Cuba Chronicles About This Blog: Cuba 2006: General: Parenting: Pop Culture: Recipes: Videos:

Bring on the rum drinks…

Tomorrow at this time, all going as planned, I will be sitting in an airplane and more than two thirds of the way to Cayo Coco. I may be leaving here tonight with more than a few loose ends left untied, but it won’t be my fault.

I haven’t had much to do this week – for some reason everyone seems to want to leave everything until I get back and I had better be relaxed enough from this vacation to carry me through the stress of my workload in February and March. Yesterday I had a couple of last minute jobs to take care of. I can’t finish one of them because I’m missing a photo I need – but I can probably upload it anyway with a placeholder picture. The second job is done but I can’t upload it because their web server is down. And why is it down? I have no idea, but nobody knows how to fix it.

This company is fairly sizable manufacturer who decided about a year ago to set up their own web server on their premises. Apparently this was supposed to allow them to have a fairly complex intranet for their dealers to use to check inventory, upcoming production and to place orders. I had set up a similar web based system for them a few years ago but it had the disadvantage of not tying into their actual inventory system. It basically meant all their product had to be entered by hand to the web database, thus duplicating a lot of work.

They hired a programmer/IT guy to set up a new web server for them and get a dealer intranet up and running. Because they are also running their website off this server the web system now ties into their inventory database. This means the dealers can use the intranet for inventory and ordering – and consumers can use the website to see what models are available and what dealer has the model they want. It also saves them a bundle on web hosting, apparently. Their programmer did the intranet and I did the web side of things. It all works pretty good. When it works.

The problem with the whole system is, nobody in-house seems to know how it works. The guy who set it up originally is in Scotland or somewhere now, they seem to have no IT tech on the premises and have to rely on some sort of outsourcing. Sometimes when it breaks they call me – and I have no clue what to tell them, ’cos server administration is a little out of my scope. I suggest maybe try to re-boot the server. Today that wasn’t enough. Today I had to talk to some guy there named Al and said “your name server doesn’t appear to be – uh – serving your domain.” And Al’s answer was “I have no idea what that means.” So. I have time sensitive material that needs to be added to the site and I can’t upload it. But that’s OK because no one can see their website right now anyway.

So I think the moral of the story is – if you are going to run your own web server, be sure you have somebody on staff who can fix it when it breaks.

I am soooo ready for the beach…

Filed under General, Jan 18, 2008
 

bar

No comments yet

bar

Leave a comment

Comments will not be published until reviewed by the site owner. Some HTML is allowed - no more that TWO weblinks or the comment will be blocked.
Obvious link spamming comments will not be approved. So, to all you people who keep leaving comments with multiple links to casino websites, travel sites, ringtones and so forth, posting them here is a complete and utter waste of your time. Like, can you read English, even? Why do you keep leaving your stupid coments here?

Name
Email (will not be published)
Website (optional)

What I'm Reading
Middlemarch
by George Elliott

Where I Go wilwheaton dot net Big Pink Cookie cobolhacker.com Dooce flagrantdisregard flickr.com International Metropolis Internet Movie Database Marie Wise, Artist Marie's Art Journey PHP.net Presstube rotten dot com Scout's Swag The Sneeze Wil Wheaton In Exile Yarn Harlot

What I've Been Shooting

     
     

Blog Manager

NEXT ENTRY: A Fan Letter Answered - Added on Feb 06/2008