Sharks & Oysters oh my!
Dr Dave
🦈 Sharks, Oysters, and Technological Fossils
If yesterday was a struggle against the Windows ecosystem, today
was a full-blown journey into a digital archaeological dig. It was a
“Monday sort of Tuesday,” spent putting out multi-state
server fires before heading out to St Helens for a system deployment
that turned into a proper battle with the past.
Given the nature of the voyage, the Shirt Du Jour was
remarkably prophetic: a vintage “Quint’s Shark Charter –
Amity Island” tee. As it turned out, I definitely needed a
bigger boat.
The client in question makes his living harvesting oysters out on
the water, which meant no pre-arrival phone checks while he was out
on the lease. I marched in with a brand-new modem under my arm, ready
to upgrade a dead connection, only to hit the first major curveball
of the day: the client is still running on ADSL. In this day and age!
No modern modem in plastic wrap was going to coax a signal out of
those ancient copper lines.
The retro tech tour didn’t stop there. Upon setting up the
brand-new system rig, I discovered the existing monitor was a
dinosaur sporting only VGA and DVI inputs—completely incompatible
with modern video outputs.
Still, we managed to secure a partial victory. The new system is
physically assembled and ready to rock. I managed to rig up a
temporary 4G/5G mobile connection as a single-machine stop-gap to
keep them operational, and a shiny new 27″ modern monitor has
officially been ordered to put the old VGA screen out of its misery.
As for the rest of the deployment? In the fullness of time, at the
appropriate juncture, it will all come together. The client will work
with their ISP to get the ADSL line sorted while I am away, because
this Friday, I’m boarding a flight for a week-long trip up to Sydney.
Three steps forward, two steps back, but the heading is still
correct. Time to put the tools down for the evening! 🦪📺✈️