This is my story. (Delayed post from Friday August 27th)
Last night around 12:30am I sat down at my PC to google search something, my homepage opened as normal (tdev.ca- the development website for my company). I continued to search whatever it was I searched and then I decided to work on Shorten This! When I opened up tncr.ws the page stopped with a "The remote server is not responding" message.
Right away I went over to my server to investigate what the problem was and it was completely frozen. Natural instincts told me to hard restart the server (as much as I hate doing that because of how hard it is on hardware), because nothing else was making it respond.
As it rebooted I continued back to my PC to carry on with other things and when I came back the server was frozen again, only this time it was during the boot sequence.
My troubleshooting instincts kicked right in, and I opened up the server, dusted it out and checked for any scent of burning.
Nothing.
Still freezing. Try one more time; I get to safe mode...frozen again. Okay now there's a real problem, so I try booting the system with a single drive to try and cancel out hardware failure...freezes again.
Now I pull out my POST card (Power On Self Test). It didn't reveal much since the system was in fact booting only it froze part-way through.
My next try at safe mode revealed that there was an event log entry in System showing an error with the perc2 driver (the SCSI redundancy controller), but I thought to try the motherboard battery first. So after a trip to London Drugs for a new 2032 battery, replacing it and then 3 restarts later (including some BIOS tweaking along with and update to the PERC2 controller firmware)....it finally worked.
Here's where it gets interesting, it worked for another day or so until BSOD-ing saying there was a Hardware failure, and again begins the freeze/retry process. I'm not sure why it worked at all in the first place if there was still an underlying issue, but needless to say I continued at it and eventually got a more insightful BSOD telling me "a secondary process did not respond in a timely fashion".
I had success after this when I pulled proc #2 put of the system (Dead Processor, great).
Problem solved, and during this ordeal I had managed to set up a temporary backup server provided by my website designer Tom.
So having a backup server in place and my main web server functional again, I decided to start over with the server while I had the opportunity.
This means setting up Windows Deployment services on a dedicated server, re installing Server 2008, and then reconfiguring a clean system. So far so good on that front.
I've also put an order with Dell for a new 2U PowerEdge 2970... to be continued.
I've downsized them from their original sizes to hopefully speed up the gallery, however it may still be a little slow (because of huge pictures, or a slow connection to my server).
So I've had a recurring problem with Roundcube, in that certain email accounts will not delete emails, instead just show an error "Could not move the message", and return to the previous folder with the message still there.
This problem occurred as well when those certain email accounts tried to move a message from the main inbox to another folder such as Saved, Spam or a self-made folder (which sometimes making custom folders didn't even work).
So the solution is in config/main.inc.php:
Change THIS:
This is a URL Shortening service which requires no sign-up, and offers great simplicity. Currently it shows you all of the URLs you've made shortened links for, based on IP.
The back-end functionality is in fact better than bit.ly, ow.ly as well as tinyurl. I can make sure the URL is real very accurately, it protects against anything other than HTTP, HTTPS or FTP addresses, it takes into account common url typos, and it also avoids duplication, by checking against already made Hashes as well as URLs that have already been processed.
My intended functionality which is in the works behind the scenes is to have a search engine to search for a specific URL's previously created Hash, and when found it will immediately show you the information on that link including total clicks and date created.
An API is in the design phase to allow developers to create and account in order to get API code to have their own applications and websites access the Hash making functionality of the website.
I have planned on buying the domain tds.ca for this website, and its hash lengths to start (for the first 40 thousand or so hashes) will be 4, therefor making all links made by the service shorter than any of the competition.
To add some punch to this I have a planned aggressive marketing strategy in place to promote it as inexpensively as possible.
5:27 pm - Post Category: Nickness Posted from my BlackBerry Storm
Alright so to start off my mid 2010 round of updates, I've added a few really handy scripts to my site (which I'll explain below), I've made the site navigation significantly better and I have a whole lot of ToDo's to get a better feel going on.
So the handy scripts I mentioned are 3 in total (to start); an AJAX web based Image Map generator, a Javascript shrinking tool (removes js comments and whitespace in js code) as well as a CSS shrinking tool (which accomplishes the same goal ad the JS counterpart).
As for my layout, I've widened the website to 1000px, because how many people actually use monitors with a resolution less than that anymore? Even the new netbooks output wider res!
I've finally had some inspiration for a nice looking navigation too! I felt there is no need for the links to Tensioncore and Tensioncore.org as they were redundant anyways since they are on my sidebar already.
Finally the dreaded list of things todo is getting more realistic and my blog is starting to fall into my vision for creating a freeware blog project.
