I mentioned a few days ago that I ordered parts for a new webserver. I picked up the pieces on Saturday, and finished the physical assembly in a couple of hours. It is a very compact and, dare I say, “cute” box. I’ll have to take some pictures of it once everything is finished.
I was making such good progress on Saturday that I started right in to the OS install and config. Install of Mandriva Linux 2008 went very smoothly, but post install config caused me some grief.
First, there was a problem with the screen saver… basically, the power management features of X Windows powered off the display output, and no amount of moving the mouse around or tapping the keyboard would fix the problem. I overcame the issue (I hope) by turning the display power management feature
Second, vncserver (tightvnc-server) refused to launch generating a “fatal” error due to not being able to find any fonts. I corrected this problem by installing the xfs (X windows font server) package
Third, vncserver corrupts all keyboard input. The display and mouse works fine remotely, but anything typed turns into gibberish. Apparently I am not alone in experiencing this problem, but there doesn’t seem to be a solution yet
While trying to correct these various problems, i successfully broke my install three times in succession. Since the install is so new, I decided to re-install the OS each time so that I would have a “clean” build. But that means that my progress has been… disrupted. At one point, I had all of my MySQL databases migrated and was starting to think I might have an 80% complete working replacement for my webserver in place today- unfortunately, that has been undone. I’m giving up for now, with the server sitting on my desk in a seemingly functional but incomplete state. I’ll see how it looks in the morning.
To make things even more interesting, my wireless hub died on me. Fortunately, I still had my ancient but not-so-secure Linksys sitting on a shelf, so I have basic wireless back again. The timing is crappy, though- I want to buy a new Apple Airport Time Capsule 802.11n/Gigabit wired Ethernet/NAS device, but that’s not quite shipping yet. Ah well, life is full of challenges.
I’ve been pondering the replacement of my web server, the machine that runs this website, for about a year now. I finally took the leap today and placed the parts order with my favorite computer component dealer, NCIX. A new chassis, motherboard, processor (Intel!), memory, and flat panel display are now waiting to be added to my credit card.
My main objectives with this upgrade:
physically “shrink” the size of the server. The machine I have is a big, noisy, dual processor box. I want to put the machine itself in our attic crawlspace or on a very small stand, and that means smaller
upgrade the OS and related components. I’ve found it challenging to complete in-place upgrades on the server. I’ve done it several times, but this go-around I want to do a clean wipe of the machine. Without having a new computer to perform the build on, this would have meant a lengthy (couple day) outage
minor performance and capacity upgrade. The existing machine is a dual processor 1.6 GHz system with 1 GB of RAM. The new machine will be a dual core 2.6 GHz machine with 4 GB of RAM. I expect the increased memory and, to a lesser extent, faster processor will have some positive effect on performance of some of the odds and ends running on the machine (E.G.: BF2, TeamSpeak- things you folks looking at the web don’t interact with normally)
I don’t expect to get around to actually building the new server for a while, and when I do it will be done without touching this site until the actual switch over. I’ll post the exact details of the new configuration when I deploy it.
The funny thing is, I feel more sentimental about the old server (which I built originally in April, 2003) than about my main gaming PC. Almost five years ago: it has served me well during that time, with very few complaints other than some early heat problems. I hope the new system will serve as well…
Steve Jobs and his reality distortion field apparently put on a relatively quiet show at MacWorld today. Apple stock dropped about $10 on comparatively underwhelming (to the analysts) product announcements- basically, there was no iPhone this year.
The big announcement was the MacBook Air. From my perspective, this is a rather boring release: a very thin MacBook with an underpowered processor, low-end (Intel) video processor, and no user ability to add RAM, upgrade hard disk capacity, or replace the battery. Nothing about it appeals in any way beyond its impressive industrial design: it *is* pretty thin, I’ll give them that. But it still weighs over three pounds, so it isn’t exactly what I’d call “light”. Of more interest to me were the Time Capsule NAS/Airport hub and the improved Apple TV set top device.
