Category: web

Alright, for those of you that don’t appreciate being a nerd, please feel free to stop reading this post.  For the rest of you…

At the last DS meeting, we had a presentation by VMWare.  Now, I use VMWare Workstation to do a lot of my MSI development and testing.  Granted, I could use the University site licensed version of Virtual PC, but VMWare is just better.  So anyways, I was very intrigued by what they were going to talk to us about, especially with the recent release of Virtual Server from Microsoft.

Personally, I had never used either companies server solution, but because of my previously reported problems with Virtual PC, Virtual Server already left a bad taste in my mouth (turns out that virtual server is leaps and bounds better than PC, but still, old habits are hard to break).  The meeting was, as I expected, mostly centered around their server products: GSX and ESX.  Now, you can go read about each one from the links listed, but in general, what it comes down to is that GSX is an application that runs on a host operating system while ESX is the host operating system.  Talk about awesome. 

Lets take a step back for those of you that are new to virtual machines a second and tell you what this means.  What all of these applications do is run a virtual computer on another computer.  So, for instance with my MSI testing, I have my normal Windows XP installation, and then on top of that I have VMWare Workstation that runs a virtual computer inside of it.  It has it’s own hard drive (which is actually just a file), sound card, video card, network card, bios, etc.  For testing, this is a must have.  The server class products add a bit more: ability to easily have multiple workstations running at the same time, a nice management window, web management, etc.  For those that are familiar to Solaris back when NT4 was a big seller, may remember add-on cards you could purchase that would run NT4 in a Solaris window.  This is the same kind of thing, only it’s done completely in software instead of hardware.  Similar to the workstation products, both Virtual Server and GSX Server run on top of an operating system as an application (Linux, Windows).  Now, ESX Server removes the host operating system all together and interfaces right with the hardware.  This is where VMWare really shines because this reduces the overhead of GSX server by around half since there isn’t a middle OS messing with things.  This means that Virtual Machines can share memory, and not be bogged down with whatever is happening with the host OS. 

Well, I know you’re all wondering how this all applies to me.  After seeing that presentation, I was very excited about trying to play with ESX.  Needless to say, that was a bust, you can’t even download a trial version from their website.  However, you can grab GSX server to give it a whirl.  So, rebelpeon.com is now running totally on virtual servers.  I’ve been needing to do some stuff to my server anyways because of all the problems I’ve been having with it, so I figured this would be a great way to do it while learning a bunch. 

It was a snap to setup, I actually did it all on my tablet.  I got GSX server installed on it, and then built the 2 machines from there.  I then migrated all the stuff from what was currently running on the main server to the virtual servers.  Once everything was migrated, I wiped the physical server and installed a fresh OS on it, then put GSX on there.  I then powered down the 2 virtual servers on my tablet, and moved the hard drive files over to the real server, then powered it up.  It was so easy.  Plus, since my real server is a dual P3, it’s actually using both processors now (one for each virtual server).  The only problem I’m having right now is getting access to a physical disk in on of the virtual servers, but that’s because it was a Windows Dynamic Disk, and VMWare doesn’t support those.  All in all, a fairly painless process, plus yet another thing to add under my belt.

I finally got my links page working like I want.  Instead of being a flat file, all the links listed are actually entries in ExpressionEngine.  This way it is easy for me to update them.  Also, I’ve created a working blogroll for rebelpeon.com sites (see the side bar), since this was also done by hand before.  Yay!

Also, you may have noticed (if you actually view my site) that I’ve taken down the google ads on the main page, and have replaced them with an ad for Child’s Play.  This is a great charity started by the guys over at Penny Arcade to help children’s hospitals.  Now, I’m not making anything from the link (ha, like I make anything from the google ads), but I’d appreciate it if you guys could help them out, or at least spread the word.  Thanks

Wow, so some of you may have noticed that the website (and affiliated sites) have been up, down, and all around this week.  I wish I could say that it wasn’t entirely my fault, but, well, actually lets say that.  Monday and Tuesday it was down in the mornings because the backups that were running at night were hanging the server.  Why, I couldn’t tell you, but it was.  I thought I had it all fixed last night, then this morning I go into work and it was down again.  This time I knew it wasn’t the backups because I didn’t have them run last night.  So, I waste my lunch running home and seeing what’s going on.  Turns out the power flicked off and screwed up the router so it was hanging on limbo.  I thought I had gotten everything taken care of and then went back to work.  Of course, I get to work, and sure enough, still doesn’t work.  Arg.  Turns out my IP address changed and my program that checks my IP and auto-updates Zone Edit had the old password instead of the new one.  So, of course it couldn’t update my name servers.

Talk about a comedy of errors.  It actually got so bad that my dad emailed me and asked why my site had been down.  I’m actually working on fixing a few things this weekend that will, hopefully, keep a lot of these problems from happening.  We’ll see how that goes though.  Playing with virtual machines makes things so much more fun and interesting, being that I only have one machine here to play with.

Well, Colleen’s Place is back.  Got a call yesterday asking for the resurrection.  Unfortunately, it’s been so long that all the old data is gone :down:, but we can look forward to nothing but great posts (hopefully).  Enjoy!

