Small Business Opportunities

So I sat in church this morning doing calculations in a notebook. Basically I was conducting a basic viability study towards becoming a VPS/VDS provider. Turns out it could actually work out on a 2/3rds full server. The problem is actually getting a server with the specs required, and I’ve found one from one provider. Would be nice to have expansion options outside of that one ISP.

In short, I need a 64-bit server (Dual or Quad core probably) with 8GB RAM and at least a 750GB hard disk, and 64 IP addresses.

This will host 30 VPS’s with 2 IP’s each, 256MB RAM and 20GB Hard disk space with room for some to upgrade.

I also need it to cost around $200-250/mo (the best deal I’ve found so far is $241/mo).

My other option is to build a server and colocate it. This would put my setup costs through the roof, but would possibly be a cheaper monthly cost. The other downside would be that if parts fail, it’s my responsibility unlike a rented dedicated server.

Meantime I will keep looking and continue working on a business plan, also working on various ways to fund the venture.

For more information, see here.

Quiet Day

We’re kinda hanging in the family room, Crash, Kelly and I. We’re watching Family Feud on TV, the Porter family are playing the final game. Oop, they just lost, getting 159 points (needed 200 to get $20,000).

I’m also talking to a friend who has a DVD of photos of his son, from newborn through the first year that he is trying to recover. It isn’t going well.

Kelly just moved to the other chair beside Crash, and he started trying to chew the blanket she’s wearing to keep warm. She’s not doing too well, has a sore throat. She really enjoys the look on his face when she pats him on the nose with a rope toy and hums a tune. We’re working especially to train him out of mouthing/biting people, and we’ll also be working in the next few days training him to not jump up on people when he’s excited (or at all, really).

Just took him out to ‘potty’ and he peed, but hasn’t pooped for a while. Now he’s kinda ignoring lunch in favour of laying beside the chair and licking himself. So far he has acquired at least 6 names or variations on names, all of them in the first 3 days. Crash, Chase, Crush, Crash Taylor, Chuck, Trash.. as well as the obvious ones like Pup and Puppy.

I’ve given myself a coding project for the afternoon, after I retrieve the power pack for the macbook. It’ll be a whois and status facility for UCCN, which will begin our web-integration with IRC. The first will be a web form that queries whether a nickname is online, and if so returns normal public information about them (their hidden host name, public channels, etc). The second will be a status image that returns ‘online’ or ‘offline’ depending on whether the user is online or not (duh..). Both will be dependent on the SQL database from Denora, and will probably also utilize the SQL database from Anope for Nickserv aliases/groups. It will detect if someone is online but not using their primary nickname.

I also need to work on the web interface for Supportive, and will be developing an improved version of the java.php @ www.unitedchristianchat.net/java/java.php, both in look and in function.

So, I shall stop blogging nothingness and go get my power pack!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Dear WordPress,

There were another 7 or 8 paragraphs to this post which disappeared. I’ll fix it later. I’m not happy.

Zeke.

———–

Dear Diary,

I didn’t really do a whole lot today, but this has become the norm over the last few months. Last night I set my alarm for 9:30am, and snoozed it twice, awakening at around 9:45ish to turn it off through it’s second 9-minute round.

———–

Let’s try this again..

———–

Dear Diary,

I didn’t really do a whole lot today, but this has become the norm over recent months. Last night I set my alarm for 9:30am and snoozed it twice, waking at around 9:45am to turn if off half way through its 9-minute round.

Upon awakening, I was able to log in and check my emails, and began the conversion from DV tape to PC the footage from last nights Battle of the Bands concert, where my brother-in-law did play.

I apologize, dear Diary, as the internet connection is particularly slow, owing to the upload of aforementioned video footage to YouTube. I’m sure it will be available for viewing shortly. I must say, my dearest Diary, that I was not pleased when two of the band members berated me at midnight (with a headache, no less!) with regards to my recording of their performance and its availability for their viewing! I was very pleased when my brother-in-law ushered them out of my room and out of the house shortly afterward!

I was also able to accomplish some small programming work today, and Diary, you’ll be glad to know, it was entirely successful. Primarily bug fixes on my Support Ticket system, I also fixed the remote panel for UCCN’s dynamic remote include (which wasn’t giving link blocks to the client servers!).

