I’ve been pretty busy with real life as I’m sure everyone is these days… over the summer you likely didn’t notice that the SSL certificate expired on this website. I eventually got around to manually renewing the Let’s Encrypt wildcard SSL certificate because I didn’t have time right then to dig into why my monthly cronjob wasn’t working properly. I realize I’m about 5 – 6 months late on this story but hey it’s my story for today.

It’s Friday and some much needed personal time off and since it’s raining outside I’m left to deal with anything that needs attention inside the house… having emptied all the mouse traps in the garage (that time of year here in Pennsylvania) and having already made my trip to the bank and to the DMV I’m left with digital maintenance – did I mention I built a new PC – no I didn’t did I, I really need to catch up on this blog.

Anyway, back to Let’s Encrypt and GoDaddy… upon digging into the code I find that the API call to GoDaddy is failing with the following message:

{"code":"ACCESS_DENIED","message":"Authenticated user is not allowed access"}

Interesting, let me see if GoDaddy expires the API key or secret like LinkedIn likes to-do, perhaps I’ll just regenerate them regardless. After a new API key and secret still no luck, even calling the API via cURL returns the same error message. A quick search of Google quickly reveals a few stories that cause some concern…

• GoDaddy ACCESS DENIED via API-Call
• GoDaddy no longer allows API access to clients (e.g. for DNS-based cert renewal) if you have less than 50 domains

It would seem that GoDaddy removed access via their API for smaller customers? They probably notified me and I just missed the email message, after all I’m pretty busy. Hmm… nope they didn’t notify me, seven years of email archives and nothing from GoDaddy about them restricting access to their API. I do have a message from them in March of 2022 asking if it was me setting up the original API key and secret. Disappointing but that seems to be the trend for 2024, vendor after vendor and don’t get me started on the Private Equity mess. For the record I have 7 domains with GoDaddy and have been using them since 2007.

I think it’s time to let my money do the talking, even if it requires more of my personal time than I have to offer – it’s really the only voice any of us have.

What do you think?

Cheers!

That all said life isn’t too hard and there are people much worse off than me.

The projects at work are starting still moving forward… we’re replacing a pair of aging Cisco Catalyst 6509s along with a pair of Cisco Nexus 5010 and 2148s (remember those).  And we’ll be rolling out another 10Gbps Internet link to keep up with the insatiable appetite for Internet bandwidth and cloud solutions.  With that additional Internet bandwidth we’ll also need to upgrade our firewalls to support 10Gbps interfaces so there’s no shortage of work to be done.

Cheers!

I quickly found that cURL was having issues connecting to https://forums.networkinfrastructure.info without any parameters;

[root@mars certs]# curl -v https://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/.xml/?type=rss
* About to connect() to forums.networkinfrastructure.info port 443 (#0)
*   Trying 162.243.40.10... connected
* Connected to forums.networkinfrastructure.info (162.243.40.10) port 443 (#0)
* Initializing NSS with certpath: sql:/etc/pki/nssdb
*   CAfile: /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
  CApath: none
* NSS error -5961
* Closing connection #0
* SSL connect error
curl: (35) SSL connect error

Initially I thought I had a certificate issue, concerned that either the GEO Trust root certificate and/or intermediate RapidSSL SHA256 certificate might be missing from /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt but I was able to quickly rule that problem out using the -k flag on cURL. I noticed that if I tell cURL to use TLS 1.2 then it can connect without issue;

