You're Amelia!
You're late!
Amelia Pond! You're the little girl!
I'm Amelia, and you're late.

Sunday, May 31

Geek

I Think It May Just Be Time For A Reboot

18:25:45 up 518 days, 12:28

I've had servers run that long before, or nearly so, but that's not bad.  But it is starting to show some odd errors - lost database connections, errors starting threads, that sort of thing - that just haven't happened before.

If it gets any worse I'll reboot the server, but first I'll see about getting everything set up on Akane.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Cool

One And The Same

Don't blame me.  Blame Pat Robertson.


Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:25 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Geek

Bleh, Foo

Connection to database lost?

It's not supposed to do that - ever.

Don't know why it's decided to fall apart right now.  Maybe it knows I'm setting up the new server today.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Saturday, May 30

Anime

K-On! Is Awesome

That is all.
more...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:43 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Cool

Thanks, Microsoft!

No, really.

Microsoft have a program called BizSpark that offers free development tools and server software to small web startups.

I'm a small web startup.  I'm about as small a web startup as you can find.  And while I'm not sure I want to move away from Python, I could use IronPython and have access to all the other Visual Studio languages - so I could easily import modules written in C# or IronRuby or whatever.

And SQL Server 2008 has some attractive advantages over MySQL, and can be licensed quite cheaply for web applications.

But I wasn't going to spend a lot of time, effort, and money testing out the Microsoft platform when open source was working pretty well.  Microsoft knows this, so they set up BizSpark to remove one of those factors completely.

SoftLayer is now a BizSpark partner, which made it really easy for me to apply.  So I did.  And today my application was approved.

Now I just have about three metric tons of stuff to download.  They are very generous.  I currently have Visual Studio Express installed - it's the free edition, but it gives you access to a pretty decent set of tools for basic development.  Now I have access to so many different versions of their enterprise-level development tools that I don't know where to start.

Whether and how I use the software remains to be seen.  I do want to write a desktop client as a companion to Minx, so that seems to be the place to start.  But in any case, I have to thank Microsoft for giving me access to all this stuff.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:21 AM | Comments (12) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Monday, May 25

Geek

You Know What's Cool?

We're virtualised now.  I'll never have to do another messy server move.  When we get the next server (which could be quite a while, since Akane has a much better upgrade path than our previous servers), all I need to do is set up OpenVZ (or Virtuozzo) on the new system, copy the container across, and then on the day of the move, stop the old container, do an rsync update, and start it up on the new server.

A few things broke because of CPanel overwriting configuration files, or version changes of underlying software, or moving from 32-bit to 64-bit.  Next time, none of that will happen.

Really!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:45 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Saturday, May 23

Blog

Two Removes Are Equal To One Fire

Moving mu.nu into its new home right now.

I've reached the quiet spot between frantic preparation and even more frantic bug-fixing, where the files are doing their final update.  Back to panic mode in 3... 2...

All finished!  Not too much pain involved, either.  Just waiting for the DNS changes to roll out now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:36 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Sunday, May 17

Geek

Just An Observation

The CPanel installer is as crazy as a bedbug.

It actually works four times out of five.  But reading the log files it creates will give you the impression that not only has it failed, it's crashed your server and the two adjacent servers and set the rack on fire.

Update: It installs 2.6GB of stuff.  Or in one case, 3.1GB.  I'm reinstalling that one.

My favourite part of the whole install process is this:
!! If you  want to create a support ticket with cPanel regarding this please reference 'BuildAP Report Id': '2035297' !!
Stopping portmap: [FAILED]
inetd: no process killed
Shutting down kernel logger: [PASSED]
sendmail: no process killed
open3: exec of /etc/rc.d/init.d/exim stop failed at ./install line 1049
open3: exec of /etc/rc.d/init.d/exim start failed at ./install line 1049
open3: exec of /etc/rc.d/init.d/proftpd start failed at ./install line 1049
If you are getting an "undefined catalog error", please run:
Found hostname to be azusa.mu.nu, which resolves to 174.37.121.36
initfpsuexec: using apache 2.x support
error reading information on service proftpd: No such file or directory
error reading information on service exim: No such file or directory
error reading information on service cpanel: No such file or directory
error reading information on service bandmin: No such file or directory
Starting sshd: [  OK  ]
Cannot open /etc/chkserv.d at /scripts/restartsrv_exim line 99.
What this means is that the main install has completed succsessfully and it's now configuring Apache and PHP.

But you knew that already, right?  After all, if you wanted to indicate success, a string of neon-green boldface messages that use the word "failed" four times and "error" five times would be your first choice.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:00 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Cool

Mountain Ranges 'R' Us

I just bought 5GB of content for Bryce, the terrain-modelling and 3D-rendering program.  I've hardly touched Bryce since I bought it on sale late in 2007* but I do have a nice new quad-core system with a teraflop graphics card to run it on if I ever find the time.

So, you ask, if I never use the program, why did I buy all that content?

Well, it was 95% off.**

* Or indeed, when I first bought it way back in...  Whenever version 4 came out.

** Individual list price is over $700, discounted price is $50, Platinum Club member price is $35, and I had my monthly $5 voucher, so only $30 in the end.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:11 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Saturday, May 16

Life

Eating Mice

Anyway, I'm going to try a new recipe tonight - teriyaki beef with snow peas on jasmine rice.  Was going to use lamb, but there was no appealing-looking diced lamb at the supermarket this evening.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:28 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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