Hmm...well...it's been a while.  Hence the title: would you consider it six months or ten months since the last real event in this space?

Either way, it's a long time.  And the lack of postings, despite great earth shaking events, is mostly my fault.  I said that the page would be back up months ago, and then failed to deliver.  Even the current engine is not what I would have liked it to be in terms of capability–but it runs.

So news:

• The Active Directory domain was reinstalled.  It's now "na.ntldr.local", which shouldn't really concern anyone, since basic auth using the default domain works.
• All my computers had to be reinstalled at about the same time as the DC rebuild (yeah, I had a fun last two weeks in May).
• Gatekeeper died.  Motherboard gave up the ghost.
• Gatekeeper's death was catastrophic for about a month.  One week was spent purchasing new servers: (2) Dell PowerEdge 400SC.  They were cheap.  One week was spent deploying the systems.  One week was spent waiting to move (why get them set up in an environment that would require me to take everything down again just 7 days later?).  The last week was spent waiting for my Internet connection to start working.
• Having a separate ISA and IIS/Exchange setup makes a WORLD of difference in terms of effective functionality and decrease in hassles.
• I'm at college now, in a dorm, and my room is virtually its own little datacenter, operating off a 10Mb/s connection with 1GB/day bandwidth, redundant power options (UPS'), and highly secured.
• There's a new version of the JSC.Web.UI.WebControls assembly (parent for DirectoryLister) in use (1.3.9.1).  I think it looks really nice, and it''ll nicely complement Windows Team Services if I ever get around to evaluating, validating, and deploying that beast (I hope).

I guess that's about everything of importance.  I'll post more stuff when I think of it.

Fixes for the site will not be forthcoming anytime soon...I'm going to be having another big server change coming up rather soon I expect. And then there's the upgrade to build 3790...all shall be well eventually...

Yes, I know this site is malfunctioning. I am working hard to address this issue, and hope to have it resolved for you, the client, as soon as possible. Thank you for your continued understanding during this difficult period of change at this site.

Of course, right on schedule, Achroite fails.  It wasn't planned, and as far as I can tell, it wasn't my fault, but it has happened nevertheless and I must live with the situation as it is.  The disk controller failure that wiped out the drive contents actually happened last Tuesday, later on the 10th.  A new controller were purchased on the 11th, but has no sign of appearing anytime soon, since the order has yet to be processed, let alone shipped.  I'm going to be gone from the 12-22 to 12-29, so even if the shipment were to come in over the holidays I wont be here to recieve it.   This is all just great.  At least now I have a good idea what was really behind those upgrade problems.

In terms of definite site changes, I don't have anything yet.  The web server is going to be completely rebuilt, since there was a lot of shared data/structures that is now completely toast.  And at some point I really am supposed to get the Tablet PC (hah! even HP doesn't seem to know any more than me on that issue...), plus being able to print would be nice...  So, I think a complete network architecture rethink and redesign, and reimplementation, is in order...at some point.  For now all I can do is sit back, use Azure and learn more about OpenVMS since it's now my primary working environment.  Oh what fun!  Using a platform that has its inadequecies as a desktop-type system being fully exposed to me!

But that's enough of this rant/ramble for now.  I'll try and get more news and info up before I leave so that at least one week's notice can be given.  Until then...

Well, the issues with Achroite seem to have resolved themselves, after enough hard resets and crashed disk checks.  But the upgrade will still wait until I'm on winter break; I really won't have the time before then to work on it as deeply as is necessary.

With Ach' back up and running, I was able to FINALLY get around to doing some more site maintenance.  There was the usual round of minor bug fixing (I finally don't have to restart IIS everytime I want to update this file!), but the big news is the completely revamped/rewritten personal page.  Check it out and find out more than you ever wanted to know about me (eventually...the development framework is there, but the content is ...well...lacking).

Until the next crisis event (currently preemptively scheduled for this weekend),

Okay, maybe I lied.  That'll be within the next three weeks rather than one.  You see, I seem to be having some issues with 'upgrading', namely it seems to have hosed Achroite.  Ouch...  You know, I really have been meaning to come up with a set backup cycle...honestly...

Yay!  I'm now 18!  I can arm, smoke, vote, and be drafted!  All the true American values that really matter...

And now for some actual news...
Yesterday Windows.NET Server 2003 build 3718 was released (RC2).  At some point in the next week, this server will be going down for the upgrade.  At this very moment, I'm already running the deployment on Achroite.  So drop me a line about when you think I should upgrade it (and this time I have provided one week advance notice, so no complaining from all the people who will be reading this after the fact!).