Linode has turned out to be the best VPS provider I’ve ever used and it as of yesterday (6/16/10), they upgraded all VPS’ memory by ~42%. All I have to say is Wow. Since I’ve been with them, they have upgraded HDD space, which is also nice, but not something I really needed. RAM is a different story, that is very important for VPS customers. That much more memory means a LOT and really makes the entry level 512 servers (for only $19.95) much more useful without breaking the bank.
I currently have 5 512MB Linodes (upgraded from 360) and one 768 (upgraded from 512). I should now be able to do much more with these servers now and offer more scalability to my customers who are paying for their own servers.
Linode, in my opinion, destroys the competition and always seems to be ahead of the gang of “peer” VPS providers like Slicehost, Rackspace Cloud Servers, VPS.net and others. They may not have the “prettiest” or most user friendly control panel, but they offer a level of flexibility unrivaled by others.
Over the past few years, I’ve become a big fan of Virtualization technologies like VMWare, VirtualBox, XEN, Microsoft Hyper-V, etc. So much so that I moved ALL my hosting operations (20+ clients) to providers like Slicehost, Linode and CrystalTech for Hyper-V.
At home, I tend to use VirtualBox from Sun. It seems to be perform the best for both Windows and Linux, although I lost the ability to Bridge the VM’s NIC after upgrading to Windows 7.
At work, I initially used VMWare Server to setup numerous VMs for software testing and platform integration testing and other fancy stuff like that. I tried for about a year to get our IT staff to start using it, and FINALLY, they decided to go completely virtual running VBox on the Solaris platform. I still use VMWare Player for a couple VMs I have left from the past, but VBox is my favorite.
XEN I did not have so much experience with since I *thought* it was more of a IT Backendish type of Virtualization software and more arcane. Perhaps it was at one time.
But regardless of my misconception, I decided to download XenServer last night and install it on one of my spare boxes. XenServer is full virtualization “OS” that you install and all the guest machines are built inside it.
Won’t go through all the details, but the XenServer was a breeze to install, only asking basic questions and for the IP address of the server. It’s best to put it on a decent machine with lots of hard drive space and plenty of RAM and processor power (Virtualization Extensions on the CPU is a BIG plus and allows you to run Windows VMs).
On older machines, like my old Pentium D (Dual Core) machine, it does not have processor virtualization extensions, so it was not able to run my Windows virtual machines. The Linux (Ubuntu) servers worked just fine.
For Windows ones, I used a newer Quad Core Phenom box and put 4 Windows Server 2003′s on it by using the VMWare to XEN conversion program. Was a little buggy getting it converted, but the Citrix XEN forums helped.
There are some sites out there you can google that have XEN ready images you can upload through the XenCenter software into the server and boot.
Overall, I’ve been extremely happy with the performance of XenServer and don’t think I’ll go back to desktop type virtualization solutions like VirtualBox and VMWare Server which has a crappy, buggy web interface (last time I used it) and requires you to already have an existing OS. XenServer is OS+Virtualization solution all-in-one.
Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 – 7 January 1943) was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. Tesla was born in the village of Smiljan near the town of Gospić, Vojna Krajina, in the territory of today’s Croatia. He was an ethnic Serb subject of the Austrian Empire and later became an American citizen. Tesla is often described as an important scientist and inventor of the modern age, a man who “shed light over the face of Earth”. He is best known for many revolutionary contributions in the field of electricity and magnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla’s patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, including the polyphase power distribution systems and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.
He also believed that he “received” knowledge from “outer space”… Perhaps he was just seeing the future in his Tesla coils. :-)
I moved my sites (2 servers) from Slicehost to Linode due to no 32-bit support at Slicehost and am VERY happy with the service I am receiving from Linode. They have been excellent at answering the few questions I had during setup and everything has been flawless ever since. The 32bit Linodes have been running much more efficiently for me than the 64 bit.
