New Forum

I have posted a forum application for use here on my site … If you’re interested in starting a little online community, please sign-up for the forums and begin to forge what is ours … The link to the forum is under the links section on the right … I like having web applications such as these, and maybe it will stimulate more of a conversation than what this bLog actually does or doesn’t do …

Mail Server

The mail server was upgraded the evening of 05-16-05 … a patch was put on the Qmail program for a certain solution one customer needed. At the same time, all other mail softwares were upgraded. After this was running for a day or two, it was noticed that intermittently there were password errors during the POPping of mail. My mail client is Eudora, and while it would generate an error, mail would be checked as usual in another 10 minutes without issue.

After looking into this error, other errors were noticed for other email accounts, but no one had emailed or mentioned anything. It was also realized that these errors were occuring before the upgrade of the server software, so a portion of the software was rolled back hoping that it was an issue with a new release increasing these errors. That was a little less than a week ago.

05/24/05 a reseller had called and explained the issue in a message. Being already aware of the problem, it was time to hanker down and fix it. This error does not appear on all servers running this exact same software. Changing the releases of the failing software corrected nothing. Then making sure everything was a matched release (MySQL client and server) did nothing to help as well. Changing the running of certain options within the software was changed. Some logging was turned off. Some monitoring was disabled. It seemed under heavy disk activity and CPU load the errors would generate, even though the CPU was not being taxed anywhere near its capacity. It was determined that the server has outgrown the IDE drive that spins happily inside it. This conclusion came 4 hours after diagnosing the problem began.

eBay was hit up for a new SCSI controller and 18.4G drive in the span of about a half hour and $108.60 put on the credit card. eBay is great! Then another thought came to mind, and that was to upgrade the operating system. The mail server has been running FreeBSD 4.10 for a good stable while now, but now we’re going to see if FreeBSD 4.11 solves this problem.

While it may be premature, as of this writing (05/25/05 9:10am) it seems the vchkpw is working okay, but pop3d-ssl is still having issues. My client was failing regularly every 10 minutes (I check mail every 10 minutes) … An upgrade of the Courier POP SSL software and this problem went away … There have been way less errors since these changes have been completed, but every once in a while (as before) this error creeps up … The authors of the software say it’s a known problem with no resolution in sight … The problem appears to be with MySQL … But there is no diagnostic information logged anywhere to determine the cause of the failure … It just seems that some people have this problem creep up …

Being that it seems that the error is replicated quite easily when you bang the disk, it is still assumed to be load related and still thought that it is the result of a consumer type HDD, so we’re going ahead with plans to replace the drive with a server type SCSI HDD … Those deliveries will be completed by June 3rd, so the Mail Server HDD upgrade will be done shortly after this hardware can be installed … If the errors don’t disappear as a result, I am going to set the computer on fire and laugh and laugh … WooHoo!

How long does it take to sell a truck?

Just in case you were interested on how long it would take to sell a truck, I thought I would fill you in … I finished this transaction yesterday, but was too tired to comment on it … I chose the eBay method …

First you need to list the truck on eBay … I created a detailed listing and posted it with a Buy It Now of $7950 with a reserve of $6200 … Because I mentioned Octane in the listing, I informed them that I linked their site from my description … The drummer immediately bid $25 on the truck … Since the bidding start at $1.00, I didn’t know he only bid $25 until he was outbid … I also didn’t realize it was him until I thought about the winning bidder’s UserID some more … i41drums … I For One Drums … Octane’s song “I For One” has been in 94 WYSP’s rotation for what, two years now? Anyway, so then Alex bid a couple thousand and all bids were under the reserve … That auction ended with no one winning …

eBay has a second chance relisting deal where relisting the item is free if it sells the second time around … You list it exactly the same way … This time I actually asked Alex to bid just below my reserve so anyone bidding would be immediately outbid … I figured that since Alex was the winning bidder but the reserve was still not met, that people would be trying to outbid Alex first and then see where the reserve might take them … I even lowered the Buy It Now price to $6999 near the end of that auction … That auction ended with a higher lowest bid, but still the truck did not sell … So this was a period of about 14 days … eBay auctions are commonly 7 days long …

