Look! A Distraction!

Woot! I has new hosting!

Finally, the DNS updated at my ISP. I has a shiny new 512MB VPS slice from eNotch Networks.

Some pretty stats for your enjoyment (feel free to compare these to my previous host which I talked about)

$ wget cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--2010-05-29 21:01:54--http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `100mb.test'
100%[======================================>] 104,857,600 11.0M/s in 10s
2010-05-29 21:02:04 (9.75 MB/s) – `100mb.test' saved [104857600/104857600]

Nice and shiny 100MB link there

$ free -m
total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           512        151        360          0          0         0

Lots of memory! It can still be optimised because Apache is a pain in the rear, I’m thinking of using nginx to cut down that memory even more (of course, this is an OpenVZ container not a Xen so more memory use is to be expected)

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 33
model name      : Dual Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 280
stepping        : 2
cpu MHz         : 2412.414
cache size      : 1024 KB
physical id     : 0
siblings        : 2
core id         : 0
cpu cores       : 2
apicid          : 0
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni lahf_lm cmp_legacy
bogomips        : 4422.02
TLB size        : 1024 4K pages
clflush size    : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes   : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: ts fid vid ttp

A bit of an older CPU but hey, I’m not complaining! At least this host works!

Things to do:

• Install nginx to server static files and proxy to Apache for dynamic files
• Get SVN working
• Django and python!
• Possibly more WordPress to a Python based blog/CMS cause WordPress uses lots of memory
• Any other suggestions?

I’m going to be testing the link speeds to Australia when I SSH out of my school proxy and past the DET firewall in uTorrent 🙂 yay!

Do do do… Thought that I might upload some random photos that were on my phone cause I’m a bit bored right now.

Haha, I decided to change my login picture to Domo Kun after seeing a Domo shirt on ThinkGeek 🙂

And yes, that is a photo of my editing a photo in Photoshop of my microwave.. what can I say? I was bored at the time. Microwave photo was not taken my my phone though…

Look look!!!

Some of you might know that I have a crappy Internet connection that likes to drop out BUT…

I got all the way to 1 WHOLE GB without a single dropout 🙂 That’s by far the best records it’s ever done, it usually only manages about 200MB before it drops out and resets the counters…

Just thought that you guys all needed to know 🙂

So, HSC timetables out today everyone! How are they for you? Pretty happy with mine, save for the fact that I have an exam on my 18th and then two days after it, but that can’t be helped.

Here’s mine:

Course	Exam	Date/Time
English (Advanced)	Paper 1: Area of Study	15/10/2010 09:20
English (Advanced)	Paper 2: Modules	18/10/2010 09:25
Software Design and Development	Written Examination	21/10/2010 13:55
Mathematics	Written Examination	25/10/2010 09:25
Mathematics Extension 1	Written Examination	27/10/2010 09:25
Economics	Written Examination	02/11/2010 09:25
Physics	Written Examination	04/11/2010 09:25

Nice even spread I think! Aside from that I’m freaking cause it’s only 168 days away! I don’t feel prepared enough! Argh!

How were your exam timetables (for NSW-HSC kids)

I was having issues FTPing into my server. I queried it and got this

uptime

08:09:55 up 1 day, 22:05, 3 users, load average: 65.17, 43.09, 27.50

That load average would probably explain why it’s not dealing with my trying to access it.

And for reference:

cpuinfo (x2)

processor	: 0
vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 15
model name	: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E4500  @ 2.20GHz
stepping	: 13
cpu MHz		: 2200.071
cache size	: 2048 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 2
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 2
apicid		: 0
fdiv_bug	: no
hlt_bug		: no
f00f_bug	: no
coma_bug	: no
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 10
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe lm constant_tsc pni monitor ds_cpl est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips	: 4400.14

DIE!!! Gah! Hurry up Paypal and move the goddamn monies!