[root@mars certs]# curl -v --tlsv1.2 https://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/.xml/?type=rss
* About to connect() to forums.networkinfrastructure.info port 443 (#0)
*   Trying 162.243.40.10... connected
* Connected to forums.networkinfrastructure.info (162.243.40.10) port 443 (#0)
* Initializing NSS with certpath: sql:/etc/pki/nssdb
*   CAfile: /etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
  CApath: none
* SSL connection using TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
* Server certificate:
*       subject: CN=forums.networkinfrastructure.info,OU=Domain Control Validated - RapidSSL(R),OU=See www.rapidssl.com/resources/cps (c)14,OU=GT54191003
*       start date: Jul 16 16:20:24 2015 GMT
*       expire date: Nov 26 12:10:44 2016 GMT
*       common name: forums.networkinfrastructure.info
*       issuer: CN=RapidSSL SHA256 CA - G3,O=GeoTrust Inc.,C=US
> GET /.xml/?type=rss HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.19.7 (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.19.7 NSS/3.19.1 Basic ECC zlib/1.2.3 libidn/1.18 libssh2/1.4.2
> Host: forums.networkinfrastructure.info
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Server: nginx/1.0.15
< Date: Sat, 26 Dec 2015 14:23:13 GMT
< Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=ISO-8859-1
< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Connection: keep-alive
< X-Powered-By: PHP/5.3.3
< X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
< X-XSS-Protection: 1
< X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
< Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=tfvh4sti8ks08l6n6o61sd46n5; path=/
< Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT
< Pragma: no-cache
< Cache-Control: private
<

        
                Network Infrastructure Forums
                https://forums.networkinfrastructure.info/index.php
                            
...
...

So there’s some issue with cURL negotiating between SSLv3, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and TLS 1.2. I turned to Google and found way to many bug reports and issues with how cURL tries to negotiate the transport layer security protocol. There’s a lengthy discussion regarding bug 1170339 concerning cURL’s default behavior on a RedHat/CentOS client and covers the exact scenario I’m experiencing.

I decided to turn my attention to the server configuration, perhaps I could find a quick fix in the server configuration, because a client fix might work for this specific client but would still be present for anyone else on the Internet using the same client software.

Here’s what my ngnix configuration looks like on the server side;

    #SSL
    ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/certs/bundle-forums.networkinfrastructure.info.sha256.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/certs/private.key;
    ssl_session_timeout 5m;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_ciphers ALL:!EXPORT:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv3:+EXP;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;

I recall recently removing TLS 1.0 support from the Nginx configuration file so I’m guessing I broke it myself (funny how that’s usually the case).

I went back and did some additional research around best practices for SSL protocols and ciphers and modified my Nginx configuration file with the following settings;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_ciphers EECDH+AESGCM:EDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256+EECDH:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-S
HA256:AES256+EDH:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-R
SA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256
:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:AES256-GCM-SHA384:A
ES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA:AES128-SHA:DES-CBC3-SHA:HIGH:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EX
PORT:!DES:!MD5:!PSK:!RC4;

I restarted Nginx and then ran a quick test from Qualys SSL Labs to validate the changes and found that I needed to make an additional config tweak to close a Diffie-Hellman issue. With that complete I the server was now scoring an A from the Qualys SSL Lab testing and it was answering TLS 1.0 requests from cURL.

Another 5 minute problem closed 2+ hours later.

Cheers!

If you’re an Avaya customer you’ll easily recognize Dominik from the Network Infrastructure Discussion Forums where he contributes his knowledge and experiences as a moderator. You may also recognize him from his appearances on Packet Pushers, where he’s discussed Avaya’s Shorted Path Bridging (SPB) solutions with Ethan and Greg among others. Dominik is hoping to share his experiences with Avaya’s Virtual Service Platform (VSP) solutions and SPB, along with the day to day struggles of a network engineer. It’s early days for Dominik but I would suggest you add him to your RSS feed.

I’m excited to see what he’ll make of his blog. I can remember the early days back in 2007 for me, how exciting it was to start publishing content, start interacting with users, etc.

Good Luck Dominik!

Cheers!

As I mentioned when I started this challenge that I thought there might only be a handful of decent posts.

There were a few posts that I wrote but after I thought about them for a while I decided not to post them. I now work for a publicly traded company so I need to be mindful of not inadvertently publishing something that isn’t public knowledge – such as sales figures. I also work for a global retailer that’s been the target of some very intricate hacking attempts so I need to be mindful of what I reveal about our security posture. I have some stories from consulting engagements that would make great posts, but again I need to be mindful of my clients privacy even if I don’t name them outright. Especially if they are repeat clients which most of mine are.

