HI SYN!

Exploring Haiku

I made a build VPS box to do some custom builds using gcc4 only, as previously mentioned, but I still haven't broken the 100MB barrier yet. The 78MB build I did failed to boot, and I'm switching from making ISOs to VMWare as I can't stand making any more coasters! From what I can tell the kernel core is around 1.8MB in total plus some required libraries, so I think it's possible to get the minimum install well under 100MB. (kernel, app server, input server, tracker?) The goals I've set for my education/knowledge of this very fine OS are: 1.) To see how low I can get a minimal install to boot - even if there are no applications 2.) Develop a framework for application + system updates - I have a basic implementation on paper, now I just need to implement it and see how much of the existing build system needs to be tweaked 3.) Understand the internals better as it's been a while since I've done any OS tinkering I think 1 is gonna be easy to do this week, #2 will be a good tinkering test but #3 is already forcing me to break open my old OS design books and relearn some things.

Postgresql and Yii

Since I left the GGL back in January and moved down to Washington DC to my new job I still feel this urge for working on a project, even on the side, that gives back to gaming and, just maybe, helps gaming grow in some way. So I've been tinkering with some ideas I've had recently, some old but most are new. I've taken that opportunity to start using new technologies (to me).  I've been a LAMP (and FAMP) guy for over 10 years now.  I've looked at PostgreSQL in the past but wrote it off and never really gave it a chance until now.  I'm just getting started but it's pretty interesting so far... consistency, stability and correctness have never been so nice -- even if it means I need to (re-)learn a few things about databases :) I'm also fooling with a new framework more and more, Yii. The design fits my requirements pretty well, but more on that as I need to tinker more to make a proper post about it.

Look Honey... it's a bison!

Ah this brings back some memories of my venture through Yellowstone 2 years ago with Kate..

Windows update issues post SP3 install

Yesterday I finished the re-install of my IBM ThinkPad T42 using the factory install disks. After completing the re-install, I diligently started the Windows Update process to make sure my laptop was up to date before pushing all my data back onto it.  After 2 patches, SP3 update was next and I let it do its thing for the next few hours and went to bed.  This morning I woke up to try and install a few optional updates and generally wrap the reload up and found I couldn't install ANYTHING! .NET 2.0 had a critical update that would take, nor would any of the optional hardware and software updates work. Finally after googling around I found a post here that says:

This problem will not exist on the final version of SP3.

It can be fixed by running this command:

regsvr32 wups2.dll

Sure enough, after registering that dll file with the above command I am now able to apply all updates to the system.  Good for both future reference and for anyone googling around wondering why they can't update their XP system anymore!

Domain Registration

Last night I read a story about how our favorite company (Network Solutions) which controls the US Domain Name system (and the costs associated to it) has decided to raise the price... again.  So I hopped onto registrar account and checked out the status of my domains and nearly missed renewing a domain!  Since I have only a few domains that im using for personal (and work purposes now!) I'm renewing them for a few years before the "man" decides to raise prices again and again each year.  And I though yearly raises in apartment rents were bad :(

colo vs dedicated server

I've been shopping around the past few days for either a colocated server space for an old box I have (AMD 64 4000, 4GB memory, 300GB HD) or a deal on a dedicated server.  I've pretty much decided on going with Burst.net unless one of my recent quotes come back with a great deal since I cannot stand spending $50/mo on a Celeron with 512MB memory and 80GB HD vs what I can get for $70/mo. There is an interesting thread on WHT that I stumbled upon dealing with the question of why cheap colo costs more than cheap dedicated:

This is probably a dumb question, but I've been curious about something. While shopping around for either a cheap dedicated server (less than $75/mo) or a cheap colo for a 1u server, I have noticed that the cheap dedicated servers are often less than a cheap colo, which seems odd to me since with a colo you bring your own machine. For example, Sago Networks has cheap dedicateds for $50, $59, $79 etc. yet their cheapest colo option is $99. For Sago's $50 dedicated you get 1000GB transfer and 2 IP's, and with their $99 colo you get only get 100 GB transfer and 1 IP. And Sago is not unusual in this respect. I've priced other providers that fall into this category and they have similar differences. So why is colo more expensive than dedicated for similar, if not lower, features?

Read the rest

The reason I'm going to a dedicated/colo server (again!) is because this VPS has proven too unstable for me.  I can't deal with my sites being up and down or painfully slow because another VPS is eating up all of the hosts CPU. Plus I can't run any game servers for fun!  I also will get about 10x the server for 2.5x the cost which I think is a good deal and I get to put some of my old, idle hardware into action.  This decisions seems Win-Win for everyone.