I found great amusement, my dear Diary, from sitting in the IRC channel for Data center and server-host Sharktech. It seems they failed to adequately configure or test their new routing equipment before placing it in a live environment, much to the dismay of their clients and customers! Many a complaint has been laid as their customers servers have consistently dropped over the last 18 hours (and counting).

I am certain that you, dearest Diary, will also be as disgusted as I when you learn that at least two data centers were raided by the FBI with no warning, little evidence and less investigation. The tale of those are here and here. While I agree that raids should be conducted in conjunction with an investigation, my dear Diary, I must believe that investigations should have valid and usable evidence and be run by people with knowledge and qualification with regard to what they are investigating!

After lunch (a Strawberry and Banana flavored Low-fat yoghurt), I went with my wife and her brother and mother to the Salvation Army store, where we looked at clothes and such, as well as to a local hardware store to collect an additional two strawberry plants for their garden. I also learned that my sister-in-law is likely getting a beagle to live with them also, and it shall certainly be an interesting time at their house. I understand I shall be able to meet the puppy tomorrow when the family gathers for a cookout. I’m uncertain of the cause or occasion, although I will also be losing the majority of my hair also. I hear my wife has several ideas for photographs to be taken of my hair as it is removed, and I shall ensure they are available for you to view at a later date, my dear Diary.

I just remembered, I applied for another Information Technology job today, a local university is looking for a User Support Specialist, for which I placed a formal application upon returning from the stores. My father-in-law found it in the newspaper while we were venturing, and presented it upon our arrival home. I also await a return phone contact from the camp to which I applied to be a counselor during the summer. Another possibility to consider later in the year, is one Ethan suggested on Thursday evening, whereby he helps another camp by providing high-ropes assistance, and asked if I would be interested in joining him in the Fall. It is certainly an adventure I would enjoy, I shall have to reconsider it closer to the time with regards to my schedule.

I believe that is all, dearest Diary, although I have probably forgotten something during the second-round posting of this entry, the first forever lost in the emptiness that is the Internet. So my dear Diary, I shall close a second time today, and leave you to your quiet mulling of my pointless words. Until I write again, be safe, my dear Diary, and await my return with further uselessness.

Yours,

Zekey.

Maintenance

Today was the go-live for the new Christian-IRC.com and UnitedChristianChat.net sites. Everything seemed to go fine, and the old UCCN site was re-themed as a support site. In the next few weeks I’ll be writing a bunch of new stuff in PHP/JavaScript to help out with webmasters and such.

I also did a bunch of .htaccess redirect rules, and I was able to delete a bunch of direcories and clean up the public_html folders too!

So, check out the new sites:

And now ends my shameless plugging 😉

Web Design

I reminded myself yesterday and today how much I enjoy, and how much I hate webdesign.

I guess thats why all my site designs are simple as poop, make it work and then plug it with PHP, and then make it work with the PHP.

This weekend saw two new sites for the United Christian Chat network – one for unitedchristianchat.net, and one for christian-irc.com (a subsidiary).

I did one entirely on my own, and Ed helped us out by doing the C-IRC one, though it was graphiced for UCCN and I’ve updated/changed the wording on the images.

I played around with Gimp doing them, and was pleasantly surprised compared with my previous experiences with anything photoshop-like. In fact, most of my problems were CSS side rather than graphic design.

They aren’t live as yet, we still have a few minor changes to make, but here are some screenshots to wet your appetites:

uccn
circ1

UCCN on the top, obviously, and C-IRC on the bottom

thePortal

I started work late last night on my 4th concurrent coding project, something I’ve been thinking about for a loong time and it was brought up by Ninex on chat again, confirming that it isn’t a bad idea.

It needs a lot more integration with things, ideally it’ll probably work a lot better once Anope supports real-time SQL. For now it just feeds of the statistics database.

So, check out http://chat.i-al.net/portal/. and tell me what you think!

The final product is intended to have configurable colors, background images, header images, as well as channel-owner-configured ‘about us’ information. There’ll also be a few statistics blocks available, and possibly logging on request? Unsure at this point how to make it integrate!

Give Us, This Day, Our Daily Serenity

So, for the last month or so my most recent project has been under fairly tight wraps. Partly for fear all the related domain names would be taken, and partly because I feared someone would take the idea as a whole.

