It’s virtually LANDesk
Friday marked a major turning point in our LANDesk project. It is phase 1 of a three phase project to secure our LANDesk environment. Phase One was to move our LANDesk core off of a single physical box and place it on an ESX cluster as a virtual machine. In what has the be the single largest stresser of the last few months, it ended up taking about 10 minutes for the switch over. Seven of the 10 minutes was figuring out how to deactivate the old core, calling LANDesk, and activating the new core. Overall it was a great end to a very stressful week.
After the switch over we did about thirty minutes of testing and it looks like the VM core is actually going to be a great solution for us. We are just shy of 3000 nodes and expect towards the end of spring semester to be closer to 5000, and the VM did great over the weekend. As the work week gets ramped up we'll be keeping a close eye on the system and begin work on the next two phases. Phase 2 is getting service pack 2 for LDMS 9 installed. This is a major upgrade and hopefully a major step forward. Phase 3 is a more realtime backup/failsafe solution for the LDMS database. Over the next few weeks LANDesk should become one of our most stable and dependable systems.
This is also a somewhat sad project for me as it is the last major LANDesk project on my radar. Once all three phases of this are complete, the handing of the reigns to Sundiata should be as well. I am so ready to start another project but I really have put a lot of time and effort into this one. It is hard to get my mind off of it and onto the next thing. I am excited about the next project though and hope to have some more information in the next couple months.
A week of frustrations
This has been a pretty crazy week at work. From a complete collapse of a major project, a phishing scam targeting our portal, and my UPS freaking out, to Telecom saving our project, office painted, and getting my new iPhone skin, I am pretty much beat. I still have to actually complete the project, converting our LANDesk core server from physical to VM, at 6pm this evening, and today is my day off. Add to it that I am told I am the liaison for the HUB when dealing with Admin Systems and/or Telecom, yet was left out of the loop this week resulting in a major duplication effort, and I am really feeling burned out. Here's hoping for something fun this weekend to get my mind off all this.
I have been waiting for an app that really makes the camera on my iPhone fun and it has finally arrived. Instagram (Get it on iTunes) is a fun app that really makes sharing on social networks a breeze. You just shoot, add a title and select which sites you want to upload to, all in a very polished and simple interface. On top of it's ease of use, it also has several really cool vintage camera filters.
I am a little dissapointed there isn't a WordPress connector, but no reality wordpress isn't really designed to be used for small photo uploads. It does however connect directly to:
- Flickr
- Tumbler
- Foursquare
I am not really a huge fan of all of these social networks and one of the big reason is time. I don't have time to upload my information to twitter, facebook, flicker, etc. With Instagram I just shoot, and upload directly to all three, just one, or a combination of them instantly.
As an added bonus, Instagram is itself a social network that links all the Instagram users. You can set it up to follow who you want and get a feed of your friends' photos when you load it up. If you do end up getting it, feel free to add me, jwallom, to your friends list. And the beautiful thing about this app is that it is free!
Morals and Politics
As I have gotten older I have become more convinced that everyone is wrong when it comes to politics, including myself. This does very little to keep us from talking like we know what is best, and how party of candidate X is just plain wrong. This weekend however there a was a large movement in Washington that really gave me some hope. An estimated quarter of a million people gathered to basically say "calm down, we are going to be ok." Tomorrow is election day and no matter who you vote for, and please tell me you are voting, we are still one nation and we will survive.
And now to the heated topic. Anyone can weigh in on this topic, but I am really looking for folks who have a strong belief in a religious morality. Throughout my lifetime I have been taught about the separation of church and state. I have also done a lot of historical research into human history, especially after the rise of Christianity. Combine this with current governments in the world and for me it paints a very clear picture of why there should be and is a separation of church and state, but what is far less clear is where the separation should be. Every time I hear the political conversation fo toward the topic of abortion for instance, I feel a barrier has been crossed. On a personal level, a religious level, I am against abortion, but I also feel that that is a moral choice and not something I am comfortable letting government control.
Government should never force morality through law because morality is different for every person, religious or not. Government should be a collection of people who work for the common good of the people, but not the religious, or morality of some of the people. It is my opinion that we should vote for people with similar moralities to govern and not people to govern with similar moralities. I feel the church and government can both reach more people and grow stronger apart than together.
I wanted so bad to have this discussion with my soon to be cousin April yesterday, but it was not the time or place. Since I wasn't able to last night, I am going to open it up here for anyone who would like to weigh in. Again, I hope everyone who can will get out tomorrow and vote. It is our right, our obligation. You cannot be free will without making choices.