Tag Archives: server

Mac Mini – Make Your Own Cluster?

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Ok, I admitted to being a geek a long time ago, but here’s what I’m thinking:

Take Apple’s new Mac Mini, which is 2″ in height (slightly over 1U). Put several of them on a metal tray. Why? Because it can become a makeshift blade server. Granted your limited to Firewire, USB, and 10/100 Ethernet. Regardless, for rather low cost, you can get some decent power. All with 2U of rack space. IMHO that’s pretty cool. Looks like it’s a pretty simple way to get a cluster. You could even use it for some decent web hosting. 1 as a DB server, 1 or 2 as an Apache server, and perhaps a squid proxy. Mail, DNS. Each could have their own redundancy. All in 2U of rack space.

That’s amazingly low cost for having so many CPU’s, and being able to spread out your load on several physical systems.

If I had the cash, I’d give it a go. :-D

Edit: You can help me get one by signing up and completing 1 offer. They are legitimate, I got a free ipod from them not to long ago.

Announcement: reporter-test shutdown for upgrade

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In the very near future (perhaps as early as tonight), I will be shutting down the current reporter-test website for large upgrades. The upgrades are rather signifigant. I haven’t decided on a date/time. So anyone who wants to test and toy around should do so, and send comments to me ASAP.

since we are using test data, I will be wiping the database as well. the new version will capture more data. I want to test queries will all the data possible. We will drop data again before we launch the official instance of reporter. This is test data.

Those who installed the extension

You will need to uninstall it, and upgrade. the current extension will not work with the new version, a newer version will be needed. Autoupdate is not working on that extension, so you will not be notified. Please pass this message around if you know

request for help

I want to get SeaMonkey working with the same XPI. Does anyone know how to do overlay’s for multiple products? Is there anything I should be aware of (other than the EM API)? Please leave a comment or drop me a line.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback so far. Lots of changes have been made. Hence some serious upgrading is needed.

The Politics of Tech

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I’m not political, so here’s my political analysis geek style:

Republicans

Analysis

  • Prefer proprietary technology
  • Invalid HTML is universal across sites, minimal web standards)
  • Choice in media players (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real)

Cases
Republican National Committee
GOP
GeorgeWBush.com

Democrats

Analysis

  • Prefer Open Source (most of the time, especially DNC website)
  • Prefer Web Standards at times
  • Choice in media (Windows Media, Real, Quicktime)

Cases
Democratic National Committee
JohnKerry.com
Democratic National Convention 2004

Others

Analysis

  • Varied, platforms but better than Republicans
  • Web Standards seems more important
  • Choice in media players (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real)
  • Lower budget websites

Cases
Nader
Cobb (Green Party)

Seems Contributors tell quite a bit about what to expect in the parties tech, as well as their policies [Republican | Democrat | Nader]

Sidenote: Of these, only the Bush Campaign seems to be using lots of negative campaign tactics. Even on the website it’s very obvious. Third parties use virtually none. Kerry has one ‘politically correct’ worded message on ‘Why Bush is wrong for America’. Bush makes it the focal point of his website these days. There seems to be more on Kerry than George. An interesting observation on tactics.

This isn’t scientific, or an endorsement of any candidate, just a quick little analysis on how parties view the internet, and web standards as well as open source platforms and comments as I feel appropriate..

Mozilla News

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So much to touch on, and not much time.

From the mozilla.org minutes…

- Firefox fans burned down the FTP farm

Perhaps it’s time for Mozilla.org to setup a few slots for “the regulars’, devs and dedicated beta testers, so they can continue work regardless of release schedule. It’s the second release that took me a half day to actually get a copy. And if Mozilla gets more popular, it’s going to be even worse. Just a thought. Perhaps in the future FTP will be more stable.

- ~73K downloads yesterday, 30K Failures [due to capacity issues]

Yea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Major Corporate Sponsor agreed to let us use their FTP server farm -
we now have 3 more servers in the mirror network than we did before
- One of the four servers in her network was actually down yesterday,
that is why the issue with failures

Hmm. Who is the Major Corporate Sponsor? Just curious. Red Hat, IBM, SCO (just kidding ;-) I know how sensitive everyone is to those 3 letters)?

Thunderbird News

mscott released a experimental build of Thunderbird with bayes enhancements. I’ll give it a try, but I’m currently reverting back to 0.4 for a day, in hopes of isolating a file locking bug I think I’ve stumbled upon. More on that later if I find anything out.

New G4 upgrade cards

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Sonnet Technologies has announced new upgrades for the G3′s!

The new Encore/ZIF G4 800 MHz and 1.0 GHz models are shipping now:
Encore/ZIF G4 800 MHz-1M EG4-800-1M $349.95
Encore/ZIF G4 1.0 GHz-1M EG4-1000-1M-U $499.95

NOTE: Encore/ZIF 1.0 GHz models with the part number EG4-1000-1M (without -U) are compatible only with Beige G3 models, and should not be purchased
for use in a Blue & White or G4 PCI Graphics.

The Encore/ZIF G4 700 will be available at a new lower price while
supplies last, and is compatible only with Apple Beige G3 models:
Encore/ZIF G4 700MHz-1M EG4-700-1M $299.95
(price drop from $349.95)

Sonnet’s Entry-level Encore/ZIF G4s

Sonnet continues to offer its entry-level of award-winning Encore/ZIF

G4 model, which is compatible with all Beige G3s, Blue & White G3
Towers, and PCI Graphics G4 Towers. The MSRPs on this model is:
Encore/ZIF G4 500 EG4-500-1M $199.95

I wish I could get one of those. I got a Beige G3 Fileserver, itching for more CPU, and a B&W desktop that could use one as well. Even a G4/500 would be quite an enhancement to the Beige G3. Quite expensive though.

Server Outage

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There was a rather serious server outage yesterday. Server has been up since this morning, but the backend wasn’t quite there, so I couldn’t post until now.

Sorry.

On a sidenote, the syndication feeds for category archives changed a few weeks ago. I know a few places including Mozilla Blog Updates haven’t updated their links yet.

Sorry for the abrupt change.

On a plus side, things are looking good for MacVillage.net, despite loosing a day of work due to a server outage.

Programming Butt Kicking

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Sunday and Monday were great programming days. Got tons of bugs fixed on the MacVillage.net CMS. Started Indexing, that’s now done (partly). Also got some limited search functionality. And tons and tons of stupid bugs, and odd functionality fixed. More than I noted in my change log. A lot more. It was good time. Some code cleanup, removed some bogus code, and consolidated a few things…. all was good in happy town.

Then this Computer Science & Programming Lab came around. And I feel like I took a shower in a Turkish prison, and dropped the soap.

It hurts. I’m tired, and I want sleep. And I want a decent grade. And this internal conflict might be the war to end all wars.

Spam Filtering is starting now on my server, so my email should be cleaning on my server, rather than client side, meaning my CPU should be free a bit more. A great thing.