Time Capsule is basically network attached storage built in to an AirPort (802.11n) and Gigabit Ethernet hub. But the important consideration is that it works with Leopard’s Time Machine backup application to perform wireless continuous backups. I like backups, so much so that I now have about 1.2 terabytes of hard disk storage dedicated purely to backing up my computers. Unfortunately, I just spent several hundred dollars setting up backup for my MacBook. Buyers remorse…yes, that’s what they call this.
Apple TV has been around for a while. It is essentially a small set top box to store and stream video to your TV. The idea originally is that folks would have digital movies and such, or DVDs that they would rip and store on the Apple TV. Unfortunately, its lack of any built-in mechanism for acquiring legal movie or TV content limited its appeal. The MacWorld announcement regarding Apple TV doesn’t really change the device at all: it gets a software update, and that is about it. The big news is the introduction of licensed movie content available for rental and download directly using the device. 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Touchstone, MGM, New Line, Sony, Miramax, Lions Gate Films: they are all on board to provide movies for Apple TV. Oh, you live in Canada? Oops, sorry, no movies for you.
Yes, that’s right: once again the CRTC has managed to impede another cool technology. It took us years to get satellite radio, TiVo is only just arriving, and TV shows on ITunes are limited to Canadian only content like Corner Gas and NHL hockey. Hurray for Canadian content…. Oh well, maybe one day someone will take the CRTC and its regulations, pack them up in one of those ugly metal shipping containers, and ship them to some country that wants them. Like maybe Zimbabwe: that would be a good home for the CRTC.
I first encountered Microsoft in terms of buying their products in about 1981. I bought a game for my Apple II- Adventure (aka “Colossal Cave”, the original Crowther and Woods text based adventure) from them. I followed Bill Gates’ career from about that time, and always felt like, in a weird way, he and I were twins separated at birth… even though he’s older than me and I’m far, far sexier.
In about 1990, I had a beer (several, actually- I think it was a post-training course social thing) with a fellow in Seattle who told me I looked just like Bill. He then proceeded to tell me how his family used to have a summer cottage near the Gates’ clan when Bill was a kid. He described summers sharing BBQs and swimming with the Gates’ family, and turning down a job offer from Bill in the early 1980’s. My momentary pride at being described as “like Bill Gates” was quashed when the guy described the young Bill Gates as a pain in the neck smartass geek, and how he once nearly drowned Bill while swimming because he was so irritating.
In later life, I realized that the “pain in the neck smartass” was a lot more like me than I was probably willing to admit.
I have l a problem with social networking sites. Services like Facebook, Twitter, and so on all encourage me to trust them with all of the data regarding myself and my friends/associates. In return, they provide a service to me for “free”.
I don’t like letting *my* data out of my hands. Some of the most important pieces of information in my life are my emails, my email address books, my blog, and my online photos. If I upload that data to Facebook, GMail, or Flikr I enter into some sort of contract with that provider. The “free” service they offer me is actually paid for by the data I upload: read the fine print in your usage agreement, and you’ll see that they claim more rights to your data than you think they do. I’ve often been told I’m not “with it” or “cool” for choosing to distance myself from these services, and I can’t really argue that- I’ve never been one of the “cool kids”. But to me, the data Facebook, GMail and others want me to give them access to in order to use their services is just too precious to me to mess around with. That’s why I pay for email services, run my own blog, and store my network based photo album on my own servers. Free sounds really good until you realize you are trading your data for that low cost.
Earlier this week, Robert Scoble encountered the “dark” side of the social networking phenomena. Robert was running a script to extract his list of “friends” from Facebook so he could use that information for his own purposes. One might think that this would be quite acceptable: the data belongs to Robert, right? Wrong. It belongs to Facebook. They choose how and if he can access his own data because, quite frankly, it isn’t his any more. It now belongs to them. His friends and acquaintances are a commodity they sell, and as such the data is a valuable resource that they don’t want to make easily accessible to competitors. To be honest, the data you hand over to Facebook and GMail is the only thing they have to sell/leverage to make money, and believe me that these companies are not running their service out of the goodness of their heart. Monetizing your personal data is Job #1 for these social networking services, and we are only beginning to see how this will be accomplished.