Mosso CloudServers
Since moving, the other day Mosso came out with their “version” of Slicehost’s system running straight through the Mosso control panel. I setup a small 256mb instance for .015 cents per hour (~10.95/mo) which is cheaper than SH, but it doesn’t include any bandwidth… Bandwidth is bill seperately at .22/gb out and .08/gb in. Which isn’t too bad if you are a relatively low bandwidth user like I am, but it’s still only 256mb.
Also, Mosso’s DNS control panel is nowhere near as good as Slicehost’s, which is a big negative for me using them long term. Even though I’m on Linode primarily now, I still keep a 256mb Slice active on Slicehost just for their DNS since it has a very nice web interface and there’s an iPhone App for Slicehost’s control panel, including DNS.
FSCKVPS.COM
Another new place I found is FSCKVPS.COM… They are a little “rougher around the edges” than the Slicehost or Linode offerings, but their prices are quite amazing. This is most likely due to this being a “totally unmanaged” service. Basic tickets related to network uptime and machine uptime is supported, but other things probably are not. FSCK is a subsidiary of a larger UK based provider VAServ/A2B2, so I feel better about them not being a “fly by night” company. (Of course not implying that Slicehost or Linode is)
I setup a 32bit 512mb VPS (1024 burstable) in their Atlanta, GA data center for only $9.95 with 50% off the first month to test it out. The control panel runs on a non-standard port (8887) so if you have a firewall at work, you may have trouble getting into it.
The setup was painless, but defaulted to CentOS which I rebuilt into Ubuntu 8.04 (8.10 in 32bit was not available). The image was “minimal”… Even the source.list for apt needed to have all the repos added to it to get all the updates (it only had 1). I then proceeded to do all updates and upgraded to 8.10 via commandline.
As stated before, the memory use of the default image was only 10mb, here’s a screenshot of htop
A2B2′s dedicated U.S. Server pricing is also VERY nice…
Intel Core2Duo E8300 2×2.83GHz, 6MB L2 Cache CPU 4GB DDR2 RAM 2×250GB SATA-II Disk 2000GB Monthly Transfer 5 IP’s Price: $109.00/month
Normally you’d have to pay at least twice this much for something like this. I’d probably switch my windows server here if Windows 2003 server wasn’t $30 more per month. It would be nice too if they offered a machine like this with half the specs (2gb RAM, 2x120gb HDD, etc) for half the price. That’s more within my pricing sweet spot.
I’m gonna keep testing this VPS throughout the month and see how it holds up.
I love WordPress, but one thing that it’s not known for is having a really nice default theme. It is exceptionally plain. I’ve spent HOURS looking for nice functional themes only to download ones that “seem” nice then suck once you install them and have problems in the code that weren’t present on the screen cap.
Over the course of my journeys through many, many theme sites, I kept running across a developer whose free themes I have used before.
Brian Gardner
His free themes are nice, clean and customizable. The first one I used was the “Revolution Blue” (comes in red and gray too).
I ran across his site again the other day and saw that the “Revolution2″ series is available and he seems to be getting together a nice group of developers and focusing in many different genres of WordPress themes, from general blogs to Real Estate, TV, Office, Photography, etc. These new themes make WordPress act more like a true CMS system than “just another WordPress blog”.
With a few free plugins and a little effort, these themes can give any WordPress installation a nice facelift.
For the good stuff, there is a cost involved, but the cost is minimal compared to the time I have wasted trying to find a decent design for my site. Brian also supports the themes on his website forums and if WordPress updates come out that break any of them or has new functionality, he puts out updates. Also, his response to email is very quick (even last night, while on vacation, he responded to my email :-) ). So the cost is WELL worth it.
I plan on implementing one of the Revolution2 themes here on iDude over the next few weeks (as time permits).
Google released their new Chrome web browser shortly before the end of a video announcement about it at 11am PST. I had the download page ready at the beginning of the video (http://www.google.com/chrome) and was only getting a “404 – not found” error. At around 11:45a I hit refresh on it and there it was.
The install was amazingly fast and simple. Didn’t even require a file that needed downloaded to my HDD and run from there. The install launched directly out of my Firefox and was done in less than 1 minute.
