iDude.org

Finally Apple’s tablet device has been officially announced. Steve Jobs just now got done with the presentation finished.

Here are some basic specs…
1/2 inch thin, 1.5 pounds, ~9.7 inch high rez display, 1ghz Apple A4 chip… New Apple chip that contain all the controllers. Accelerometer & compass, WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, speaker/mic and 30pin (standard) connector, 10 hours of battery life, 16 to 64gb Flash storage…

IPhone App compatible and can be scaled up to new screensize (pixel doubling)

More to come.

I ran across a webserver called Cherokee a week or so ago while looking around for “light” alternatives to Apache on VPSes.  It looked pretty nice, so I downloaded it and compiled the latest version 0.99.9 and started it up.

The nicest thing, I think, about this server is the simple Web configuration UI (cherokee-admin).  When you start it, it generates a one time hashlike password that you then use to log into the web config.  From there, you can configure virtually (no pun intended) all aspects of the web server, including virtual hosts and many other settings.

The reason primarily for my use is serving up my static HTML sites and light PHP ones as well, light meaning minimal DB calls for things like contact form entry, single simple “SELECT * from where whatever = whatever” type querys with small recordsets and so on.  I moved about 20 of my customer sites to it and so far so good.  That is the level of confidence I had in Cherokee.  100% stable so far.

Compiling it from source may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it really isn’t that difficult.

Here’s how I did it from a new VPS.

apt-get install nano htop build-essential mysql-server php5 php5-cgi php5-mcrypt php5-mysql gettext

This installs nano (a simple text editor), htop (top on steroids), build-essential which is a meta package containing necessary packages to compile crap, mysql, PHP, a few extensions and gettext which the ./configure told me it needed and I’m surprised it wasn’t part of the build-essential.

If this is a fresh ubuntu build, you’ll probably get a locales error… Use this to correct.

sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Download the latest cherokee source.

Untar it and enter the folder.

Now run these commands, modify the paths to your liking.  This runs the pre-compile config, makes then installs it, it then copies the init script to that folder and changes the permissions to allow it to execute.

./configure –localstatedir=/var –prefix=/usr –sysconfdir=/etc –with-wwwroot=/var/www
make
make install
cp contrib/cherokee /etc/init.d/
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/cherokee

to Autostart the init script on boot… Run this…

update-rc.d -f cherokee defaults

That’s about it, read the documentation for specific information on features and have fun.  It is a VERY fast and light webserver that is very well suited for basic websites running on minimal memory VPSes.

Microsoft’s new Internet Explorer 8.0  is just downright pitiful…  To the extreme.  After spending so much time “improving” IE8 to make it more standards compliant, it failed miserably.

Screenshot (in native IE 8 mode)

So I figured I’d try the IE 8 compatibility mode to see if it would fair any better…

Actually, quite a bit worse…

On the other hand, Safari 4 did perfect.  Granted, it is a beta, but a very functional one.  Firefox (3.0.7), Opera (9.64) and Chrome got up into the 70′s and 80′s, but still did not get it.  At least they’re trying.  Here are the screen shots for the 4 other aforementioned browsers.

Here is a little tip I came up with after getting annoyed going into incognito every time after opening Chrome.

Setting the following setting will allow you to launch Chrome in incognito mode.

Be sure to put 2 dashes "--" in front of "incognito". Sort of looks like one in the screenshot.

I posted a lot of posts earlier this summer about my debacle at Mosso which caused me to jump ship and switch my sites over to Slicehost…  

Lo and behold, Mosso buys my new provider… *sigh*…  Can’t get away! :-)

From talking to a few Slicehost guys in their chat, they stated that everything will stay pretty much the same or get better, which I hope it will, but I’m hoping the pricing stays the same or gets lower.

I guess I’ll just be crossing my fingers over the next few months as Slicehost merges into the larger company.  I’m hoping a lot of the features that have been requested by the users can come to fruition soon.

Here is my “wishlist”… (in no particular order)

1. Ability to backup Slices (cloud nodes) into the Mosso “cloud files” storage, which will allow better backup space utilization and ability to backup the slices offsite.
    
2. True “pay as you go” for the traditional Mosso shared hosting (Cloud sites)… Instead of $100/mo, do a $5/mo base + compute cycle charge or something along those lines.  I still have a few sites on the old Mosso that I wouldn’t mind keeping there (so I can have ASP/PHP hybrid hosting) as long as it’s reasonable.  
    
3. Windows 2003/8 Server Slices at the same price point and simplicity of management as the Linux slices.  This MAY be hard to do at an equivalent price due to Microsoft Licensing… But a 1GB+ 60gb+ for under $100 including snapshot backups would be sweet.
    
