Genesis Systems :: Blogs

Making the best out of the rising cost of gas

Genesis Systems — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It seems the price of gas just keeps going higher and higher.

Two years ago we bought a Cummins diesel Dodge 2500 pickup, because we needed something with towing power for Allison's horses and at the time diesel fuel wasn't too expensive. Flash forward and now diesel is at the $3.80 mark, and I heard something about it going to $5.00 per gallon. Ouch! The saving grace, though, is the diesel gets decent mileage for as big as it is - 15 to 22 MPG. (Ok, I know that's not in the 50+ MPG range you get in a hybrid, I'm just saying....)

Now, on the other hand, if you are a high-performance muscle car owner, you typically don't think about the cost of fuel, since you don't drive them much except weekends and nice days. Still, it's not uncommon to burn through $70.00 worth of gas on a "Sunday Drive".

That brings me to the following specimen: One 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda. 383 cubic inches. 4-speed manual transmission. 3:90 rear end gears. 4xx horsepower. !!! Fun car. 8-) Lousy mileage. 8-(

Now, in an attempt to combat rising fuel costs, I decided an overdrive might just do the trick. Last year I installed a Gear Vendors Under/Overdrive unit in the GTO, and am VERY happy with the results. Of course, the GTO is an automatic, and the 'Cuda is a manual - I can do an automatic with my eyes closed, however, I have never done a manual before. In fact, I learned to drive a manual on this 'Cuda - hence, the second reason for touching the transmission in the first place: I pretty much got all the goodie out of the existing clutch ("Honey, what's that smell?").

With that said, I needed a "can't mess this up" solution. After some searching and reviewing, I settled on a Tremec 5-speed from Keisler Automotive Engineering. These guys carry what they call their "PerfectFit" systems - basically everything you need plus detailed instructions to get the job done right, an expert technical support. I will tell you this - it's not cheap, but this package is engineered to fit perfectly with minimal goofing around and it works awesome!

Since I didn't want to mess up my original bellhousing, what I purchased was the PerfectFit 5-speed TKO-600 kit, a new Keisler Big-Block bellhousing, new clutch assembly and flywheel (no sense in taking a shower and leaving your socks on!). The drive shaft is included in the price, but wasn't in the box - a quick email indicated that since these cars weren't really built to "spec" in the good old days, that you have to make a couple of measurements and the driveshaft is custom made. Only took a couple of days for it to ship. Total out-of-pocket, including trans, misc fluids, pull ties, band-aids: $4,800.00. My calculator broke, so I can't tell for sure at what point the cost/gallon will offset the cost/trans, but I assure you, the fun itself is Priceless! (Hopefully the better half won't be reading this....)

Speaking of email, the guys at Keisler are great. I had a couple of questions and they had fast and right answers - very professional.

Step 1: Out with the old.

This is by far the easiest step. Unbolt the driveshaft, prop up the trans, take out the crossmember, and remove trans. In hindsight - it would have been easier to remove the 4 transmission-to-bellhousing bolts to get the trans out. I opted for the knucklebuster-backbreaking take-your-life-in-your-hands method of removing the bellhousing-to-engine bolts and sliding the trans and bellhousing back as a single piece - which, of course, there's little or no room to do this. Did I mention this is the first time I've worked on a maual transmission? Once you get the bellhousing out it's a simple task to remove the clutch - or what's left of it.

Step 2: Test fit and a massage.

The initial fitment is pretty easy. Before installing the clutch, you mount up the bellhousing, loosely bolt the new trans in and put in the supplied crossmember to hold up the tail section. From here you have to check for floor/hump/trans cleareance. It wasn't too bad on mine - I just needed to massage the hump a little bit to give me a little more space between the hump and the edge of the transmission.

Step 3: Install flywheel and clutch and do final trans install.

Having never put in a clutch before, this was a little unnerving - I mean, look - an automatic has like 3 bolts, the manual has 8! Plus the opportunity for something to pop off and put my eye out (just like my dad warned me!). After an initial trial and error, it was actually pretty easy. Key is to tighten each bolt like one or two turns in a pattern - this lets the clutch seat on the clutch disc without warping. There's a plastic alignment tool included that helps you center the disc with the flywheel.

