Genie Chronicles Ch. 14

"Sounds good. Well, I'll leave you to it and go discuss this with Susan."

It was slightly more complicated than Nick had said to get into the web server, but Jack figured it out. He quickly noticed that there did not seem to be any routine backup of the web server being performed. As a matter of fact, it didn't appear to have ever been backed up at all. Now very nervous, Jack stopped and went to find Nick.

"Come," he heard when he knocked on Nick's office door. He opened it, and found Nick and Susan in interrupted discussion. Susan looked a bit miffed at the interruption, but Nick just looked curious.

"Nick, I have just had a look at your server, and I don't find that any backup of it is being or has ever been performed."

Nick's eyes widened. "I'm not very tech literate, but even I know that isn't a good thing."

"No, sir, very dangerous."

"Why? It's been running all this time without a problem, hasn't it?" Ms. Cooper asked.

"Yes Ma'am, but that's kind of like saying I have never used my spare tire, so why do I need one? As they say, 'past performance is no guarantee of future results.' All your data is stored on one hard drive in that PC, a stack of little disks that spin constantly, 24 hours a day. All moving parts go bad eventually. Plus, that PC is meant to be a personal workstation, not a server. It isn't as well built, and the components aren't as rugged."

"Don't you think you are exaggerating things a bit, Mr. Phillips?"

"No Ma'am. In fact, probably just the opposite. Let me put it to you this way: if the majority of my income depended on that PC in there, I would be scared absolutely shitless, pardon my French. Getting that thing backed up would be my very top priority. I can think of nothing that would be more important. If that hard drive dies, so does your website. And if there is no backup, your website is gone. Obviously that won't matter in a couple of weeks, but between now and then..."

"Can't you just put the new products on it and let it run like it is until the new one is up?" Ms. Cooper asked.

"No offense, Ms. Cooper, but I am not going near that PC again to do anything until a backup is performed."

"Can you back it up, Jack?" Nick asked.

"I can, but there would be two requirements. One, there would have to be an agreement that, should anything happen to your web site at any time, I am not to be held responsible."

"But, that's preposterous! You could do anything you like! We can't agree to that." Ms Cooper fumed.

"Ms. Cooper, I'm sorry that your website is in such a dangerous situation, but I had nothing to do with putting it there. I will not put myself in a position where I am blamed for someone else's lack of forethought."

"But..." Ms. Cooper looked about to launch into a tirade, but Nick interrupted her.

"He's right, Susan. This is our fault, not his. He's just trying to look out for our best interests, if I read him right." Nick sighed deeply, and then turned back to Jack. "You said there were two requirements."

It was Jack's turn to sigh. "Yes, sir. The easiest and fastest way at this point would be to simply copy your entire web site to another drive, or to burn it to something like a CD. However, the web site would have to be shut down temporarily to do that."

"Why?"

"Copying files like that usually won't get the ones that are open. With the site running, many of the web site's files, important ones, will be open, and won't be copied."

"How long would that take? Taking it down and backing it up, I mean." Nick asked.

Jack shrugged. "Probably about two hours. So, say three, just to cover anything unexpected." He figured one hour, but was covering his ass.

"Could we perhaps do it tomorrow morning first thing? That's our least busy time."

"Sure. Just hope and pray that nothing happens to the hard drive before then."

"Are we really in that much danger?" Ms. Cooper asked incredulously.

Jack shrugged again. "Impossible to say. I've seen a hard drive die within a day of taking it out of the box - that's very rare, admittedly - and I've seen ancient PC's, i.e. 10 years old, with hard drives still humming away. There's no way of telling. I know one thing, I won't sleep well tonight, and it isn't my web server."

"So, once you get the backup done, then we are good?" Nick asked.

"Well, better. If the hard drive were to die after that, then at least your website would be saved up to the point of backup. You would still have to get another drive, load it with everything, put the website back on it, etcetera. That would probably take a day or so. And keep in mind that anything that was changed between the last backup and the time the hard drive dies would be lost, including the latest orders, stuff like that. I know that most of the actual credit card info is transmitted periodically, but... "

Is this something that we will have to worry about when our site is on your web server?" Nick asked.

"Nope. The server is backed up every night, and the server's drives are redundant; that is, the data is stored on more than one disk, or sets of disks, simultaneously. If one disk goes bad, the other disk keeps running while the bad disk is replaced. That's the 'redundancy' part I mentioned earlier."