4. Keep the same “small company” feel for the people who have become accustomed to Slicehost the way it is today.
    
5. More diverse data center options to help with latency problems for people in Europe or Asia, ability to choose which datacenter you want a specific slice to reside and the ability to migrate between datacenters. (Rackspace/Mosso) has datacenters in San Antonio and Dallas, TX, Herndon, VA, three in England, and one in Hong Kong.  Both of Slicehost’s datacenters are in St. Louis, MO.
6. Backbone/Redundancy increases as Slices get “jacked” into the new data centers. 
7. A la carte access to features that are offered by Mosso and Rackspace such as cloud files and traditional Mosso ASP/PHP shared hosting.

These are all I can think of at the moment and I hope the best for the Slicehost crew.  IF things go bad, I’ll probably have to switch AGAIN to someplace like Linode, but for the time being, I’m still a loyal Slicehoster.

Want an simple and easy way to access your Amazon S3 account?

I’ve tried JungleDisk.  It’s good and provides lots of features to those who need them.  I’ve also use Bucket Explorer, but it seems very slow on loading the file list on large folders.

How about for the rest of us that just need to be able to upload/download and set permissions?

I googled around today and ran across S3Fox.  It is a Firefox plugin that runs within the browser and was amazing quick and easy to configure and access S3.

Once installed and configured, you can easily access files under “Tools”, “S3 Organizer” where it loads up a nice FTP looking interface.

Once a file is uploaded, you can right click on it and change permissions (in case you need to use the files on a public website).

I use Amazon S3 for a client site that has a page with LOTS of images.  With the Mosso Compute Cycle issue I mentioned in the last post, this offloads 400+ small 10-15k images off that server and onto Mosso.  I also use it for miscellaneous personal file storage and it seems to be working out great!

I’ve been moving my blogs and the other’s I host through a lot of transitions lately after having a HORRIBLE experience with GoDaddy and then Compute Cycle concerns with Mosso.com.

Mosso’s new compute cycles are heavily counting WordPress and other DB driven site hits.  5 relatively low hit blogs, ~150,000 TOTAL hits, were taking up as many Compute Cycles as one of my non-DB driven sites getting > 2,500,000 hits with lots of graphics.

I still like Mosso and most of my sites are still using email on them, but a bit more predictable monthly bill is nice.

So I happened to run across SliceHost.com yesterday… The site is simple and clean and I was impressed at the speed of their own website. Some of the hosting providers I find while searching around have sluggish sites, which really makes me question their server/network capacity and so on.

Here is their basic blurbage from the front page of their site.

BUILT FOR DEVELOPERS

We’re just like you. Sick of oversold, underperforming, ancient hosting companies. We took matters into our own hands. We built a hosting company for people who know their stuff. Give us a box, give us bandwidth, give us performance and we get to work. Fast machines, RAID-10 drives, Tier-1 bandwidth and root access. Managed with a customized Xen VPS backend to ensure that your resources are protected and guaranteed.

• No contracts, no setup fees.
• Upgrade, downgrade, add a slice or remove a slice anytime.
• Billing is monthly, cancel at anytime.
• Payments of $240 or more receive a 10% credit.
• Full root access and rebooting
• Choice of Linux distro
• Dedicated IP address and Tier-1 redundant bandwidth
• RAID-10 disk storage
• Reserved RAM
• Guaranteed CPU share and more when available
• 4-core servers running Xen virtualization instances
• Slicehost management portal for reboots and software installs
• Mobile management portal for smartphones
• Ajax console access
• Bootable rescue mode
• Machines running with fixed usage limits, below full capacity

So I decided to go ahead and give them a try and signed up for a 256mb Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy “Slice”.  That slice is a virtual machine running on a nice large powerful server.  For $20/mo I get a VM with 256 RAM, 10GB space, 100GB bandwidth.

Some may think that’s so little, but it’s plenty to run a quite a large handful of decent sized WordPress blogs or other similiar CMS systems.  10gb is plenty for people who aren’t uploading massive uncompressed images, videos and other media.  100gb is also good especially if your web server is using mod_deflate to compress output.

Provisioning only took like 5 minutes, it was assigned a static IP and a default (hard) random root password that I went in and changed to my harder password.

I ran the apt-get install commands I used to get the lighttpd setup running on it like in my post back in April.

Basically in about 30 mins I was setup, I went ahead and moved over idude.org here and then 5 of my other friend’s blogs and am in a “testing phase” now.