NOTE: Don't do what I did - forget to put in the pilot bearing. Cause if you do, you gotta unbolt the trans, take off the bellhousing, remove the clutch, and then put it all back in. Oh, yeah, it's in the instructions, I just got excited and missed the step. As I was tightening the last bolt on the trans, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the bearing gleaming on the bench and though "Huh. I wonder if that's important?"

Once installed, it's just a couple of quick measurements and a phone call to Keisler and then install the drive shaft.

Step 4: Enjoy.

Mmmm.... Very tasty! I am impressed with how well the transmission feels. Takes a little while to get used to the 5 speed pattern versus the 4 speed. Getting up to speed on the highway, then grabbing 5th gear is AWESOME! 65 MPH at around 2000 RPM. That translates to 1300 SPG (Smiles Per Gallon).

Epilogue: Contact insurance company.

You know what really stinks? To take your car out on a state highway to work through the gears, only to have a deer do a face-plant into the side of your car. This happened within 2 hours of tightening the last bolt. I can't believe Mother Nature tried to kill me - probably has something to do with global warming....

Relax, the deer was fine - he does owe me a pair of underwear, though, if I ever catch him. After depressing my rear quarter with his cheek and kicking the door with his heels, he bounced back up and returned from whence he came. At least it was the side of the car and not through the windshield.

Car is drivable - it's just like walking around with mustard on your nice dress shirt. Arrgghhh!

In summary....

I am very pleased with the new trans. Easy to install and works great. I have yet to check the mileage. I'll need to wait until next summer for that.

I would HIGHLY recommend Keisler Automotive Engineering - these guys know their stuff, and the product is exactly as advertised and the documentation top-notch. These guys carry more than Mopar, they pretty much have auto or manual trans' for just about anything. If you're interested in contacting them, I dealt with Gene Charsha - 865-609-8187 ext 211. He answered even my dumbest questions.

BJ Williams
President / Chief Software Archtect

Daylight Savings Time Change - Are there savings to be had?

Genesis Systems — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

You'd have to be living under a rock to not know that President Bush signed an Energy Bill back in August of 2005 that lengthens the Daylight Savings Time by four weeks, effective this year (2007). If you're interested in the details, you can find them here.

Those of us in the IT sector have been working hard to determine what needs to be patched, what's Ok to leave unpatched, and wondering what we'll probably miss patching, and what that impact will be to the systems we have to manage.

Microsoft has issued several automated patches, and for those of use that still use Windows 2000, they have several handy articles about how to patch these "unsupported" systems. (Or, if you really have diffculty you can always spring for the one-time $4,400 fee that Microsoft is more than willing to charge you for ;-) )

What I find interesting about this whole Daylight Savings Time change is - The concept is that by doing so "could" save us up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Key on "could".

One has to wonder if the "possible" savings will offset the "actual" costs of making changes to all affected systems, and what other impact there may be on file and historical dates. For example, What if you are in a court case and audit trails will factor in greatly as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, are the dates coming from a patched system, a non-patched system, or some strange combination of both?

Probably everything will work out fine.

I just find it interesting that to please some interest group sweeping changes are made that have more impact on something else than would have been overall had they just left it alone in the first place.

Oh well, just my current rant. Don't even get me started on the Global Warming debacle.

BJ Williams
President / Chief Software Architect

If you're from Nebraska

Genesis Systems — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

If you're from the Nebraska, there's one thing you know for a fact: There's nothing better than Nebraska Corn Fed Beef. Period.

Here at Genesis, we periodically like to "treat" the staff to a cookout. Typically these cookouts might be hotdogs and hamburgers (or as we like to say "I'll take a cheeseburger with a hotdog chaser!"), and for those especially tastey occasions we'll cook up some 14oz Ribeye's. (IMHO the best cut of beef...., 2nd only to Chateaubriand)

Check out some pictures of our last cookout....

