February 8, 2010

Today I spent some time building a virtual network including a working windows 2003 server DNS setup with active directory. This has to be one of the products that Microsoft has made in my opinion very nice to use. I know some people who really don't like it and would prefer if it was never used but really I like the way Active directory is set up and how it manages both the users and computers. One aspect I'm not keen on is it's desire to also be a DHCP server though if your using Active directory it's really not bad to use the DHCP either. I myself at home, even though I have a perfectly good router chose to use a Windows server VM to do both my DHCP and Active directory. I still have the router in use but I'm only using the built in firewall and it's wireless networking. I was having to much trouble with the DNS names not resolving properly because I couldn't make the changes necessary on the router. I could have set up a lightweight Linux server and used it with a basic setup using LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) and I probably would have if I didn't have the copy of windows server available. Now I'm running Windows Server 2000 and I would like to upgrade at least to server 2003 but I can't afford the license for that product and that goes for server 2008 which would need it's own box to run on as it uses far to many resources. Windows server 2008 is a bit of a pig in my opinion and really not worth the extra money when windows 2003 still does an excellent job. For myself the windows 2000 domain I am running works fine too and it's nice not having to remember IP addresses for everything now that I have my own DNS server resolving names for me.

February 7, 2010

Once again my weekend has gone by so fast it was a complete blur. I would say I need a vacation but I know that too would be gone way to fast. The twins aren't making it any better either as they keep us so busy that our days are over before we know it. I think the only thing I remember form the day was the grocery store trip around 3:00pm. I only remember it because it was the first time we went shopping without using the stroller. We had the kids in these harnesses that holds them on the front of our chests facing outwards. The kids like it as they get the feeling of being out and about and we still have our hands free to do things. It seems rather sad that this stands out as the highlight of the day. It may be the highlight of the weekend now that it's almost over. Tomorrow it's back to the grind at work.

February 6, 2010

Tonight was the first night for me to look after the kids on my own where I had to both feed them dinner and put them down to bed. Amber was off at a dinner for Theresa's graduation and while I'm glad Amber was able to get out of the house tonight was by no means much fun when she walked out the door. I think both Tyler and Dylan new Amber was going out as they both were crying during there dinner. Tyler was in one of the bouncers while I was putting Dylan to bed and I could hear him crying down stairs. Dylan was completely beside himself from the feed to his wash and then after his last bottle which he didn't finish due to more screaming he collapsed in his bed and was asleep in less than 5 minutes. Tyler was a bit easier as once I retrieved him from down stairs he was smiling and happy and even went to bed without much fuss. Really it was the struggle to get Dylan fed and washed that was the most tiring work. I really hope that it will get easier as with Amber heading back to work I'll have more nights where I'm looking after them.

February 5, 2010

Over the years most of us look back and say we wish we had invested in some product or another when it first came out. Microsoft, Apple and IBM are but three of the many technology companies I could name and now I have another one. Years ago when I first started to dabble with Linux I used one of two virtualisation technologies to allow me to run Windows 98 in a virtual machine on my Linux box. The two different companies were Vmware and Win4Lin. These two companies took two different approaches as to how to run a virtual machine on top of Linux and though one, to me ran much better only one of the companies really took off while the other seems to be struggling. Vmware is now a large player in the virtualization game and I use there products for a lot of the work I do at my job and at home. Way back 15 or so years ago I liked what Win4Lin was doing as their virtualization technology ran, to me, smoother and faster and better. Now I couldn't tell you what there product is like to use. Win4Lin started off letting us download the software to try it out then they changed their business name to Netravers and no longer let the trial software out. Vmware continued to release trial software for free and this to me was one of the smarter moves they made. The other smart move was Vmware also released a Windows product knowing that it would be a brilliant tool in the future as processors got faster and memory got cheaper. Win4Lin has eventually changed their name back from Netravers and to look at the WEB site now would make one think that business isn't booming. Vmware, well lets just say they are the darlings of the virtualization world right now, beating out Microsoft and Citrix. If I had only had the foresight to invest back then when I new too that this was going to be an important chapter in the computing world. Even now Vmware gives out free software knowing that the product is good, not perfect but good and it's the free stuff that helps to sell the paid for products. I'm sure the Win4Lin product is still very good but it's the free trial I can no longer get that stops me from investigating it any longer especially with new virtual players at the door including free ones from Microsoft and Sun. Still wishing I had bought those Vmware shares though.

