Archive for June, 2008

Because we’re all about learning about other people’s beliefs (perhaps so we can ridicule them further) and because it is unfair to judge something until you have really given it a fair evaluation (and we do love to judge), we headed off to church last Sunday.

It was on Sweet Street, the heart of Leeds’ red light district and the “church” was actually an industrial warehouse which seems to be the way to go as far as the new “evangelical” churches go (I use quote marks as they don’t classify themselves as evangelicals, I simply use the term to convay the atmosphere I am guessing most non-Christians would take from that term).

The service was quite good I thought though Norm was less impressed. I was slightly worried when we first walked in as Michelle seemed to know more people than me but that problem soon worked itself out as I began to spot faces.

All in all it was an experiance and I like to think I can offer something in return for the experiance they gave me. So here it is, my golden nugget of information for them – if you’re going to jump around in worship for Jesus, wear a bra that actually gives you some support. It can’t be easy for the guys to be good Christians when you have four limbs reaching for the lord :p.

Before we flee from Burchett Place I thought I would post a few pictures of the current setup at Burchett Place.

The internal network is gigabit, the external is fast ethernet all connected up by Linksys equipment. The first image below shows the internal switches and router which connect up to the main network which is connected to the internet via the routers shown in the second image.

These connect all the servers together of about half of which are racked up as shown below. The rest are just in random locations – the server in the other image is currently sitting in the middle of the floor while it is being setup for example.

These are all kept online by a series of UPS devices.

These are all connected by an endless series of cables. I tried to get some pictures to really show how much cableage there is going on but I couldn’t really achieve the affect I was after. Needless to say though, there is a lot of well organised and structured cabling such as below.

To ensure everything stays cool and the air circulates there is an advanced climate control system as shown below.

Finally this is all monitored and controlled via the NOC, complete with an array of no less than 4 monitors and your choice of both wired and wireless peripherals.

The results seem to have been quite good. Check the router’s uptime – 226 days, that is a little over 7 and a half months and I believe the reason that it came up then was because that was when it was taken offline to install the UPS.

I don’t really feel I can add anything to that title.

Just to pass you on to the BBC website to read more.

Nick just pointed me towards a site named Ajaxload which is really useful for generating loading icons while waiting for things like AJAX content to load into a page. You select the type of spinning “loading” symbol you want and set the colours and it generates all the code for you. Have a play.

In preperation for our upcoming house move and Oli needing to get alcohol and snacks in for his birthday party tonight we headed off to Tesco (via a few other shops last night) and managed to spend a rather impressive £260 between us!

Between the endless series of deliveries for things we need for the new house as well, I’m rather scared of looking at my credit card bills. Especially as my wages for the next 6 weeks are basically going to pay for my rent and maybe my petrol :o.

It’s week two of my job at Open Door Design and it’s coming along nicely. I’ve been working around with one of their previous big sites which I’ve really been able to get my teeth into and rip apart. It’s everything you expect when you get into the real world, I’ll leave you to fill in what that means :D.

Can it really be? Has it really been three years since I arrived at university as a young fresh-faced student who had a good idea of what awaited him due to the amount of TV he had watched?

Apparently so. Last Friday was the last day of term of my third and final year at university and despite the cheeseyness where else could it really end except for Fruity? Especially given it was the last Fruity of the year and cheap entry.

We started the night at Danny’s house party which involved lots of burning things which was fun. Then just before 1am we headed off to hit Fruity. It was an excellent night as it was fairly empty with many students having gone home; you could comfortably dance and get straight to the bar yet there was enough people in there to give it some atmosphere – the perfect level.

We ended up getting home about 4am and retired for a well earned night’s sleep. Except Liz who was up being “just friends” with George till 8am :P.

So, I started work this week.

It’s not the best thing ever to be honest. I have to get up and dressed at like 8am. Not pm – am!

Still, the job itself is pretty good. While I’m currently in the getting myself up to speed stage I think once I get my teeth into some good projects it is going to be an excellent job. Plus the people are really nice and friendly and we’re just round the corner from Elland Road McDonald’s. What more could you ask for?

This year the union are running a “Skint” fortnight which means that instead of offering free entry to the last two Fruitys like they normally do, they are charging £2 entry. It still proved a tempting enough offer last Friday however.

I seem to be even more of a light weight within the past few weeks. We got to the pub about 5 past 10 and by 11 I was struggling to finish my 6th drink. It’s clearly been far too long since we were doing regular Bondi Beach Bar trips, that was like the first 15 minutes “back in the day.”

I recon we did it the right way though – hit The Old Bar first, then head up to Terrace when The Old Bar kicks out and finally head into Fruity when Terrace kicks out, that way Fruity is already warmed up and playing ultra-cheese by the time you arrive.

On saying that maybe it was a bad idea to get there in time for B*Witched. We seemed to scare Rosie’s housemates off by bursting into song. I mean, it’s not that strage a couple of mid-twenties males screaming their hearts out C’est La Vie. Right?

Having done a lot of this over the years it seems somewhat tearful to think that this could well be my last blog from DEC-10. It’s been like a home to many of us, particularly those of us who have spent more time in here than our actual homes (I wish I was joking lol).

While my room is very noisy with the hum of computers and climate control devices I’ll miss the quiet hum of DEC-10, the endless late nights we spend in here coding. I hadn’t really been dwelling on the idea of one chapter coming to a close and another beginning but sitting here is really making me think. And we all know that is a bad road to go down :P.