"Ah. Any chance we could put our current site on it until the new one is done?"

Jack thought for a moment, "Yesss, but it would take some re-tweaking of your existing site. The software it is running under on that PC won't run on the server, so I would have to re-do things like the shopping cart, stuff like that. It would take a couple of days, and that would delay your new site. It's up to you."

Nick sighed again. "Ok, while we need the old site up, I want to get to the new one going as soon as we can. Let's get the old one backed up, and then get to work on the new one."

"Sounds good. I'll let you get back to your discussion, and..."

"We're done, I think," Nick said, looking at Ms. Cooper, who didn't look like she agreed. "We're going to go with you second proposal."

"Great! Do you want to go ahead and take care of the paperwork now, or...?"

"Now is fine, Jamie, our receptionist, is also a Notary, so we are all set." They did a final read-through of the contract, and then brought Jamie in to witness and notarize the signatures.

"Well, that's done. What next?" Nick asked.

Jack looked at his watch. "Well, we still have a couple of hours. Can you show me the areas where we will be working? Perhaps we can go ahead and start preparing for the photography."

"Sure, right this way." He led Jack toward the warehouse area, while Ms. Cooper peeled off to go do something else. They passed Alice and Jennifer along the way, and collected Jennifer while allowing Alice to get back to work.

How'd it go? Jack asked.

Great! This should be fun. Oh, and Alice is a sweet, fun, but naughty little old lady.

Do I want to look at her tote board?

Jennifer shrugged. Up to you. He could hear the grin in her voice. But you have been fairly warned; she is a naughty little old lady.

Their dialog was interrupted by arriving at their destination. One remote corner of the warehouse had been converted into a photo booth, a large curtain making up the third wall. It had some fairly decent lighting equipment, Jack saw with his now expert erotic photographer's eye, thanks to a wish granted by Genie earlier.

"Here's the booth. It has some pretty good lighting and flash equipment, so the photographers have told me." Nick said, and Jack nodded that he agreed. "And here," he opened a door, "is your 'office'. It's actually a closet," he said a bit apologetically, "but it's empty, air-conditioned, has carpet, and has power and an internet hookup. Will it be ok, you know, once we get a desk in here and stuff?"

Jack smiled. "It will be fine for our needs. I'll have my laptop here to handle basic stuff, but most of the heavy duty initial site design I'll do on my workstation at home."

"Great." Nick looked at his watch. "I hate to desert you, but I need to make some phone calls and do a few things. Between the two of you, do you think you have the lay of the land enough to do what you need to do today?"

"Yep, I think so."

"Ok, I'll leave you to it. Just grab anyone if you have a question. Everyone is great to work with around here." Nick said, and then departed.

Jack sat in the floor of the 'office' and motioned Jennifer to join him. As he extracted his laptop from his bag, he asked, "What else have you learned besides Alice is naughty?"

"Well, I met the rest of her staff. Everyone is very nice, although from their reactions I think word has gotten around about part of my duties as your 'associate.' This sounds conceited, but I have a feeling that the area around the photo booth will soon be the path to get from anywhere to anywhere else."

"Really? Even with all the other women who have been photographed here, and looking at boxes with nude women doing interesting things with the contents all day?"

Jennifer shrugged. "I get the feeling that previous shoots have been fairly brief and hidden. This will be something very different."

"Does it bother you?"

Jennifer chuckled. "Potentially millions of people will soon be looking at my nude body on the internet. Why should these few bother me?"

"Well, this is live, and they can see you as a person. The internet will be anonymous, as no one will see your face or know who you are. Although, does that bother you?"

"No, that part is kind of exciting, knowing that folks will be looking at me, wondering who I am. As for this, no, although I assume you want to protect my anonymity here to some extent, as well."

Yep, please have it so that no photos or video make it out of here that could be used to identify you or embarrass us. As a matter of fact, none will even be taken that could identify you."

"Done."

At this point, Jack was fairly sure the network connection was not working. "Hold on a minute, be right back." He walked to the 'server room', tiptoed around the web server box, and carefully traced the network connections coming out of the wall. He found one marked "warehouse closet/office" with masking tape, and sure enough, it wasn't connected to anything. Looking at the stack of network equipment, he saw that all the connections were full. "Great," he sighed, and went back to knock on Nick's door again. A moment later Nick opened it.

"I'm sorry to disturb you again. Is there someone else who I can bug about your computer stuff? I hate to keep coming to the president of the company about it."

