JohnA lifeBlog

I am still sick. The flu sucks. At least my fever is gone.

So, for a lesson on how not to run a server company, read on!

At around 10:30 last night, the RainbowKids server went down. I opened a ticket, and heard back an hour later that there was an issue. Then, another tech chimed in saying that our server was offline because of non-payment.

The funny thing is that I faxed in paperwork allowing them to automatically charge my card. It turns out that they switched payment services, and that we had to re-register with the new one. They didn’t call, or send a letter. Just an e-mail.

Well, this made me angry, and after I expressed my displeasure, the tech said that he sent someone to plug the server back.

Only it wouldn’t boot.

It turns out that when they disconnected the server, they simply unplugged the power cable from the wall. No shutdown, nothing. Just unplugged it.

When they tried to start it back up, surprise! The main filesystem was corrupted! That’s what happens when you unplug a database-intensive application without any notice.

So, several rebuild attempts later, the server is back up and running. And I got to spend 9 hours (from 11pm to 8am) working instead of sleeping!

I used to highly recommend ServerCove as a great hosting company, but after this fiasco, I seriously doubt I’ll make the mistake of sending them business again.

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So… how much of a geek are you? I scored 29% - Total Geek… I was mildly disappointed with that result.

Let me know what you score!

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Oh goody. Microsoft is planning to break IE rather than fix a long outstanding bug.

According to this NetCraft news report, Microsoft is planning to remove support for usernames in URLs. It is widely believed they are taking this action because they refuse to fix a serious bug in IE that allows people easily spoof URLs, making people think they are visiting one site when they are really visiting another. To try it out, click here to visit Microsoft.com.

Microsoft even links to the RFC they break from their knowledgebase article.

If any of you are still using IE as your primary browser, please consider switching to something more secure. It’s for your own good.

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Here’s a neat take on trivia…

Basically, it’s a 100 question trivia challenge that changes its difficulty based on the average ability of the contestants to answer each question correctly.

Make sense? No? Well, try it anyway.

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Hmm… on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t post that…

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Bill Clinton only sent two e-mails during his presidency… and one was a test message.

Amazing that the man who signed the DMCA with much pomp & circumstance had no idea what he was doing. Great legacy, Bill.

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Man I hate being sick.

Long weekend… not a very good one, either.

I’m making a lot of progress with RainbowKids.

I hate being lonely.

Oh. My friend Drew put pictures of his new super-cool house online. He says he is going to start a blog. Be sure to pester him about that.

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I am going to take this opportunity to glow about my new favorite band, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones.

I first heard them on Conan, and thought they were pretty sweet. I then went and downloaded (using the ever popular KaZaa Lite) some of their songs, and began to enjoy them even more.

I have since bought two of their collections: Little Worlds, and Live Art using some gift cards I received for Christmas. Wow… talk about amazing talent.

They are basically a fusion Jazz / Bluegrass group… hard to describe I know, so you should check out the free MP3 download at Amazon.com. You won’t be disappointed.

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My favorite Linux distribution is Gentoo, but for those who are new to Linux, Gentoo may be a bit too much to bite off at once.

I am pleased to report that the latest version of Xandros is now available, and it finally a viable Windows replacement. ExtremeTech has a particularly glowing review of the new version posted online.

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Regardless of how you feel about Apple, anyone with a sense of history knows why January 24th, 2004 is an important milestone in computer history. It is the 20th anniversary of the release of the Macintosh computer.

The Merc News has reprinted their original Macintosh article, and it’s fascinating to see how they have to offer descriptions for now commonplace hardware, such as a mouse.

The Mac introduced some serious competition into the market, and we are all beneficiaries of the resulting innovation.

Oh, and you can see a slightly updated version of what is considered the most important Super Bowl ad in history, too…

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