Evergreen: post go live

The Evergreen check printing process went live during our OOD cutover without any issues. It took AP one “real” check run to come back with a list of items that they did not like. We have gone through several check runs, for testing and to submit to the bank for layout approval.

The first issue was minor. Not enough room for a second signature line no big deal.

Next was that the overflow print on check stock. This is standard functionality. No complaints have been made up to this point.

The next week, the envelope stuffing machine doesn’t work with the new checks.

Instead of just waiting for the list to trickle, quick meeting to gather all of the change requests. Only five major changes that were not considered essential when the project first started were given.

Change the signature line location (easy)
Change the overflows to pull from a separate tray (difficult)
Add separator lines for the envelope stuffing machine (same effort for separating overflows)
Add zip code postal bars
Separate the printing of the checks between checks needing a second signature (easy)

Time for the estimate, and wait for decisions on what is really essential.

E-mail lists and questions asked (a whole lot of not thinking going on)

I routinely sign up for e-mail lists. After a few months I determine that the list is a waste of time and then sign off. When I determine a list has become a waste of time I don’t immediately un-sub. I just stop reading it diligently. What kind of lists are these? Mostly Oracle ERP related lists OAUG is a good example, IT Toolbox is another, or something that piques my interest like: Perl, PostgreSQL, PHP. All of these organizations offer e-mail list communities in some form or another.

Why sign up for the lists? There are several reasons. First is to learn, I never know enough. Hopefully with the more I learn, the better prepared I’ll be at making decisions or giving input to someone who is making the decision. Second, e-mail lists tend to generate less noise, are more focused and tend to stay on topic. Third, if I’m totally new to something, hopefully the questions asked on the list will help me pick up the terminology that is used. The biggest stumbling block in finding things on the web is asking the right question.

Questions and answers makeup an e-mail list and gives it its character. I’ve noticed a few things over the years. There are normal flows and cycles in all of the groups. The programming centric groups have influxes at the beginning of the school year or semester. The Oracle ERP lists have cycles of after the school year and after new fiscal budget seasons start. One thing they all seem to share is a trend in the types and styles of questions being asked.

What are these question types or styles? Two types really bother me. The first is the streaming consciousness question. I don’t need the history of why you are here posting the question. The second is the direct inference or demand for an answer, because if you do not give an answer something bad will happen to the person asking the question. These 2 types of questions and the responses that they receive tend to clutter up the mail group.

The mail groups I listed above do require you to read something. You have to ask yourself. Are they reading or trying anything at all before posting a question? Reading comprehension doesn’t appear to be a strong point anymore. Or they might comprehend everything, but lack the critical thinking skills to get through their problem. Reading comprehension and critical thinking are topics I’ll go into more detail in another post.

XP and Fedora Core 6

Since I have to re-install XP and have recently installed Fedora Core 6. I thought it would be fun to compare. Back in ‘99 when I tried my first attempt of installing Linux it was a dismal failure. The biggest failure was due to Hardware recognition. Red Hat 7.0 then later Fedora core 3. Fedora Core 4 became my standard to use. The installs were not always easy, and updating the packages were difficult. The Red Hat rpm installer program was not very helpful and seemed to hang during the download phase a lot for me.

Fast forward to now with fedora core 6. It took about an hour to install off of the DVD install distro. Another 1.5 hours to upgrade 500MB of package updates. Painless, this was the least painful OS update that I’ve done. The only thing comparable is the old win 3.11 days. Then it took so long because of the slowness of the computers. My machines now are 100 times faster than my old 386sx. I’m also loading 1000 times more information than that old 3.11 install.

XP on the other hand…. I know it is SP1 so I will have to do more updates to bring current. It is going to take a lot of time just to get the OS back up to an acceptable level of patching. No jumping from point A to D. I’ll have to go through points B and C. Very painfull and time consuming. I hope I can get everything patched to a point where I can start to re-install everything. I won’t even bother installing all of my hardware back in until It’s patched back up.

