Put your brand new HTC "Snap" messenger phone in your pocket... Then when stepping out of the car brush your leg against the doorpost. What do you get?
HTC, the manufacturer of the phone, will send a courier to pick it up for repair next Friday, I hope they can get my poor baby fixed soon.
I'm all set. This next Saturday (July 25th, 2009), I will be moving my new web server from the "staging area" (read: my bedroom) to the data center in Amsterdam. Sunday (July 26th, 2009) the old server in Canada will be powered down and dismantled.
Aside from departing from the server in Canada, I will also be departing from Xoops (the CMS that I've been using for 2 years now). I've decided to write my own website code, for a couple of reasons: security, speed and size (also related to speed I guess...).
The more code you have, the slower a site is, and the more can go wrong. Xoops is a very large CMS, with a lot of functionality (most of which I don't use). If I write a minimalistic CMS myself, with just the things that I use; it should - in theory - make the site smaller, faster and more secure.
So... this Saturday my server will go online, but my website will be offline for a while until I've made a basic blog module.
Wish me luck!
Here's something new for you: an Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.0 GHz with 12 MB cache and 1333 MHz FSB is not the same as an Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.0 GHz with 12 MB cache and 1333 MHz FSB. "Uh... what?" Yes, exactly, that's what my co-worker Thom and I thought as well. To the untrained eye, this would seem like a steaming pile of bullshit, but unfortunately, it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Allow me to explain.
Two weeks ago we ordered a new web server. Since we're going to do clustering, it seemed logical that we get the exact same server as we already had; so we would have two identical servers doing the clustering. The new setup would be running on the Microsoft Windows 2008 Web Edition X64 operating system; the same operating system I'm going to run on my own server (which, by the way, is almost done ) So this morning, Thom and myself fired up the new server with the Microsoft Windows 2008 Web Edition X64 DVD in it, and...
0x3E: MULTIPROCESSOR_CONFIGURATION_NOT_SUPPORTED
What the hell? A blue screen of death during setup? That can't be good... A quick search on the error code told me that it means that the processors are not the same. "For example, a Pentium processor and an 80486 processor", as Microsoft puts it. But I'm pretty sure that we have two identical processors: two times the Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.0 GHz with 12 MB cache and 1333 MHz FSB. It turns out that there are multiple revisions of the E5405, and Windows 2008 regards that as non symmetrical multiprocessing.
A bit of research later the cookie was cracked. It turns out that one of the processor we were using, a Xeon 5405 of the sub-type "SLBBP", was designed in August 2008; which was later than the BIOS (which was of 2007). Which in turn meant that the BIOS version that we were using does not recognize this sub-type of Xeon 5405 because it doesn't know of its existence. An update to the latest BIOS fixed the problem. All in all it was an interesting challenge.
Today, my black magic woman arrived. Unfortunately, it turns out that the 2x1GB memory I had arranged doesn't fit. But with the 1GB that was in the server and 4GB extra... it's still 5 GB and that's still plenty for a webserver.
Some snapshots for your viewing pleasure:
*purr*
As some of you might, or might not know, I rent a dedicated server at iWeb in Ontario, Canada. They have some decent deals going on and starting at USD 69,- a month you can rent your own server. That is... if you stick to 1GB ram and either Linux or FreeBSD. If you want a different operating system, you have to pay extra, and if you want more memory, you also have to pay... extra. In my case it ended up at USD 109 a month for An Intel Celeron D 3.0 GHz with 2GB Ram and 300 GB IDE hard disk, equipped with Windows 2003 Standard Edition. The package includes a 10MBps uplink and 1 TB of traffic per month.
This is an average price for renting a dedicated server, but it always struck me as odd that I have to pay USD 10,- a month for an 1 GB memory module that costs € 15,- at my workplace. Time for change, I thought... so I did a bit of researching and found out that for € 49,- per month, I can collocate my own server on a 100MBps uplink with 1 TB traffic per month, at Trans|ip, the same company where I have my domains registered. It's not rocket science to see that it would save me about € 35,- to € 50,- per month, depending on the exchange rate of course.
I would get 10 times the uplink speed for less money. The only problem is that I didn't have my own server. I had already decided that I wanted a certain minimal configuration:
- Dual Core processor
- 4 GB memory
- 2 Hard Disks in raid 1 configuration
First I checked the website of my employer, Aces Direct, of course. Unfortunately, the cheapest server that met my desired specifications was way over the budget that I had in mind. The problem is that most servers are sold without disks, and server hard disks are a bit more expensive than consumer hard disks.
Next I ended up at a company that sells reasonably cheap web servers. For € 399,- (ex taxes of course) you can get a simple server with either an AMD Athlon 64, AMD Sempron 64, or Intel Dual Core E2220 processor. A bit of research told me that neither of the AMD's was Dual Core, and that the Intel was a first generation Dual Core processor and had performance that was comparable to a single core processor.
