Asymptomatic

I'm taking on some more server-management related responsibilities for work, and I'm trying to be a little proactive with getting things under control so that I still have time to code. One thing that I would like to do is have a server configuration that we can standardize on so that when something goes wrong on a server we have many benefits.

The advantages of having a pre-configured system are that we'll have a way to set up a server again quickly that we know will work with the software we already have on the system. If something goes wrong with one of them that is related to the system settings, we'll know what we need to fix on all of the servers to make them right, not guess at whether the fix needs to be applied to each.

The process of standardizing allows us to pick the tools that we want to be on the system without having to rely on them being provided by a host. This gets particularly hairy when we try to build tools on a hosted environment and we're not sure what other tools might be on the system that could be affected or affect the tool we're trying to build. There are too many questions....

I work on several projects, both for work and for recreation, that require code editing by more than one person at a time. Some projects I've created on my own, while others were well established long before I came upon them. There are common threads between them, and I would like to try to point out some things that I've learned along the way.

When working collaboratively, a source code control system is mandatory. There is simply no other way in my mind to efficiently collaborate on a project of any size without source code management.

One might think that code control is not necessary for collaborating on small projects, but for those smaller projects it is especially true. If a project consists of a single file, and two people are working on that file, the only way to make the changes not continuously conflict with one another is to use some form of code control. The alternative of sending back and forth changes or keeping in constant contact to ask if another person is editing a file you need is not practical....

On this day in 1999, we were sipping free champagne on a flight between Amsterdam and New Delhi to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.

I was working at Kruse at the time, and our off-shore contractor wanted us to come visit and have some personal contact with the team. The ramp-up for the visit was quick - only two weeks, which was quite possible in the days before 9/11. When it was decided that I would be going on the trip and the date was picked, the question was essentially, "Got anything going on that week?" And my answer - "Just my first wedding anniversary."

I have the impression that sending your wife with you on a week-long business trip around the world because it was during your first wedding anniversary is not something that most employers would do. Mine did....

I like hot food. In high school, we liked to play D&D on the weekends, and during those games is when I built up my tolerance for hot things.

We would routinely have salsa and chips with our games. We started out with some mild salsa, found a liking for it, and eventually got hotter and hotter brands. At the time the best brand available was Chi-Chi's Hot salsa. We ate it continuously.

Derek, one of the guys I played with, found some crazy brand of cheese-salsa that we moved on to. It was at least as hot as the Chi-Chi's salsa, but cheese. We enjoyed that....

I've been part of the top-secret beta program over the past month or so of Microsoft's new Home Server product, and since it's now been released CTP, I can finally talk about it.

The software is actually really cool in concept. You basically allocate a box as your "home server". Many of us are getting so many computers around the house that it's becoming impractical not to have a dedicated server machine for sharing files and running printers, so it's a good idea to offer software that helps automate some of those tasks.

The Microsoft Home Server software looks like a kind of stripped-down version of Windows 2003 Web Server, but with a few dedicated applications for interacting with your home network. You access the main control portions of the Home Server via a "Terminal Services"-like client. It only allows you to connect to your Home Server, and does not provide you access to the Home Server OS, but a dedicated Home Server control application. When sitting at the Home Server system itself, you have access to a very pared-down version of Windows Server....