I intend to add some core functionality as: multiple picture uploading, possible fckeditor/tinymce post composing, directory listing with file edit capabilities, a php code shrinking page, and lastly on the major projects is to make a Blackberry App allowing you to post right from your berry without the use of a web browser!
I've already added some good code such as Image editing, post editing as well as some nice social bookmaking links on individual post pages.
Yesterday marked our first (and very successful) formal business trip. The trip consisted of Tom (my business partner in Tensioncore Design Studios), Janice (girlfriend/contributor) and myself.
We did a day trip to Victoria, traveling via Pacific Coach lines from Downtown Vancouver to Downtown Victoria. The trip started at about 2am when we had to take a nightbus from New Westminster to Downtown Vancouver in order to be there for a 5:30am boarding.
The traveling portion of the trip consisted of the bus going to Tsawassen for the first ferry at 7am, then from Swartz Bay to Victoria by 9:30am.
The ferry was smooth sailing and we actually arrived in Victoria at 9:15am. After a detour to the mall for coffee we had officially started our day in Victoria!
The intention of the trip was to take photos for design reference, as well as to develop the main storyline/plot of the game.
Over lunch at the mall we essentially flushed out the entire storyline of the game including the 2 main characters (yes I said 2), including all of the major details of the game which will set ours apart from the competition.
By the end of our day the trip was hugely successful including me taking almost 600 photos, a tour of Parliament, all of our main characters main locations were idealized, and a few major points of the game had been established.
We took a personal detour around 4pm to Beacon Hill and the beautiful shoreline and some nice pictures.
By 5 we were very happy with our accomplishments and we decided to call the day 2 hours early and opt to take the 5:45pm Bus back to Vancouver instead of the 7:45pm.
Hi, this post is going to cover my last month or so and the new fish tank I have.
This post has definitely not gone without some drama. Firstly, I've been meaning to get around to the blog for about 2 or 3 weeks now (and it constantly bogs my mind down when I think about it). Secondly, it's taken time to actually get to where I am now that I can comfortably write a meaningful post on a single subject, and well I could go on but I'm sure you get the picture.
Precisely, my new tank is an All-Glass 150 Gallon (Long) tank, with dimensions (in inches): 72W x 29T x 18D. This thing is made of half inch glass!
My room needed to be in dismay to accommodate the new tank:
The big guy takes up the whole corner of my room!
The tank sat there nicely with it's matching All-Glass lids for a week or so until I was able to finish my custom stand.
I built a custom stand do distribute the weight more evenly onto the floor since the total filled weight of the tank including the tank itself is nearly 1800lbs! Almost a Tonne of water and glass... now if I had a flimsy fish store stand, it would only cover 9 square feet on my floor, or about 200lbs per square foot!
I designed my custom stand to be at least 14 square feet (just a random number) and it ended up a completed size of just over 18 square feet, effectively doubling the square footage of just the tank, and easily halving the pounds per square foot (PSF) of weight to just under 100 PSF!
The stand:
The tank on the stand (empty):
Setting this tank up has been a lengthy process, and expensive process. Totally worth it.
A short break down of costs (not incl. taxes):
• Tank $600
• Matching lids $70
• Rena XP3 Filter about $150
• EHIEM Heater $60
• Wood for stand and a case of beer for my old Boss to use his shop for the weekend: $95 for wood, $25-12/cs btl Heineken
• 3 Bags of GEOSystem Substrate $75
• Flourescent lighting (2 x 36in GLO T5 double light fixtures) $350
• Discomfort during all of this priceless
So, all in all, when its all said and done, just under $1500 before taxes....about $1600 after.
Here's a neat picture (we were enjoying the first filling of the tank during the Canucks game 6 of their first round against LA):
And finally it's permanent resting place (sans-dirt/fish):
I've entirely ignored my blog over the last two months, unintentionally of course, but there's a reason; I've been busy with my business.
Being an entrepreneur is certainly everything proverbs make it out to be. Its a 25 hour a day job. It would benefit from 8 day weeks. It's tiring, but if you're dedicated and true it's 100% worth every late night, every drop of coffee and every penny you put into it.
Personally, I wouldn't trade my decision to start my own business for anything. This year is the start of something big for me. It has come fast, however I was prepared for it.
Tireless nights kept me way from blogging, but now I'm seeing trends in my work habits so I'm going to start working on a schedule. No exceptions. Doing things this way is the only way I will stick to self imposed deadlines as well as deadlines of clients.
And now I find myself amidst my first planned advertising/marketing campaign which will be a month or more of full work days and late nights.
Again, I wouldn't trade it for anything. So as a message to anyone with a good idea, if you are thinking of starting your own business: stop thinking and start it!
Expect consistent postings from me from now on too.
Nickness