Archive for the 'Public Opinion' Category

Testing the Slice

Published
by
Chris Meller
on March 4, 2008
in Hosting, Internet, Public Opinion, Questions, Techno-Babble and Wordpress
. 1 Comment

I’ve had a slice at SliceHost for longer than I care to admit by now1, I just hadn’t quite gotten around to ever testing and configuring it the way I wanted to.

Well, I finally got around to wiping out whatever I’d been playing with there before and dumping on their stock Debian 4.0 image. After running through their tutorials on setting up Apache2 and PHP, I was good to go.

The base system with my webserver and database running read at about 25 MB of used RAM. Not bad for a fully functional, if barebones, webserver. I’d been worried that, coming from a fully dedicated box with 1 GB of RAM, I would run into a memory bottleneck, but fortunately that didn’t seem it would be a problem.

The next important step was to do some testing. I played around with MySQL, running some basic queries, just to see if it was noticeably laggy after a casual poking. Again, everything looked fine.

The next, and really final, step was to dump a copy of my blog on the slice and see how it ran. After some complaining about the default max_upload_size value in PHP, I got a copy of my database imported using phpMyAdmin and a quick scp -r later and I had an exact copy of my blog setup and ready to go.

All-in-all, it looks like performance is at the very least on-par with the other hosting I’ve used in the past. The performance over DreamHost, where my blog has lived for several months while I really decided where to host it, represents about a 10% improvement3.

I’m still not ready to make the DNS switch, but at least I’ve realized I’m being too paranoid about the memory limits. In the end, the only other reason to stay with my expensive dedicated server is the convenience of Plesk, which scratches my lazy itch perfectly.

If I can get a few scripts hobbled together (in one language or another) to help automate things like vhost and database creation, I may be able to do away with Plesk entirely.

One final problem, and one I’m looking for opinions on, is what to do about email. I’m not planning on dumping DreamHost any time soon4, but I would like to move my email along with my blog if possible.

So who do you use for email? Any problems? Only condition is that they have to offer IMAP…

  1. About 6 months, but don’t tell anyone. [back]
  2. I never expected it to be that different than other distros. [back]
  3. Going purely by the stats in the footer of my theme. [back]
  4. I use their massive storage for backups as well. [back]

Considering Router Changes

Published
by
Chris Meller
on February 26, 2008
in Commentary, Daily Grind, Hardware, Internet, Links, Networking, Public Opinion and Questions
. 0 Comments

I’m considering snagging a cheap refurbished Dell from HCDI Trading to use as an IPCop or m0n0wall firewall / router.

Both Belkin and Linksys have gotten on my ho-hum list for consumer grade routers recently with some poor performance overall. Two different Linksys WRT54G models (the early ones, pre-WRT54G-L branch-off) seem to freak out every few days to a week and die, requiring a power cycle to fix. The Belkin wants to restart itself every time you change absolutely anything in the admin interface, and its wireless seems to phase in and out of quality, even sitting 6 feet away.

I’m hoping that if I move the router / AP out of the ‘central’ role to a more peripheral AP role on the network, things will improve. I also miss some of the flexibility having a real OS and real hardware brings to the table1.

Another option I’m considering, although a bit more pricey (yet more ideal as well), is a small “appliance” device, similar to the Linksys and Belkin offerings, yet more flexible and powerful.

Due to the increased shipping costs associated with overseas orders, the company I would prefer to deal with, Linitx, is kicked out. Instead, I would probably go for something very similar to the Logic Supply box George Ou at ZDNet talked about in this exact scenario.

Anyone have any opinions? Other great small devices that would make ideal (preferably cheap) solutions? What do you use at home?

  1. No, DD-WRT, Open-WRT, Tomato, et al are not real OSes, they just play one on TV. [back]

What would you say… you do here?

Published
by
Chris Meller
on February 11, 2008
in Public Opinion, Questions, Random and Work
. 3 Comments

I’m at a bit of a loss as to what title I should have put on my business cards at work (yes, at the job I want to leave). It seems that no matter what title I come up with, I feel I’m selling myself short in some area or another.

You guys have a vague idea some of the things I do at work… If not, check my about page for a huge list of crap. Any suggestions?

Prostates, Prejudices and Hypocrasy

Published
by
Chris Meller
on November 2, 2007
in Commentary, Gripes, Internet, Links, Public Opinion, Rants and Reviews
. 0 Comments

So I was recently linked to Paul Krugman’s opinion piece from the NYTimes entitled Prostates and Prejudices and I just can’t ignore it… I mean, you guys actually pay this man to put out hypocritical crap like this? Wow… I need to go to work for the NYTimes.

The third paragraph is where we really start to hit Rudy Giuliani hard:

Let’s start with the facts: Mr. Giuliani’s claim is wrong on multiple levels — bogus numbers wrapped in an invalid comparison embedded in a smear.

So a politician didn’t get his facts right or took something out of context to further his own point? Well, that’s not exactly news, but alright, let’s hear what you’ve got to say…

Mr. Giuliani got his numbers from a recent article in City Journal, a publication of the conservative Manhattan Institute. The author gave no source for his numbers on five-year survival rates — the probability that someone diagnosed with prostate cancer would still be alive five years after the diagnosis. And they’re just wrong.

Wrong you say? Ok, I can believe that. I mean, who’s ever heard of this City Journal and why would we believe a conservative Manhattan Institute anyway? Carry on…

You see, the actual survival rate in Britain is 74.4 percent. That still looks a bit lower than the U.S. rate, but the difference turns out to be mainly a statistical illusion. The details are technical, but the bottom line is that a man’s chance of dying from prostate cancer is about the same in Britain as it is in America.

Wa… Wait a minute. So you’re saying the survival rate in England is actually 74.4% but that it’s actually the same as the claimed 82% survival rate in the United States? I’m not sure my high school Algebra teacher would agree with you on that one, Mr. Krugman.

Oh, by the way, where did you get your claim of 74.4%? Forget to cite a source, did we? And how exactly does 74.4% end up equaling 82%? Oh, right, just take your word for it…

So that’s bogus numbers1? Check. Invalid comparison2? Check. Smear campaign against Giuliani3? Check.

Hey, I hate the man just as much as the 9/11 next 9/11 guy4, but come on. If you’re going to call the pot black, at least make sure you’re not the kettle first.

  1. Unless you can cite me a more reliable source than the City Journal. [back]
  2. Unless in the universe in which the NYTimes resides 74.4 does in fact equal 82. [back]
  3. Unless somehow this is supposed to be flattering to your former El Presidente. [back]
  4. 9/11… [back]

Another Poll

Published
by
Chris Meller
on May 15, 2007
in Daily Grind, Public Opinion and Random
. 0 Comments
{democracy:2}

Inspired by the show Numb3rs and a couple of random semi-related Jyte claims.