Well, for those of you in the blogging community, many of you use MySQL as your DB back end.  Unfortunately, MySQL sucks in many ways (although the price is nice).  One way is general administration.  In order to do any administration on the db, you would have to use the Command Line Interface (CLI).  Now, I’m a fan of the CLI for a lot of things, but without intimate knowledge of a program, you end up with your nose in the documentation more than actually doing anything.  Thankfully, I friend of mine came across a great little program that makes administration of MySQL a lot better.  You can checkout what I’m talking about here.  If you think you may be interested in it, go for the straight download page (MySQL’s webpage sucks for navigation now, so you may just want to use both of those links).

Adding users isn’t a pain anymore, backups aren’t a pain anymore, viewing logs aren’t a pain anymore, seeing permissions aren’t a pain anymore.  It’s just another piece that MySQL needed.

The other day someone asked me why I blogged.  At the time, I really couldn’t think of any real compelling answer.  Since I’m utterly bored right now, and I have absolutely nothing planned, I thought I’d take some time to maybe, evolve my answer a bit more.

When I first started rebelpeon.com it was more for a learning experience.  At the time, I hadn’t really thought of what I wanted out of it, I more or less wanted to get a “web presence” up and running.  Plus, I also wanted some sort of personal email that I could use.  Therefore, I at least needed a domain.  And, well, since I’ve got a domain, I might as well put a website up on it.  However, I really didn’t have any content to put on the website, except for my daily adventures.

So that’s how it began.  From there it hasn’t really changed much.  I’ve just been telling you how I see it. 

Another thing that he asked was if it was some kind of voyeristic thing.  At first I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but then he explained that the reading into someone’s life.  Now, I admit, some people plaster everything about themselves on their sites, but I can tell you this is not the case with me.  I admit that I enjoy reading other people’s blogs, particularly people that I know, but some people go a little too far in what they write.

Oh yeah, plus this serves as a great way for people, such as my parents, to keep up to date with what I do, since I don’t talk to them daily.  At some point, I’ll also expand the website to include other things that I’m working on, but as of right now, this s what works for me.  Plus, I actually seem to enjoy it more than what I used to.  I suppose it’s because I don’t have Colleen to keep me busy anymore.  I do miss her. A lot.

For those of you that were wondering what I looked like with my haircut, point your eyes here.  Now, now ladies, stop drooling 🙂  Actually, my dad must have read some of the comments left from my post about me shaving it all off, since he’s the one that took it this weekend, then sent it to me.

That’s right folks, looking back through the archives, it has come to my attention that rebelpeon.com has been around for a full year!  You can see the post that started it all.  Nothing special, but talk about a year it has been. 

It’s amazing how much I, as a person, have changed.  Be it from actually getting a job after graduating, to my multitude of purchases throughout the year, to then complaining about work, to the thing with Colleen, to the multitude of website changes.  It ought to see what the next year brings me.

On a more personal note, if anyone out there has ever thought of making a website/dairy thing, go for it.  I have this great and easy place to look through my past with the greatest of ease.  Plus, I can search, and just read things from certain categories and what not.  This is so much better than a book that I write in, plus other people can participate in my madness.  Granted that’s not always the greatest thing, and I definitely still keep things off the site that I wish I could talk about, but it’s better than not letting things out at all.  Hell, just sign up for bloglines or something.  It’s definitely worth it.

Wow, it seems as if the other rebelpeon.com websites are a little quiet lately.  Not that this doesn’t surprise me (lazy bastards).  I just find it funny since I was the one who posted about how I felt that my blogging was going to end.  Well, who’s ending now!!

Ok, so really, I’m just waiting for some MSI’s to build at Architecture, so I’m bored.

As you can see, rebelpeon.com has been migrated to Expression Engine.  There are a few quirks with the import, but after Paul from EE got it working for me, I was able to easily import everything from Movable Type. 

As you can tell (depending on the browser you’re using) the main page doesn’t necissarily like to render correctly.  Under Firefox, Mozilla, etc, it seems to be working ok, but under IE sometimes you get the side bar, and sometimes you don’t (joy).  I guess that’s ok for now though, since I’m most likely going to redo the templates anyways.  I more or less wanted to get off MT as fast as possible because of the lovely error you got while leaving comments. 

On the backend,  things all run from one instance now (or at least they will be).  Currently everything is all set for all the other rebelpeon.com websites to be migrated.  I just need to export their entries, and import them into the new system.  All in all, it hasn’t been nearly as much work as I thought it would be. 

Just so everyone’s aware, the site seems to be loading slowly.  Once I get all the rebelpeon.com websites moved over to the new system, I should be able to deal with it.  I have an idea as to why it is, but I’ll have to play with it some to find out the true reasons.

Also, you may notice some bugs, etc with the new site.  PLEASE let me know if you find anything.

***Updated*** I found the problem.  In my last post I put the div tag part in brackets, just like you do in html.  Needless to say, ie tried to render the page with that extra div tag.  All is well now 🙂