February 4, 2010

I had my first jumping lesson since Christmas today and both Big and I started off really badly. We weren't fighting and Big wasn't in a bad mood, it was more like we had forgotten what we were doing. It was still fun and Big really seems to like it so over all despite our rustiness we still had a great lesson. This will also be the last lesson we take in the evenings as we are far to pressed for time. The next lesson we have will be next Saturday morning and every Saturday morning after that. I may have to switch once and a while with Amber so she can take some lessons too but we'll have to see what she want's to do with that. It may turn out we switch and do every second Saturday each. Once the kids are older and we can afford to have the nanny look after them on the weekends for a couple of hours we might be able to start taking lessons together again which to me would be great. I liked having our lessons together.

February 3, 2010

I was looking online at some servers today and found one in particular that was actually reasonable in price for what I would want. I of course would need at least two of them though so that brings the price up. These servers were Dell power edge 2850 series and had two dual core processors and they were only around $400 us each. Now I don't have the money for them so I won't be buying them any time soon but I do think when the time comes I should be able to find something for a reasonable price. I also have been lucky enough to have set up one of these servers and know what they can do. A new server with the minimum specifications like this would normally cost around $1400 to $2000 each so this is a bargain. The biggest downfall to them is the SCSI hard drives, which though reliable are usually rather small in size. The drives are also not cheep unless you buy used and then you aren't sure what you're getting in a hard drive. Still this set up would allow me to run at least 4 WEB servers and with two physical servers I could get the redundancy.

Right now I am using sata drives which are cheaper and larger but I don't get the same hot swappable support. This has been something I can live with as the outage to change a drive is minimal due to the fact that I use Virtual machines for most of the work and they are easier to backup and restore. My ideal configuration would be a 2u server, with two quad core processors, at least 16gb of memory each and sas drives. I suppose I should explain 2u and what sas is though now and possible sata, this will have to be another post though. For now I'll just say the sas drives are smaller cousins of the old scsi drives and like them are true hot swappable drives plus they are half the size so you can fit more of them into the server.

I'll stop there as most people reading this will either have fallen asleep or just been plain lost in what I'm talking about.

February 2, 2010

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate driving.  Of all the things guys are supposed to enjoy this ranks as one of my least favorites,  I still prefer it to watching hockey. The big difference is that unlike Hockey I have to drive. I can't get to work or get groceries or do most of my shopping unless I drive.  It's this that  makes me wish I could get a home WEB business off the ground so I could work from home.  I actually do think that getting people to purchase server space from me to run their WEB pages might not be such a bad idea. This is of course until I start to think about the actual network connection I would require as well as the redundant servers I would need. Small scale servers I can do and my limited bandwidth is even workable in the short term. The largest hurdle would be off site redundancy.  Ideally the off site location should be in another part of the city though another city is really the ideal.  After thinking it through and realizing how much money it might cost to start I usually decide is easier to just drive to work.  I still don't like it but it is easier, for now.

February 1, 2010

There has been a lot of press lately o the new device Apple just released. The new device called I-pad is to me a large for of their already successful I-pod touch. There is a part of me that can appreciate this new device but at the same time a part of me is disappointed and found it to be a bit lacking. What I was hoping for was probably more like a laptop in horse power and the graphics capabilities too. Neither of these things are there. Compared to one of the e-readers on the market  it wins to me hands down but compare it to an inexpensive laptop and well I think I'll take the netbook or laptop. The lack of a high definition screen or the ability to plug in a keyboard and it looses more appeal to me again. Everything this can do I can do with a laptop. The only benefit is perhaps the superbly engineered user interface with the touch screen. I would still find it hard to justify this new device as I already have an I-phone and usually find myself wishing I had a laptop to use when out and about. One of the major lacking components is the lack of support for flash and java.  The modern day web has these two things everywhere yet Apple has left them out perhaps in waiting for the new HTML standard to becomer reality.  I do like the idea of the device but I think I wanted more and considering this is from Apple I find myself disappointed.