Category Archives: computer news

Server outage

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I just wanted to let you know that there was a major server problem earlier which caused this blog (along with all of my other sites) to be down for some hours. There was something wrong with the mounting of the hard-drives so the home shares couldn’t be mapped to the domains. Everything seems to be up and running again though and the customer support responded within an hour…so I’m not totally happy, but at least relieved to see the sites all up and running again…

On another note: I decided to get myself a dedicated server for the likes of Proxytastic.com as they’re too resource hungry to be run on this shared hosting account. Watch out for an announcement once the dedicated server is up and running….

Update:…and another server outage, this time the DB server…this is starting to get annoying…

Second Update:Support got to it, although it was sunday morning quite quickly…the db server was filled up…now it’s been trimmed down to around 80% of it’s capacity, but it seems that they need another storage solution or something for this particular server…so…for now everything up and running again…

Time to get a dedicated server?

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Well, after the launch of my newest site (Proxytastic.com) which was supposed to deliver a free webbased proxy for people who are unable to access certain sites from the workplace or school I find myself unable to keep it up as I’m getting constant warnings of the admins of my hoster (Dreamhost) that the resource usage (namely CPU time used) is way to high for a shared server.

I guess this is true, because such a site is just a resource hog when it comes to cpu usage and believe me, I tried every major (free) solution (PHProxy, CGI Proxy,…) – to no effect. Now I’m faced with the question: Should I shell out some major cash to get me a dedicated server or not? While I would love to have my own box (and cpu for that matter) I’m not to keen on paying another bill every month, especially due to the fact that I’m totally satisfied with my current hosting (Dreamhost) and it’s provided service in respect to the asked price (on another note: I already payed one year in advance with a major rebate). Decisions, decisions. For now I’ve taken the script off the server to avoid getting more techical support mails in my inbox although it hurts me as the site was really picking up traffic really fast (around 900-1000 uniques per day) – maybe I should have a closer look at the income (ads) the site might bring me and consider getting a dedicated or managed server…

Question to the readers: do you have any experience with dedicated servers (hopefully positive ones) and can get me a recommendation for a provider? (Currently I’m looking at offers from the major german providers (like 1&1 and Strato) with servers starting as low as 19.99 Euro/month (for a Sempron 2200+ machine – although I’m not sure how good this would be for one, not to say many, resource hogging site(s))

Progress report on online ads

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As you may have noticed I’ve switched ads to Chitika after I’ve seen them on other blogs. So far I’m really satisfied with the results and I’ve started to add the Chitika eMiniMalls to some of my other sites, too – namely:

If you’re looking for an alternative to Google Adsense, Clicksor, Bidvertiser and similiar have a look at Chitika and their variety of advertising programs (eMiniMalls, RealContext, BlogContext) and if you would like to do me a favour do so by using my referral link: Chitika. Thank you!

Roundup…

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Thursday:

  • Sox time again! After the Red Sox last year, the White Sox did it this year. They won the World Series 4-0 over the Houston Astros to win their first World Series in 88 years! Congrats!
  • I visited the Systems World in Munich. Quite interesting especially some digital office solutions (ELO, etc). On another note: I saw the new Audi Q7 there. Oooh this one looks sweet, but is “sligthly” out of my price range…
  • No Poker for the second day in a row…after being on the road for most of the day I just didn’t feel like playing…

Friday:

  • After getting some more sleep than on thursday I used the afternoon to play some tournaments again. I declare Q-Q to be my downfall…from now on I’m going to lay it down preflop as this is the hand that has kicked me out of a tournament three times now :-(
  • In the evening I went to footie training (the first week I’ve been able to train twice in quite a while), which was fun as we did less running and more playing.

Windows Vista everywhere

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Although it’s still in early beta stage, Windows Vista (or the Windows formerly known as Longhorn) is everywhere. Screenshots, reviews and discussions are flooding the net and I ask myself: Why? – True, some people have been waiting for this one for a loooong time now, nontheless I’m not overly excited yet – after all it’s going to be at least another 3-6 months until the real deal is in my hands and who knows which features will be in the final product…so here’s what I’m going to do: sit back, relax, have a look at screenshots and a laugh at the Pro/Contra Microsoft/Windows discussions as they start to pop-up once again… ;-)

Looking for hosting?

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A mate just informed me that the Dreamhost promotion code “777” is still valid for new customers. So if you need hosting and would like a full featured account (2.4GB space, 120GB traffic, shell-access, …) head over to Dreamhost and sign-up for the crazy-domain-insane package (yearly payment) and enter the promotion code 777 and you’ll receive the first year of hosting including 1 top-level domain for $9.24 after the major rebate…please use the Dreamhost-button on the right hand menu or this referral-link – that way I’ll get “some” referral money :-)

Spam bot(s)

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One spam bot or even numerous spam bots hitting your blog: 0$
Not having to deal with over 500 comments due to Kitten’s Spaminator: 0$
Not turning off the email notification of the Spaminator: priceless :wink:

Possible absence

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Update: No downtime at all, the transition was really smooth – it only took them some minutes to switch everything. So I’m online again, this time with a 2MBit line though :mrgreen:

Today (Monday May 23rd 2005) it’s finally going to happen, after waiting for 4 months my new phone-line and dsl-provider Arcor will be supplying the new lines (see my post from January 3rd)…

Hopefully everything will be alright after a smooth transition, but you never know…hopefully I’ll be back this afternoon :-)