I was moving some servers into a new APC NetShelter rack the other day, and the first thing I tried to install was an APC 2U 3000VA rackmount UPS. The NetShelter is a square hole rack that comes with rack nuts and screws/bolts to match. The UPS rails have holes in them for these bolts… […]
If you’ve ever had to move a bunch of public facing servers from one IP address subnet to another, you know there is a period of down time while your DNS records update around the world. That down time, as everyone familiar with DNS services knows, is usually between 4-48 hours, depending on TTL values […]
I have two cars; a VW GTI 1.8T turbo powered mad machine which can get 35 MPG if I drive like grandma, and my Honda Insight which can get 100MPG if I draft behind a semi truck from driveway to parking space and back again. I caught this shaky image on my way to work […]
Over the years, I’ve come to inherit and keep watch over several server rooms for various companies around the Pacific Northwest. The recent heatwave got me thinking a lot about AC system design as it relates to server rooms. As is typical for small to medium sized companies, these server rooms have anywhere from 1 […]
Yes you idiot, there are spoilers. It’s a very good movie that, in the end, only fans the flames of my evil genius side… you know, that “poison the well”, “launch all nuclear weapons”, “end all humanity” kind of evil genius. Even though they barely touched on it, I like how the aliens are basically […]
Even though I’m transitioning away from Dell PowerEdge servers in favor of HP ProLiant boxes, with their fancy integrated iLO adapters and such, I still find I need to manage a Dell box from time to time. Sometimes, like when I use a Dell NAS 745N box that comes with Windows Storage Server 2003 as […]
Ok, so the title is a (bad) play on Soylent Green. So what? Today I learned something interesting. If you need to do any RFID testing or research on liquid interference typical of meat or people, brown sugar is a great analogue. An unopened bag has interference properties very similar to that of humans, or […]
With all the record breaking hot weather recently in the Seattle area (up to 109F!), I’ve had to reassess the cooling systems in some of the various server rooms and data closets I’m in charge of. Like many admins, I happened to take over responsibility for most of these server rooms at some point after […]
This is something that I should have posted a long time ago. Sadly though, with things like PowerShell out now, old school batch files are quickly becoming extinct, even for hardened batchers like myself. However I still find myself using batch files of some sort from time to time, and often times I need to […]
A few months ago I had a little rant about validation, and how developers had to be more thoughtful and less presumptuous. Lately I’ve had another data validation issue crop up that is even more annoying. My credit card expired recently and as usual the bank sent a new card out. I thought it was […]
