The Truth may well be out there, but given that the bulk of people in this country who actually will be keen to watch X-files show no interest in waiting for anything else they want to watch and will most likely download it to watch, I can’t see that the network 10 is doing themselves or the show any favours. Personally I for the first time have put money into “pre-ordering” via an Apple TV / iTunes Store Season’s Pass. Yet, I feel I will still get shafted and be waiting an inordinate amount of time to watch this show. I’ve made the gesture of playing the Industry’s game and legally purchased in good faith. I suspect VERY strongly I shall be proved the fool. Where the Entertainment Industry is concerned though, it will be the first and last time. They have only this chance to demonstrate they deserve my business.
Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
Creating New Directions by taking Action…
Well as the year closes, it’s clear that although I’ve made fantastic progress with rising above my Depression, there’s still work to be done. Work has been difficult to get back into consistently with a combination of physical and psychological hurdles to overcome. Hopefully the New Year gives me a fresh start there. The damage done by my previous work situation is still not completely recovered from and there’s still some residual difficulties. However I’m placing a few new goals, and working towards them.
As part of moving forward, from both a Psychological & Emotional point of view I’ve also begun planning a photographic working holiday for later in the year which has provided a much needed boost to my overall emotional state. I’m going to visit the South Island of New Zealand for several weeks, and spend that time travelling in a hired van living out of it and photographing in a number places around the Southern Island. I decided that hiring a van and doing it in my own time with an allowance of 3 weeks is plenty of time to see all I want to see in the South Island. I’ve asked someone to accompany me, but I’m still waiting on an answer there, so at this stage it will be by myself as originally planned unless my offer is accepted.
All the advice I’ve received over the last few years suggests that trying to do both islands at the same time in anything under a month or so is a waste because you can’t spend the time you want to anyway for more than a short time. My thoughts are that with a generous amount of time, I can choose to stop where & when I like and enjoy the island to the maximum while giving myself plenty of time to get the sort of shots I want to bring home. Hopefully some of those shots will also generate some further income for the business.
Secured But No Bondage…
Well the Apache server has been configured for SSL now, and all sites will automatically redirect to the “https://” protocol. I just hope most can work out that the new Certificate for each site can be trusted! 🙂 Anyway that’s one more step towards getting Shards of Arcadia online store operational. In addition Chemoux is starting to get demanding about a blog and Tiggakat is encouraging her so I’m in a losing battle.
Work is improving, access is slowly forthcoming and there’s new areas of Windows Administration for me to learn. Depression’s been mostly non-existent for the last few months. I’m still getting the drop in mood every four or five weeks, but it’s nothing that’s debilitating or even particularly noticeable until after the fact. Hopefully that’s the way it’s going to stay now. It seems that there’s at least about a dozen & a half people still working where I’ve returned to work again, and I genuinely believe all of them have been happy to see me again. That’s a remarkably enjoyable feeling. It’s good to once again feel that you make a difference for people and it’s good to know you have a positive impact on people.
There’s been a few new games creeping into the list, and a couple of useful books arrived for furthering my identification skills for the tiny beasties. That’s good since I seem the warmer days are bringing the wee beasties out now finally! While in the subject of Photography, I went for a shoot at some friends’ new house where they have a derelict Dairy. Their intention is to renovate it into a working Dairy again. It’s only a 6 cow at a time Dairy, so not huge, but still it’s something they want to do and good luck to them. Anyway the purpose was to document the way it was before they started to work on it, and then document the journey along the way to finishing. I should have some of those photos up on Mirrormere shortly.
So it seems I have no shortage of things to do now, and so little time left in a lifetime to do it. *sigh* Such is the way for many of us I suppose…
On the Rise & Looking Over as Sol Rises…
Moving into October already, it’s hard to know where all the year has gone. However, it’s winding to a close in much better space than it started. Clearly events seem to be unfolding as close to my intended plan as I could have hoped. A good 2 month break from work, and now some part-time work about to start. All that is left is to achieve the right balance between work & required income. Hopefully those conditions will become clear soon.
The hope is that I can manage enough free time to be able to really apply myself to the photography business and create some solid foundations there and still be able to pay for the mortgage & cat food. If I can’t the Furbags may be unhappy to say the least!
I’ve still not yet got the online shop up yet, but I’m prioritising it this week, as I don’t really know how much time I will have after this coming week. I’ve updated the server and the Apache and WordPress installations in preparation for moving over to full SSL before putting the online store up. After consideration I didn’t want to proceed with going live with the production version until the SSL was in place and fully tested. Hopefully that will be sorted by Wednesday and stock will go in the store that day. All looking good, it should go live for the Weekend.
