Ongoing monthly chores

Some things that I have to do every month (Just did them this month).

- WEP’s “Get It Started!” newsletter.  This is usually a several-piece thing:

1. Shoot, [edit, encode, get feedback]+, post the video content.

2. Receive the copy for the stories (usually 2 a month) and enter them into the GIS admin interface (which accepts GeeWiki wiki encoding, which is basically a complete ripoff of Wikimedia’s tags)

3. Make the pictures for feature items and the thumbnails and add those

4. Get the whole thing approved and then pop it onto the live server so the admin site there can generate email code and whatsnot.

The other task is the WGFA Newswire newsletter, which is easier.

1. Receive the word document.

2. Create any necessary images  (I use an image for the callout box quote, because it looks better).  Usually for any other images, the most expedient way is to do screen capture and paste into Photoshop and trim down.

3. Make an email version (all links and images full URLs, not relative, no archive links, and an added link at the top to the web version) and a web version (keep the absolute URLs, but add the archive list at the bottom and remove the link at the top.

4. Send for approval.

5. Once you have a final version, put it up on the wgfa\newswire\newswire.html file, and as newswire_mmyyyy.html (for the archive purposes).

SQL Management Studio

I love this.  Why did I wait so long to start using it?

I’ve spent five years now working with Enterprise Manager.  Sure, SQL Server 2005, which is what Sql Management Studio shipped with, didn’t come out until halfway into that tenure… but I’ve been beating my head against it for so long.   If I also find that I can make good use of the CLR parser to make C# “stored procedures” instead of relying on tsql… then I’ll have more reason to hate myself for sticking with MSSQL2k for so long.

I know I sort of wanted to have every post here be task listings, but I just wanted to get that off my chest.

ACT! -B- GONE

Problem: Can we move from our current ACT! installation? It’s a system resource nightmare, runs like molasses, and the usability is so bad that we don’t use the small subset of its features that we might actually benefit from.

Possible solutions:

- updated version of ACT!? (we tried this a few years ago and it was the worst thing ever. I’d prefer not to, but maybe it’s time to man up and admit that a newer new version might be better). Enterprise (SQL Server based) versions might also be a big step.

- web-based. Highrise or something else. (Bob is investigating what it would look like to migrate)

- Sharepoint? We should have an eye on this to see if it can fit the needs, since it’d also become a platform for addressing a lot of other needs (collaboration, file sharing, etc.)

- Will newer computers/faster net connections obviate the problem? (possibly, but memory size doesn’t seem to be the problem)

- Change the method of distribution, and use replication across local versions instead of one central copy other people connect to. (Tried this.  Synchronization in old ACT is cumbersome and awkward, and this simply doesn’t look like it’ll work)

New Staff Desktops

Task: Order (me) and then setup (Bob) eight new machines, then ease staff onto them.

Pretty straightforward.

WEPDEV 2

The task: updated development server. I have the hardware – a box that was actually originally going to be a new web server before VMs obviated that. I want to use this as a chance to try out sql server 2008 setup to make sure I know what I’m doing, and then to test all of our apps on that back end.

Right now it’s slow going because the box is down the hall and we’re not yet to the point where I can network it up and remote to it to do the work.

Update: Now it’s up, on the domain, patched and ready to go, and SQL Server 05 developer edition is up and running and patched to SP2 as well. Next I need to figure out how to best copy existing databases over from old wepdev to new – one step will be getting the new management console installed on my desktop.

Update 2: It’s in place!  The major websites are all running fine on it.   SQL’05 seems perfectly happy hosting the databases.  There are a lot of individual WSBDC applications to activate, but many of them don’t need to be turned on (there are a lot of test and duplicate copies from the past that I’d rather not turn on if they’re not needed).

WEP-Media

WEP-Media is a server that was originally a hand-me-down from the FNCE department. It’s never been an ideal box, and has been used for a few years since then as a Windows Media Server, serving various WMVs for WEP websites. Now those videos are mostly FLVs being served by IIS boxes, and we’re down to a handful of media things left, after which the server will be decommissioned. Most of the work here is being done by workstudy (transcoding the few needed old movies over to flv).

Update: It’s shut down.  I’ll find a new purpose for the hardware, or will stack it somewhere for next recycling day.