Facebook has reinstated Scoble’s account, but that doesn’t change the reality: the data is *theirs*. If you think the emails you send via Google Mail, or the friends you invite via Facebook or MySpace are “yours”… you are fooling only yourself. I don’t think this kind of occurrence will actually change the way people use these services, but I do feel increasingly concerned regarding where this is leading. Will everything I do, say, or store online via a social networking site eventually be used to sell things to me and everyone I know? That certainly seems to be the dream of many of these services. I’m not completely comfortable with data I think of as “personal” and valuable becoming fodder for a massive marketing effort to all my friends and acquaintances.
If there is one thing that can make me giddy when I’m working on a computer upgrade project, it is a well-designed case or chassis. Well-designed means:
the pieces slot together with minimal effort
I can open the box without special tools or fiddly screws
the edges and corners are nicely turned with no sharp edges
the paint/finish is clean, smooth, and elegant
there is more than adequate room for all the necessary cables
all marks/writing/labels are clear and easily read during assembly and future disassembly
the chassis as a whole feels massively solid and robust: no wobbles, no crappy plastic-y bits
lots of spare parts and cables included
good cooling/heat management design, with space for additional/optional fans where appropriate
My favorite case manufacturer to date has been Antec. Their cases generally meet or exceed all the items on my list of requirements. My most recent full computer chassis from them was the P180: it’s a fantastic case, and I’m very happy with it.
Choosing a hard drive enclosure early this year seemed like a no brainer since I like Antec cases so much. I bought Antec’s MX-1 “actively cooled” enclosure. It looked like typical Antec: well made, easy to open, all screws easily accessible and nicely sized, with excellent cooling. Unfortunately, after just a bit over six months of use it died…rather completely. And finding a replacement wasn’t a picnic…
I was starting to think that the tide might be turning away from ATI + AMD: my favoured platform for the last four years or so. Both Intel and NVidia have been ahead of ATI/AMD now for about a year in terms of top-end video card and CPU performance.
But ATI, at least, seems poised to introduce some interesting technology during 2008. It appears that my long-held hope that “two GPUs on one card” would finally become a reality is about to be fulfilled. ATI has already been talking about four video cards in one machine- which really doesn’t interest me that much. But the 3870 X2 has two processors on one card…which is much more appealing.
My disinterest in having two video cards boils down to three main things: heat, power, and space. If you’ve ever looked at a single high-end video card of moderately recent vintage (such as my existing ATI X1950XTX), you know they are large beasts with big fans and a requirement for their own power lines. They throw off a ton of heat, and are noisy. Two of them in my machine would mean my huge tower would actually be *crowded*, and my 650 watt power supply would likely be strained keeping up with the power demands. It has always struck me as an ugly way to increase video performance.
Now I have an option: perhaps a four core AMD Athlon with a dual GPU ATI 3870 X2? That might be an upgrade worth waiting for. I get the impression NVidia has something similar in the works…I guess I’ll have some work to do to make a decision
I have a deep, dark secret to admit: I often send email using HTML/rich text features. I know, it is shocking: but I fear the seductive features of things like fonts, bold facing, and colour have turned me from the true path of pure text.
When I started using the Macintosh, I set my email options to use rich text format for composing messages:
You’d think that, with this setting, any email message I compose would be formatted using rich text, right? Well, apparently Apple wants to think on my behalf. In their infinitely wise thinking, the setting above is actually more of a request than a command. Apparently, they think I mean “use rich text, if you think that’s wise”. Because what really happens with the above setting is that rich text/HTML format will be used *if* I put something in my email message that demands rich text. Like a font change, or a different colour. Otherwise, the message will still be sent as plain text.
I discovered this behavior after my friend Chris noticed that emails I was sending him were arriving devoid of any formatting, with lovely courier-style fonts. I don’t see a quick way to fix this other than to maybe select some kind of odd font or always make at least one character in every email I send boldfaced or some such. I’ll probably just ignore the problem for now
I stumbled across this video which gives a stop-action view of someone using the least impressive of computer tools to perform some rather impressive illustrating magic…
Being able to do something amazing with a very basic tool may seem like a rather limited skill. But I have to wonder- what could this artist do with a “real” drawing program?