Clearly my Depression has been halted from worsening, and has certainly lessened to the point I’d say it’s improved to the best it’s been ever. I don’t want to say it’s cured, I don’t think I’m at that point, nor if I’ll ever be, but clearly I’m fully functional and been experiencing a significant amount of happiness over the last couple of months.
Not Exactly the Yellow Brick Road…
Well it’s been another week passed and still I seem to be holding my own. I’ve had a couple of “flat” days, but nothing like the Depression I had been feeling just over two months ago. In general things seem to be back on track. Hopefully work is going to sort itself out over the next couple of weeks. I’m hopeful that I won’t need to pull full-time hours to get back into the “Black” at this stage but plan on going at it for up to twelve months to try and make the part-time work.
While I’m doing that, it’s going to be work at the Photography and find as many options for bringing in some money with it over the next twelve Months. I do believe there’ll be time to get a full-time role down the track if it becomes absolutely necessary to stay afloat.
As an aside, I managed to procure those texts I was discussing in a recent post, and I managed to get 50% off the total price, so managed to get them for under AU$110 in the end from the same publisher that was already the cheapest. Interestingly I’ve noticed Australian prices for books, boardgames and photography gear going up, despite the fact that they were blaming GST exclusions and the high Aussie Dollar. Western Society in general is just such a greedy beast.
Seeing Through the Veils of the Mind…
Well I can see it’s been several weeks since the last update. That’s not indicative of a Depressive Relapse, it just means I’ve been very busy lately. It seems that the days are just flying by now with not enough time in the day to get done all I want to get done. It is quite amazing how it’s so like coming out of a fog, and the days are becoming bright, vibrant and nourishing in a strange but welcome way. I’ve not had a serious bout of Depression since Mid-July and despite money being tight, and the bills still coming in I’ve managed to stay afloat with the generous help of friends and family.
Today I’ve had word that there will be some work coming up for me in a few weeks, requiring only the need to jump through some hoops for a bit of paper work and I should have some part-time work very soon. I am looking forward to feeling more financially independent again, but things have had to go the way they’ve gone to get where I am now: feeling Happy and managing the Depression very well at this stage.
The Furbags think it’s been fantastic having me here home at their beckoned call for so long. Unfortunately I’ve had to endure much saving of Lizards, Beetles, Birds, and other gifts of appreciation. Still they’ve been very helpful for getting me through; they are both a source of much joy and amusement.
I’m hoping to put quite a bit of effort into my Photography and really start getting the business off the ground over the next 6 months. Fortunately now it looks like I will have part-time work to help fund my attempt. I’ve not got my tax return notice yet to know if any money is coming back to me this year, but hopefully I will get something back. Anything to put towards the upcoming regular bills I have at this time of year will be most welcome. As it is, things are good.
As an aside I’ve managed to blow my Internet Quota for the first time EVER! I guess that must mean I’ve been home more than I should surfing photography blogs!
Yes, It’s All About Competition…
So, the same two books (technical) from five online stores:
pearson.com AU $135.54 (including $13 U.S. SHIPPING) -> U.S.
bookdepository.com (free shipping) AU $149.xx -> U.K.
fishpond.com.au AU $155.64 (free shipping) -> Australian
angusrobertson.com.au AU $174.00 (free shipping) -> Australian
booktopia.com.au AU $215.50 (free shipping) -> Australian
Subtracting 10% GST would be $140 or $156.60 or $193.95 respectively, so it’s still cheaper for me to ship from the U.S. Clearly adding GST to online purchases below $1000 is ALL about making Australian Online Stores / Physical Stores competitive! Also not to be sneezed at, the fishpond.com.au price is 6% discount on one item, and 25% on the other HOWEVER, one of these items will ship from a U.K. supplier anyway! Booktopia.com.au tells me I’m getting 21% & 18% discounts on the respective titles.
No wonder people struggle to make sense out of these arguments.
Out of the Inferno, Through Purgatory and on to Paradise…
I’m finally starting to feel different and no longer still feeling echoes of my stint at my previous place of work. I actually feel detached from it now. It’s been a month since I resigned, and my sleeping has changed dramatically, my mood has been constantly elevated, and I’ve at no point felt a drifting towards another depressive patch. My health overall is improving. I’ve lost weight (not more than about 3 kg) but feeling that another kilo or two may not be unrealistic, and I’ve not had to try hard for that to happen. I’m reducing my sugar intake steadily although I’m not completely avoiding it yet. I’m certainly eating more healthy options than I was four months ago on a consistent basis. Not that my eating was unhealthy by any huge measure. But I’m changing some of what I eat and changing how I eat it. So far it’s all been for the better. I don’t see the Anti-Depressants going away soon but I’m certainly feeling more benefits from them than I was over the last six months.
