 9. But in the meantime...

Nerds rejoice! The trailer for Avatar is now online.

Posted at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

Settling in at the new office. There's new challenges and new stuff and new perks. It feels good.

I've been kind of introspective lately, mostly about Sci-Fi. Ever since Battlestar Galactica ended, I've been jonesing for more Sci-Fi. I've thought about downloading some Farscape, a series which I briefly had an affinity for, but did not follow closely.

I've also been watching The Next Generation reruns a lot on Space. It's always bittersweet, because I'm remembering what an excellent show it was. TNG was on when I was a teen, but watching it as an adult, it seems even better.

Just now I turned on Spike to catch the ending of Return of the Jedi, and couldn't help feeling bitter about how Lucas handled the sequels. It's sad to feel like the best days of Sci-Fi are behind us. Even with all its socio-political complexities, BSG couldn't hold a candle to a show like TNG.

Hopefully when Mad Men comes back this weekend, I'll be sustained for a while.

Posted at 09:04 PM | Comments (2)

Yes: I AM alive. And the site is alive too.

The past week was an amazingly stressful ordeal. Organizing all the moving details for the business was a lot of work, as was keeping tabs on our regular work, all of which we were doing minus one employee. This Saturday completed my very first seven-day work week.

Bell flaked our on their installation date for our telephone line, and so we had to move around our phone system person quite a bit. If there's one thing I've learned from this whole experience it's not to rely on third parties.

I had to completely pull apart our server enclosure at the old office so that it could be transferred to the new office. I got basic functionality running at 9PM that evening and came in the next day, Saturday, to restore everything to its rightful working order. There were a couple of minor quirks which I worked with Andrew over the phone to resolve.

You may have noticed one unfortunate side effect was that the relocation of my servers screwed up my DNS records. There should have been much less downtime, but I had a losing argument with my BIND config files that eventually resulted in me throwing up my hands deleting all my domains records so that I could re-enter them from scratch. That seems to have worked.

Things were still messy when I left, but all in all I'm very happy with the new office. Now that we've painted it, it looks lovely and has a slice of character. With our stuff in there it now looks like our space, which is good. The new office is going to be easier to work in, in more ways than one.

Despite all the business and the stress, this is all leaving me with a rewarding feeling of having helped build something with my own two hands. And now, I'm chillaxing with Jen H. in Pender Harbour. The sun is shining, the ocean is nearby, drinks are plentiful (we made that last one happen ourselves).

Hope you're all doing good and well-wishes to everyone.

Posted at 07:27 PM | Comments (1)