Tag Archives: server

Small Business Opportunities

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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

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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!

April Fools

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Nearly 2 months ago I posted about what I had planned to do to my brother-in-law (see http://bananabiter.wordpress.com/2009/02/06/miley-miley-miley/). Now I’m going to run through briefly what happened.

At Kelly’s suggestion I changed his desktop background to one of the pictures used, this worked amazingly well to lure him in, as the first thing he did (after yelling my name in annoyance ;-)) was open firefox to google images to find something to replace it with.

This was met with “what the…”‘s from Matt, and laughter and high-fives all around from me, Kelly, and Matt’s friend Gary who was in the room also. Matt quickly saw the funny side and started laughing, pulling up Youtube and MySpace to see how they looked as well. I think the best quote from the evening was “That is probably the best April Fools prank I’ve ever seen. I’m calling Will!”

I was also credited as having “Probably the most creative” joke he’d ever observed. All around a good 15 minutes of fun, and I lived to go to choir practice (remind me not to agree to singing with them again..).

Maintenance

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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 😉

IPv6: The Way Of The Future

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Tonight I set up IPv6 on my home network. While it feeds a house of 5, only 1 will notice any difference whatsoever!

Basically I loaded the IPv6 HomeBrew customization for SmoothWall (See the forums at community.smoothwall.org), and got myself an IPv6 block (/64) assigned and a tunnel to use it through (see Hurricane Electric, or TunnelBroker). I’ve set up Yoda (smoothwall), Telly (Debian) and Big Bird (macbook) to use IPv6 addresses and so far everything works wonderfully. It still relies on my router as a SPOF, but they have their own world-accessable IP(v6) addresses. I guess I should work on firewalls etc..

If anyone is interested in testing my IPv6 IRC server, it’s linked to the United Christian Chat Network and is accessible at ipv6.i-al.net! (6667 for standard, 6697 for SSL)

Slowdom

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I haven’t updated this week, mostly because I’ve been busy with a server move – My VPS provider decided to move from a server with ThePlanet to a server with Limestone Networks, and so I’ve been setting up email servers and the like on the new box.

So, what is new with Zeke and I-aL?

DailySerene.com is now down to Monday/Wednesday/Friday updates owing to lack of contributions. If you have serene pictures that you would like to share, share! Don’t be afraid of rejection, and don’t worry if you don’t have your own photo website to advertize.

I’m starting work on a photoblog, to share photos that may already be up at DS, but also those that aren’t necessarily appropriate for DS.

UCCN got a twitter account yesterday, and followed several of it’s regular chatters. It’s displaying what they’re doing at UnitedChristianChat.net.

I finished House Season 2 the other day, and about to start episode 6 of Season 3.

Kelly should be home about as it ends, and with Coke! Yay!!

Rizzo

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Tonight I started the process of renting a VPS (Virtual Private Server – in short it’s a server on the internet). To be named Rizzo, it will fit in with my muppet-names nicely.

Plans? Nothing specific. Mostly vague surrounding eggdrop shells, and web/mail hosting. Will also be hosting two IRCd’s, one on each of the networks I help admin. I’ll also shut down the IRCd on Telly.

The VPS will be running Debian, and I’m looking at writing a control panel for webhosting at least.

In other news, I started working on my ticket system for fault management etc again, this evening was mostly consumed in that area with drawing diagrams on paper and playing with the XML-RPC functions in PHP. Still trying to decide how to do user authentication and security options and such, but that all runs through a security function (which returns ‘yes’ or ‘no’, depending on whether the user has access or doesn’t, respectively) so would be trivial to change to LDAP or a proprietery authentication system. If I write a control panel, it’ll likely use the same database, and I’d try to tie in with FTP and such for user-accounts on the VPS too.

So, if you’re interested in webhosting (with or without domain) or an eggdrop/BNC (no interesting vhosts, sorry) account, let me know. They won’t be free, sorry.