Man, this week has been difficult. We've had a few server issues with work clients, and I've been playing around with my own servers, and it's just been a mess that I'm hoping will be in the past come next week. But I've learned some lessons, and I figure I might as well pass them on because people are apparently still buying hosting from really bad places.
What do I need? This is the most basic question you need to start asking yourself before you even hunt for hosts. Having some idea of your demands, both from a technical perspective and a logistical perspective can save you some pain in the future. Here are some really basic considerations:
Shared/VPS/Dedicated -- What level of hosting you choose will depend on the types of service you intend to run and the affordability of storage space. Shared hosting is for small, single, low-traffic installations, like a single blog or a low-traffic forum. VPS hosting allows you to interact with the server configuration directly, to host more complex applications and more of them. Dedicated hosting gives you full control over what runs on your system, plus often includes dedicated storage that is many times what you'd get from the other options. But there are more things to consider....
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On this day in 1999, we were sipping free champagne on a flight between Amsterdam and New Delhi to celebrate our first wedding anniversary.
I was working at Kruse at the time, and our off-shore contractor wanted us to come visit and have some personal contact with the team. The ramp-up for the visit was quick - only two weeks, which was quite possible in the days before 9/11. When it was decided that I would be going on the trip and the date was picked, the question was essentially, "Got anything going on that week?" And my answer - "Just my first wedding anniversary."
I have the impression that sending your wife with you on a week-long business trip around the world because it was during your first wedding anniversary is not something that most employers would do. Mine did....
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Ugh, shopping in the rain is awful.
At the bulk club store, I picked up a few much needed supplies for our holiday bash: A veggie tray with dip, a four-pack of Rutger Hauer movies, a bulk box of Chex mix, and a case of Yuengling lager. I didn't notice that the rain had started until I had left the store without an umbrella.
Stepping upon the sidewalk, I noticed the gang of surly parking lot attendants. Their job - gather the carts from the irate holiday customers and stack them neatly where incoming shopper could find them. These particular attendants take their job way too seriously during the holiday shopping season. If they find your cart empty for any reason, they'll take it from you and stow it away inside the store for incoming shoppers. I was only lucky enough to find one of the miniature carts, on which I had been precariously piling my purchases as I was shopping....
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Santa was putting the finishing touches on his official "naughty or nice" list this year when something terrible happened! The magic snowball that tells him who's been good went on the fritz!
With Winter Warlock on vacation in the Bahamas, there was not time to get it repaired. Fortunately, there were only three children left on the list who did not have a checkmark in the good or bad column, and they were all siblings in the Smith household.
And so, Alice, Bob, and Carl Smith received a surprise visit from some elves in late November, as this is when the trouble first arose....
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Nana is on vacation this week, so Berta is home with the kids and sleeping in late. This means I can sleep in a little, but it has caused some issues with our alarm clock.
The most aggravating thing with our alarm clock in the new house is that it seems very loud. Combined with the size of our new bedroom, and the "across the room" philosophy of forcing someone to get out of bed to turn off the alarm, I'm sure that the neighbors hear our alarm for a good 20 seconds before someone turns it off.
Our current alarm actually has two separate alarm times. Each of the alarms has a different chirp pattern and pitch. This is interesting because at the old house we had always used one alarm for Berta and one for me, and although Berta's alarm went off before mine, I wouldn't wake up for it. I suspect that's due to me becoming conditioned to respond to only one of the two alarm sounds.
I've read a bit about alarms that gradually get louder when they go off, instead of creating an ear drum-piercing siren at the onset. And perhaps instead of a chirping siren, the alarm should use music or some other noise to gently wake us us. Maybe this is also the solution to the neighbors being affected by our alarm.
But while I'm thinking about improving my alarm clock, let's go completely high-tech. more
