Man that was so easy. This morning I signed up for a new account with www.bluehost.com. It was a very easy move since I was moving from one host that used cpanel to another. All my mail just was copied over and a few of my settings also. I am still working on training spamassassin and getting everything all figure out. I have ssh access with my new account and therefore can use sftp instead of straight ftp. I really like the new host. The actual box I was put on looks like it was built around 11/30/05 since that is when the cert was made and there seems to be only 13% of /home used at this time. Hopefully once they load the box up it will still be as snappy as it currently is. My webmail is so much faster on this host than it was on my previous host at www.lunarpages.com.

Well from the tracking email I got last last night. It looks like the new seagate drive I ordered should be here later today. I have backed up all of the data on my array and should be ready to kill the previous array and build a new one this evening. I have gotten all of my rebate checks from previous seagate rebates. I am waiting for the rebate check for the 300 gig I just bought from outpost and will submit this rebate tomorrow. I should be all set on storage for awhile now. I have a few extra drives to replace system drives and drives in my replaytv’s if they go bad. The only thing I do not have an extra for is if one of the 300 gig drives go bad. That should be fine though because they are covered for 3 to 4 more years. I can wait the few weeks it will take to get one replaces since I plan to put them in a mirror configuration. Still looking for a raid array on ebay. I will find a nice one for cheap eventually.

UPDATE: Drive has been delievered and I am letting it warm up before I put in the server. Good thing I moved my main server into the new antec case that can handle all of the drives. I actually may want to get an even bigger case eventually.

UPDATE: Drive has been installed. New 400 gig array is setup and data is getting copied back over to it. Data is almost all copied and hot spare is in place and ready to take over when one of the western digital drives fail.

I now have two 300 gig seagates freed up and ready for a new drive array in my linux box. I have three 200 gig drives in my windows server in a mirror config with a hot spare. I just found a fourth drive online tonight. A 200 gig seagate for 49 after rebate. Worked out to be 56 after shipping. Hopefully I will get it later this week. I will work on getting all my data off the current array and then reconfig the array and have it ready by the time I have the new seagate in hand. I can add that anytime. Just put it in and add it as a hot spare.

When all drives are in the computers I will have a 4 drive raid 5 array in my main server and 2 drive raid 1 array in my linux box acting as the webserver and backup server.

Next I will start looking for new memory, motherboard, processor and video card. It is time to put a new box together. I have not put one together for well over 3 years, if not 5 years.

Today I went ahead and bought a Seagate 300 gig drive. I have another one of these already. I figure I can use this 300 gig as a hot spare in my current array of 200 gig drives if I want to or I can put another array together if I win another raid controller on ebay and put that card and the 2 300 gig drives in a Linux box I am working on putting together to be the web server, asterisk pbx and backup system. I really love the backup software I have been running for well over a year (Backup). Drive should be to me on Tuesday of next week I would think. I still have 40 or 60 bucks coming to me from one drive and I have 60 bucks in checks I have to put in the bank from another drive. After I get this drive I will have another 60 bucks coming back in the form of 2 checks. The only drive I will buy is from Seagate now. After having 3 Maxtor drives go bad I will not buy another Maxtor drive. The problem is I still have 2 drives left in my 2 replaytvs. I have 2 200 gig maxtors in my server and another one or 2 drives in other pc’s. Wonder when they will die. I have had 2 of the 3 maxtors go bad in the first year so they were under warranty, but a drive that goes bad in the first year is really a bad thing. So everytime I see a great deal on a Seagate I get one with the money from previous rebates.

