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nginx Hits #4 on Netcraft
Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:28:25 -0800
Self-explanatory. nginx surpasses Lighttpd and moves up to #4 according to Netcraft. Woohoo!
http://survey.netcraft.com/Reports/200812/
WiMAX - Initial Review: Killer, If You Get A Signal
Sun, 28 Dec 2008 22:29:22 -0800
I waited in extreme anticipation for my WiMAX adapter to be delivered. It wound up being a day late due to the weather. I unpacked it and installed the software and plugged it in and ... nothing. No network found. What? WiMAX has no line of sight issues, it's supposed to "just work" - I tried using Clear's 24/7 online chat support. Guy was just a random first level support. Not much help. I decided I would give it a try when I was out in a zone that should definately have a signal.
Right now I'm using it, and I was using it the other day. Both times I've been looking at ~5mbit down and 400kbit up according to speedtest.net. Very nice. Currently it feels like I am at a home wifi connection. So at the moment if this was consistent, I would be sold. However, I am still not able to claim this is the best thing since velcro until I can figure out why I get not a single bar of signal at home.
I tried calling Clear the first time I was out and of course it was working - I thought it was going to fail like it did at home. Doh. Anyway, I need to do some more testing and diagnosis, but right now I have to say if the coverage improves (or someone explains why I get nothing inside of my house when it sounds like I should) WiMAX is pretty awesome. It's going to make me wish my laptop had it built-in so I didn't need a separate USB dongle for it 
/mode Mike +4G
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 22:24:11 -0800
I did it. I took the plunge. I ordered WiMAX. Thank you Clear for making Portland your second market for the service! I hope it is all that it promises.
I've got seven days for satisfaction with a full refund, 30 days with a partial refund. Month-to-month, no contract. Sweet. I will let everyone know what it's like. Hopefully I'll be able to get it soon and run around town messing around with it. Too bad there aren't any phones that can leverage it yet in the US. It'd be neat if my iPhone could jump on it.
Contract Term: Month to Month
Plan Name: WiMAX Mobile - FREQUENT - No Commitment
Included: Up to 4 Mbps Downlink Speed
Up to 384 Kbps Uplink Speed
0 E-mail Addresses
2 GB monthly bandwidth
I'm sure I'll be using more than two gigs per month if it works well. It's only $10 more for unlimited. I confirmed you can change contract anytime with prorated charges. They sell home service even, so it must be consistent performance... right?
I Hate Wikis
Sun, 16 Nov 2008 03:57:03 -0800
I dislike wikis. At work we were using them. Now we're changing from wikis to an article management system. The idea on paper sounded great, but I'm realizing the pitfalls about the implementation.
There are some traits that wikis have that I like. There's also plenty of bad traits. Also, I'm thinking of MediaWiki when I say this stuff.
Pros:
- Interlinking and updating
- Anyone can edit pages by design
- Templates and categorization can be done by anyone, inline
- Every page has a discussion option
Cons:
- Lots of overhead
- Semi-proprietary syntax (= makes h1, == makes h2, * makes one level lists, ** makes it a two level list, etc.)
- Inconsistent syntax - some HTML works, some bbcode-ish wiki stuff works, some __HEREDOC__ stuff works
- Forces everything to be CamelCase
- No attachments per page, only global
- By default, wikis have no page-level security, since their mantra is "anyone can edit"
So now that I've said that - I have to say that the ideal approach would be to take the existing CMS approach but add in a few wiki features. Specifically the interlinking. We already have a comment feature on every page. Attachment management is per-page too.
Late night half dazed thoughts:
Link syntax couldn't be something like foo:bar - since javascript:foo would conflict. Perhaps something like [foo:bar] would be a good idea? For links to file attachments, [file:fileID] or [article:slug-title]. This would make life simpler for tracking what files are orphans, can display information about the file in-line in the documents (file type, size, etc.)
Updates on Home Storage Solutions
Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:25:28 -0700
For a while I was looking into and hoping to go the eSATA route. Immature chipsets and lack of OS support have somewhat kept that idea frozen.
I want to use ZFS for a filesystem. Or a filesystem -like- ZFS. Currently there are no others out there like it. There is Btrfs, and there is another one I thought picking up steam (although I can't remember it now for the life of me) - both of those however aren't stable yet. ZFS is still not as stable as I wish on FreeBSD. It won't run natively on Linux, and I don't think it's very stable either. The only true way to get a stable filesystem like ZFS is to in fact run ZFS on Solaris.
I was not excited to try Solaris. It used to be a joke to call it "Slowaris" - I remember the old days of using random UNIX shells and hating Solaris boxes because I couldn't run hardly anything or compile anything. However, that's changed somewhat now. I took the plunge and installed SXCE (Nevada build 94) since Solaris 10u5 did not support the new CIFS implementation. So far, I've learned a little bit here and there about Solaris system administration and I've been using ZFS to create some snapshots, filesystems, etc. It is so easy even my mom could handle it. Not to mention Solaris has some pretty neat tools like the Solaris Fault Manager, which I have crontabbed to run every 30 minutes and email me if -any- hardware/faults get reported. So I have this great box sitting there running the best filesystem possible integrity-wise, and it is also damn quiet. It's not a small form factor which I would have liked, though.
So I begin looking into trying to get a small form factor ZFS box. I might be able to, if I want to hack up a Shuttle style case (see Udat at Mashie Design - there are mini-itx motherboards now with 6 SATA ports onboard which would allow for a 5 drive RAIDZ1 + maybe use a Compact Flash card for a boot drive. However, that requires case modding and can only fit 5 drives. I'm not sure I really want to try all that.
Instead, even Mashie himself has admitted to moving into larger form factors for storage boxes (I believe he's using a CM Stacker nowadays) - and from a space perspective, it probably does make the most sense.
Currently I'm exploring going with a full-size case that could hold 15 drives, or a mid-size case that could hold 10 drives (not including optical + boot)
I think I may have found a winner, for the mid-size option. Lian-li has a self-proclaimed "silent" chassis that has 9 bays (which means 6 bays for 2x5-in-3 modules) + optical + 1 boot disk in the spare 5.25" bay. Roughly 8-9TB usable in a mid-size case that would be about as silent as it can get. It even has a front door on it. Actually, there's a second place one - this one is much more extensible, but has no door on it, which I think would help shield any noise coming from these 5-in-3 modules. See here. Cooler Master also has a case like that too - again, no door on the front. I wish I had local access to all of these cases to try each of them out. Right now I have to order them online, and then pay possible restocking fees, and at least the cost of shipping the product back. I'm tired of that back and forth game. I've had to do it too many times in the past.
Lian-li also has a full-size chassis that already includes 10 internal drive bays, + 5x 5.25" front bays. Those extra bays could be used for more drives too. So many options... I'm trying to determine the amount of space I want to use in my office and how large and bulky I want these machines to be. Ideally I would like as little CPUs as possible - no need to have full-out operating systems installed and having to manage all that. I'm just tired of all my equipment making noise, getting hot, failing, and data corrupting due to failure or bit-rot. It's time to upgrade and streamline.
I've pretty much examined every chassis at Lian-li, Coolermaster and Antec. I have an Antec P182 right now. It's great and quiet, but does not support as many drives as I want for these next boxes. Stay tuned as I pull the trigger and build another storage box soon. Perhaps I'll share some pictures and specifications with my existing storage box I just built, which is for "off site" daily snapshots of my hosting infrastructure and some other servers I administer.
These next machines will be for my own personal use... and now I've gained some good knowledge on what to expect. It's been a while since I've built a normal-sized machine, as I've been a Shuttle XPC user for years now
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