iDude.org

On my endless search for cool software I came across a web server daemon called Abyss from a company called Aprelium. Personally, I had never heard of it or the company before and had my doubts it would be any good at all.

The website was nice looking though, so I didn’t immediately close my browser and decided to look around a little. The screenshots looked good, the specs looked good, they had a public forum which their developer was active in. To me that denotes that they aren’t afraid to have users openly talk about their products and answer questions about their software.

Well, I decided to go ahead and download it (the free Abyss X1) and give it a try. The file size was amazingly small, weighing in at only ~344k compressed.

The install was virtually brainless and the server was up and running. I followed the simple instructions in the support section of the Aprelium website and got PHP & ASP working. The quick setup of these two languages on a simple and easy to use web server solved a lot of my aggravation with other servers. IIS isn’t extremely easy to get PHP running stably. Apache can run ASP, but for the best experience, you have to use Sun ASP. IIS has an “OK” GUI for configuration and Apache is virtually all a bunch of CONF files and even though there are some GUIs out there for Apache, they aren’t “clean” and can clutter up your CONF files.

After getting these two scripting languages working on Abyss, all my websites I tried on it “just worked”… The web software I used was Wordpress to test PHP, of course using a MySQL database. I also tried ASP/MySQL & ASP/Microsoft SQL. These worked just as good as Apache & IIS respectively, except there was no aggravation getting it all setup. I think it took about 15 minutes to install.

Performance wise, everything is served virtually instantly. No noticable lag. Dynamic ASP & PHP sites are extremely fast. Static HTML (which I didn’t really test) would probably be even faster.

I liked Abyss X1 so much that I went ahead, after a day or so, and bought Abyss X2 (full version) with the 2 year upgrade protection for a total of ~79.99 + tax. I immediately received an email with a download link, my serial numbers and was off and running. Abyss X2 even upgraded from X1 without loss of configuration.

Abyss X2 adds a few additional features. I specifically upgraded so I would get Virtual Hosting capability.

I plan on initially moving all my Wordpress blogs over to Abyss from IIS6/PHP. If that all goes ok, I will start moving over some of my ASP websites. Perhaps converting some of them to PHP to hone my skills and make them more portable across multiple platforms.

Here are two of the sites I host that are now on Abyss X2.

* This website (iDude.org)
* The Angry Conservative(s)

To finish up, I plan on using Abyss X2 for all my web server needs as long as they keep up the good work and keep growing the capabilities of the daemon.  The only reason I may not use it is if I HAVE to use one of the others for web server specific features.

Here are a few of the primary features of Abyss (X1 & X2).

Low requirements for great performance

Abyss Web Server does not require huge memory or excessive computing power to run. That’s why it can be used without problems even on small or out-dated systems. It performs at least as well as the common web servers available on the market.

Easy configuration

An intuitive web management interface called the console makes the web server configuration as easy as browsing a web site. No need to edit configuration files, the console helps you setting the server parameters in an effortless manner and can be accessed from a local or a remote computer. It is available in many languages such as English, French, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish.

Fault-tolerant and robust

Abyss Web Server is based on the APX architecture. APX, which stands for Anti-crash Protection eXtension, was created, here at Aprelium, to make the server crash-proof. If it happens that the software causes a critical error and crashes (which is by the way very improbable), a report will be generated if possible and the server is automatically restarted. The downtime in such a case won’t exceed 1 second!

Secure

Security is the #1 priority in Abyss Web Server. In addition to its advanced URL decoding engine which rejects malicious and suspicious requests, it features an efficient anti-hacking system which detects at an early stage hacking attempts or denial of service attacks and bans dynamically their originating IP addresses.
It is also equipped with an anti-leeching system to automatically prevent other web sites from directly linking to your images or files.

SSI support

Abyss Web Server supports the standard SSI directives to help you create dynamic HTML pages with the least effort and without requiring the use of a scripting language.

Unicode compliant

Abyss Web Server supports file names and URLs written in any human language.