To sum up the work and health side of things up at the moment, less money but better quality of life. I know that without work for a period of time longer than a few months that will be difficult to maintain however that’s not the intention. The goal was always to be getting out of what was holding me back. Nothing more.
The Furbags are very happy to have me home constantly at the present, although I’ve applied for two jobs so far in the last two weeks. Both jobs have been ones that I really couldn’t justify NOT applying for given that they were both in Ballarat. I hadn’t wanted to go looking for work for another month or so, but I figured either of these jobs couldn’t be up & running within 4 weeks anyway. I’m certainly not going to ignore good opportunities, just because they come up quick. I think the Furbags will have me home for a while yet. They’re getting plenty of “pat overdose” at the moment. They’re also keeping me happy and amused. I’ve been rigging up some cardboard boxes for them to play with during the week and it’s been hilarious watching them try to sneak into one after the other one has wandered off for a snack.
It’s been nearly a week, and the new DNS servers are performing well. I’ve fixed a couple of configuration issues that I’d forgotten to check on the other servers with Static configurations and the network is the snappiest it’s ever been. I’ve also handed the servers a bit and cleaned up the firewall rules now that a few old activities are no longer happening. All in all very please. I’ve purchased another NAS as I’ve been very happy with the current one and need to provided some better Disaster Recovery options for the photography business side of things.
I’ve scraped enough extra cash up to invest in a carbon fibre legged tripod for the trekking for the outdoor shooting. My gear has been getting heavier to carry over the last year on the treks out. I opted for another Manfrotto Tripod. It’s a tricky balance between sturdiness and stability; compactness & weight being the counterbalance. I opted for the X Pro 3 way head as against the alternative 496RC2. I’ve tried a couple of friend’s “Ball Heads”, and confess to not finding them my preferred mode. It is probably me, but I find it easier to deal along each axis individually, than wrestle with the weight of the camera & Lens while trying to position a “Ball Head”. I’ve yet to take it on a trek out, only having received it today, but since shoots have been scarce for a month and a half, I sense a few shoots coming up over the next week or two: life outside of Photography has been rather busy and full of change.
Slap that SLES…
This weekend I’ve finally finished off the Migration from SLES 11 SP3. I’ve finally succeeded in retiring the last SuSE Linux Enterprise Server box, and as it happens the last Virtualbox VM I still had in the environment. I’ve finally moved all virtuals across to VMWare. I’ve even managed to migrate an instance of my retired W2K8R2 Domain Controller over to VMWare from Virtualbox in case I need to have one up again for work / study purposes. This is basically an OS X and Linux environment completely now other than the few Virtual Windows 7 & a Windows 10 VM for assistance purposes when I get “those” calls…
Anyway it’s been a good exercise building this DC from the ground up. It resolves internally and externally and also for my domain on the intenet. Pretty pleased with a job well done. Much appreciative of the excellent documentation by Peter Harrison at LHN.
Sweet Sweet Desert Island…
Three weeks ago I resigned my previous role. Overall I’ve seen a dramatic increase in my level of happiness and a commensurate decrease in my level of Depression through the last 3 weeks. Since I made that decision of getting out of my previous workplace’s negative environment, I’ve had a steady path onward to increasingly better feelings. I’ve started to enjoy activities again that previously were simply numb attempts at trying to feel better. Clearly it was the best choice I could have made. Nothing else was moving forward anymore.
In fact I was losing ground again slowly but surely. At least so it seemed for the most part. Then when least expected but most needed: Epiphany! In an Ocean of Despair appears a place to drop anchor, take on Fresh Water and Sustenance. A Desert Island to Rejuvenate my Soul.
Since then most things have fallen into place in a very positive manner. Financially things couldn’t be much better considering I’m not a man of savings. But preparation, good friends and the truth has meant that I’ve been able to position myself to begin weathering the storm at least starting with a good supply of hope and positivity. Already I’ve put in for one role, although it’s a bit early, it did seem one of those things where I needed to be willing to do what was required. Results will unfold in time. Nothing has to happen tomorrow.
The Furbags are eating and so am I, and on a daily basis that’s what’s important right now.