Well it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything on the ol’ blog here.  So I figured I’d post some stuff to get some people up to date . . . the 8 of you who actually read this blog and know me (the other 327 of you . . . what are you doing here ?).

 

I’d like to once again say that I’m using Twitter a lot now, which keeps peeps up to date on most of my random thoughts and links to things during the day.  It’s much easier then doing an entire blog post, so I’ve been doing that a lot more now a days.  I use a desktop application called TWHIRL (it’s free), but there are a lot of other ones you can download.  Or you can just update your feed from the actual Twitter site . . . but I like twhirl much batter because it gives you little notifications when you get a new message and you just have to un-minimize it to see it.  My Twitter name is DXEndar.  If you see a picture of the dog, you’ve found me.

 

Tomorrow is my 30^th birthday.  It’s very strange to think about being 30 . . . because somewhere in the back of my mind, I never though I’d make it to 30 I guess.  Do I get papers in the mail saying now I have to act like the other adults ?  I’m not so much concerned about being ‘old’ as I am just with the fact that . . . I dunno . . . I suppose I figured I’d feel more ‘grown up’ by the time I got to 30.  Suit, tie, cubical, daily grind and the like.  Shouldn’t I feel different, see things differently now then when I was 22 ?  Not that I think entirely the same way . . . I’ve grown as a person from then time I was 22 . . .but . . . I dunno, I suppose I’ll just have to wake up tomorrow, feel not at all different then today, and deal with it later on. 

 

I’ve been doing a lot more video editing and server maintenance this past month or so then ever before.  That’s part of the reason for no blog posts.  It’s not that I don’t have anything to say, it’s just that I’m having to manage my time so carefully now . . . and when I do have a few free moments my laptop is usually rendering a video or something and I end up getting ready to work on the next thing as soon as it’s done.  Though I have been going home on time rather then staying late most days (with the exception of the week the database server failed). 

 

I’m beginning to feel the limitations of Vegas as a video editor.  It’s great if you want to do some text over video or stills, even has a few interesting plug-in FX.  But there are so many things that I come up with in my head and then realize that I’d have to edit frame by frame to get it to work . . . that I usually end up dumbing it down a bit visually.  I’m trying to make things more visually interesting in the videos that I do (thanks to Jacob Coy for a great link to an article on the most important rules of visual marketing, HERE if you fancy a look).  But, mostly due to having to prioritize my time, they end up visually boring . . . or just visually eclectic . . . or just not as good as they should be. 

 

Here is an example of the video we’ve started playing in Youth Service as we begin service to remind people of the rules of Last Defense (HERE).  And HERE is an example of the announcement video (where I DO use some pictures). 

 

I think in the announcement video there too much going on at once.  The info flashing up on the screen, the pictures flying in . . . I think there needs to be a better flow of what you look at instead of having peoples eyes move from top to bottom to top again.  But slowly they are getting better.  I just wish I could do some 3D FX with Vegas.  We just bought the full up version of Vegas less then a year ago, so there’s no getting any extra money to get something from the Adobe sweet.  I just wish they had some extra downloadable pluggins for Vegas.  Oh well.  They work for now.

 

The main server (DNS, Global Catalogue, FSMO roles, and Database Server) has been dying for some time now.  It started to have death throws a couple of weeks ago . . . so I hurried the process of moving all the roles (and database) to other servers (we have two others).  So now one server actually manages the network itself, and another is just the database server.  Setting up the database itself took several days and several calls to tech support.  That’s when I finally realized that our firewall is changing something about some of our files that we download from the internet.  When I went to install the downloaded updated version of the database, I kept getting Cyclic Redundancy Check errors.  So I finally plugged strait into the modem itself and BAM ! . . . it downloaded and installed like a charm.  A little bit of back up and restore, and a few minor glitches later and all is working well. 

 

Today also saw the solution to a network mystery that has plagued me for quite some time now (like 9 months or a year).  Without going into too much boring detail, I was having trouble with client computers getting the correct information about the network when they signed on.  FINALLY, with the help of my father, we were able find a rogue DHCP server running on the firewall.  It wasn’t listed in the WebMin interface as a service that was running (which is why we didn’t find it any earlier then this) but we found a process running on the firewall called ‘DHCP3 –server’ which gave us a clue that it was actually running in the background.  It was killed, prevented from starting up again, and the clients on the network all seamed much happier for it ! 

 

Well I have more to update, but it’s time for me to set up the video for Womens Bible Study and then go home and kill things . . . in a video game. 

 

Did I mention that in about 6 hours I’ll be 30 years old ?

  

4 comments