What a crapper of an evening. I got caught up on-site until 9PM

The day was good though - I did some pair programming and we managed to nail down some ORM problems we were having. So now, my sync script actually runs and writes stuff to the database!

Off to work as usual. Hope I get a seat. I'm keen to do some more work on my invoice parser/query tool.

It's a tool used to parse ACCPAC for DOS invoices and stick their contents in a database in a sensible schema that I can report on. Once I can reproduce an invoice, the most basic function - I can move to phase 2, integrating parsing of the payments report and collating that with the invoices in several management reports. This involves porting one of my previous scripts from PHP/MySQL to Python/Postgres. Phase 3 is integration of internet orders data into the bargain. (Python, PHP, Javascript)

Once at work, I'm on a customer job. Writing a database synchronisation script thats designed to replicate a MySQL database into Postgres based around a FIFO table in the MySQL DB. FIFO Records are created by triggers in the MySQL database. The script needs some smarts because of the convoluted way that the developers of the software based around this database do updates. Apparently they didn't know about update - or weren't prepared to plumb in the necessary mechanics to allow the software to decided that it's updating. Their solution: DELETE the record and INSERT every time... Joy.

brewbox (fridge control server) seems to be working away happily - although I haven't connected the controller yet. I need to test the compressor lag routine in the control script. I want to make sure it works before I plug the fridge into it, in case I damage the fridges compressor by turning it on straight after it's been turned off.

It's a nice warm day today. The kids are out terrorising each other in the yard. I cut some pine earlier for another project and Liam is riding around on his bike (his truck) with the pine and a selection of tools in the back. I'm in the shed resurrecting an old 1U server for my fermentation controller project.

I've chosen this old dual P3 server because it pulls under 100 Watts - but still has enterprise server goodies, SCSI hot-swap, ECC RAM (because you need that in a fridge controller). The other reason I chose this server (an NEC 8500 120ra-1) is because it has serial and parallel facilities. The parallel was actually a nice find - I was going to use a USB converter, but I found an entry in the BIOS for parallel configuration. So I took a closer look and found a weird header on the mainboard - I plugged in a DB-25 ribbon cable and tested it with a live CD. Good news! The parallel header-ribbon to DB-25 actually came as surplus electronics in my electronics class in highschool! I was lucky that I still had it.

I replaced the CD with a DVD drive and attempted to install CentOS 5.2. Unfortunately the DVD drive is bad, so I downloaded the net install cd image for Centos 5.3 and re-installed the original CD-ROM drive. Looks like the net install is going to take a few hours.