Some of you know that I am working as a System Administrator in my company, managing our unix system. There are 3 people in my SysAdmin group, and we serve about 200 users. It is not easy maintaining a system, especially when we are not given enough money to buy good hardware.

But the toughest time is when the system crashes. Many of the 200 users will come up to our desk, or call our phone to ask: “What is going on? I can’t do this…”. Then you tell them there is a system crash, at which point they ask: “when will it be over?”. If you didn’t call me it’d be over a lot faster!!

When the system is down it feels like the whole world in on my shoulders, everybody is waiting for you to restore it, because in the meantime they cannot work. So the more they’re idle, the most time is wasted, the more potential money is lost. Lots of pressure! Luckily it doesn’t happen that often.

All this to say that today is SysAdmin Appreciation Day (see here for explanation), If you can, say some nice words to your SysAdimin, maybe buy a gift. Congratulations to all SysAdmins for surviving another year!

PS: another thing, maintenance has to be done when users are not working, which means weekends or nights. Tomorrow afternoon I will be doing just that.

In response to my last post, my friend Paolo suggested to seal my pc case and fill it with olive oil, as a solution against the fan noise. At first I didn’t understand what the hell he was saying, and I thought he was just joking. But then he sent me a link to this:

Click on the image for the full article and to download the video. I don’t think I’ll try this, but I am curious to know who has.

My laptop has been making weird noises for the past few weeks, and sometimes I would wake in the morning and find that it crashed.
I’ve had it 2-3 years, and I use it 24/7, so I knew it was time for a new computer.
I wanted to try a Mac, but unfortunately they’re a little out of my current financial allowance. So I went for a custom built desktop.

Click on image for larger view.

CPU: 2.66Ghz Pentium D (dual core)
RAM: 2GB
HD: 250GB x 2
DVD-RW 18x
Samsung LCD 17″

Plus I already had a DVD-RW 8x and a 120GB HD, which I installed in the desktop as well. Needless to say this is a jet compared to my old laptop. And I really enjoy the LCD.

The only bad thing is that it is very noisy. Because there are so many HD and DVD drives, they added 2 extra fans, which make it really noisy.

Other than that I am very happy about it. Believe it or not, it is the first computer I ever bought by myself. Previously it was always someone else buying it for me.

Now it is on 24/7, and permanently hooked up with my TV in the living room. And I have enough space to download and keep anything I want. Sweet!!

I love the internet. I love signing up for cool new webservices, trying new websites, new technologies (like Podcasting). My problem is that I have a hard time keeping track of all my online presence. Obviously this site is my main home online, but there are many other places that I created or use very often.

Now it is possible for everyone to keep track of all these places, thanks to ClaimID.com.

You will find all sites I have anything to do with. Go visit my ClaimID page and let me know what you think.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I use and love Flickr.com to host all my photos. And I will always use Flickr as long as it works. However I am always informed about its competition. And one of the most innovative new competitor is without a doubt Zooomr.com.

This website was written in only a few months by a 17 year old, who is obviously a programming genius. It is very similar to Flickr, but it has some very neat features including geotagging photos, audio comments, trackbacks etc…

This image is host on my Zooomr account:

John - MementoHosted on Zooomr

And if you’ve seen the movie Memento, than you know what this picture is about. If not, you are missing out on a great movie. Rent it or buy it.

Back to Zooomr, you can sign-up for a free account now and try it, but more importantly you can get a pro account for free if you host at least one of your images from Zooomr at your blog. That is what this post is all about So what are you waiting for, go here to get the details and get a free pro account!!