Our school’s technology partner, Dean, was once interviewed for a school paper. When asked to summarize computer work, Dean said “It always takes longer than you think.” Amen to that, brother!
Yesterday, our school had the day off (in lieu of Columbus Day). But I went in to work on FINALLY switching the Fileservers. Dean showed up around 1:00pm, so that’s when I officially started working. We started by testing out the permissions and shares and found out the original plan didn’t work to copy over the permissions (though a registry export/import transferred the shares without a hitch). We tried Winders Backup on a single file and found that it could transfer the permissions. So I backed up all the user files and sent them to the new server.
Meanwhile, I took Dean and dad down to the main computer lab which had been giving me grief this week. Each day, another computer would “die.” At first, I thought it was dead HDs. Then later dead graphics cards. Actually, I believe now that it was a combo of the graphics card, Macromedia, Clean Slate and the dreaded Microsoft Debug Mangler Manager. I uninstalled Clean Slate, disabled MDM, uninstalled the graphics card, reinstalled it and Clean Slate, and the computers are back to normal. Phew!
So I did that in the lab of 22 computers (thankfully only 12 had the MDM/graphics card problem, but they all needed the upgrade of Clean Slate) while I was backing up and restoring the user and software folders on the new Fileserver. I left at 7:00pm and had supper at Taco Hell.
Today, I actually went to Curves for the first time since August. Then, after lunch, I returned to school to make sure the restore worked (it did) and to check the shares and permissions (all were fine). I then turned off the old Fileserver, renamed and re-IP-addressed the new one, and logged onto a machine with my account. Yay! Everything in my account was there! The new Fileserver worked!
Now, the old Backup Domain Controller crashes more than doesn’t, so I turned it off and decided to put in the new PDC that we also bought this summer but had no time to finish installing. Unfortunately, when Dean installed WinNT4 on it, he made it a PDC at the time. But the old PDC refused to acknowledge the fact that it was a server in that case. After some research, I discovered there was no way to demote to BDC with this situation. So I thought “I’ll just reinstall WinNT4.” Ha!
There’s never a “just” about it. Firstly, I tried the upgrade, but it remembered the old settings. Then I started from scratch – but when it came time to log onto the Domain, it couldn’t be found. The Intel NIC, I figured. But that’s no problem, Dean made floppies of the NIC drivers. Except that for some reason, the new PDC doesn’t see its A: drive anymore. ARGH!
After an initial bout of frustration, I thought “I could make a CD of the NIC drivers” and did so. Finally WinNT4 finished installing and the new PDC was now a BDC on our network. It will stay this way until I’m ready to promote it to the new PDC and demote the old to a BDC.
Next was installing the graphics drivers, but of course, a higher service pack was needed. No problem, I’ll update using IE. Except IE doesn’t work. Argh! So I download the service pack on my PC and save to a CD. Except there’s two different encryptions – and I’d downloaded the wrong one. New download, new CD burn (same CD-RW, thankfully) and finally I got the new PDC/BDC updated and ready for action. PHEW!
All in all, it ended up being 10.5 hours of work – and that’s just me. Thankfully only about 4 hours of Dean was needed. I’m merely $25/hr, but he’s $60/hr. Hopefully on Monday I can finish the last 4th grade rooms and be nearly caught up to where I should have been at the end of summer. Woohoo!
*reads computer speak* Brain. Hurts. But I can tell you how to make varnish, then glaze and techniques of use.
*reads computer speak* Brain. Hurts. Sorry about that! Hope that’s the last one of those that I have to post in awhile! But I can tell you how to make varnish, then glaze and techniques of use. Oooh! I’d like to know how to make varnish. Sounds like some good chemistry.
I try not to think of it as chemistry. Never could figure out mole equations and always resorted to guessing the number of electrons needed. First, you take a pound of damar crystals (which resemble white quartz) and wrap them in a cheesecloth (or similar). You tie that to a stick, to dangle it inside a bucket. You add one gallon of your choice petroleum distillate solvent, such as turpentine, paint thinner or mineral spirits (odorless, even). You let this soak. And soak. And soak. The majority of the crystals dissolve away, leaving behind a small gummy mass that’s ten times worse than pine sap and produces fumes that can get you high. Throw this away, along with the cheesecloth. The varnish currently resembles skim milk. Let the crystal dust settle. Once clear, transfer the varnish to smaller, non-soluble, air tight containers. To make glaze, cut the varnish half’n’half with stand oil (a highly viscous form of linseed oil). This can be made in bulk quantities and stored. Glaze, when dry, has the protective properties of varnish while also mimicking the action of glass. A flat oil painting reflects light to the viewer once. A glazed oil painting (often made with several tinted layers) refracts light multiple times before reflecting it back to the viewer. Imagine the difference in vibrancy that occurs.
A glazed oil painting (often made with several tinted layers) refracts light multiple times before reflecting it back to the viewer. I was wrong, this isn’t a chemistry lesson, it’s a physics lesson. 🙂 Thanks for the info!
[dry]I’m sure you were dying to know[/dry]. I like to ramble on.