The Construction Foreman is on duty!
This is the only panel that is really done. We tacked up the others panels shown below temporarily just to see what it will look like AND to keep Lexxy from running straight through the front into the street without thinking. Damn dog is worse than my kid.
I think I counted at least 5 huge and cool buildings belonging to Yahoo...didn't have time to stop to really get some shots of the place.
One might say that there is big bucks in virus protection...here's McAffee burning the midnight candles
ok so it wasn't after midnight
This last one is a blimp hanger at Moffet Field they want to tear down...many of us hope they don't. I remember it as a little boy. I was really close to it once for an airshow. Saw the Blue Angels for the first time.
Philanthropist Betty Casey won the Harry Reid "phony soldiers" smear letter with a $2,100,100 donation to the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation (MC-LEF.org). Rush matched that donation with $2,100,100 of his own money. The Democrats donated $0 to the children of our fallen heroes.
Spent all morning building a new server. What a pain. All I want to do is use it for a file server. The GUI that normally loads with the workstation builds is not present in the server build. So I had to figure out how to do that among several other things. Next I need to figure out how to get a shared folder both visible and accessible on my XP machine and on the Ubuntu Server. Linux is not my fortay. I do have some UNIX experience with a shell account but it was too many years ago to count.
More to learn about Samba!
Samba was the only Server software I actually installed. I didn't think I would ever use any of the LAMP stuff but I can always install it later if I change my plans.
I still had a few minutes leftover to cut off the plastic fence panels in one direction. They are all the same height as I need for the fence now. Each one has to have both ends cut off so they fit in between my fence posts evenly. unfortunately the posts aren't totally evenly spaced...just close visually.
Got a call from my supervisor yesterday regarding a printer call I ran in La Honda the other day. From what I understand, I am the first technician in the company every to achieve this distinction. Here is an extract from the email to my supervisor and to the mucky mucks at my company from our company rep located within the Dell Escallations Dept.
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I don't think you'll mind dealing with this one! Great job by Michael, he went well above and beyond what was necessary, and Dell has recognized him!
This is just a compliment for a technician. His name is Michael Welch and his employee ID is # 63709. He went onsite to help a customer with a wireless setup for the 3115cn and actually worked for over 3 hours helping the customer out. He had a rep from Imaging supoort on the line and the rep had nothing but great things to say about Michael, like how easy he was to work with and how great his soft skills were. I just wanted to give Michael a big compliment because it's technicians like this that provide the best customer experience out there and he should be commended for this. By far one of the best Banctec techs you have! Thanks so much!
Dell Escallations
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Accompaning this is supposed to be a $75.00 Service Achievment Award from my company. I'll probably have to frame the email.
This peticular job was almost entirely out-of-scope of our contract. The client had purchased the printer some months back and had hired Geek Squad to come out. Not only did it take two weeks to find someone to do the job...they sent someone only with experience with laser printers. She had requested someone with experience specifically with that model printer. Then to add insult to injury, the guy botched the job and had the nerve to charge the big bucks.
Even getting an appointment was difficult with this client. I had to sell her on the fact that I was certified by Dell on the printer and that I had the manual with me on my laptop. She basically was a very unhappy camper.
Apparently the client was razzle dazzled by my service also since not only was it printing wirelessly from 4 workstations, they all could do network faxing and scanning also. Basically doing everything she needed it to do and told it could do when the printer was purchaced.
My guess is that the Dell Escallation Rep did a follow-up call to the client to see how things went. As you can see...things went extremely well!
The email went to everyone on the planet in my company so this is a really big deal actually.
Booking rooms to stay in that provide "actual" high speed Internet is challenging. Being able to do what you need to do when not at the home office can be a challenge. I guess just about everything is challenging when you are outside your element.
I'm here at the Day's Inn on 4th street in San Jose...about 10 minutes from the airport. No elevators, no coffee pot in the room and extreemly week wireless signals. Room is clean and they have at least the Sci-Fi channel on the TV. Great view of Highway 880 from the front door. Oh and no alarm clock!
My first challenge to overcome was getting the Internet working properly so I have all my tools working. My job does require VPN access. There are 2 routers here to sellect from. One assigns ip adresses like 192.168.0.100 and the other 10.10.10.100. The XP VPN gives me and ip address in the 192 dot range and the Cisco client in the10 dot range.
I could get both to work but when connected I lost the ability to surf...another requirement. My other option was to remote connect to my desktop and connect to the VPN from my home office. This means all my emails and stuff go directly to the desktop system. So basically all I have to do is connect to the Internet from the room, fire up the remote client, and get the job done...albiet much slower, get the job done.
After driving all over creation to find a small cheap coffee pot to my arsenal of things to bring, I also have coffee in the room now. Since I'm normally an early riser I can forgo the alarm clock. I have one on my laptop anyway that can work in a pinch.
An extention cord is another asset. The nearest outlet is behind the TV! Including my laptop, I need to power my little printer I have to bring with me.
With every trip, I seem to need more and more just to be able to work. This time, my supervisor called me and wanted me to use MY credit card to book a room for another tech they had brought in from Sacramento who didn't have one. I told her that I didn't have any sqiggle room. Not my problem anyway whether I get reimbursed or not. Not sure what happened on that. You would think that they could get the techs a credit card that they can pre-load funds on to book rooms and cars when out of town. The only thing they seem to be able to do is pre-pay airfare when that is needed.
Leaving for San Jose today to work in that area for Thursday and Friday. Only have 1 call in Chico to run and then I'm off. Fortunately I get paid to drive. Not much fun traveling that far in lousy weather though. Just booked my room so it's official.
This letter is up for Auction On EBAY...current bid $56,000. Rush is going to match the sale price an donate the entire amount.
And NOW they are trying to piss-off the Turkish Government bringing up old wounds.
HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?
Al Gore was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work raising awareness on global warming. Who would you award a Nobel Peace Prize to?
NOT AL GORE