It is very heavily based on Apple’s Safari Webkit engine. Here is the HTTP_USER_AGENT from a test PHP page I made:
“Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.13 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/0.2.149.27 Safari/525.13″
Overall, I’ve always sort of liked Safari, but always had issues with minor glitches and random lagginess. I’ve not encountered any issues at all with Chrome so far. Google has probably done massive internal testing to insure that there are no obvious glitches and/or bugs. The GUI is very simple and seems fully functional and the memory usage is EXCELLENT compared to Firefox.
I’ve had Firefox take up to 400-500mb RAM without much even going on. Even just after starting Firefox is the Google homepage, it takes up 62mb RAM. On my system, Chrome only consumed around 25mb.
The only thing I’ve run into when it comes to rendering is my company’s Intranet. It is only optimized for IE and Firefox and looks pretty bad with Chrome/Safari but is still usable.
All other sites I frequent are just fine, loading faster than ever.
UPDATE 5pm EST:
After running some memory tests, I opened up 4 tabs in Firefox, IE8, Chrome, Safari and Opera, which included logging into 2 of the sites and just displaying two others.
Tab 1: My company’s ticketing system Tab 2: My personal GMail (Google Apps for Domains) Tab 3: This blog’s admin section login page only Tab 4: MSN Money Stock quotes with 6 stocks on it
Firefox 3.0.1: 124.5mb RAM (1 thread) Firefox loaded everything pretty well, was a bit sluggish on GMail tab.
IE8 (version 8.0.6001.17184): 95.5mb RAM (2 threads) IE8 loaded everything that it loaded pretty quick too, but completely failed to load GMail, getting stuck on the loading <Email adress> progress meter… Rendering on the front page of my company’s site was screwed up, but was fine in all other browsers tested.
Chrome: 112.5mb RAM (6 threads) Perfect loading of all tabs, very fast, no issues.
Safari 3.1.2 (Windows): 98mb RAM (1 thread) Loaded all sites, a bit sluggish, but not as bad as Firefox.
Opera 9.52: 75.5mb RAM (1 thread) Loaded all sites, little slow on GMail, but it came up. All other sites where just as fast as Chrome.
In conclusion, I like the feel of Chrome the best. Very simple and easy to use, I really like the multiple thread/tab paradigm. Safari has that nice “Appley” interface I like. Opera is Ok, but does have more rendering problems, on sites not tested above, than the others. IE8… Bleh… no comment…
And as for Firefox, and I thought I’d never say it, it falling behind on both memory usage and speed. I’ve also encountered quite a few Firefox crashes when shutting down the browser. This is happening occasionally on all my machines on all operating systems I use, Mac, Linux and Windows.
Later today Google is expected to release a new web browser based on Webkit (what Safari uses) and Firefox. I feel that it will be a welcome addition to the browser wars.
I used Firefox, but have notice a lot more browser crashes with 3.x than previous versions and it feels quite laggy sometimes even on a Quad processor machine with 3gb RAM. It gets to the point sometimes where I just load up Safari or Opera to surf sometimes.
IE just sucks. I ONLY use IE for site testing during web development and for the “best” experience accessing my day job’s Outlook Web Access (OWA) for email. Other than that, IE is not a part of my day to day browser use.
If this Google takes the best of Webkit and Firefox and makes it “better, faster, stronger”, then I will use it. Of course I will be frank on my review of it and will do my best not to be biased since I use Google almost exclusive for my search needs, Email (Google Apps for Domains), Analytics for stats, etc.
I will post up a review once I get my hands on it and can put it through it’s paces.
I think Google will have more downloads of this browser in the first 24 hours than Firefox did on it’s 3.0 launch day if it posts up something on the front page of Google. This could be huge.
Sarah Palin is the best choice McCain has made. I’m not huge fan of McCain and have nothing in my mind for the Obama/Biden ticket, but Sarah Palin, I think, will take McCain over the top for the republican campaign.
