Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

VPS move: done, finally!

by

I am happy to report that while moving this blog gave me a few bad moments, WordPress did not actually kick my ass. The blog now even has its very own Rottweiler-themed subdomain!

The old URL links and forwards to this one, and I’ve updated the RSS feed and (hopefully) all of the directories and networking sites where we have listings.

Since the old servers were still running PHP 4 and one was still running Apache 1.3, and this one is running PHP 5 and Apache 2.2, I expect there are still a few things out there that will need fixing once we find them.

But for now, everything seems like it is going pretty well. Yay, me! Yay, WiredTree!

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 5 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 132 of 274)

VPS move: almost done, finally!

by

Yes, I know, it’s taking me long enough considering I started back on Memorial Day weekend.

There was a flurry of activity at work which took up much of my time during the week following the holiday. Plus I was almost paralyzed into inaction by reading about some of the bad experiences that some people had while migrating their sites to new servers, mostly involving PHP scripts and MySQL databases: various guestbook programs (three sites featuring guestbooks, two of which feature rather large guestbooks going back quite some time, whose owners would want to die, or want me to die, should they be lost to time), various gallery programs (two of these, one MySQL-based and one with a flat-file database), and of course, WordPress.

I have come to believe that at least a few of the unhappy people did not read any instructions or tutorials, or else read the bad tutorials (my God, are there a lot of crappy tutorials out there or what), as everything I had responsibility for is now happily residing on the new server. The old Gallery 1 gave me a bad hour of fixing paths and links to graphics programs on the server, but Gallery 2 and the guestbooks went over willingly and required only some extremely simple edits of the various config files.

I’m still singing the praises of WiredTree technical support. I didn’t have too many questions that fell into their area, because I do not think technical support is supposed to take care of my personal panic attack after reading all those bad experience stories. The one big question I had (activating PHP 4 for just one or two domains) was very important and was answered practically before I could blink.

Tomorrow I move this wonderful WordPress blog. I have a feeling that WordPress is about to kick my ass, so think good thoughts for me!

(NaBloPoMo | June ‘09: 4 of 30 | 75% Challenge: 131 of 274)

Good stuff, bad stuff

by

Good stuff: Switching over DNS for the domains on the new VPS went well. I remain impressed with WiredTree. I may not have mentioned yesterday that they are local to me. Downtown Chicago location, local tech support, not outsourced. Life is good.

Next week I will be moving most of the personal domains, and strangely enough, that is going to probably be more complicated than moving the company domain. The personal domains have things like guestbooks (I know, I know. I don’t do guestbooks for my own domains, but some people still want and like them. Not me personally, but I don’t judge) and photo galleries. I have this blog and a couple of others. So there are quite a few MySQL databases to move. The company website doesn’t currently include a blog or forum, so there was no MySQL to deal with yesterday or today. I don’t think I’m going to have an issue with PHP versions (maybe on one domain) but you never know.

Bad stuff: Spammers finally found this blog. It was sporadic up until the last couple of weeks, but since then it’s been a daily occurrence. No real comments here in a day or so, but the spam from jagoff spammers from foreign countries continues. Screw you all, foreign spammers, and yay for Akismet, without which the issues of keeping up with spam killing would be much more onerous.

More bad stuff: Some of the jagoffs who live in this neighborhood truly make me sick. I really do like some of my neighbors. I won’t say I actively wish harm upon the others. There is that Clarence Darrow quote I’ve always liked, though:

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

There ya go!

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 16 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 112 of 274)

Quick progress report

by

I keep falling asleep while attempting to tag and categorize. Maybe my blog is even more boring than I originally thought.

I want to take a moment to say a good word for WiredTree. I am moving my company’s domain to a VPS at WiredTree. This move started late Friday afternoon in order to minimize website, FTP site and particularly email downtime during business hours. I ordered the server online at about 4:30PM. I received a phone call to confirm my order about 40 minutes later, shortly before I left work.

The sales rep estimated that the server would be provisioned in a “couple of hours.” It was! I received the welcome email around 7:00PM. After supper, I uploaded website files and created email accounts prior to switching over DNS. The introductory documentation and knowledge base provided were great. My only issue was self-inflicted because I didn’t read the entire introductory document first.

I still had one question and just put in a support ticket a little while ago. Note the time of the post. I got a response in about 10 minutes, while I was writing this. Very impressed so far with what seems to truly be 24/7 support!

Tomorrow I switch over DNS and hopefully I don’t screw that up. This VPS will have only two domains on it initially (our company’s domain and that of a partner’s family member) so if I manage to screw that up I should probably look for another type of work.

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 15 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 111 of 274)

If I disappear off the face of the ‘net (20 of 30/86 of 274)

by

It has been nasty and rainy in a most un-springlike way all day. The Rottweilers have endured a second straight day of being cooped up indoors due to that nasty weather, and they are literally bouncing off the furniture. The grace and form of my 110-lb. dog as he takes a flying leap off the couch would be impressive if he were destroying someone else’s living room.

I am working on moving some of the domains I am responsible for into shiny new homes, and also working on a slight repositioning and redesign of this blog. If I seem to disappear off the face of the ‘net at any time, don’t be too alarmed. I promise I’ll be back someday!