A co-worker told me that one of our suppliers might have something on stock. On our website, we prefer to sell the latest models obviously, but the suppliers might have an older model on the shelf somewhere. A quick E-mail here and a phone call there told me that indeed one of our suppliers had some older models on the shelf that might fit within my budget. The price would be comparable to the cheap web server with the AMD or Intel Dual Core processor, but it would be a Hewlett Packard or I.B.M. Of course I feared that it would end up way too pricy again due to the more expensive hard disks, but the supplier told me not to worry about it.
A bit of haggling and ass kissing later, I had made a very nice deal on my new server, which should arrive next Monday or Tuesday. I went a bit over my planned budget, but also managed to make a deal with my boss so that I can pay for the server in parts. I'll pay half of the server in cash (which is well within my budget), and half of it will be deducted from my salary in 3 parts. So what did I get?
From a supplier I managed to get For € 819,91 inc taxes :
- Hewlett Packard Proliant DL 320 G5P with Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz processor.
- 4 GB memory upgrade kit.
- 2x 250 GB hard disk (hot plug)
Via another channel I also managed to get a 64-Bit Windows 2008 Web Edition license and an additional 2GB of memory for free (the guy owed me a favor :P). I think going from a Celeron D 3GHz with 2GB ram and IDE hard disk to a Dual Core Xeon 2.66GHz with 6 GB ram and raid 1 hard disks is quite a nice upgrade, and after the server has been paid off, I will save money and have more performance.
My Server should arrive Monday or Tuesday, so stay tuned!
Another toy, another joy ( ) A long time ago, a customer sent three Netgear ReadyNAS 1100 with 3 TB storage each back, because they were too slow for his taste. They were stored in the warehouse collecting dust for almost half a year, but apparently my boss found someone who wants to buy them. Time to give them a proper checkup.
They are 3 TB each, so if you ever wondered what 9 TB of storage looks like, here's your answer:
One of our customers sent back a Hewlett Packard ProCurve 4204vl modular switch, because one of the modules wasn't working. Most of the time it is a legitimate complaint, but sometimes it's a so-called "pebcac" issue. Since it's a rather pricy switch (1957,- Euro), we decided to check it out before sending it back to the manufacturer.
Hmmmmm, flashy lights *purr*
Sorry if the video appears a bit shaky. I'm testing out different converters, and this one seems to have problems with the HD video. This results in quite a bit of frame skipping.
After talking to Kodak about the SanDisk memory card that wasn't working with my Zx1, I returned it to SanDisk and ordered two Transcend 16GB SDHC cards instead.
Why two? I want 32GB of storage for my Zx1, one way or the other. In 720p at 30 fps it consumes about 1GB per 20 minutes of film, and as we all know... 20 minutes of raw footage results in maybe 5 minutes of usable video material. Since I will be going to a the Amphi Festival in Cologne this summer, I want to be able to shoot some decent video without having to whip out my mini note all the time to offload the raw footage.
With 32GB I can shoot about 10 hours of video before I run out of space (I would still have to swap batteries now and then, of course...). Another cool feature about the Transcend cards is that you get a free USB card reader with them, which is always nice.
I like multimedia. I love taking pictures of places I go to, and share them with the world. Unfortunately, a picture only tells so much. Video is even cooler! My cell phone makes nice photos, but crappy movies. So I decided to look for something better, and ended up with the Kodak Zx1 portable video camera.
The camera can record video in 3 settings: VGA 640x480 pixels at 30 fps, HD 1280x720 pixels at 30 fps and "HD60" 1280x720 at 60 fps. Yes, this puppy can record HD video at 60 fps! It encodes the videos in Quicktime MP4 format with h.264 video and AAC audio. Aside from the video's it can also make some semi-decent photos at a native resolution of 2048x1536 pixels.
So from now on, all "moblog" videos will be shot using the Kodak Zx1.
I'm an audiophile, I admit... and specifically I like a deep, warm and lush bass. Unfortunately, most consumer headphones (won't drop names, but you know which brands I speak of ) either have no bass at all, or have deep lows but absolutely no midrange bass. I found a solution for that in the Beyer DT 770 PRO, but walking on the street with a full-sized studio headphone looks kind of wonky, so I decided to look for something more compact for outdoor use.
The search led me to the V-Moda "vibe", a pair of aluminum ear buds. I've been using them for about two months now, and think they deserve to be mentioned.
The sound is just amazing. The highs are crystal clear, the mids are lush and alive and the bass is just all there. So far I've only discovered one negative aspect about them: if your MP3 file is poorly encoded, you will notice it. The ear buds are unforgiving and relentless when it comes to poorly encoded MP3's, but that is a good thing as well. It means the ear buds don't add any bullshit to your signal, but just give you exactly what you're supposed to hear.
They're pricy (85,- Euro), but they are worth every cent of that. They deliver what they promise and look stylish while doing it. In short: 100% kickass.