I’ll have to be honest, I had only heard a little bit about Sarah Palin in the past. I don’t keep up too much
with Alaskan politics, but after reading her bio, article about her, her family, record and Wikipedia entry, I connect with her 100% on the issues.
Superfically, any female politician that can look this good on the cover of Vogue and still have the brains, political conviction and garner an ~85% approval rating in her own state, has my vote.
More pictures at the bottom of the post
Here is her Wikipedia entry:
Early life
Palin was born Sarah Louise Heath in Sandpoint, Idaho, the daughter of Sarah (née Sheeran), a school secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track coach. She has English, Irish, and German ancestry. Her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. The Heaths were avid outdoors enthusiasts; Sarah and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school, and the family regularly ran 5 km and 10 km races.
Palin was the point guard and captain for the Wasilla High School Warriors, in Wasilla, Alaska, when they won the Alaska small-school basketball championship in 1982; she earned the nickname “Sarah Barracuda” because of her intense play.She played the championship game despite a stress fracture in her ankle, hitting a critical free throw in the last seconds. Palin, who was also the head of the school Fellowship of Christian Athletes, would lead the team in prayer before games.
In 1984, after winning the Miss Wasilla contest earlier that year, Palin finished second in the Miss Alaskabeauty pageant which won her a scholarship to help pay her way through college. In the Wasilla pageant, she played the flute and also won Miss Congeniality.
Palin holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho where she also minored in politics. She married her high school sweetheart, Todd Palin, on August 29, 1988, and briefly worked as a sports reporter for local Anchorage television stations while also working as a commercial fisherman with her husband.
Pre-gubernatorial political experience
Palin served two terms on the Wasilla City Council from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she challenged and defeated the incumbent mayor, criticizing wasteful spending and high taxes. The ex-mayor and sheriff tried to organize a recall campaign, but failed. Palin kept her campaign promises by reducing her own salary, as well as reducing property taxes by 60%. She ran for reelection against the former mayor in 1999, winning by an even larger margin. Palin was also elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors.
In 2002, Palin made an unsuccessful bid for Lieutenant Governor, coming in second to Loren Leman in a four-way race. After Frank Murkowski resigned from his long-held U.S. Senate seat in mid-term to become governor, Palin interviewed to be his possible successor. Instead, Murkowski appointed his daughter, then-Alaska State Representative Lisa Murkowski.
Governor Murkowski appointed Palin Ethics Commissioner of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served from 2003 to 2004 until resigning in protest over what she called the “lack of ethics” of fellow Alaskan Republican leaders, who ignored her whistleblowing complaints of legal violations and conflicts of interest. After she resigned, she exposed the state Republican Party’s chairman, Randy Ruedrich, one of her fellow Oil & Gas commissioners, who was accused of doing work for the party on public time, and supplying a lobbyist with a sensitive e-mail. Palin filed formal complaints against both Ruedrich and former Alaska Attorney General Gregg Renkes, who both resigned; Ruedrich paid a record $12,000 fine.
Governorship
In 2006, Palin, running on a clean-government campaign, executed an upset victory over then-Gov. Murkowski in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Despite the lack of support from party leaders and being outspent by her Democratic opponent, she went on to win the general election in November 2006, defeating former Governor Tony Knowles. Palin said in 2006 that education, public safety, and transportation would be three cornerstones of her administration.
When elected, Palin became the first woman to be Alaska’s governor, and the youngest governor in Alaskan history at 42 years of age upon taking office. Palin was also the first Alaskan governor born after Alaska achieved U.S. statehood. She was also the first Alaskan governor not to be inaugurated in Juneau, instead choosing to hold her inauguration ceremony in Fairbanks. She took office on December 4, 2006.
Highlights of Governor Palin’s tenure include a successful push for an ethics bill, and also shelving pork-barrel projects supported by fellow Republicans. After federal funding for the Gravina Island Bridge project that had become a nationwide symbol of wasteful earmark spending was lost, Palin decided against filling the over $200 million gap with state money. “Alaska needs to be self-sufficient, she says, instead of relying heavily on ‘federal dollars,’ as the state does today.”
