If you build it, they will come (preconfigured)..we hope

Today, I worked with Tommy on building our two "model" machines for our new computers. Let me explain: We're ordering 50 500mhz Titanium PowerBooks, 37 Dual-533mhz PowerMac G4s with CD-RWs, and 3 733mhz PowerMac G4s with DVD-R drives. Pretty schweet. But, as you can imagine, it's a royal pain in the ass to build (by hand) each and every computer. Building a machine from scratch (and getting it right) is a very tedious task. By "building a machine", I mean loading the necessary software onto it. So, the best thing to do in a situation like this is to build ONE SINGLE machine that is exactly perfect and then make a disk image of that drive. You can burn that image onto a CD, and then pop that CD into each of the other machines, blast the new computer with your "perfect" image, and VIOLA!. A perfect machine every time. Since we've got basically two different computers that we're ordering, we made one "perfect" build for each computer. The cool thing is, PC Connection (whom we order most of our stuff through) is building these machines for us! So, after building the two G4 powerhouses, we sent them back to PC Connection, where they will build each of our new computers with our image that we sent them. This will cut down a lot of time that Tommy and I would have to spent later making sure each one was the same.

Tonight, Maggie and Sara came over for dinner and socializing. Actually, Maggie wanted to ask Olivia and I some questions about her company's website. For those of you that might not know, Maggie was one of Olivia's roomates and upon graduating from RU last month, she has purchased a business: Creations Bridal, a custom bridal shop here in Richmond. The company has a website (www.creationsbridal.com), but she would like to do some different things with it. Hopefully she understands the power of the web: You (and your website)are only limited by your own imagination..and possibly your developer. But, first, I've made the suggestion that she move to a better host. Currently, her host is charging her $19.95 a month, plus charging her for maintaining the site. I suggested that she move to OLM.net and save $10 a month and let Olivia and I maintain her website for her. I think we can some great things with it. Go check it out..and..enjoy the music..heheh.

That's about alll for tonight. 2 more days until we leave for Orlando. I still can't believe that we're going. By the way, even though I'll be on vacation all next week, I'll be checking my email and updating the site each and every night with all of the pictures and stories from the day's adventures.