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- January 10, 2007
Equivocality
January 10, 2007Read moreI’ve been trying to be better about keeping track of who’s in the 9rules community, so I’ve been making a point of visiting every 9rules site I happen to see. One of the Round 5 inductees is Jeff Ngan, a blogger out of Canada who writes with literate-yet-conversational intensity, the kind of writing that sounds good when spoken aloud. His photos are really exceptional too; the combined experience is like reading a hybrid of Life Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly, focused on the experiences surrounding Jeff Ngan. Very inspiring! Check it out at Equivocality.
- January 9, 2007
Citizen Agency and Work-Life Balance
January 9, 2007Read moreI’ve been talking on and off with Mark Reeves, who like me is on the hunt for some kind of rewarding balance between work and living. He shot me a link to Citizen Agency, specifically this post about looking over the horizon to find the right kind of happiness. As I browsed through the site, I was struck by their mission statement: Citizen Agency does have a mission: changing the world through empowering individuals. We believe in architecting for collaboration, not merely participation. Yep, that feels right. This is a piece of the puzzle…
- January 8, 2007
Waiting for Domain Name Switch
January 8, 2007Read moreI’m really surprised how quickly my local domain name servers picked up on the new server IP address…at least as far as regular web addresses goes. My email, though, is still going to the old server at FutureQuest, so I guess DNS MX records are a different sort of animal. I’m having a good time playing with this neat lookup tool to see what’s going on. The mysteries of the Internet, made a little more clear :-)
It looks like a few comments got posted on the old server…I suppose I should have locked it down or disabled it entirely. I think I’ll go do that.
- January 8, 2007
Moving WordPress Part II: Media Temple Ho!
January 8, 2007Read more
So here I am on the new server, a dedicated virtual server (dv) from brand new, having launched at the very end of December 2006. Lucky me! My server problems could not have been timed better.
It’s only been a few month since I moved to FutureQuest, so the whole How to Move a Working WordPress Installation procedure was relatively fresh in my mind. It worked out a little differently, so I’m documenting this process again.
Geeky notes follow!
- January 4, 2007
Moving Servers, Again
January 4, 2007Read more
Recent problems with server load has forced me to look for new hosting, so I just registered for a Media Temple dedicated virtual server for $50/month. It’s too bad, because I liked FutureQuest. If you have the money to spend, I highly recommend them due to their customer service. Unfortunately for me, I’m in that weird in-between place where regular shared hosting packages aren’t enough, but I can’t afford a dedicated server for hundreds of dollars a month.
I’ve heard that the new Media Temple grid server is still shaking out, but the older dedicated virtual setup is supposed to be pretty good. The price is right too, and if stability is good I can consolidate some other sites I’m maintaining for some friends under one roof and save a bit of money.
Incidentally, the server spikes appear to have been caused by Mint. The recent LifeHacker links today and a week ago drove about 25K pageloads each for the day. The server spiked with a load of 100+. FutureQuest’s technicians narrowed the problem to the Mint installation and shut it down. I got into it and disabled all the extra Peppers, asked to restore the service, and the server was fine until 6PM, when it spiked massively again. This time I found a vestigial download counter script that was still triggering Mint, so I nuked the whole installation off my account. (this is what was causing the 404 download problems in the evening). But it was too late: the site will be booted from the server next time a spike occurs.
I’ve always wanted to try MediaTemple, so I’m not that put out by this development. It does mean, though, that this is the last post until after I get the site moved and stabilized again. Please be gentle in the meantime :-)