Step 1 is the proper seasoning, here it is being professionally applied:

Step 2 slow cooking over the hot grill:

Jennifer demonstrating the proper cooking method for Tater Tots - the key is individual rotation for even browning.

Get yours before they're all gone!

There are two schools of thought on proper ketchup placement with your Tots:

Method 1:

And... Method 2 (there is not right or wrong... it's ALL good!)

With steaks this tasty and filling, you gotta pace yourself!

Next time your near Genesis and you smell that good cookout odor, stop in!

Brad Williams
Director of Operations

The joy of six (Speeds, that is)

Genesis Systems — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Some of you may know the rich Genesis history with Classic American Muscle Cars. The stable includes Jason's 1969 Firebird, Braden's 1966 LeMans Convertible, and my 1969 GTO Convertible, 1970 Plymouth 'Cuda, and 1972 LeMans Sport Convertible.

Last year in the '69 GTO and the '72 LeMans, I decided I just wasn't happy with the "get-up and go" factor. Sure, these have Limited Slip, and around 400 naturally aspirated horses each, but the 3.23's just weren't giving me that performance satisfaction I desired. Cutting to the chase, I put Richmond 4.11 gears and Auburn Limited Split Differential units in both cars. Yesss! Off the line performance was EXTREMELY satisfying now.

Short side story (Ok, maybe is a long-short story): When your better half is out of town for the week, and JEG's will ship just about anything overnight (including Saturday), and you have too much free time on your hands, and your brothers didn't even try to talk you out of it (and perhaps even egged it on...), well..., anything is possible. Got the rear-end parts on Friday morning. Laid low until the wife was safely out of town, and on Saturday evening, started the upgrade. Being the control-freak that I am, naturally I would only trust myself and Brad (brother) to do the work. Cut to 12:00am, Sunday morning, gears in place. I let Brad and Braden take the GTO out for the first test drive (or should I say "beat"). I could hear them burnning off the tires all the way back to the shop (picture in your mind "shaking up the bee's nest"). Now, any sane person would have just put the car back in the garage and called it a night. Sanity is not one of my strong points when it comes to these cars. I decided I'd make a quick run up to the local Burger King and get a snack. They say "Possession is nine-tenths of the law" - and when Ralston's Finest (the angry bee's) pulled me over I was read the riot act. Let's just say, I had to use my "once in a lifetime" "all day traffic school so you can still afford insurance" option.

Ok, back to main story....

The gearing and performance are unbelievable, however, with 4.11 gears and a 3-speed THM-400 Automatic, we'll, your RPM's are way up there. The engine doesn't care, and performance is still there (both Pontaic's have 400ci engines, balanced, MSD Ignition, good for 8 to 10,000 RPM - not that you'd do that....).

Enter Gear Vendors. These guys have an under/overdrive "gear splitter". Basically, it takes the 4.11, and when you kick in the gear split, it equates to having a 3.23 rear end ratio. Technically, it splits all 3 gears, do effectively you turn your 3 speed in to a 6 speed - 1st, 1st-Split, 2nd, 2nd-Split, 3rd, and 3rd-Split. These things are ROCK-SOLID. Let's put it this way - you can smoke the tires with the 4.11's, through 1st and second, start into 3rd, and as you are moving, split the gear - and get tire chirp as it shifts! Try that with a regular old "overdrive".... By the way, these guys know their stuff. I purchased my GV Unit direct from them, and they asked the right questions, and the delivered product was EXACTLY what I needed, including every nut, bolt, gasket, etc. Even my speedometer, which previously did not have the correct speed shown, now matches perfectly!

The GV unit is unbelievably simple to install. Takes just a couple of hours. I was spoiled, I used a car lift, but you could just as easily just put the car up on ramps and use a creeper. Highlights from the install:

A lift makes all the difference....

Carefully review your parts list.... Let's see... Where are the band-aids..?

Hmmm... Since the GV adds like 18" to the transmission, you gotta shorten it, or, better yet, just have Inland Truck Parts build you a new one!

Here's the "before" picture looking at the tail section and trans mount, standing at the rear of the vehicle.