She has challenged the state’s Republican leaders, helping to launch a campaign by Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell to unseat U.S. Congressman Don Young and publicly challenging Senator Ted Stevens to come clean about the federal investigation into his financial dealings.
In 2007, Palin had an approval rating often in the 90s. A poll published by Hays Research on July 28, 2008 showed Palin’s approval rating at 80%.
Energy policies
Palin’s tenure is noted for her independence from big oil companies, while still promoting resource development. Palin has announced plans to create a new sub-cabinet group of advisors, to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions within Alaska.
Shortly after taking office, Palin rescinded thirty-five appointments made by Murkowski in the last hours of his administration, including the appointment by Murkowski of his former chief of staff Jim Clark to the Alaska Natural Gas Development Authority.[19][20] Clark later pled guilty to conspiring with a defunct oil-field-services company to channel money into Frank Murkowski’s re-election campaign.
In March 2007, Palin presented the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) as the new legal vehicle for building a natural gas pipeline from the state’s North Slope. Only one legislator, Representative Ralph Samuels, voted against the measure, and in June Palin signed it into law. On January 5, 2008, Palin announced that a Canadian company, TransCanada Corp., was the sole AGIA-compliant applicant. In August, 2008 Palin signed a bill into law giving the state of Alaska authority to award TransCanada Pipelines a license to build and operate the $26-billion-dollar pipeline to ship natural gas from the North Slope to the Lower 48, through Canada.
In response to high oil and gas prices, and in response to the resulting state government budget surplus, Palin proposed giving Alaskans $100-a-month energy debit cards. She also proposed providing grants to electrical utilities so that they would reduce customers’ rates. She subsequently dropped the debit card proposal, and in its place she proposed to send Alaskans $1,200 directly and eliminate the gas tax.
Social issues
Palin is strongly opposed to abortion and supports capital punishment. While running for Governor of Alaska, Palin supported the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in schools, however, she noted she would not use “religion as a litmus test, or anybody’s personal opinion on evolution or creationism” as criteria for selection to the school board.
She opposes same-sex marriage, but she has stated that she has gay friends and is receptive to gay and lesbian concerns about discrimination. While the previous administration did not implement same-sex benefits, Palin complied with an Alaskan state Supreme Court order and signed them into law. She disagreed with the Supreme Court ruling and supported a democratic advisory vote from the public on whether there should be a constitutional amendment on the matter. Alaska was one of the first U.S. states to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, in 1998, along with Hawaii. Palin has stated that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment.
Palin’s first veto was used to block legislation that would have barred the state from granting benefits to the partners of gay state employees. In effect, her veto granted State of Alaska benefits to same-sex couples. The veto occurred after Palin consulted with Alaska’s attorney general on the constitutionality of the legislation
Matanuska Maid Dairy closure
When the Alaska Creamery Board recommended closing Matanuska Maid Dairy, an unprofitable state-owned business, Palin objected, citing concern for the impact on dairy farmers and the fact that the dairy had just received $600,000 in state money. When Palin learned that only the Board of Agriculture and Conservation could appoint Creamery Board members, she simply replaced the entire membership of the Board of Agriculture and Conservation.The new board, led by businesswoman Kristan Cole, reversed the decision to close the dairy. The new board approved milk price increases offered by the dairy in an attempt to control fiscal losses, even though milk from Washington was already offered in Alaskan stores at lower prices.In the end, the dairy was forced to close, and the state tried to sell the assets to pay off its debts but received no bids.
Budget
In the first days of her administration, Palin followed through on a campaign promise to sell the Westwind II jet purchased (on a state government credit account) by the Murkowski administration. The state placed the jet for sale on eBay three times. In August 2007, the jet was sold for $2.1 million.
Shortly after becoming governor, Palin canceled a contract for the construction on an 11-mile (18-kilometer) gravel road outside of Juneau to a mine. This reversed a decision made in the closing days of the Murkowski Administration.
