Build your own Tardis

I grew up on a steady diet of Doctor Who. I still think its one of my favorite programmes (get it?) ever.

If you find yourself with a few hours to spare, check out this link to build your own paper tardis.

It's finally making sense to me now

I've been using computers since the early 1980's, but I've never really understood them.

Now I do.

Wi-Fi common sense

I spend way too much time using computers. Seriously. I probably average 14 hours a day with them. Even if I am not actively working or surfing, there is usually a computer humming nearby with facebook, email and some sort of instant messenger running.

So, needless to say, I am a big-time laptop user. I love my old macbook and drag it around with me everywhere I go. I often find myself using coffee shop or hotel Wi-Fi and because of who and I am and what I do, I am very paranoid about network eavesdropping.

I found this article that has a few helpful tips on helping prevent that guy two booths down from capturing your usernames and passwords.

This won't stop all attacks, but its a great start.

Linky

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It hurts when you do it right...

Jim Phelps has written a very good article on creating good business design by taking people out of their comfort zone and rethinking how you do business. He calls it "Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good".

Link

Oracle installed

I have the Oracle install done for the new production server. Its up and running, fully patched and ready for the data import. Except for one small detail. Its inaccessible. For some reason, the listener process is not allowing connections to the instance.

I'll be opening a new case in the morning.

Add it to the list...

Bundles 16/17

The current bundles are staged and are being tested. It's not going well. FA and SF are both reporting COBOL problems. I'm not sure how or why, but if anything is going to go wrong, it is typically with COBOL processes.

We are supposed to be going live on 1/3/09, but I doubt it will happen. We have a few cases open on it, so hopefully we can get it resolved in the next few days.

I am hoping we start having better results when we get our clean start with a new code base and COBOL compiler.

Gearing up for the upgrade

We have been prepping for several months for the CS 9.0 upgrade. There has been a lot of time in reviewing project plans, looking at new functionality, and talking with other institutions about their plans and timelines. There has been a lot of stressing over the unknown and even more stressing about the reports from others who are farther along than we are. We have been trying to keep up, but its been hard to address our day-to-day issues with preparing for the massive undertaking that the upgrade will be.

Now its go time....

We have secured some consulting and the big kickoff will come January 5th. In preparation, I am working with our networking team to configure 5 new servers to replace the aging production hardware. So far the database server is up and running and I have a copy of Oracle installed. I don't have a database installed yet, but should have it going early next week. The other servers should be ready shortly and will be ready to be web and app servers.

If all goes well, we will have a demo instance of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.0 and will be ready for our first test move by the end of January. There is a lot to do, so wish us luck!

First Post!

I'm not using my account for too much right now, so I thought I would try this spot out to help keep people up to date on what I am working on and how things are progressing with the current PeopleSoft upgrade.

Stay tuned for more info!