Nick smiled and snorted. "Nope, not really. Why, is there another problem?"

"Not exactly a problem. I was trying to connect my laptop to the internet, and wasn't having any luck, so I went back into the computer room and found that the network cable isn't plugged in because all the ports in your network equipment are full. The indicators show that all the connections are active..." He tapered off when Nicked snapped his fingers."

"Dammit, I had forgotten about that. The employee I mentioned that did our website was also our part-time computer guru. He mentioned that there were a couple of connections in there not plugged in, and had planned to take care of that, but we never got around to it before he left."

"Well, I'm going tech shopping this evening, anyway. If you like I can pick you up another box like you have now and hook it up tomorrow. They are pretty cheap these days."

"Are you sure you don't mind doing that?" Nick asked.

"Well," Jack grinned, "computer guru work is usually extra, but I'll give you half a day free."

Nick smiled appreciatively, "Thanks, Jack. Tell me how much you think it will be and I'll get it out of petty cash."

Jack gave him a figure more than he thought it would be, just in case.

"Is that all?"

"Probably less. I'll bring you the change and receipt."

"Great." Nick disappeared for a moment, then came back and handed Jack the cash.

"Well, I think that's about all we can do for today. We'll come in tomorrow first thing to back up the server and get the network connections going, and then we'll start on the photography."

"Sounds great! Thanks again, Jack. See you in the morning."

"See you." Jack went back to the closet to collect Jennifer and his laptop. Unsurprisingly, he found a young man chatting with her, a soda in his hand. "Jack, this is Scott, one of Alice's guys. Scott, this is Jack, my boss."

Jack raised an eyebrow briefly at 'boss, ' then turned to Scott and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you, Scott. You know, I can't think of a job I would have rather had at your age. Your friends must be jealous."

Scott had a 'busted!' look on his face when Jack first walked up, but he relaxed at Jack's friendly attitude, perhaps more than he intended, as he said, "They will be now," before he could stop himself. His eyes got big and his face got red, "I mean, uh..."

Jack laughed, and Jennifer smiled, appearing a bit embarrassed but flattered. "Well, just don't let Alice catch you trying to peek. I get the feeling she'd give you an ear full."

Scott looked over his shoulder at the mention of Alice's name, and then said. "Uh, yeah. Well, my break's about over, so I guess I should get back to work."

As he backed out of the door, Jennifer waved and said. "Bye, Scott. See you tomorrow!"

Scott blushed again, waved, and fled.

You are a flirt and a tease, Jack admonished.

Yeah, so? she responded innocently.

Jack just grinned and shook his head as he packed up his laptop.

They headed for the lobby. As they passed Nick's office, they could hear Alice once again haranguing Nick about something. Jack grinned, but then heard his name. Alice was talking loud enough to be heard far down the hall. Jack knew he shouldn't, but couldn't resist, and pulled Jennifer into a nearby break room to listen.

YOU are extremely rude.

Yep. Hush.

"... at first I figured Jack had Jennifer in here just for her looks, but let me tell you, she's sharp as a tack, and doesn't miss a trick, not to mention being as nice and down to earth as can be. And you know I've liked Jack since the first time he came in. I don't know what's got little Ms. Cooper's panties in a wad, but she needs to get over it. Those two are going to do a great job for us if we let them," Alice was saying.

Nick's response was harder to hear. "I agree with you. You know how Susan is. She'll come around. We just have to make sure she doesn't run them off before she does. Now, tell me about this week's shipping and returns numbers..."

Figuring he had pushed their luck far enough, Jack led Jennifer out to the lobby, where they said a mildly flirtatious good bye to Jamie before heading to the car.

"So, what else can you tell about Ms. Cooper. Are we in trouble? I hate the idea that we got free of one nightmare client situation, just to start another."

"Hmmm. Well, she's still a bit jealous over the sexual relationship she believes we are enjoying. Beyond that, she feels her turf is being threatened by your 'aggressive' plans for the website."

"I see. Well, we'll just have to watch her closely and try to get in her good graces, I guess. Hopefully, as Nick said, she'll come around when she sees we are really trying to help their business."

"Hopefully, but that may not be enough. We will also need to take her personal situation into account."

"Well, I can think of no one better qualified than you to help with that."

Jennifer smiled at the praise, and then they continued to discuss the day's events as they headed to do some network equipment and high-end digital camera shopping.