If you're squeamish, close your eyes (most people go their entire lives without seeing this internal view of a transmission. Pity.)

Since we are adding length to the trans, a little massaging of the trans tunnel is required. Not too bad.

The trans crossmember has to be flipped over and around, and then just trimmed a wee bit to make it fit. It's times like these that help to explain to the wife exactly why you needed that plasma cutter! 1) Marking, 2) Get the plasma ready, 3) Nice clean cut, 4) Little touch up. Not shown: Bead blast, paint, air dry. Mmmm.... Tasty....

Here's the fit with the new driveshaft to splitter to adapter.

Once the "mechanicals" are in place, it's just a matter of the Speedo adapter, and wires that feed up under the dash to a hidden computer control module. A auto/manual switch is mounted under the dash to determine if you want the device to shift automatically (Auto-Drive) or manually when you tell it to (I mounted my manual shift button above and to the right of the high beam switch on the floor - just the perfect spot to move your foot up and shift for power!). No pictures of this part of the install as, really, it's not even seen in the car - the casual observer would never know you have the GV unit installed - until they hear it shift!

The only physical mods to the car are: Modify the transmission mounting bracket (slight trimming), round out the transmission hump (to make room for the GV unit's bolt "ears"), and cutting (or replacing) the drive shaft. That's it.

So, how do I like it? This is a pricey solution, but for the shift performance, and ease of use (you can set it to either manually go into overdrive, or you can "auto-drive" so it shifts just like an automatic 4 speed), absolutely no performance loss, better gas mileage, the list goes on.... What else could you ask for? I HIGHLY recommend it. In my scenario, you get the best of both worlds - 4.11's when you need 'em, and 3.23's to satisfy the gas miser. The performance is phenomenol!

BJ Williams
President / Chief Software Architect

Proper Preparation of the 2-pack White Castle Product aka mmm mmm gooood!

Genesis Systems — Thu, 11 May 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I know at Genesis we tend to obsess a bit about tasty foods, but what the heck, ya gotta live.

There are certain times when a busy person is just simply in need of a quick and tasty nourishment solution. Today this was my quandry and therefore this quick blog entry.

Tasty nourishment in less than 3 minutes total ! Here goes.........

One 2-pack package of White Castle burgers, available at any of your fine grocers. These are available by the boxful at our local Sam's outlet...........

One reasonably sized microwave and a paper plate.......

Cooking Process - I found that with this small but powerful microwave that programming a 1minute and 15 second pass at medium power and immediately followed by a 1 minute pass at high power did a perfect job of heating the product to just the right "too warm to eat immediately but will get you back to your desk and still be warm temperature".

The Secret - One secret I will pass along is that I found it best to remove the product from the packaging, place it directly on the plate, then lightly drape two napkins across the top of the burgers. I don't really know what this does for the cooking process, but I think it makes the burgers feel more comfortable in their new situation.

And ba da bing, ba da bow, snack is served!

Sugested side beverages would be Dr. Pepper, Diet Mountain Dew, or bottled water.

Enjoy!

Brad Williams

Tabs with ASP.NET Menu / Sitemap Controls Part 2

Genesis Systems — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Way back when, I talked about keeping parent tabs highlighted when on a sub-tab page.
This worked fine and dandy for one set of sub-tabs, but what if we wanted sub-tabs under sub-tabs?

This is what I orignally had coded...

  Dim node As SiteMapNode = SiteMap.CurrentNode
  If Not node Is Nothing 
	AndAlso Not node.ParentNode.Equals(node.RootNode) 
	AndAlso node.ParentNode IsNot Nothing Then
	For Each item As MenuItem In mnuMenu.Items
	    If item.DataPath = node.ParentNode.Key Then
item.Selected = True
	    End If
	Next
  End If

Now I just call a procedure to do this recursively...