Here are my favorite posts from the past 30 days;

• How ICMPv6 Multicast Listener Reports almost spoiled Christmas
• Swatch – Simple Log Watcher
• EIGRP Dynamic Routing or Summary Static Routes
• Certificate Life Cycle – A problem for everyone to watch out for
• How many hours are in a day?
• Response: Holiday retail “freeze” takes hold
• What are some of your quotes?

Cheers!

Image Credit: Ted C.

Note: This is a series of posts made under the Network Engineer in Retail 30 Days of Peak, this is post number 30 of 30. All the posts can be viewed from the 30in30 tag.

In healthcare I had 50,000+ ports under my stead and was charged with the care of critical life-safety networks. In retail I have under my care ~ 14,000+ ports and the responsibility of maintaining connectivity for multiple e-commerce websites that can generate in excess of $1,000,000 an hour in sales.

While there certainly are differences between education, healthcare and the retail industries they are all still looking for the same thing albeit with differing levels of redundancy and (high) availability.

I can’t promise 30 brilliant posts, not even sure I can deliver one, but I do promise a musing look into 30 days of a married father of three (girls), working as a manager for a larger retailer responsible for voice, data and storage networking during the holiday peak (November 25 and December 25).

It should be if nothing else slightly entertaining but please know that you’ve been warned, the next 30 days or so could be slightly entertaining or highly aggravating.

Cheers!

PS: I’m happily accepting guests posts from whomever is interested, I might even have the family through out one or two.

I fired up a $10 Droplet (the name of a virtual guest server at Digital Ocean) and ran some performance benchmarks, comparing my Linode 2G to Digital Ocean. The results were very exciting, I found my Linode 2G (2GB) turned out a score of 202.0 while the Droplet (1Gb) turned in a score of 842.9.

Here are the actual statistics from UnixBench v5.1.3;

Linode 2G

(2 GB, 48 GB, 4 TB, 8 cores (2x priority), $40 / mo)

========================================================================
   BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)

   System: earth.michaelfmcnamara.com: GNU/Linux
   OS: GNU/Linux -- 3.8.4-linode50 -- #1 SMP Mon Mar 25 15:50:29 EDT 2013
   Machine: i686 (i386)
   Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
   CPU 0: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 1: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 2: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 3: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 4: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 5: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 6: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   CPU 7: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2630L 0 @ 2.00GHz (4000.1 bogomips)
          Hyper-Threading, MMX, Physical Address Ext
   15:33:12 up 187 days,  8:58,  1 user,  load average: 0.01, 0.03, 0.05; runlevel 3

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sat Nov 09 2013 15:33:12 - 16:01:11
8 CPUs in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables        9047350.8 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     1674.1 MWIPS (10.2 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                                824.2 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks         62735.0 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks           16425.8 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks        256839.3 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                               77091.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                   9260.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                               1427.0 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   1716.2 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    721.3 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                         277578.9 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0    9047350.8    775.3
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       1674.1    304.4
Execl Throughput                                 43.0        824.2    191.7
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0      62735.0    158.4
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0      16425.8     99.2
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0     256839.3    442.8
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0      77091.1     62.0
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0       9260.1     23.2
Process Creation                                126.0       1427.0    113.3
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       1716.2    404.8
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        721.3   1202.2
System Call Overhead                          15000.0     277578.9    185.1
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         202.0

Droplet

(2GB, 40GB SSD, 3 TB, 2 cores, $20 / mo)

========================================================================
   BYTE UNIX Benchmarks (Version 5.1.3)

   System: moon.michaelfmcnamara.com: GNU/Linux
   OS: GNU/Linux -- 2.6.32-358.6.2.el6.i686 -- #1 SMP Thu May 16 18:12:13 UTC 2013
   Machine: i686 (i386)
   Language: en_US.utf8 (charmap="UTF-8", collate="UTF-8")
   CPU 0: QEMU Virtual CPU version 1.0 (4600.0 bogomips)
          x86-64, MMX, Physical Address Ext, SYSCALL/SYSRET, Intel virtualization
   20:33:02 up 5 days, 38 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.03; runlevel 3

