Windows 8- Un-clean install?

Evening internet!

So Windows 8 is out and I gotta say that I am a very happy camper. It is clean, sleek and overall faster than Windows 7. Unfortunately though, with some of the installs I have done, the process of upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8 while keeping the files and configurations has been kind of "sloppy". Errors left and right, preventing anti-virus programs from opening or the Internet Explorer keeps closing. The thing that most of these "un-clean" installs have had in common is that all the computers came with stock software (HP energy saver or Lenovo face scanner). After I uninstalled these programs the errors disappeared and everything ran smooth.

Second I have yet to find a way to migrate all the settings, files and configurations from Windows 8 Release Preview to Windows 8 Pro. Both installs I have done (my computer and my laptop) the install options did not give me the options to bring over my files. It did however put all those files into a folder called Windows.old. I had to cut and paste those files to reflect what I had before. It was a pain in the ass but I did it. Oh and for those people out there who play Warhammer II 40,000, when it asks to run it in compatibility mode click yes.

Anyways, hope this helps you gals and guys and please leave any questions or comments.

Night y'all

-Dain

When the rules kill potential

Evening people! Tonight I want to write about how rules (and I am talking about politics and bureaucracy) of the church kill potential experiences that can bring together kids and make lifetime friends.When I was attending that church I ran a youth ministry called Heart Work. Heart Work is a program that is designed to get kids to collect money through helping out their community, selling goods or plain out asking for donations.The team of kids I had were/is awesome. They were insane in that they liked physical labor! We cleaned houses, dug dirt and landscaped. Good times! Even while I was working Heart Work the youth leaders gave me no support. I was the only one showing and picking up the kids, setting up the work and just being a leader in general. Because school and no support I felt the door was closing and stepped down from Heart Work. Ultimately due to family issues I left that church. I learned that Heart Work is no longer and that there is no community youth ministry. The story gets worse. 

I have joined up with another ministry called King's Kids. I have been part of this group since high school. They are not part of a church but run under the flag of Youth with a Mission. They are not constrained under the red tape of church politics and are able to move more freely. The leadership is great and experienced. Naturally I thought my Heart Work team would love to be a part of this. So I wrote a message to my team about how we are going to Montana to distribute food to the Crow Indian tribe so that they can have a good Thanksgiving. I thought I was done with church politics....nope. One of the members of my group told me that I should ask the youth pastors (who never supported me in the past) if this was ok. The other kids exploded on her saying that it was not the Youth Group leaders decision. They told her it was their decision and their parents. She retaliated and involved the deans (her aunt and uncle) of the church. The deans told her to tell me to involve the youth pastors. To me that makes no sense. This is a third party ministry and now I see why the church of America is where it is now. The politics and bureaucracy of the American church kills ministry and growth. What a shame......


Good night internet,

Dain 

Server Migration

Tired of your old web server? Ready for more room and more RAM? The only thing in your way is actually migrating over to the new server? Well don't fret, big daddy Dain is here to help. Out of all the 10 migrations I have done not one has been smooth . Know this is normal. Something will break, from the index page having a .htm extension instead of a .html extension, to misspellings of the name servers something will be wrong. Hopefully this guide is a good checklist for you to keep track of your migration.

1. LAY THE GROUND WORK: This step is probably the most crucial. The more you pay attention to prepping your new server the less headaches you will have. Depending on your control panel, create the new site on the new server. Don't worry its not going to mess up your current (old) site on your old server. The DNS is still pointing to the old server and it will not point to the new/not prepared server. Once you have added the domain, add all the emails, setup your FTP, and upload your site to the new server
2. CONFIGURE THE NAME SERVERS: Make sure your web hosting site has provided you a new IP address. Once the IP address is assigned login to your domain hosting site and configure your name servers with the new IP address. For example: your old name server is NS1.EXAMPLE.COM which is pointing to 50.53.162.115. Change that IP address to the new IP address which would be now NS1.EXAMPLE.COM now points to 72.165.25.112. Now if you are hosting multiple sites and bringing over a site one at a time the process is a little different. You are going to have to add a new name server such as NS2.EXAMPLE.COM pointing to 72.165.25.112 so that your other sites are still up and running.
3. ADD THE NAME SERVERS TO THE DNS RECORDS: OK you have done the mess of configuring your name servers. Now you have to add those name servers to your. You are going to want to add an NS record into your DNS with the name server web address (NS1.EXAMPLE.COM or NS2.EXAMPLE.COM if you have multiple sites). 
4. WAIT FOR THE ERRORS: One of my recent migrations was complete in about ten minutes but it was loading my control panels index page instead of mine. I saw that I had two index pages. Mine had the .htm extension and the control panel's had the .html extension. Little did I know that Plesk had a order of hierarchy and looks for indexes with .html extensions before looking for .htm extensions. Once I changed my index extension the site worked! If you are working with a Linux/Unix server you better make sure all the pages are in lower case. Linux/Unix is very picky when it comes to upper/lower case. If your site is still not loading, check to make sure you correctly spelled your name server and typed in the right IP address. 