OK, so this is my new solution to surviving the next two terms and hopefully I won’t waste so much time and perhaps do something constructive instead. 😀

However I’ll still have my Facebook app on my phone which this won’t block, I gotta keep up with Facebook! Just not while doing my homework, I’ll just Facebook on my boring bus trip instead, time management at it’s best

Hmm… so some of you may know that I’m on the hunt for a new web host when my current hosting with 3ix.org expires next month. And that couldn’t come sooner I say, stupid me signed up to two years with this host without really doing any proper research, boy was I foolish back then. My experience with 3ix has been less that satisfactory, sure it’s fine for hosting a small website and they promise lots for little (have a look at their plans) but it’s not really good for anything serious or even if you want to start experimenting. They don’t allow SSH access even on their top plan (the one I’m on) and they seriously oversell their servers.

A quick php query on the hard drive shows the space used on my server:

Server Space:
In Use = 437.85 GB (98.11 %)
Free Space = 8.46 GB
Disk Space = 446.31 GB

and current CPU load (although mostly this hangs around the lower end of the scale):

CPU:
CPU Load: 75%
Server Time: 03:50:47
Local Time: 05:49:53 PM

clearly overselling to me!

And to top things off, it looks like they are blocking HTTP requests as I cannot automatically upgrade WordPress or plugins automatically and the feeds on the dashboard give “WP HTTP Error: couldn’t connect to host”. So basically pretty screwed.

Continue reading “My Search For A New Web Host”

So, after having a poke around the NCSS forums, there seems to be a fair few NCSS’ers with blogs.. mainly WordPress powered by the looks of things. So, thanks have to go out to Tim for making Planet NCSS happen :).

Speaking of WordPress, my stupid hosting has been really annoying and FTP keeps breaking so WordPress can’t update or install new themes without manually uploading the files through cPanel. So if anyone is looking for cheap hosting, I would NOT recommend 3ix.org. Considering that this does cost $US8/month, you’d at least think that they could give me SSH access.. but NOOOO, I need to send in ID and a whole bunch of other crap. Goodbye 3ix come May of this year, I’m thinking of moving to WebFaction and trying out Django (I’ve been playing with Django locally and it seems really powerful). Reviews on WebFaction look good, SSH access, ability to install apps to home. Just like a VPS but cheaper and without having to manage a server yourself. I like!

Ohh.. any experts with Django out there? Is is possible to install it onto shared hosting without having shell access cause I have a really crappy hosting company?

Alright, so NCSS 2010 is over and I’m a bit bored so I thought that I might update this blog with a summary of NCSS 2010 cause I can see that people are hitting this website a fair bit trying to download photos (I can also see the server failing). It’s also a good chance to procrastinate and not do study. So I thought I might break this post up into entries and do a sort of diary. I’m not much of a blogger.

Highlights:

• Rice
• The Final Countdown
• James Curran James Curran James Curran
• She’s in the mafia!
• Double Facepalm!
• Arbitary
• Doubletap (in both the iPhone sense and the zombie sense)

Day 1:

So, I arrived at USyd a bit late cause dad couldn’t manage to get into Women’s College and park so we had to park a fair bit off and then I had to lug my stuff over to Women’s. Entering the dining hall there was quite a big line for registration. James did his usual thing with the guessing of names and we got all of our stuff including our NCSS ’10 shirts! James did the introduction thingy telling the parents what their children were about to do for the next 10 days and what they would get back after the 10 days and the all nighter.

Continue reading “National Computer Science School 2010”

As I was bored today, I decided to install Windows 7 on my old AMD just to see how well Microsoft have streamlined their latest OS.

It took a fair while to install (perhaps 2-3 hours) but in the end, it was all worth it. It runs pretty slowly and would really only be good for Word and internet but meh. I attempted to play a DVD but it ended up being all jerky.

My System:

• AMD Duron @ 800MHz
• 512MB RAM
• 80GB Western Digital IDE (Install on 40GB partition)
• 4MB AGP nVidia Vanta LT
• Windows 7 RC Build 7100 32-bit

Obviously alot of this is old hardware and 7 didn’t have any of the drivers for the sound card and was only using a standard VGA driver unlike XP which did contain drivers for my old hardware.

Here are some pretty screenshots:

Continue reading “Who says it can't be done?”