In June 2007, Palin signed into law a $6.6 billion operating budget—the largest in Alaska’s history. At the same time, she used her veto power to make the second-largest cuts of the construction budget in state history. The $237 million in cuts represented over 300 local projects, and reduced the construction budget to nearly $1.6 billion.
Commissioner dismissal controversy
On July 11, 2008, Governor Palin dismissed Walter Monegan as Commissioner of Public Safety and instead offered him a position as executive director of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which he subsequently turned down. Monegan alleged shortly after his dismissal that it may have been partly due to his reluctance to fire an Alaska State Trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann. In 2006, before Palin was governor, Wooten was briefly suspended for ten days for threatening to kill McCann’s (and Palin’s) father, tasering his 11-year-old stepson (at the stepson’s request), and violating game laws. After a union protest, the suspension was reduced to five days.
Governor Palin asserts that her dismissal of Monegan was unrelated to the fact that he had not fired Wooten, and asserts that Monegan was instead dismissed for not adequately filling state trooper vacancies, and because he “did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues.” Palin acknowledges that a member of her administration, Frank Bailey, did contact the Department of Public Safety regarding Wooten, but both Palin and Bailey say that happened without her knowledge and was unrelated to her dismissal of Monegan.Bailey was put on leave for two months for acting outside the scope of his authority as the Director of Boards and Commissions. Commissioner Monegan received no severance pay, though at the same time another dismissed Commissioner, Charles Kopp (who served only 11 days) received $10,000, implying some animus on Palin’s part toward Monegan.
In response to Palin’s statement that she had nothing to hide, in August 2008 the Alaska Legislature hired Steve Branchflower to investigate Palin and her staff for possible abuse of power surrounding the dismissal, though lawmakers acknowledge that “Monegan and other commissioners serve at will, meaning they can be fired by Palin at any time.” The investigation is being overseen by Democratic State Senator Hollis French, who says that the Palin administration has been cooperating and thus subpoenas are unnecessary. The Palin administration itself was the first to release an audiotape of Bailey making inquiries about the status of the Wooten investigation.
2008 Vice-presidential candidacy
On August 29, 2008, Palin was announced as presumptive Republicanpresidential candidate John McCain‘s vice-presidential candidate, or running mate. Palin’s selection surprised many Republican officials who had speculated about other candidates such as Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, United States Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), and former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.
Palin is considered to have similar policy positions to John McCain in most respects. One major exception is drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which Palin strongly supports and McCain has opposed. Palin is expected to try to convince McCain to change his position on ANWR drilling.
Palin is the second U.S. woman to run on a major party ticket, after Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, under former vice-president Walter Mondale in 1984.
Personal life
Palin’s husband is a commercial fisherman. Outside the fishing season, Todd works for BP energy corporation at an oil field on Alaska’s North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2000-mile “Iron Dog” race four times. The two eloped shortly after Palin graduated from college; when they learned they needed witnesses for the civil ceremony, they recruited two residents from the old-age home down the street. The Palin family lives in Wasilla, about 40 miles (64 km) north of Anchorage.
On September 11, 2007, the Palins’ then eighteen-year-old son Track, eldest of five, joined the Army. He now serves in an infantry brigade and will be deployed to Iraq in September 2008. She also has three daughters: Bristol, Willow and Piper.
On April 18, 2008, Palin gave birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, who has Down syndrome. She returned to the office three days after giving birth. Palin refused to let the results of prenatal genetic testing change her decision to have the baby. “I’m looking at him right now, and I see perfection,” Palin said. “Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?”
Details of Palin’s personal life have contributed to her political image. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. Palin holds a lifetime membership with the National Rifle Association. She admits that she used marijuana when it was legal in Alaska, but says that she did not like it. In December 2007, Palin posed for a photo spread in the fashion magazine Vogue.
McCain/Palin Logo
Office Sarah Palin Portrait
Sarah Palin
Palin in a car
Misc Sarah Palin Photo
Governor-elect Sarah Palin announces members of her cabinet during a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska, Friday, Dec. 1, 2006
Nikola Tesla
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