  Private Sub SelectMenuItem(ByVal node As SiteMapNode)
      If node.ParentNode IsNot Nothing AndAlso 
	Not node.ParentNode.Equals(node.RootNode) Then
	    For Each item As MenuItem In mnuMenu.Items
	        If item.DataPath = node.ParentNode.Key Then
item.Selected = True
	            ' we found an item to select, 
		   ' do not need to look any more
		   Exit Sub
	        End If
	    Next
	    ' have not found a menu item to select yet
	    ' call the process again with a new node
SelectMenuItem(node.ParentNode)
      End If
  End Sub

With this we can now have as many sub-tabs as we want.

One thing to note though...
I have to include each page in the web.sitemap file for this to work like I want it to.

Cheers

Jason McEvoy
Web Application / Developer

Infotec show staging and set up

Genesis Systems — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

I know many times I have been accused of being a control freek, perfectionist, and so forth, but bottom line is, when the stakes are high, why gamble? Therefore, even though a substantial amount of time was spent drawing the booth to scale and carefully building the display equipment to size, we took time to stage the booth in its entirety in the shop.

Items to set up:

Four double-sided 3’ x 6’ banners
G-FENSE network support workstation featuring 2 – 21” monitors running the Barracuda demo and live G-FENSE portal app.
The main workstation/counter featuring our sell sheets, a single 21” monitor for demoing apps, and some chotski’s displayed.
The 1970 Plymouth Cuda.
The G-FENSE Barracuda network cube, networked by wireless to all booth workstations and connected to the internet.
T-shirts, golf care packages, info folders, etc....
Last but not least the main booth centerpiece, a 16’ tall stand holding our massive 6’ wide by 8’ tall Genesis banner.

Below is the photo montage of both booth staging and booth set-up the day before the show........

The booth outline is basically right along where the yellow paint meets the concrete. Patrick appears to be both checking phone calls and playing Tiger Woods, neither of which have much to do with the set-up work…….hmmmm.

Main 16’ banner structure with G-FENSE cube on black rack in front of it.

Rolling in the workstations; heavier than you’d think.

16’ is taller than it looks, but we new this was going to be a force to be contended with once assembled.

Many important phone calls needed to be made.

G-FENSE cube and Barracuda literature with the highly coveted Spam cans.

And of course there was Braden who as always was seemingly very proud of himself.

Thanks for taking time to listen to our story, keep on watch for show pix coming soon.

Brad Williams

Genesis Operations

Trade Show Display Struggle

Genesis Systems — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

infotec 2006 in Omaha, Nebraska is only the second trade show that Genesis has ever participated in. infotec (by the way it supposed to be spelled with a lower case “i”) is more along the lines of an IT trade show that the Big O show where there really is no specific field of focus. Therefore we want to take it up a notch as far as how Genesis comes across to our booth visitors. We have signed up as a corporate sponsor of infotec this year, so looking amateur is not an option.

In this regard we enlisted our marketing firm, Omegapoint, to help us be sure to look good at the show. It is at this point that we were amazed by the amount of budget it would require to simply get our hands on some nice booth displays like basic counters and workstations, let alone bannerage. So, being the control freaks that we are we decided to encounter on the journey to build our own “props”, this to the dismay of the marketing firm. A side issue to our apprehension to spending the coin outlined by the marketing company was the overall flex in the range of prices on the displays and other supporting show collateral.

BJ, the owner, and I have long dabbled in woodworking, so after perusing many sites that showed options for booth furnishings we decided on the main items needed to give the booth a good foundation.

I drew the booth to scale allotting room for all the booth content planned. The booth was a 20’ by 30’ island, so we had all sides exposed to the public, and no back wall to hide junk behind.

The main pieces to be constructed were a large curved bar height conference counter, a smaller curved bar height workstation counter, and a main banner support structure. The main banner was going to be large and impressive, 6’ wide by 8’ tall and needed to be high enough up so as to allow people to walk under it. This placed the overall height of the main banner structure at about 16’.

So, here is a photo montage of the process of building the props:

Drawing large curves is not as easy as it looks, at least to do it and get it accurate. We devised a contraption that used two strings to hold a pencil in an upright position and anchored the other ends of the string to a center point to make a large compass. We found that drawing circles made us very thirsty.