So I sat on it for a while … decided I wasn’t going to get what I wanted for the truck … I made individual offers to some of the people that had bid on the truck, and there was no response there either … One I had an exclusive offer (available through eBay) and they didn’t bite on it … It has to be an offer lower than the reserve, so I sent off a Buy It Now second offer to the highest bidder for $6150 … There was never a response there … So anyway, I decided that I shouldn’t have a reserve price … So off to list the truck for the third time … I started the bidding at $5000 and set a Buy It Now at $6500 … I didn’t realize this, but after the first bid, the Buy It Now goes away … Hassle … I would have preferred that at any time someone could have snatched the truck away … Since whomever bid would win the truck, I couldn’t have anyone beef up the bidding for me as they had done in the past … As soon as I listed it, a person who had bid on the truck each auction emailed me to make me an offer … I told them that since it was up for auction that they should make their offer there … So, this time there were bids and a definite winner at the end of the auction … I was hoping the price would go as high as possible obviously … It finally got up to $5700 … Someone had bid on the truck and then asked to come and see it before the auction was over … I told them why bother coming to see it when you’ve already bought it? May as well just come with the cash when the auction is over … They seemed upset by my response, but it was a fact … They didn’t have a winning bid to come see the truck, they had a winning bid to OWN the truck …

So anyway, that was what it took to sell the truck … $46 the first listing, $46 the second and $47 the third (I used Turbo Lister) … Then since it sold, a flat fee to eBay of $40 for the success … So $179 to sell it on eBay … I also had to perform some maintenance on the truck to feel confident about the sale … That was another $420 at a truck service station …

The buyer was going to drive to Philadelphia and pick up the vehicle … I called title places and found out that simply signing the title and giving it to the guy did not release me from ownership … The truck was mine until it was registered by the buyer … What each place told me (and I tried a few) was that I should go to his state and make sure the title is transfered … Okay, he was from New Jersey, so it was kinda close … He drove down Wednesday night and met me at the NJDMV on Route 70 … I left at 4pm, and he said he was leaving right around there … My wife, sick 3 year old and I waited in the parking lot for 3 hours … He didn’t get there to get into the NJDMV by 7:30pm … So, he got a look at the truck, I took him for a little drive and agreed to drive the truck up to him tomorrow … (My wife was not happy that we missed most of American Idol and didn’t even get rid of the truck. It also didn’t help that the results of Idol didn’t go her way either. I told her she shouldn’t have assumed and voted.) …

So! Off to Newark, NJ the next morning … I get directions via MapQuest … Guess what? When it tells you to get off and take the Parkway? No trucks are allowed on the Parkway, so I got lost … Finally found my way back to the Turnpike, and finally got the buyer on the phone … He wasn’t answering, and I was already late … This was making me nervous … Anyway, so finally met up with the buyer … Parked the truck in a suitable spot, money passed hands … and off to the NJDMV … Transfered the title, and we’re done … The little white Isuzu that I’ve owned for about 7 years is now off to Haiti … (While in line I got to talk to the buyer) … He’s from Haiti and they don’t manufacture trucks there, so he has to buy them and then ship them there … Whatever, he got a great truck … Seemed a little hassled about my persistence about getting it out of my name, but it had to be done … so, 5 hours Wednesday night with no results, and about 6 hours Thursday for a completed tranaction …

So this shows you, it takes about 21 days and 11 hours to sell a truck …

RSS Feed

The link(s) to the feeds have changed … I believe this is now working properly as per the WordPress way … I think with the prior versions we just made them work as they would … I realized the URL had changed when I checked out the feed through another location … Sorry for any inconvenience …

A new look

I just spent a little while upgrading the WordPress installation that runs this bLog … Well, heck, that’s an understatement … I installed a brand new installation on a different server, copied the database over to a new one and performed the upgrade on that database … Then I had to go skin hunting to find something worthwhile to use to present this site to you until I got into updating my old skin or just going in a different direction … The DNS sat in limbo for a little while, so I don’t know if anyone hit the site during this change … I doubt it, I think I’m the only one awake at these hours …

Where the hell has Dave been?