Congrats! You have just made it through a server migration! If you have any questions, comments or would like to add to this, please do not hesitate! Happy Humpday!

-Dain

My Birthday....looking back

     Before I even start writing this I want to let you (the internet) know I am a little drunk. Rum and 7-11 slushees go great together. Anyways, back on track. I have survived 24 years to this day. I am going to list what lessons I have learned:

• If you are put into the friend zone do not be fooled by the word "friend" in that word. It will be awkward and you will either be always mad at her or obsessed with her.  Drop the trick and move on. 
• It pays to let your balls drop. Not saying anything or standing up for yourself means you will always get taken advantage of.
• Marriage is in trouble (and no I do not mean gay rights, I mean commitment .) 
• There are no cute chicks that program or design networks.....sucks.
• In a thousand years my accomplishments:college, kids, wife, how much money I made, will not matter or even exist. 
• Beer is a great way to bond with friends
• God is good ALL the time. 
• Everyone is hurt in someway.Open your eyes and try to heal. 
• School  sucks, college is awesome. 
• Sometimes taking it slow is the best path. 
• Calm down and enjoy the ride. 

     I am 24 and I feel like I have to make the most out of my life. In the long term I really have a short time here on earth, eternal life thereafter or not. I need to recognize faster the bad things in my life and cut them out. Right now I will admit, I am lonely. I remember writing an assignment two years ago about where I would like my life to be. So far I am not even close to completing my goals. Graduated by 25? Not going to happen. Married by 28? Yeah that is not going to happen either. House by 30? Jury is still out on that one. This part of my life I feel like I have been being less and less dependent on others support to get me through the rough times. That's not necessarily a good or bad thing. It's hard for me to try to get romantically involved with a woman. I keep getting rejected which really turns me off the the whole dating thing. 

     All is not dreary though! School on the other hand is my mistress. I am SSOOOO glad I switched to Computer Programming. If I knew programming would be this fun I would have done it from the beginning. I am really good at it and I GET it. Love being challenged and conquering those challenges. My teacher is awesome and is not like the last lazy slug. 

I want year 24 to be a year of change. I want my money to stay in the bank, I want to get my own place, I want a freakin girlfriend (best to be honest), I want to start my career, and I to be happy. Anyways, enough of my sob story. I am going to write a technical post on how to transfer your old site over to a new server either tonight or tomorrow. Internet stay awesome.

-Dain

Outlook keeps selecting its own paper tray

What a Monday! I got more computer issues than teenage girls with their boyfriends. Today I actually solved a problem without the help of Google (INSERT APPLAUSE). The problem was that emails in Outlook 2007 would auto select their own paper tray either though I sent the defaults in the printer settings to print to tray 2. I Googled this issue and no one had an answer how to solve this. So I did what I guess is what an IT person is supposed to do and started going through the menus. Of course the answer was in one of the few menus I have never been in before. I went to File --> Page Setup --> Define Print Styles -->Double any style you want to configure--> Click the Paper tab --> Under Paper source select the tray you want and press OK. Worked like a charm! My order desk ladies are happy and once again  my computer skillz prevail. Now to convert over this website to our new managed dedicated site and figure out what is going on with Jimbo's computer.

Got a blog....

Well I got a blog...finally. And yes I am selling out and putting Ad Sense on. If I can make a little scratch (for all you whities out there scratch means money) than that is awesome for me. Plus those adds are aimed toward what I write about so if you like beer, it will bring up ads for beer and breweries. Awesome right? If you have any questions, comments or see anything that is broken on this blog shoot me a message or leave a comment. Y'all are awesome!


-Dain

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