Dell PowerEdge 2950

I finally got our new PowerEdge 2950 mounted in the server cabinet and I’m starting to get it set up.

It’s been a while since I last ordered a PowerEdge from Dell. The last one was about three years ago, an 1800 we were going to use for an online storage backup. Sort of a poor man’s NAS.

This server is destined to be the back-end for our mail server. Our existing mail server topology consists of a single mail server in a single-serer Exchange topology. From what I’ve gathered the Exchange Server 2003 topoogy can be configured to allow two servers to focus on more specifc areas of the mail server application role. I’m very excited to try this out!

So as I have come to understand it, one server will now focus entirely on SMTP communications with the “outside” world, while this new server will focus on handling client mailbox requests.

I’m a ways off yet from getting Exchange running – this new hardware didn’t even come with Windows installed so I’m going to have to start pretty much from scratch. As I’ve been told, the logical drives have been configured in the PERC (PowerEdge Raid Controller), but that’s about it. I ordered the Remote Access Controller, but I’ve never used that before and I have no documentation on it so I’m trying to figure out how to get that to work.

Oh, and to make things more interesting, this server does not come with a PS/2 input for older keyboards – just USB. I’m not surprised by this, but all our servers are on IOGEAR MiniView ULTRA 8 Port PS/2 KVM Switches. I’m frustrated that a basic – not to mention low-cost – piece of technology gets phased out and now I’m stuck supporting two different classes of human interface device. And it’s going to be that way for a while. I’m not upgrading these KVM switches for a while – I just bought the last one less than a year ago!

%@$#!

More to come…

Santa Monica’s Avenue’s Original Names

The “state” namesake avenues in Santa Monica start at Montana and end at Colorado, which, confusingly enough, was originally named “Railroad.” Most of the street names, Idaho, Arizona, et cetera, have not changed. The exceptions seem to be Santa Monica Blvd (originally named Orgeon Avenue), Broadway (originally named Utah Avenue), and Wislhire Blvd. (originally named Nevada Avenue).

I have a hunch that Senator Jones named the street Nevada because the thoroughfare ran in front of his “Miramar” home on Ocean Avenue (Jones had made his fortune in and was a US senator representing Nevada).

Crystal Pier

Ha!

There used to be a pier at Hollister Ave! There is, of course, nothing there now to indicate that. The Crystal Pier seems to have been an amusement pier. I found this great photo print at the Library of Congress of a “Bathing Beauty Contest,” and I think you can see the pier in the background.

This is a great high res panorama photo from 1925. Click on the fragment below to go to the high res version.

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

It appears all eyes are on the House right now, waiting to see if HR 3997 (“Financial Markets Bill”) passes. It’s surprisingly close right now, 153 – 146.

I’m just thinking about lunch.

Now the Nays have taken the lead with 163 for and 167 against. Unbelievable.

Whatever the true substance of this legislation, with 60 seconds left in the vote, I can’t believe this thing isn’t going to pass.

It’s definitely going to be close.