No more shall I fear, as I launch a new website: The Daily Serene Image.

To quote myself:
Daily Serenity was an idea conceived by demigail in 2008. Made into a reality by Zeke in October of 2008, the site went public in the following month.

Accepting any images from both amateur and professional photographers alike, Daily Serenity survives photographically based on its contributors.

Every day a new image is randomly selected from the list of those available (having been screened and approved by administrators). A brief description provided by the photographer is displayed with the image, along with a link to the photographers website (where applicable).

Published images are also archived indefinitely, with a static link available for each one. All published images are also available for download, both in widescreen and standard versions. These are sized appropriately for use as desktop wallpaper/backgrounds.

What Daily Images will be needing is contributors to provide photos and images for the site. Registration is free, and while no payment is provided for images supplied or used, no payment is required either. The terms and conditions of uploads are available when registering to provide photos, and all photos are checked and approved before they will appear on the site.

Are you a photographer? Consider some free publicity by contributing some of your work to Daily Images. If the Daily Serene Image takes off, it may grow into multiple sites of a similar nature, covering different themes.

My New Wishlist

So, my wishlist has changed. I’d always passed off rackmount equipment for being too expensive compared to the equivelent tower cases etc. Seems it’s not as costly as I had imagined.

It will cost me approximately $3000 USD to acheive a setup similar to the one seen left. Talked to Kelly about it, and she supports it. (I think mostly because it is so clean and tidy!)

This is where it gets geeky:

A 4U case to house a new Windows based quadcore PC. Several gig of RAM and a 400GB hard disk, primarily will be used for audio and video editing, as well as gaming.

A 2U case to house most of the current PC (Athlon 3200+) with upgraded RAM and new hard disks. This will run Linux and function as a webserver, IRC server, and in-house file/print server.

A 1U case to house a new VIA-based firewall. Running an 80GB hard disk to store the cache for a transparent proxy, log files, and other more dynamic information. Primary operating system information will be on a read-only compact flash card.

2U will be taken with a rackmount UPS (probably APC, whatever is worthwhile but cheap at the time).

A 1U network switch, 10/100/1000Mbps, probably 16port (don’t need that many, but it’s as small as I can find rackmounted). Also a 1U patchpanel for the network, 24 port.

That accounts for 11U of rack-mounted storage. I would probably get a 16U case, to allow for future additions – possibly seperating the server into the two internal and external functions for security, or implementing a PABX (using asterisk) for internal house phones and such.

The $3000 budget also allows for 3 identical 20″ Widescreen 2ms LCD screens, 2 of which would attach to the Windows PC, the third would be KVM’d to the firewall and server (because I know I’ll need a monitor and keyboard for them at some point, and dragging things around isn’t ideal or tidy), as well as being available to plug into my laptop(s), or when repairing computers for friends etc.

This will leave me with a P4 3GHz server (still missing parts), a Celeron 2.4GHz desktop PC, a P3 866 smallform PC, and an empty ATX case. It’ll also leave me with 4 external drives (after purchasing 2 external cases for the drives presently in the 866 and the Athlon) – 2x 320GB and 2x 160GB – more than enough for good mobile storage.

I’ll likely upgrade the CPU in the celeron to the highest P4 it will take, add some RAM and give it use as a media PC, patched to the server for storage. I’d also like to rebuild in the then-empty ATX case a PC intended for mobile use, but a little gruntier than most laptops. Whether used for on-site video editing, or for media projection etc – this is not accounted for in the upgrades.

The $3000 covers:

  1. 1U, 2U and 4U cases for the PC, Server and Firewall/Router/Gateway
  2. New motherboards and CPU’s for PC and Firewall/Router/Gateway
  3. Hard disks for PC, Server, Firewall/Router/Gateway
  4. Memory for PC, Server, Firewall/Router/Gateway
  5. Compact Flash card and IDE2CF converter
  6. Graphics card for PC
  7. TV card for PC (to move to media center)
  8. Rack-mounted UPS
  9. Gigabit switch and patch panel
  10. Rack-mounting rails for cases
  11. Power supplies for un-PSU’d cases
  12. LCD Monitors
  13. 16U Rack-mount cabinet