For better or worse, its a bit like PHP (or if you prefer, JS): there may be some genius solutions out there built with it, but everyone remembers the kid in the corner with the half-eaten box of crayons.
Category: Uncategorized
Rackin’ up karma
- Got Adele hot chocolate
- Voted
- Saved a baby painted box turtle
Lets see what else happens today!
Pretty Turkey
Sactional Review, revisited
It has been close to three years since I wrote my original Lovesac Sactional review, so I figured this would be a good time for an update to the review.
We still have the original pieces, plus we’ve added some more: a couple of more bases and backs to make a pair of armless chairs for the dining room, plus a third base for the original ‘couch’ in the living room to make an ‘L’.
- Our covers have (mostly) held up well.
- We’ve run some of the covers through the wash a couple of times in order to clean some stairs and general dirt – try that with a regular sewn-on cover!
- One cover has a thread that started to come out, but it didn’t keep unthreading – it has been stable for a year. I try to keep that cover away from the heaviest-used sections.
- We’ve been considering buying a different style of cover, and a bit darker; the standard cover can be a little rough after a while, and the light color that we got shows off dirt. But oh, the cost! We’re keeping an eye on sales, which seem to come up periodically.
- We definitely tell which cushions are newer, as they’re firmer.
- The cushions seem to firm up a bit if they’re not used.
- Cushion rotation is a must, but that’s easy.
- The bases:
- do get easier to separate over time.
- are so low to the ground that they don’t capture much trash, which is awesome
- are not too heavy to slide, and the felt pads do prevent scratching.
Loon Mountain
One of the perks that Meghan gets through her job are invites to swanky resorts. Last week was Wentworth-by-the-Sea, this week was a client inviting her to the Loon Mountain Ski Resort for a day of snow sports.
Meghan and I don’t ski, but they have more than skiing; our activity of choice was sledding. This isn’t any ordinary sledding, though: they seem to have repurposed an old ski lift and trail. The sleds are snow-tubes with rails and brakes. You take a lift up to the top, ride down for as long as 30 seconds, and head back up. There were few other sledders so we had zero waiting.
After a group lunch with the client and their other guests, the two of us decided to sight-see. We climbed in the car and drove up into the mountains along the Kancamagus Highway. Despite the clouds the views were beautiful.
Butter has a terrible, no-good, very bad day.
Butter did not have a good day today. She’s been licking her paws and scratching her face to the point she’s starting to lose fur. Sprayed her with some anti-itch spray, and that didn’t help much (but she did put herself in her crate for an hour).
Off to the vet we go. He looks her over and says yes, it’s allergies, benadryl what she needs, and by the way her anal glands are full.
So, poor Butter is itchy, has been sprayed with nasty stuff, went to the vet, had a finger up her rear to express her gland, and is due to take two pills later.
I said I should just trim her nails to make it complete, but Quinn says that would be too cruel. I think he’s right.
We’ll just let her sleep for now.
Raiser’s Edge, love, what were you thinking
TL;DR: In the SQL Configuration Manager, set the TCP port to a static one, if is trying to use Dynamic, and remove the Dynamic port. On the Server, go into the Advanced settings for the Firewall, and set Inbound rules for both the TCP and UDP ports, allowing them to connect. On the client, set Outbound rules in the Firewall manager for the same. Support Articles at bottom of post.
So, I do third party tech support for a couple of independent schools. Several of them use a program called Raiser’s Edge to keep track of charitable donations, and solicitations. This is all well and good, and the program certainly does the job, but sometimes it makes you want to down a liter of vodka and go home.
The set up: We had to replace a machine that was hosting a networked install of a Raiser’s Edge database. We didn’t realize it was networked until we got the call that they couldn’t access it from their laptop (crap).
The initial troubleshooting: First, we needed to uninstall RE from the laptop (the client computer). It would not go. Finally decided to reboot the machine to make sure RE was not running anywhere. Suddenly, the uninstall went like a breeze.
Now we needed to install RE from the network share on the server. We can’t connect. That took turning off all the firewalls on both machines to fix, but still, we could not get to the “Deploy” folder, that should have been the only available network share on the machine.
Turns out that the installer does not set that folder to be “Available” across the network. There was no documentation for that. Set it to “Available” and boom. I can see the network share.