Large curved top roughly completed…

The bases of the bar height units were to double as a place for storing our show junk like t-shirts and golf-balls as well as securing such things as laptops and what-not after hours.

Roughly completed workstation unit with removable top and based assembled. Doors on the backs would lock so as to secure certain items.

Stained,

then trimmed in oak stained black,

then assembled for a polyurethane finishing.

Allowing the polyurethane to dry, phwew! These babies are just about done, now we need to move on to figuring out the main banner structure build.

The main banner structure was of concern because of the height. We were concerned that because of the height we may have a stability issue. Therefore we “overbuilt” the bases and additionally made the tops removable so as to be able to put sandbags inside the units to create ballast. The plan worked great! By the way, power tools are dangerous and care needs to be used when using all power tools, even things as seemingly inert as a dust collection system.

Additional concern was what to use to create the two masts that would go 16’ vertically and look and feel solid. We finally decided on a high grade PVC piping, which turned out to be 4” well casing pipe purchased from the great folks at Central States Distributing. It’s always interesting when someone at a place like Central States asks you what you’re doing with something like this and you try to describe building a 16’ banner support structure.

After purchasing the pipe, we needed to consider what product to use to finish the piping so that it would look great. We ended up using black automotive paint with a matte finish that we purchased from Redshaw Paints in Omaha. Again, you just can’t describe the look on people’s faces when you are trying to describe “yah, we want t o paint a couple PVC pipes for a trade show display, and yah, we pretty much know how to work with automotive paints ‘n’ stuff, really we do…”. The guys at Redshaw honestly thought we were there trying to sell them something or trick them into something, pretty dang funny. How do you paint 16’ long pipes that need to be painted on all sides? We suspended them from the roof by using long chains to run through the pipes and up to the roof beams. This allowed us to paint all sides and rotate the pipes as we painted them to get all surfaces evenly.

Care must be taken so as not to get too busy working and wind up building one of your children into your project. We are not sure how Jonathan ended up inside the unit; we may have been using him to sand the inside of the box. Here Jonathan shows off the massiveness of the main banner structure.

Cost of building and owning the displays:
Wood materials	$1200.00
Misc (stain,sandpaper,poly, bandaids)	$ 200.00
Hardware	$ 150.00
PVC Pipes	$ 370.00
Automotive Paint	$ 170.00
	$2090.00
Total	$2090.00

Build time and satisfaction	Priceless

Cost of renting for onetime 2 day use:
Large conference unit	$1600.00
Smaller workstation unit	$1100.00
Main banner stand	$1100.00

Total	$3800.00

Look for more pictures of the finished products staged and also at our booth at the Qwest Center for infotec in future blogs.

Brad Williams
Operations

InfoTec Radio Ad

Genesis Systems — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

The preparations for InfoTec continue... Here's the radio spot that will be playing here in Omaha over the next few weeks. I took the liberty of jotting down a transcript.

Girl: Ugh! It's a jungle out there!

Guy: What do you mean?

Girl: Well with hackers, viruses, security threats, WANs, LANs, USBs, PCs, notebooks, gigabytes, modems, wireless this and wireless that.. Ugh! I can't keep up.

Guy: You know what you should do? Checkout the Infotec business technology expo. April 3rd through the 5th at the Qwest Center. It's got over 100 boths displaying the latest in technology. With experts on hand to help you out of that jungle you're in. Plus, there are over 45 seminars with training from novice to expert. Infotec has it all! And, to make it fun, an adventure in technology contest offers a chance to win a Hummer 3 and a $10,000 take of gas! One lucky winner will walk away with a flat screen TV! Others will win technology gadgets that are sure to put a smile on your face.

Girl: Where is InfoTec?

Guy: Qwest Center, April 3rd through the 5th. It's sponsored by AITP Omaha, with corporate partners COX Business Services and Genesis Systems. Check it out at I-N-F-O-T-E-C dot Org.

Girl: Well thanks! With InfoTec, my jungle will turn into a paradise!