Yes, very long time since an update … I guess for most purposes, this is a good thing .. means I am keeping busy … Also means I am going crazy … Busy isn’t necessarily always a good thing … I would like some time to relax and get other things done, but that just doesn’t seem to happen with me … there’s been many things that I have thought about posting up here, but I just haven’t had the time … If I think of them again I will eventually post them … So! … What keeps ol’ Dave busy?

Octane keeps me busy on the weekends and sometimes during the week … Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are dedicated to them … While they may be time during the day to do certain things, I will rarely get into anything because I have to worry about getting to the show on time well rested … Keeping the hours I keep isn’t always beneficial to sleep … Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to sleep … I asked my wife today if I could do drugs to put off sleeping … She responded “Is it okay if I use drugs to diet?” … so I suggested that we might be able to share the same drug … Welp, the ultimate answer was a big N-O … Not that I would have ever done such a thing, it was just some of the comical stylings of the Pierron household … This past week was the killer with Octane … 6 shows in 4 days … I go into detail on the OctaneCrew bLog …

Out On the Town rears its ugly head every 3 weeks, and I just can’t seem to get into starting the issues when they come in … While Mike makes his best effort to get me stuff earlier so I can get stuff during the week, it ultimately comes when I am starting a weekend with Octane and has to wait until the following Monday … Monday I am basically blasted and winding down from the weekend … It takes me probably about 18-20 hours to do the paper … The guy that has been doing the layout, I think this past issue was his last … He made numerous mistakes … The paper was just going down the tubes … He was even pissing me off because ads I did wouldn’t get into the paper … One time this ad that I sent back and forth from the advertiser 4 times to get the ad just the way he wanted it didn’t even get into the issue … How stupid is that? Anyway, every 3 weeks this puts a cog in my wheels of progress …

Web Stuff keeps popping up here and there … Different sites to implement or update … Domains to add and different hosting options to provide … Just last night I installed a patch into the mail server and upgraded the mail processing … It has made a huge difference overnight in the blocking of even more SPAM … I have about 4 sites to make changes to, and I also have my father’s travel application to work on … a big project … it’s so big that I think I am putting it off because I am afraid of it … I know once I get rolling on that it will be a good thing … I know I will keep going until it’s finished to my liking and then to his … It will be so much better than what he’s working with now … Also I have a reseller that wants to start doing some diverse things and they want to get me involved, but it just seems I never have the time to pay much attention to any one thing for a while … there is another guy that wants to use a piece of my band backend and I have to figure out how to work that … He doesn’t want to use anything but the schedule and leave his hosting where it is …

I am currently eBaying my old Isuzu truck … It hadn’t sold the first two times listed, but as I type, the auction ends tomorrow night and there will be a winner … But watching that happen and trying to coordinate things for it … answering questions and planning to get it worked on before auction’s end consume time … It will be good that the truck has found a new home … The city is giving me grief about where I park it and stuff … Police are knocking at the door and asking that it be moved a couple feet, and just yesterday the wife tells me that a cop knocked at the door and said to move it … It will be ticketed (again) next time … The place I put it before I thought was safe, but it was utterly vandalized … Graffiti all over it and four slashed tires … Someone actually cut the tires … Ludicrous … I had to pay road service ~$970 to put on 4 new tires … sucks … and currently the truck is selling for much less than I wanted it to sell for … I guess I could attribute that to the tickets I won’t have to pay anymore just owning the thing …

Working on my PA to go 3-way … I bought a DriveRack 260 off of eBay … $650 delivered to my door … They retail for $999 all over … I didn’t buy it at the local music haunt I always go to because I knew they couldn’t touch this price (the rat bastards) … It was brand new in the box … not a refurb or B stock … Mentioning it to the local music store they said that was pennies on cost and that it probably fell off of a truck … I don’t know … The guy seems to have a music store or something, at least one on eBay, so I don’t know how he can sell for pennies on cost, but it was to my benefit … I can now control the PA system with my computer as this unit has a GUI interface … I built the cable last night that will enable me to control this thing from across the room through the snake … I documented the making of this cable here, it’s not a cable you can buy …

Anyway, I think that’s about enough for now … it’s getting hot, so that means the electric bill is going to go up again …