Run the setup.
Install RE.
Try to run RE.
Start getting database errors. Native Error 17 – Can’t connect to the Database. Call Support and they say “Yeah, its probably the firewall.”
I was too irritated to tell them there was no firewall turned on, at first, but when I mentioned it, they said that it was possible an antivirus had blocked the ports needed. Go to this KB article and open the ports.
Yeah. Fine.
I go through the directions, figure out that SQL has a dynamic port, and follow the directions for that configuration. It doesn’t work. Fantastic.
Finally, Darling Husband o’Mine says, “Why don’t you specify the port it uses?”
So in the end, this is what worked:
- In the SQL Configuration Manager, set the IPALL port to 1433
- Stop and restart the SQL service/reboot the machine (I wound up rebooting, but YMMV).
- On the Server, in Firewall Management, under Advanced Settings, set up Inbound Rules for the following:
- TCP port 1433 open (or some open port)
- UDP port 1434 open
- On the Client, set up Outbound Rules for the following:
- TCP port 1433 open (or whatever port you used on the server. THEY HAVE TO MATCH)
- UDP port 1434 open
- Install RE on the client machine from the Deploy share on the Server.
- Test the connections.
If any of this makes no sense, here is the supporting documentation for all of it:
- Native Error 17 KB article from BlackBaud (great resource, by the way): https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/42647
- How to figure out what Port your SQL Server is using: https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/39342
- Configure a Server to listen on a specific port in the SQL Configuration Manager: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177440.aspx
- How to modify the Windows Firewall for SQL Database Engine Access: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175043.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
Good luck, and may the force be with you on this one.
My new camera lens
Yesterday was spent at the Boston Museum of Science with the Mystic Joneses. Today, we took Beta back for the thing she loves most: The Butterfly Garden. (We couldn’t go yesterday because it was sold out. Pro-tip, avoid the MOS on Federal Holidays at all costs.)
For my birthday I got something I’ve been wanting for a while: a set of lenses for my phone. I went a little nuts with the macro lens. I can’t even say I’m sorry about it.
Most of these were taken from just a couple of inches away. The butterflies and moths in this exhibit are so relaxed around people, its is amazing.
I played with my settings, and found out that trying to use the macro lens on butterflies on swaying branches was a guaranteed failure.
The details I managed to get were astounding, though.
Some pictures came out with some real drama. You can almost see his scales!
I am really pleased with these little lenses.
And of course, I had to do a gratuitous, super-close-up of a flower. For Reasons.
Aspen How-to for Smart People
First: Find the email from the school. You can search your inbox for the name “Aspen Help”
In that email, there is a username and password. I never change mine, because I am a ditz and will forget it if I do.
Awesome. Keys to the kingdom and all that.
The URL for aspen is: https://ma-wilmington.myfollett.com/aspen/home.do but you can get to it from any of the schools’ websites (http://wpsk12.com/wms/).
Let the insanity begin.
Log in with the credentials they gave you.
Now we’re in the insanity that is the home page. It is almost as useless as you think. In case they dump you on a weird page other than the Home page, just click the “Home” button.
To do the Emergency Info thing, you need to scroll down the page to see the “Tasks” area. Its below the To Do section.
Click on Initiate. Because this makes so much sense.
At this point a dialog pops up with this totally sensible window. First one we’ve seen, right? Guess how you kick it off. Go ahead. (I gave you an arrow to help.)
At this point, you’re in. There are several windows that need to be filled out. It won’t let you click Finish until they are complete, but it does tell you what still needs doing.
If you need to do more than one kiddo, you go back to the first dialog and click on the Search thingie to get the list of kids.
Hope this helps!
The downside to moving
A quick “downer” note to our adventures in the north.
I realized today that one thing I actually miss is running into people I know. We were back in Mystic for a couple of hours today and we ran into three people who know us and we hadn’t planned to see while we were in town, while in a huge crowd of tourists. I haven’t lived there for over a decade but there were some smiling faces. I wonder who else I knew in that crowd and just happened to miss?
Here, in our new home, I go weeks without meeting a friend out and about – even at the local grocery store. I feel out of step with the people around me, I haven’t found a common rhythm with my neighbors. It’s probably common for people who move to a completely new area but it sucks all the same.