Jen and I woke up early yesterday due to our dog thinking that 5am was a great time to get us up.  For some reason she knew we were going to try to sleep in but she didn’t want us to.  Ended up holding out until about 7:30.  Let her out into the snow for a bit and then she went and ate her breakfast.  I headed out to get the paper and shovel the driveway.  Jen came out a little later with taylor and taylor had some fun in the snow and ice.  We had breakfast and heard that US131 was closed due to conditions.  At that time we figured we would probably not make the trip for thanksgiving dinner.  I went out around noon to see how bad the roads were.  I was going 60 on 131 but at times there were whiteout conditions.  We decided it would be a good plan to just stay home.  The snow would let up from time to time.  For the most part it snowed all day though.  I have shoveled the driveway 4 times since I left work on wednesday.  It is still snowing off and on today.  I see that it is going to warm up sunday and maybe rain.  That will be great with the 6 to 8 inches of snow we have on the ground.

Yesterday jen and I worked on putting some outside decorations up for christmas since it was very warm out and no rain.  It is a good thing we were able to do it at that time too.  Looked at the forcast for this week and it looks to start with rain tonight and then snow almost everyday the rest of the week. 
We had to replace about 10 lights so far this year.  I guess I moved the christmas lights around a bit to much this year.  I had them in the utility room and moved them a few times while i was painting.  Only broke 3 bulbs but there were a few others that had burnt out.  I will have to figure out a good place to hang them for storage this year.  I will try to fix the remaining lights we did not put outside this year and then build somthing to store them in the corner of the basement.
I have plenty of salt and the snow blower is out and ready to go.  I hope we do not get a large amount of snow like we did last year, but i am ready this year.  It was very nice to come home thanksgiving night to a clear driveway.  My neighbor had blown all of the snow off my driveway for me.  It would have been fun doing that, that evening.  Had the jeep so I could have gotten in and unpacked but it was just nice to have it clear already.  I still have to figure out a way to pay him back some how.

I always thought electrical problem would cost a bunch to get fixed.  Well the jeep is at the point that I will probably start seeing more and more electrical problems.  After almost 500 bucks in parts and labor, the abs light is not staying on.  A controller card went bad and also the abs motor fried I guess.  A new abs motor was going to run 750, so we went with a used one.  For 130 I can put a few used ones in and still be ahead.  So we are a 2 car family again and all is well.  Hopefully it will be another year before I have to take the jeep back into the shop.  It is still cheaper to fix the jeep up than to get a new car at this point.  Hopefully that does not change for another year to 2 years.

The jeep is still in the shop.  They were not able to figure out what is causing the abs light to stay on.  Sensors seemed to be ok.  Hopefully they will figure out the problem today and have it back to us tonight.  I dropped jen off at work today and then jetted over to work myself.  Traffic was very slow moving today.  No accidents that I saw but I heard they were all over from radio reports.  No salt on the roads yet so many of the side roads and most of the highway was ice this morning.  The s40 was a button we can push (w) that makes the car start out in 2nd gear.  Did not spin the wheels at all.  I will have to try starting out normal and see how slippery it gets with awd.  Did test the anti-lock brakes and they work no problem.  Should be a very nice car for winter driving.

Jen and I are back from a long weekend in IL.  Went to a very nice weding on saturday.  Then woke up on sunday to head to my brothers to hang out there and see the family for the afternoon.  Traffic was not to bad going through chicago.  There was one toll booth that held us up for about 30 to 45 minutes. After that booth we flew through chicago.  The new volvo can get up and go if you want it to.  Made it home about 10:30 and found that cable was out for some reason.  It went out just about the time we got home.  Problem was resolved when we got up in the morning on monday but that did not fix the problem of missing Greys anatomy.  So I got on my favorite webisite (www.poopli.com) and requested the missed show.  As of about 9am tuesday we had downloaded the show and we were able to watch it last night.  So nice to be able to do that with the replaytv.  So the new car is great.  Salesman called monday to see if everything was good with it.  Everything is great with it.  We are having problems with my jeep though.  Took it to the shop today.  The abs light came on monday night and has not gone out.  Normally it goes out after a few engine starts.  This time it did not.  Hopefully the damage will not be to bad.  Will have them look at a few other problems to see how much they are to fix also.  The abs system is the only thing I really want fixed no matter what.  So I will play the waiting game today to see what the damage will be.