I’m sorry for having not posted in a while. Developments haven’t exactly been fast paced for the past few days, but they’ve been there! This is going to be a fairly straightforward posting.
Yesterday, I went to the store to buy some new RAM for the server. Previously, it had two sticks of 512MB RAM in place, giving the server about 1GB of physical memory to play with. I’ve decided that isn’t enough for what the server is doing, and even though I haven’t even been taxing the machine with the applications that I’m currently running (the stream, this site, and the IRC server), I wanted to ensure that the system would always have more than it needed to run continuously. So, now instead of 1GB of RAM, the system has 2GB! I also made the swap partition smaller, shrinking it from 8GB (which the 32 bit OS can’t use anyway) to 3GB, which is less wasteful. So, more physical (fast) memory and less swap (slower, and wasteful if too large) memory. Works for me! And the system has been churning along quite well since then without any issues that I’ve seen, so I’ve been very happy.
Now, aside from server developments, all of my work and all of the projects that I have initiated with this system have seen some dividends at work. I’ve been aiming to move over from my current position to something a lot more technical, and on Wednesday it was confirmed that I would be moving over to a Security role. 😀 This was actually very exciting for me! It’s going from a spot where I’ve been for a very long time now to something completely new. More than that, its an acknowledgement of skill, a chance to learn more, and a huge professional opportunity.
Even though I’m excited, on some level I’m really apprehensive. I’m apprehensive because I’m going from a department where I know everyone and can work casually to one where I don’t know anyone at all. And the general atmosphere, while supportive, seems a bit grumpy. It’s a little unsettling; that and not knowing much of the policy and workflow around what I’m to be doing for the next few months. But that is the way of things, isn’t it? Being thrust into a new place and having to learn things? I’ve learned several times from experience that no matter how out of place you might feel now, within a few months you will feel at home with your new environment. You have to be adaptable, have a good attitude, apply yourself, and be willing to take a little bit of friendly heat from your new coworkers to make it. 🙂
And aside from that, I have other things to look forward to. I’ve finally confirmed some long needed vacation time for this November! My best friend of all time (from the UK) is going to be coming to visit me, and we’re going to be having all sorts of adventures all around the state of Texas! So far, we have an idea of what we’re going to be doing, but it’s still largely unplanned and unscheduled (the events that is, not the time off). And the best part of all of that is that all of this time off is paid. I love working for my company. ^_^