So 2.5 hours to install Fedora core 6 and update all of the base packages that I installed. Your time may vary depending on your internet connection and what you have installed. Verses 2+ hours to patch up XP. My base install of fedora core 6 includes the open office suite. It will also take several hours to install and patch MS office 2000.

Another component bites the dust

Couple of weeks ago I was running the updates for WWII online. I hadn’t updated since the 1.25 update came out. The week before Christmas and the subsequent weeks with the OOD cut over have left me little time to play. My machine locks up and dies in the middle of applying the patches. Various attempts to reboot it proved ineffective. It would randomly die at points during the boot up. I finally got it running under safe mode without any issues.

Over the past 2 weeks when I have time at night I’ve been slowly dissecting the machine. First the soundcard, it’s always the soundcard that seems to cause things to go haywire. Not the sound card. Maybe it’s the nic. Not the nic. I know it’s not the vid card since it’s running fine through out all of this testing. Maybe it’s the CPU, CPU is fine. My wondrous Mersenne prime95 is running good. Actually, it is running quite a bit faster under safe mode. All of those drivers do take up CPU time. Well it must be one of the drivers, or devices embedded into the MB. It has to be either USB or Firewire that is causing the issue. The nic part died almost 2 years ago and I’ve been using a nic card ever since.

Trying to reinstall XP gets me the blue screen of death. The hardware probe must be hitting something that has gone bad on the MB. The best thing about those Fry’s specials, you know the one’s with the CPU and MB combo. The MB they offer is a basic, get you by MB. I’ve wondered why I keep them around. Now I can say, for just such an emergency. I can’t blame WWII online for this. It just happens to be timing. One of the guys I play with had a similar experience a few years back, total HD failure. Just had to be the timing not the playing if the game. I guess the more time you spend playing a game, the higher the odds of it crapping out on you during said playing.

Another dismantled computer later. I still have my new Linux machine that I built Friday sitting on moving boxes. Moving boxes stacked 3 high make great work platforms. It makes it really easy to switch out components. Another dismantled computer later, I’m now installing XP back onto a new, rebuilt machine. I have XP professional SP1. So I have to do a base install, and leave out the big HD since SP1 does not recognize HD larger than 132MB. I can tell this is going to take hours.

So, what have I learned? 1. Keep your crappy fry’s MB, you may need it one day. 2. Moving boxes make great work platforms. Note: do not empty your moving boxes.

New Year New Projects

Now that I’ve gotten through our OOD, I can now start on my personal projects at home. I guess during the move or sometime after the CPU fan on the machine that I had hosting an Oracle Apps 11.5.10 envrionment froze up. Dead CPU. I’ve been waiting a few months to get through this busy season at work before replacing parts. 478 socket stuff is getting hard to find. Fry’s doesn’t carry anthing any more. CPU fans, CPU’s. E-bay has them, after watching prices for a month. They don’t seem to be dropping.

I bought cpu this week on e-bay. P4 1MB 3.0Ghz 478 . For a fair price. Since I’m not going to re-install the apps. I might be able to break out a couple of machines from this one.

I have an extra P4 2MB 3.0 Ghz 775 chip. Got it for 50 bucks so it will be worth getting a MB and a cheap vid card. The MB needs to be DDR compatible. My memory is PC3200 stuff. I might just use it as the new DB server.

ThunderCube

ThunderCube by ITtoolbox Blogs


This is a blog that I ocassionally read. The funny part is in an update post comment. "2 geeks enter, 1 geek leaves"

My department has developed a new conflict resolution policy. The problem arose out of the inability to call BS on anyone: whenever something failed,...Read More...

2007???

Finally the year is over; this past holiday season wasn’t much of a holiday. Switching our ERP to a new environment wasn’t fun. Long hours during the holiday, going through year end, issues, issues, issues. Now it’s time to look at the New Year, and start making those resolutions. It’s never too late for making resolutions