Runs your ASP.NET applications

Abyss Web Server features a native support for ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0 on Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. You can install your ASP.NET applications and ASPX files and start serving them immediately with no performance loss and no incompatibilities issues.

Abyss Web Server’s ASP.NET support is not limited in anyway and can execute small test scripts written in C# or VB.NET as well as large applications which use the advanced capabilities of ASP.NET such as custom web controls, database access, authentication, web services and XML processing.

Powers your Ruby on Rails applications

Abyss Web Server can run Web applications based on the Ruby on Rails framework. Their execution speed will be optimal thanks to the use of the FastCGI interface.

Installing Ruby on Rails has also been made easy on Abyss Web Server: clear instructions and full Ruby + Ruby on Rails packages are provided to make deployment of the framework quick and straightforward.

Hosts your PHP, Perl, and “Classic” ASP scripts

Abyss Web Server has been specially designed to make using scripts the simplest possible even on Windows platforms. Thanks to its CGI and ISAPI extensions interfaces, Abyss Web Server supports various scripting languages such as PHP, Perl, “Classic” ASP, Python, Ruby, Rebol, and TCL.

Languages which interpreters are FastCGI-compatible (such as PHP) will even experience a significant processing speed boost on Abyss Web Server while reducing in the same time your system load.

Whether you are going to test a simple script or install and run a complex database-driven web application, Abyss Web Server is the best choice in terms of ease of configuration and optimal performance.

Total control over the bandwidth

You can configure the total bandwidth that Abyss Web Server is allowed to use when answering the requests. You can also configure the bandwidth that is allowed for every visitor.

Finer bandwidth control is also available in Abyss Web Server X2 and can be used to configure the allowed bandwidth per file, per directory, or per group of files or directories.

Password protection

Password protecting files or directories has never been easier. You can define users and groups of users and create advanced access rules with a few clicks.

Custom directory listings

With Abyss Web Server, you have a total control over the layout and the look and feel of your directory listings. You can define a template using simple SSI directives or you can write in your preferred programming language your custom directory listing script.

Virtual hosting

Abyss Web Server can serve more than one web site from the same computer. This is often called virtual hosting or support for multiple hosts. Each defined host has its specific configuration and is completely independent from other hosts. Virtual hosting is only available in the professional edition Abyss Web Server X2.

URL Rewriting

Abyss Web Server includes a URL rewriting engine conforming to industry standards. It can help you hide the complex URLs of your Web applications and make them look more user friendly.

Although URL rewriting is usually considered as an advanced feature, it remains easily controllable in Abyss Web Server through the comprehensible user interface of the console.

I wonder what the fuck is going on these days when people are more outraged about a few people killing some dogs than a few people absolutely slaughtering 2 human beings…Here are the two cases… First is Michael Vick, the football player. His story gets TONS of coverage on every major media outlet. People are screaming that he be punished harshly…

vick.jpg

“Three co-defendants of Michael Vick had agreed to plea deals in exchange for contributing evidence to the case against Vick, who was charged with taking animals over state lines as part of a dogfight gambling ring.Graphic details of his abuse of the dogs, including brutal methods of killing the animals, led to protests against him outside the courtroom and the club’s headquarters.Graphic details of his abuse of the dogs, including brutal methods of killing the animals, led to protests against him outside the courtroom and the club’s headquarters.”After consulting with his family over the weekend, Michael Vick asked that I announce today that he has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors regarding the charges pending against him,” Martin’s statement said. “

Then you have the following absolutely brutal case.

The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her!

killers.jpg

Channon Christian, was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast, put chemicals in her mouth, set her on fire (murdering her) and left her body in the apartment in 5 separate trash bags.