Download the InfoTec Radio Ad MP3 here

Genesis - On a Billboard

Genesis Systems — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Time flies, it's been over a month since I last posted here. Things have been busy, we're really ramping up for InfoTec, which amazingly is in less than a month! The preparations are crazy, I'm not privy to all the specifics, but there's a LOT going on.

One thing that I do know, is that we have a billboard! Just like I mentioned before, it's located on Interstate 80 at about 50th street. You can see it if you're heading west. However, for the best shot, look over your shoulder as you're heading east. (don't get in an accident!!!).

Our original though was to do some sort of time lapse photography of the thing going up, but we missed out on that, so you'll have to settle for a photo. Or, like I mentioned, if you're in the area check it out in person.

The Genesis Boys at the Auto Show

Genesis Systems — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Last Friday, the boys here at Genesis decided to take a field trip down to the Auto Show of the Midlands at the Qwest Center.

Nothing incredibly interesting down there (how often is there?), but it's fun to browse, nonetheless. Here's a few pictures to commemorate the event.

Here you see our favorite car down there. The $96,000+ 2006 Porsche Carrera. BEAUTIFUL!

$96,000!!!

Actually, the best car down there wasn't even IN the show! It was this sweet shopping cart out in the parking lot! Braden decided to take it for a spin. Nice ride Braden!

Dusty Davidson
Genesis Lead Developer

Dual monitor bliss

Genesis Systems — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

For some time now, I've had a dual monitor setup here at the office. Over the past few years, I've had a couple of monitor setups, but I've had dual monitors now for some time. That's now our standard configuration.

I started with a single 23" Samsung SyncMaster 213T, and a no-name 19inch flat panel. Nice enough, but I must say that it's a bit awkward having two monitors of differing resolutions.

Finally, through some creative scavenging, I have managed to aquire the panacea: dual 23" SyncMaster LCD's. It's a beautiful thing folks. Both running at 1600x1200!

Check it out, in all it's glory.. mmmmmmm.. *drule*

Dusty Davidson
Lead Developer

InfoTec 2006 Teasers

Genesis Systems — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Update 1/30/2006 - Got a response back from the InfoTec people, saying that the billboard will be up on or around March 3rd! Keep your eyes peeled!

Man does time fly... I can't believe it's been over a month since we last wrote. I've got a couple of things queued up, but with the holidays and whatnot things have piled up and haven't gotten posted.

One thing that's been piling up is the information regarding InfoTec! As corporate sponsor, we're privy to some pre-show concept art, promotional materials, etc.

Hot off the presses, the InfoTec 2006 billboard, prominately featuring the Genesis Systems logo, that will reside at I-80 and 50th street.

I'll be sure to take a picture of the actual billboard once it's up and displayed.

Also, we've got the InfoTech 2006 Conference brochure, also featuring the Genesis logo.

We also have about 500 complimentary tickets to the exhibition to give away. If you're interested, send me an email at dusty@genesissys.com and I can hook you up.

Dusty Davidson
Lead Software Developer

SQL Server - Logshipping Part 6 of 7

Genesis Systems — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

This entry is part 1 of a 7 part series. To jump to a particular entry, you can click any of the following links:

Log Shipping – What it is

Planning – Laying it all out before setting it up

Preparing your Servers

Creating a maintenance plan

When bad things happen to good servers – issues I’ve run into and how I fixed them

Hands free monitoring

Flipping the switch – How to do your manual failover

Once our logshipping was set up at Genesis Systems, we wanted an easier way to watch for errors. Our process can fail in a number of places such as creating the trn file, copying the trn file to the destination server, or applying the trn file to the destination database. Each of these 3 steps is a job inside of SQL Server.

We found that sometimes one or more of our jobs would step outside the threshold and then the logshipping monitor was pumping out error messages once per minute per logshipping pair until the next cycle and then the process would 'catch itself back up'.

Our solution was to write a report that could be run at a specified interval and let us know how our jobs were looking. Basically, this is a stored procedure that checks the logshipping system tables, compares the last backup/copy times against the current time and the threshold. If outside, send an email notification. This was created as an HTML email just so it looked better.

