Archive for July 14th, 2005

Printing problems? Thatll be the power cuts

By
Andy
 – July 14, 2005Posted in: ADSL & Networking, Linux

We´ve got a system that gets used for most of our online projects that allows companies to sign up for a service and then automatically creates a pdf invoice to send them. This then gets downloaded by the office server and then printed out once an hour.
 
We were going through the last days invoices and noticed that there was a big gap in invoice numbers. I checked the database and found that a load hadn´t been printed. This was probably because the power had been off so the download server was running but the print server was still turned off so they were just disappearing into nowhere.
 
Luckily we have another networked printer that I can use and if the download server can´t directly contact it, it will keep it in its print queue until it comes back up again. Sorted. Just got to make sure we don´t run out of toner or nothing´ll get printed until we get more.

Power cuts are annoying the shit out of me!

By
Andy
 – July 14, 2005Posted in: ADSL & Networking, Hardware

So thats now the third power cut we´ve had in the last few weeks and its really starting to piss me off! I don´t know whats going on with our power company but whatever they are doing doesn´t just cause a blackout but seems to be causing power surges as well that keep taking out the fuses on the power leads for my servers.
 

The most important one is hooked up to a UPS with surge protection so that always lives but I´m quickly running out of spare kettle leads for the others that keep dying. Plus as an added bonus, the internet keeps going down for no reason. I don´t think its our ISP because I keep seeing a BT van outside at the exchange when it happens.
 
This week just gets worse and worse…