The chemical they poured in her mouth was bleach, to destroy the DNA in all the semen from days of gang rape. They gang raped her in all three major orifices. Anal, vaginal and oral. Imagine that for ONE second. Just the act of rape alone would justify life in prison and major outrage by everyone.This story hardly got any coverage and I watch the news often, but most of the public outrage was “muted”… Where were all the typical players in speaking out against this? Imagine if this were a young black couple who had the same gruesome thing done to them by 4-5 white perps. There would be mobs out to get them. The Duke rape case being a good example. The Duke Lacrosse players didn’t even kill her, and ultimately were acquitted of all charges surrounding the case. The media had a field day covering the Duke case, but where is the outrage when it is a black-on-white crime? Especially something as brutal as this?I bet if the couple were black, and the perps were black, none of this would have even happened… They (the 5 monsters above) would’ve ignored the black couple completely. But this isn’t even being treated as a “hate crime” even though the Jesse Jackson’s and Al Sharpton’s are pushing for hate crime legislation.Other interesting stats.In 1989, the FBI reported the following:

• Blacks commit 8 times more assaults than Whites.
• Blacks commit 9 times more rapes than Whites.
• Blacks commit 14 times more murders than Whites.
• Blacks commit 19 times more armed robberies.
• Black neighborhoods are 35 times more violent than White neighborhoods.
• There were 629,000 interracial attacks committed in 1985 (the last year the FBI “chose” to report this information). Some nine out of every ten were committed by Blacks against Whites.
• Black males (6% of the population) make up 46% of the nation’s prison population.

And don’t get hasty and call me a “RACIST”, just look at what I’ve stated above and the FBI stats and many other sources for black on white crime and tell me HONESTLY, there isn’t an imbalance here. PLEASE.

Link to: Original Article

A MIRACLE material for the 21st century could protect your home against bomb blasts, mop up oil spillages and even help man to fly to Mars.

Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.

Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation of tennis rackets to super-insulated space suits for a manned mission to Mars.

It is expected to rank alongside wonder products from previous generations such as Bakelite in the 1930s, carbon fibre in the 1980s and silicone in the 1990s. Mercouri Kanatzidis, a chemistry professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said: “It is an amazing material. It has the lowest density of any product known to man, yet at the same time it can do so much. I can see aerogel being used for everything from filtering polluted water to insulating against extreme temperatures and even for jewellery.”

Aerogel is nicknamed “frozen smoke” and is made by extracting water from a silica gel, then replacing it with gas such as carbon dioxide. The result is a substance that is capable of insulating against extreme temperatures and of absorbing pollutants such as crude oil.

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I’ve been a GoDaddy Reseller here for about 2 years and use it mostly for the domains I own, my customers, friends and family and REALLY enjoy the quality of their service.

The domains are cheap, have an excellent interface and tons of features.

Tonight, I just ordered 2 dedicated servers from them as well as a Virtual Dedicated server for my Wordpress blogs. I just cancelled an order with The Planet due to it taking much longer to get a single server up than they said it would. GoDaddy claims 12-24 hours at the most. We’ll see.

As a Pro Reseller, I get excellent discounted rates on the services I offer, almost 10-20% off of GoDaddy’s already rock-bottom prices. So I get all three of these servers for about the same price for one slower server at The Planet.

The Planet, I’m sure, is a great provider, but they just couldn’t seem to get their act together to get a single server online in a timely manner. I may look at them again in the future, but for now, I’m sticking with GoDaddy.

Overall, the BEST part of my experience is my white-box customer support for my reseller account. I can call them anytime, 24/7/365 and have virtually NO wait time whatsoever. I’ve called three times tonight and was never on hold for longer than 10 seconds after getting through a few simple prompts.

Once connected, it’s not some answering service, there is someone on the line that can do virtually anything for me, they’re kind, courteous and patient (especially when I call and play dumb).

Best of all, they all here in America! Not some off-shored answering service or congested domestic CS reps that leave at 8pm.

I’m not comparing GoDaddy in any way with The Planet except when it comes to server setup and Customer Service (especially sales) quality. The Planet’s Customer Service reps were nice, but not all of them were well versed in all areas of operation like GoDaddy’s were.

Another post will follow once I get all my GoDaddy stuff setup and running.