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benchmark Run: Sat Nov 09 2013 20:33:02 - 21:01:06
1 CPU in system; running 1 parallel copy of tests

Dhrystone 2 using register variables       16269312.5 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Double-Precision Whetstone                     2547.8 MWIPS (8.8 s, 7 samples)
Execl Throughput                               3643.5 lps   (29.7 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks        470232.0 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks          133863.4 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks       1146234.7 KBps  (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Pipe Throughput                              937630.7 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Pipe-based Context Switching                 193152.1 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)
Process Creation                              11101.8 lps   (30.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                   3889.5 lpm   (60.0 s, 2 samples)
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                    491.7 lpm   (60.1 s, 2 samples)
System Call Overhead                         770778.6 lps   (10.0 s, 7 samples)

System Benchmarks Index Values               BASELINE       RESULT    INDEX
Dhrystone 2 using register variables         116700.0   16269312.5   1394.1
Double-Precision Whetstone                       55.0       2547.8    463.2
Execl Throughput                                 43.0       3643.5    847.3
File Copy 1024 bufsize 2000 maxblocks          3960.0     470232.0   1187.5
File Copy 256 bufsize 500 maxblocks            1655.0     133863.4    808.8
File Copy 4096 bufsize 8000 maxblocks          5800.0    1146234.7   1976.3
Pipe Throughput                               12440.0     937630.7    753.7
Pipe-based Context Switching                   4000.0     193152.1    482.9
Process Creation                                126.0      11101.8    881.1
Shell Scripts (1 concurrent)                     42.4       3889.5    917.3
Shell Scripts (8 concurrent)                      6.0        491.7    819.5
System Call Overhead                          15000.0     770778.6    513.9
                                                                   ========
System Benchmarks Index Score                                         842.9

It should be noted that there are a number of differentiators between Linode and Digital Ocean. Linode utilizes XEN while Digital Ocean utilizes KVM. Linode utilizes traditional hard disks while Digital Ocean utilizes SSDs (Solid-State Drives). It’s pretty well known that SSDs are much faster than traditional hard disks but SSDs also have reliability issues. And sometimes the biggest differentiator is price. While that 2GB VPS with Linode will cost you $40 /month, a 2GB Droplet with Digital Ocean will only set you back $20 /month.

I was impressed enough that I’m moving the majority of my workloads to Digital Ocean. I’ll probably end up with 2 Droplets, a 1Gb and 2Gb. Only time will tell if Digital Ocean will be as reliable as Linode but I’ll be here to let you know.

Cheers!

Update: Sunday November 17, 2013 – You can find a related post and follow-up here, Hosting Provider – Digital Ocean (Part 2)

Professional

While Twenty Twelve worked, it didn’t look very professional and that was completely my fault. As a budding web developer I hadn’t spent the appropriate amount of time digging into the code and discerning all relationship between all the different HTML elements and the CSS properties.

A few of my stalwart colleagues would probably suggest I let someone else design me a theme. Well I enjoy learning, really I do, and there’s no better way to learn in my opinion other than just picking up the brush and putting some ink up on the canvas. In this case trying to understand the interaction of the HTML elements and the CSS properties.

I’ve been hearing quite a lot about the Genesis Framework for sometime now and was considering have a look at it. However, I realized that I had purchased a developer copy of the Thesis Framework about 2-3 years ago so I decided to spend sometime messing around with Thesis 2.1 before trying yet another framework. What you see today (August 2013) is the result of me making one a few different changes. Thanks to the tutorials on Build Your Own Business Website I was quickly able to grasp the functionality of Thesis.