Back to SliceHost…

I really like their control panel, it is very simple and sweet and has pretty much everything you need to manage your VMs.  The backup is very simple and can be automated to daily as well as a weekly. These backups are FULL VM snapshots to take your entire machine back to a previous state.

A Unique feature is an AJAX powered console to your server.  I don’t think it really full supports CTRL functions and stuff, but it’s enough to change some permissions, delete some stuff, create new folders, etc.

If you outgrow the 256mb/10gb/100gb Slice, you can scale it up, without losing data and minimal downtime, up to a 4096mb/160gb/1600gb Slice, which is 16x the power/space at only 14x the cost.  ($280)

There are also nice stats to show CPU use, CPU time, disk I/O, and network I/O.    You can do soft/hard reboots as well plus much more.

A few months ago, I had a VM of about the same size at GoDaddy running CENTOS 4 (only Linux option at the time) and it was horribly sluggish and had all kinds of “default” crap on it.  This Ubuntu install on SliceHost is virtually a base install allowing me much more flexibility over what goes on it.

The performance of it was also generally lightning fast.  I’ve used Ubuntu directly on a powerful server and it appeared just as responsive both in the console running commands and hitting the sites remotely.

Network speed was excellent as well… Got 16mbps uploading some files to it, which again, isn’t bad for a VM.

One last thing.  SliceHost is running out of St. Louis.  After pinging it from a web-based “multiping” site, it got excellent low latency from all parts of the country, as compared to hosts I’ve used on either the left or east coast, due to it’s central location.

More updates will follow as more is experienced.  I think I’ve finally found a long term home for my Linux sites.

If you are interested in signing up, click here!

One of my clients let one of their old domains expire, and it was out of the redemption period before I found out about it. The status changed to PendingDelete which is where it stays for a week or so. I put in a backorder request just as it went into PendingDelete status and figured I’d get it no problem. The domain was registered with GoDaddy and was expiring there, so I figured I would have first dibs on it when it got deleted. I waited and waited for a week or so and the night the capture was to take place. It’s lost.

Some Russian registrar and “Domain Name Investment Group” got it before I did. Sure they are probably “experts” at getting domains, but as I stated above, I feel first dibs should be given to the people who are backordering on the same registrar the domain is on.

GoDaddy’s backordering system should’ve know exactly when that domain was going to be deleted and before doing so should have queried to find out if any GoDaddy customer already had a backorder. I actually had 2, one on GoDaddy.com and one on my GoDaddy reseller site.

Although I pay nothing for this service unless successful, it is still very disappointing to lose a domain to some squatters on a Russian Registrar.

A new line of iPods were announced by Steve Jobs today among other new things. Here, I am just going to comment on the new “touch” version and the iPhone.

The new iPod Touch is everything I hoped it would be. I had a major gut feeling that WiFi + Safari would be worked into it and it was. iTunes Mobile is in it which doesn’t surprise me so much.

I am going to hold off ordering it for a few months in hopes (unlikely) that a version with a bit more memory will come out. Lots of people are complaining in forums at Macrumors, Gizmodo and other sites that the 8 & 16gb is TERRIBLE. It is when you compare it to the “classic” version which has 80 & 160gb HDDs. I don’t think it is that bad considering it is flash based rather than HDD based which should lend to a longer life if you aren’t the type to upgrade EVERY time a new one comes out. I consider my music collection relatively large and diverse and it is only 11gb, which would leave 4.change leftover for other things such as the occasional video or hack. The “negatives” of the touch are outweighed by the new capabilities it wields like WiFi and Safari as well as other apps and hack-ability.

I am hoping that the iPod “touch” is as hackable as the iPhone, which I’m sure it will be. I am expecting to see some new applications come out for it such as a full email client, chat client, etc. Those programs would make it virtually a fully featured PDA, especially if someone can write or port an email client (like Evolution) that has an Exchange Connector for corporate email.

I am very excited about this product and hope it isn’t the last new item to be released before the holiday season.

On another note, I’m a bit disappointed at investors dumping Apple stock (AAPL) today on news that the iPhone was dropping $200 to a more “justifiable” $399 for the 8gb model and killing the 4gb version altogether, which should save a little in manufacturing costs as flash memory prices drop. I could easily see 16gb for the iPhone + 32gb for the iPod happening within the next year within the same price point. The more reasonable price will drive higher volumes for a device that is already the best selling “Smart Phone” in July 2007. I also have a strong feeling the exclusive AT&T relationship will end within or around the 1st anniversary of the release and Apple will openly support other carriers in driving proliferation of the iPhone.

Only time will tell…

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.