blogs.teztech.com

A lot of people think I’m an Linux/open source bigot. That’s not true at all. I do love Linux and open source. As a programmer, I dig the ability to “use the source, Luke”. Not only is looking at source code interesting on its own (at least for some of us), but every now and then it really helps with debugging and troubleshooting. Linux Servers are simply better than Windows Servers for a lot of the hosting I do, so I learned how to host on Linux. Back in the days of Windows NT, there was no comparison – our Linux web servers ran heavily loaded for years at a time while Windows NT systems with more than one web site needed regular reboots – really, I’m not making it up. (more…)

A customer of mine has a voice mail system that forwards .wav files to the Exchange Server email address. They also have a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) that (on good days)  keeps their Exchange Server mailboxes in sync with their Blackberries. Naturally enough, these users would like to listen to their voice mails on their Blackberry units. The emails are already there on the Blackberry with the .wav files downloaded. All they needed was the ability to play the .wav file attachments.

It turns out that the ability to listen to .wav files was added to Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1 Service Pack 2. We were only running Blackberry Enterprise Server 4.1, so an upgrade was in order. After downloading the 225MB “upgrade” file, the upgrade program managed to run just long enough to wipe out our Blackberry Server. The error message I was getting said something about being logged into a different account than the one that started the setup program. I might have even believed that message if I weren’t so very careful about logins. After a sort time of trying to get things fixed on my own, I decided to wait until morning to call BES support. (more…)

A lot of the  “enterprise” hardware and software I’ve been exposed to these last few years is really badly designed. Take for example, those Dell rack-mount servers I see everywhere. On the surface, they are really nice machines – dual CPUs, RAID with hot-swap, all kinds of fancy diagnostic tools. Right off the bat, though, they take forever to reboot. And of course, everything you have to do on them (work on RAID, upgrading Windows, installing just about any software) requires a reboot. (more…)