I was going to put the stored procedure in this article, but it's too big. Click HERE to get the code. In our office it runs every morning and sends out a report of databases that are suspect (where the last update is more than the backup frequency, but still within the out-of-sync threshold) or in error (where the last update is more than the out-of-sync threshold). We also check to make sure the jobs are enabled (just in case somehow one of our copy/load jobs get disabled). We send out our email notifications using CDOSysMail. If you need the mail code, you can check it out HERE.

Here's a sample of the output:

Subject: Logshipping Report - 0 Error(s), 3 Suspect(s)

ERRORS (0)
No Errors to report

Suspect (3)

Primary:	SourceServer.Database1
Secondary:	DestServer.Database1
Backup Frequency:	5 minutes
Backup Threshold:	15 minutes
Out Of Sync Threshold:	15 minutes
Primary Threshold Alert Enabled:	Yes
Secondary Threshold Alert Enabled:	Yes
Copy Enabled:	Yes
Load Enabled:	Yes
Last Updated:	Dec 10 2005 7:54AM
Last Copy:	Dec 10 2005 7:54AM
Last Upload:	Dec 10 2005 7:54AM
Last Backup File:	Database1_tlog_200512100755.TRN
Last Copied File:	Database1_tlog_200512100750.TRN
Last Uploaded File:	Database1_tlog_200512100750.TRN
This Logshipping pair is showing the following alert(s): The database uploads have exceeded the upload frequency.

Primary:	SourceServer.Database2
Secondary:	DestServer.Database2
Backup Frequency:	720 minutes
Backup Threshold:	2160 minutes
Out Of Sync Threshold:	2160 minutes
Primary Threshold Alert Enabled:	Yes
Secondary Threshold Alert Enabled:	Yes
Copy Enabled:	Yes
Load Enabled:	Yes
Last Updated:	Dec 10 2005 12:00AM
Last Copy:	Dec 9 2005 11:59AM
Last Upload:	Dec 9 2005 12:00PM
Last Backup File:	Database2_tlog_200512100000.TRN
Last Copied File:	Database2_tlog_200512090000.TRN
Last Uploaded File:	Database2_tlog_200512090000.TRN
This Logshipping pair is showing the following alert(s): The database uploads have exceeded the upload frequency.

Primary:	SourceServer.Database3
Secondary:	DestServer.Database3
Backup Frequency:	15 minutes
Backup Threshold:	45 minutes
Out Of Sync Threshold:	45 minutes
Primary Threshold Alert Enabled:	Yes
Secondary Threshold Alert Enabled:	Yes
Copy Enabled:	Yes
Load Enabled:	Yes
Last Updated:	Dec 10 2005 7:59AM
Last Copy:	Dec 10 2005 7:44AM
Last Upload:	Dec 10 2005 7:44AM
Last Backup File:	Database3_tlog_200512100800.TRN
Last Copied File:	Database3_tlog_200512100745.TRN
Last Uploaded File:	Database3_tlog_200512100730.TRN
This Logshipping pair is showing the following alert(s): The database uploads have exceeded the upload frequency.

Chris Antoniak DBA/Developer

LoadLibrary problem - NCTDialogicVoice2.dll

Genesis Systems — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMT

We’re trying to test out the trial version of the NCTDialogiceVoice ActiveX control, and we’re having a problem on one machine. The installation doesn’t register the NCTDialogicVoice2 dll, and so we run the “Repair.bat” file that’s in the program files directory. On MY machine, that registered everything it needed to, and it works great. However, on another developer’s machine, that particular DLL won’t register properly. It fails with the messagebox:

LoadLibrary(“NCTDialogicVoice2.dll”) failed – the specified module could not be found

No amount of uninstalling/ manually registering seem to solve this problem for us.

After TOO much screwing around, we finally figured out (and I remembered that I did this to MY machine), that we need the Dialogic System Software!!!! Installing this (since we aren't actually running Dialogic boards in our dev boxes, the Compact Intallation will do), and re-running the Repair.bat file solved our problems!

I'm sure that the inital installation of the product errored out because of this as well, and would have worked just fine, had we noted the prerequisites noted here.