the second phase

I think so.

So I finally got the galleries going and I think I’ve gotten them to integrate into the site well enough.  I had contemplated messing with some of the flickr additions but I’m not sure I want to bother with that.

I’ll try and write up a few paragraphs about what I had to do to accomplish it but it’s 1 in the morning and I gotta go golfing tomorrow morning!

In my industry, there’s alot of monitoring to be done. We have servers, services, processes, ports, log files, applications, you name it, we have to monitor it.

When I first started at DI, there was a current implementation of Nagios. Unfortunately, it was horribly done. Some agents used SSL, some didn’t. It was all done with separate configuration files, it was slow and if you had too many monitors, they didn’t go off in time.

In any case, we started investigating replacements for Nagios and we came upon Hyperic. Hyperic is an open source ( although they have an enterprise version ) monitoring system.  It is written in java and has individual agents that are installed on each of the systems you wish to monitor.  The agents have a very low overhead, although that is somewhat dependent on if they are running scripts and what those scripts are doing.

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With all the recent running, my shins have been KILLING me.  I mean seriously, they contacted an arms dealer and got a pair of giant machetes that they feel they need to stab me with everytime I run.  Another name for this would be called shin splints.  Now, my shoes weren’t the most comfortable and really didn’t have much in terms of support or padding but when I got them, they were really the only Nike+ shoes out at the time.

So I went to a local running specialist store and had them check out my feet.  Besides smelling of roses, I’ve found that I have a normal arch and don’t overpronate much at all, so I don’t need stability shoes.  After trying about 5 pairs, the salesperson recommended one of the pairs.  It was, surprisingly, not the most expensive pair either.  She explained what she liked about each pair on me and why she liked these the best.  Overall, it was a really good thing to do and she was very helpful. So now I’m the proud owner of a pair of Etonic Prayas.  The one downside to these was that they aren’t Nike+ compatible.  Do not fear, however, because you can always buy something like this!

Now that I’ve got the Tiger on the bandwagon, I best be running!

You see, my girlfriend is rad. She knows I’m a geek and gladly gets me geek things.

Like this.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough, only launching it’s painful projectiles about 7 to 8 feet. While I could follow in the footsteps of another inventor, I, unfortunately, can’t bring guns to work. Therefore, I have embarked upon a mission to turbo charge my version of it.

My foam rockets will blot out the sun. Bwaha!

That’s right, boys and girls, it is no longer a myth, a legend, that bullshit story about how you lost your virginity.  The Apple iPhone is finally a reality and OMG.  The thing is loaded with goodies for all geeks, audiophiles and sleek enough for you upstrung exec types.

The down side?  It doesn’t come out until June.  Maybe I can preorder one and then sell it on eBay ( ala Wii and PS3 ). I will, however, be saving up some cash for this monster.

So those of you who know me know that I’m trying to get into shape.  I started off with dieting and changing my way of eating.  Not just a ‘fad’ diet, but actually changing my lifestyle.  Then I started playing soccer ( mind you, I’m still dieting and I’m still playing soccer ).  But it wasn’t enough.  The soccer games are only once ( and now two ) times a week and we hardly every do any practice.  I needed something more.

So I started to run.  Run, run, run and run some more.

But it gets boring.  I mean, for 30 minutes you are sitting there with nothing but thoughts in your head like ‘Did I start the washing machine before I left?’ or ‘How gay is The Tiger?’.  In any case, after awhile the running, while good for me, was getting really dull.  So I went and bought an iPod Shuffle.  Yes, that’s right, my first Apple product.  I wanted some music while I got my shin splints.  I had yet to open the package ( I was back at work ) and while browsing the Apple sit, customizing what will be my next Apple product ( Hellooooooooo Mac Pro! ), I came upon the iPod Nano and Nike+.  “Hrm”, I said to myself.  “Self, I think I should go get that instead.”  And so I did.

For those of you who don’t know what Nike+ is, it basically takes an iPod Nano, puts a receiver on it and gives you a little sensor that you stick in your shoe.  Then when you run, the sensor sends data back to your iPod, while it’s playing music and all that jazz, and records like a pedometer, basically getting your speed, distance and time and calculating stuff like calories and average pace.  Then when you get home, you can upload it to the Nike+ website where they chart all your runs.  It’s pretty darn spiffy.

I just went and tested and it works like it’s supposed to.  Very simple interface and I didn’t have to calibrate the sensor at all ( at least, it was close enough to the real distance that I didn’t really mind ).  The one thing I did wish it could do would to be to export your run data to some other format so that I can include it on my own website, like here, so that everyone can laugh at how slowly I run.  Some of the other cool things on the Nike+ site include setting goals for yourself in terms of distance, time and speed or calories burned.  You can also challenge other people to different types of races.  All in all, it’s a pretty cool tool and cheap ( if you already have a iPod Nano ) and a huge motivational tune to help get and stay in shape.

Anyways, I’m going to go figure out some way to post my run info on this site in the future and then go off and run some more.  Hope everyone is having a good weekend.