“No, your episodes of ‘Prison Break’ can not be stored on the file server.”

This has been a long few days. First, I had the folks who were getting all miffed at me because I couldn’t help them with their web-based application, and now things have gotten more annoying.

I had a co-worker complain that the tape-backup drive in our small file server upstairs wasn’t actually backing anything up. After tweaking the tape settings, the job setting and finally watching through the logs as the thing ran, I come to find out that the DDS-3 tapes were full and that’s why the backup wasn’t finiishing completely — there was too much data on the server and not enough tape. I thought to myself “How could that be? This server is barely used and the 18GB SCSI drives have never been more than half full.” Open up “My Computer”, sure enough, the C:\ drive only has about 300 megs free. So something on the server was taking up a ton of space. Time to find out what it was.

I downloaded and installed a copy of WinDirStat which gives you a pretty graphical representation of the files on your machine. After I let it scan all the files, I noticed a crapload of *.m4v files, which are MPEG4 video files. After opening up the folder containing the files, and plugging the names into Google (as I couldn’t play them on the file server as it obviously doesn’t have a media player), I come to realize that the files are the first 16 episodes of season two of Prison Break. At about 600 megs a piece, it was taken up 9GB of space on the server. I deleted them, and, magically, the back up was able to run just fine. While there is hardware compression that will theoretically compress the tape’s data so it can fit 24GB of data, m4v files are already compressed, so there was no way it would all fit in the tape’s native 12GB capacity.

The staff has gotten a stern warning about this from the boss, so hopefully it shall not happen again.

April 24, 2007

Irfanview Goes 4.0

This was one of my stupidly handy apps, and it’s now gone to version 4.0.

April 24, 2007

Apparently Nobody Is Sick In Bend…

…or obviously nobody’s using Who Is Sick, where just a single person in the 97701 zip code has a runny nose. Portland, on the other hand, looks more like a mess with 128 reported sicknesses throughout the metro area, all plopped onto a handy Google Map (and unfortunately, you can’t directly link to specific cities, so you’ll have to search by city when you get there).

But it wouldn’t matter if anybody used this in the grand scheme of things anyway, as folks will still send their sick kids to school, passing on illnesses to all the other kids, which in turn pass it on to the parents, who then pass it on to co-workers. But I’m not bitter. Really.

April 23, 2007

The Virginia Tech Killer Was A Messed Up Dude…

…who also had a thing for rubber duckies.

April 23, 2007

Amazing Yo-Yo Skills

This has to be one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in a while.

April 23, 2007

Web Application != Desktop Application

Just another thing to add to the pet-peeve list in my life as a tech-support guy: Folks who think that stuff they do within their Web browser is wholly my responsibility.

The reality is that more and more applications that used have a desktop program that interfaced with remote servers are now just strictly going Web based (mostly MSIE-only, but that’s another rant for another time). I work part-time for a real estate office in the area, and the good majority of what they do is Web-based: MLS, e-mail, Crest, various marketing Web site updates, contact management, etc… . Being all Web-based is nice as it makes it so I don’t have to support a bunch of desktop applications and just have to keep the browser functional. The problem is that people still think with a desktop application mindset, so when they get a server error or an ASP error of some sort (many of these apps are ASP or some ASP-variant like ASP.net), they freak out, and think that it’s my fault and that I can magically fix it. I’ll get panicky folks running into my office, saying they need me right away, and then I walk over, notice it’s in the browser, and tell them to a) try it again, and b) if it doesn’t work, call their support hotline. That’s why you pay these companies all that money so that you can call and yell at them, but I can’t fix a problem that I have absolutely no control over (especially on an application I’ve never used on a server I don’t have access to). Just read them the error on screen, and they’ll be able to help you far quicker than I ever could.

And as these applications become more and more like applications and less like Web pages, it’s going to be harder and harder for people to be able to tell the difference between a desktop and Web application (especially in web apps that hide the address bar). I just keep telling people: If you see the MSIE blue “e” icon in the upper corner of the Window, it’s probably not something I can help you with.

</rant>

April 22, 2007

Two More Arrested in Area Hit-And-Run-And-Burn-Up-The-Car

So a couple days ago a father-and-son were arrested with the son being charged for the brutal hit-and-run of Kimberly Ann Potter of Bend. Now two more were arrested in association with the mess:

Two Bend men, one returning from Klamath Falls, were arrested Thursday on arson charges, accused of helping to burn a car involved in a violent, deadly hit-and-run crash on Third Street earlier this week.

The arrests of Eric Allen Brown, 20, and Robert Jennings Battles, 19, on second-degree arson charges come more than two days after a car allegedly driven by Christopher Goodson, 22, of El Cajon, Calif., struck and killed Kimberly Ann Potter, 41, also of Bend, as she rode her bike up Third Street early Tuesday.

Brown is Goodson’s stepbrother and lives at the Full Moon Drive apartment in northeast Bend where Goodson was found hiding Tuesday night, said police Capt. Jim Porter.

According to the bio/obit of Kim linked above, she frequently went out for bike rides at night if she couldn’t sleep, and was probably just taking another one of those rides that night.

The comments on my last post about this have gotten interesting, with folks, for some odd reason, coming out in support of the alleged crooks (including an apparent comment from Christopher Goodson’s girlfriend). The problem is there are obviously some real jerks that are browsing this site and harassing people who are posting critical comments about these guys. I’ve gotten private emails from folks who have commented there who have said they have gotten threatening email from folks. Classy, guys, really classy. Those e-mails are getting forwarded to local police departments, and if anybody sends me an e-mail threat, I’ll be doing the same and helping the police find the people responsible. I did help the Bend Police arrest this morons, getting them IP addresses, videos, and helping out their IT department with conversion and such. I will have no problems with doing the same with anything that comes my way.

Feel free to comment on this story, on Kimberly, or anything, either below or over at Bend Forums.

But keep it civil and constructive, folks, because if law enforcement wants my help, they’re going to get it.

April 20, 2007

Advertising versus Reality

A fascinating little photo project that shows what a fast-food product looks like in ads, and then the actual product in real life.

April 19, 2007

Ever Wonder What’s Inside A Magic 8-Ball?

Wonder no more.

April 19, 2007

How Is This Person Still Alive?

I would think if you blew a .47 blood-alcohol content on a breath test, you’d be dead. But this lady’s still alive, and may have set a new Washington State record. Congrats.

April 19, 2007