Mac OS X Server Updates
Word to the wise. If you run a Mac OS X server always download and install the manual major software updates, don't rely on the automatic Software Update process that I have wrote about and love in the workstation version of Mac OS X.

Weekend before last I decided to apply a major update to my home server http://brysons.org/ the one you are reading this blog from and it was pretty disastrous. The update crashed halfway through, caused a kernel mismatch and then it would not boot all the way. Luckily for me I had most of my critical files backed up so it only took me about 6-7 hours to re-format, re-install and re-configure everything. Most of this time was because I was trying to recover from the problem. If I had just started fresh it would have only taken a couple hours, most of which would have been installing from CD and updating from 10.2-->10.2.4

In my limited spare time I am learning how to backup the netinfo database so I don't have to go through the configuration process again, though I have it pretty well down by now. Only setting up my 20 or so virtual websites takes a long time.

My guess based on what I have seen posted on the Apple discussions is that this problem only happens on G3 macs. Seems Apple is not testing OS X Server on the older machines (at least not the updates). Though Dan Sinema with Apple tells me that he had the problem with 10.2.2 on a G4 a while back so he always uses the manual updates as well on the servers.
7:08:34 PM     comment []

What the ----!
Ok, so my last posting requires some explaining. Up until now I have avoided writing about school for personal reasons. Well now I have decided why not. Recently I decided to go back to school because I had nothing else better to do with what little free time I have ;) I am finishing up a BBA (Business Administration) at the UofU and am taking three very demanding courses this semester. One of them is my Wednesday night class Finance 3050 which is called Introduction to Investments. This is by far the hardest class I have taken ever. The material I posted was about 40% of my cheat sheet. We are allowed one 8.5X11 cheat sheet to write anything we want to refer to during the test (front and back). To give you an idea of how hard the class was I spent almost every min. of free time I had the week before studying for this second test in this class. I also studied almost an entire Saturday prior to the test with a group of friends from that class. Even with all the studying and my great cheat sheet I only scored 65/75 on the test. I was however 9th or 10th out of 112 students so I got an A on the test. I also got an A on the first test 67/75. There is a reward for getting A's on the first two tests, but I can't write about that here. I have talked to my professor and I made some really dumb mistakes on the test, mostly on conceptual stuff and the nice trick questions they ask you. Most of them I knew better on, but had brain farts or the like (you know the drill). My goal was to be one of the top three scores. There are a couple other people in the class (one of them in my study group) that either study their guts out or do this for a living so no one can beat them. My problem is I spend too much time on the formulas and math and not enough on the conceptual stuff and things from the book that they like to throw in to see if you read. There was so much material in the chapters that I estimate that we were tested on only about 30% of the material. I don't think any 'human' could score 100% on the exam unless you happened to see it before the test. The high score was only 70 BTW.

I will write more about my scholastic adventures as time allows.
6:57:37 PM     comment []