RIP Old Database server

A couple of weeks ago I took ClanBase.com's old DB server offline.  The server (Dual Xeon 3.2Ghz, 6GB memory) was a workhorse for sure and required little maintenance during it's production time. The final #uptime was:

05:29:04 up 794 days, 22:58,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

It actually amazes me that we never ran into a problem with this server even with the amount of high traffic we were throwing at it.  I forget it's average QPS, but it was around 300 on average and that's with caching enabled.  I think over it's 2 year life span I had to restart MySQL maybe 3 times. Hopefully this new DB server has the same track record :)

Back to Windows

For the past month and half I've been trying to use Ubuntu 7.10 exclusively.  However, the same old story happened to me as it's happened to others.  Here's the recap of some of the issues I ran into: - Exchange client: I tried the thunderbird exchange client, didn't work and webmail is no substitute for the full client - IRC: X-Chat is awesome, however I use BNC's that require both a password and a different port on connection; something X-Chat doesn't like - Flash: It's "supported" but not fully since some flash movies work (ie> most of youtubes) and others do not (ie> just about all of yahoo.com's) - Java:  Hit and miss for websites (ie> SmugMug).  I trialed SmugMug and generally like the service but I wasn't able to fool with the easy to upload features during the trial. - Nvidia 8800GT: It's not new but yet the drivers are considered beta and need to be MANUALLY installed (and reinstalled for every kernel upgrade/recompile) - Creative X-Fi: Not supported at all and I had to install a SB Live! card to get sound!  This card is not very new so I'm not understanding the hold up here. - Dell Webcam: I got spoiled by this little puppy for the first month I had this monitor before I switched to Ubuntu but it's not supported in any way in Linux right now - Games: I had WoW running under emulation Things I will miss - (Good) Virtual Desktop: Windows has it but it's not as good as Ubuntu implementation.  I really liked the ability to use the scroll button to switch between 2 Virtual Desktops - Overall Unix Desktop feel: The only way I'm getting this back is if I switch to a Mac... and if OS X ever supports (not via hacks) my XPS 720, I just might pull the trigger on that. - Compiz: The wobbly effect is an immediate disable in my mind but I do like this engine after all - 4GB memory usage: The most I used was 3.2GB but having all 4GB available was nice! As I thought before, Linux on the Desktop is a good idea but won't be fully realized outside of nitches and devices like the Asus EeePC.  I still think the ultimate (Open Source) OS will be something based around a design like BeOS.... now if Haiku can only get to beta stage I can start considering a switch to it!

Mythic Beasts

By far the coolest & smartest host provider I've seen in a while is Mythic Beasts. They are a host provider in the UK that are pretty much focused on dedicated + colo hosting of Mac Mini's! Talk about being green about your servers, that's a great idea if you require a dedicated server but don't really need the full power of a 1U rack server (mostly lots of memory and RAID). I'm tempted to switch my hosting over there since my needs are little but I've switched hosts enough for work and play... this VPS through TekTonic is technically "Green" so I think I'll stay right here, unless THEY start offering very cheap mac mini hosting! An article about Mythic-Beasts: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/mythic_beasts_02

The hunt for "Legacy Free"

As some of my friends know, a huge pet peeve of mine about computers is legacy ports. So while searching for some information on Linux's bluetooth support and trying to find out what motherboards/SFF systems have bluetooth support I stumbled upon this post on Slashdot: As time goes by, more and more ports/connectors add up on my motherboards. When are we going to get ride of ps/2 buses, parallels and serial ports? So now we would have: bluetooth parallel port serial ports Serial IDE Parallel IDE Firewire ps2 buses USB -- Next ones are not on motherboards, but still...--- Analog joystick port (gameport) VGA output Audio ports Ethernet Am I missing a port? Keeping legacy ports does add cost on the systems... I wish we could go by with firewire only. Everything on firewire. HDs, modem, joystick, keyboard... Only analog output like Video and Audio would remain. BTW, most motherboards do not come with Firewire on, but I bet there must be a few out there with it. Source: Link [~half way down the page] This was made back in 2002, so I'm glad to see a bulk of people were thinking the same way I am even back then. My ideal motherboard would consist of ports for the following: - SATA2 - eSATA port - USB 2.0 - Firewire - 1Gbit NIC - Bluetooth support With possible variations containing wireless instead of the 1Gb NIC and both the NIC and wireless. This is on top of the usual CPU, memory and chipsets that go on the board. The idea here is to mimize space required, cost and power required. Power consumption is something I'm becoming more and more aware of and trying to minimize my personal power footprint for both cost and ecological reasons. And what exactly do I mean by "legacy"? Parallel Port - Original IBM PC Serial Port - Original IBM PC Game Port - Orignal IBM PC PS/2 Mouse - IBM PS/2 PS/2 Keyboard - IBM PS/2 3.5" Floppy - IBM PS/2 PATA (IDE) - Compaq (1985) PCI Slots - Intel 1992 AGP Slots - Intel 1997 The PCI Slot is the only slot I would consider okay to keep, but even then I need to look into this more, I bet you can get rid of it and survive. The AGP slot 'just' came out in 1997, and I remember that well since I saw beta boards with it on and thought it was the coolest thing since a GUI on an OS.