Odd Line Up

May 2, 2008

Nothing really to post about right now. It just hit me that I should take some kinda picture with all the freaking laptops I have. From the Macbook Pro down to the Eee… go figure. I need a life!

OK, really, I just needed a good headline to go with this picture. Honestly.

But the thing is, as long as you have an Eee and and EVDO card, it’s not a problem if you are stuck in the bush!

I’ve already told you that my Eee paid for itself in one day. It came in handy yesterday, too, when one of the datacenters where some of my servers are got DDOS’d. I was able to connect from my home office, from the Eee via EVDO, and from an additional remote connection I had – just so I could test latency issues the DataCenter was experiencing.

I also had the chance to show the Eee to another IT guy. Although he’s mainly a Windows Server guy, he did like the size and weight of the Eee, and lit up when I told him it could run Windows.

If I get the chance, I’m taking it to an Installfest tomorrow. It might be a little tight timewise, so we’ll have to play this one by ear.

And, by the way, I’m open for tutorial suggestions. What would you like to see more of? Just comment here and let me know.

EeeGeek.

A customer of mine sent me a note last night telling me they needed a page to be updated at 5pm today. As it turns out, I have to be somewhere else at 5pm today as well. Not a big deal.

My first thought was just to write a quick php function to include one or the other page based on date and timestamp. That, IMHO, would be the quickest and easiest way to do the deed. However, in this particular instance, based on the CMS they’re using, I’ve actually got to press a button at 5pm to make something go live. How antiquated!

I simply cannot push back the other appointment. In fact, I’ll be on the road at about 4:30 in order to make it to the 5pm. The 5pm job can’t be moved to 4:30 (sheesh!).

Not a big deal.

Now, I could lug out my macbook pro, slap my evdo card in it, and press the little button. However, that means packing the mac up, moving wires, shutting down programs… it’s a hassle.

This is what I truely love about the Eee. For the most part, it sits, ready to go out the door with me. I have been using it to monitor some stats for me during the day… mainly so it doesn’t feel left out ;-)

At any rate, when I head out the door at 4:30 this afternoon, I’ll have the Eee with me, ready to rock and roll. At 5pm, I’ll have it out, and I’ll update the site by pressing the little magic button. One customer will be overjoyed that the job got taken care of, and another potential customer will see that I’m able to perfrom job functions regardless of location.

It’s a wonderful thing.

I took a little heat for my really cheezy “camera aimed at the computer” screen cast last week… so, here’s how to do it right:

There.. wasn’t that easy?

Go visit http://www.keything.com/tv and have a watch…. it’s a nice little video walkthru.

Enjoy.