I won’t comment which is better or worse… because I haven’t tried Genesis yet, I’m still trying to learn and understand all the features behind Thesis. If I ever get a chance to test drive Genesis, then I’ll be sure to add my $0.02 to that conversation. Right now, I’ll probably continue to play with the CSS styling, not really exited about Georgia although I’m not sure I want to take the performance penalty of relying on a Google font.

I’m also curious what impact Thesis will have on the speed of my site and the content generation times, might need to run some benchmarks there just for later comparison. I know Twenty Twelve included some Google fonts which tended to slow things down a little, don’t believe that’s the case with the default Classic Responsive theme in Thesis although I believe you can add those fonts through the API.

Feel free to let me know what you think…

Cheers!

I’ve spent a few hours looking into this problem but I’ve been unable to locate the culprit (theme, plugin, update, Nginx, etc). In order to quickly address this problem I’ve decided to switch to the default Twenty Twelve theme that ships with WordPress. While this theme doesn’t have that much bling it doesn’t hide the content from the user or visitor.

I’ll probably need to dig into the HTML and JavaScript to try and figure out what’s going on but right now I don’t have the time or energy to make that happen in short order so this workaround will need to suffice.

Cheers!

All of the talk for the past few days has been centered around Hurricane Sandy aptly named Frankenstorm by some weather forecasters in the region. While the storm isn’t expected to really get going the NJ/PA area until late Sunday night it could carry on until Wednesday potentially souring Halloween and Trick R’ Treat for all the kids (and parents).

In any event, this is the time of year I contemplate what I’ve gotten out of blogging and what I should do now or usually how can I refocus and re-energize myself. I generally post some thoughts about the past year and try to solicit new ideas for the coming year. I’m still amazed when I think that it’s been 5 years now since I started blogging. It’s been 2 years now running the discussion forum and we have a great bunch of moderators and a pretty solid following which is growing every day.

This past year has been pretty busy both professionally and personally. I did find time to take the family to Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, FL. The girls were growing up fast so I decided we had better get to Disney before they were too old to enjoy it. That said I know a lot of adults that enjoy Disney just as much if not more than the young children. It was the kids first trip to Disney and the entire family had a great time.

While I haven’t been winning any awards for my journalistic talent (and won’t be anytime in the future) I promise to make better use of the spell-checker. The feedback I get from people all over the world continues to amaze me. It’s still amazing to me how small the world actually is these days thanks to the Internet. I’m still trying to broaden the topics I write about although I’ll honestly say I don’t feel comfortable writing about topics that I don’t understand 110%. And I’m not really interested in writing about topics that have already been covered by much more knowledgeable sources than myself.

Blog

Would you believe that I wrote 53 posts last year. I’ll admit that some were weak (yes very weak) but there were a few that stood out. As with last year there’s been a slow but steady increase in blog traffic over the past 12 months. Looking at some of the Google Analytics data I can see that there has been approximately a 43% increase in visits (368,578 total), unique visitors (241,100 total) and page views (658,133 total) comparing the past 12 months to the previous 12 months. I’ve stayed to topics and subject matter that I believe hasn’t been discussed or documented thoroughly although I’ve started breaking out from what I would term my comfort area.

Last year I migrated our VPS server from RIMU to Linode which allowed a higher transfer bandwidth allocation (I was starting to run into the upper limit of RIMUs bandwidth transfer allocation at 20GB/monthly). I was quite happy with RIMU but Linode had a better offer and I’ve been very happy with Linode. I’m going to be upgrading to a Linode 1024 (referral link included so please feel free to make a purchase ;) ) in the next few weeks as I start looking to host some new projects. While some of these projects will be public a few will be private. I’ll probably look to migrate from LAMP to LEMP and Nginx just because I still enjoy toying with Linux being a System Administrator in a past life.

If you’d like to guest blog or have ideas you’d like me to blog about please drop me a line in the comments below.

Network Infrastructure Forums

The discussion forums continue to be a big success in my opinion although there’s still a lot more I’d like to see us achieve. I’ve had a lot of help which I need to acknowledge here from Flintstone, Dominik, Paul, Telair and Artur. Without their help and expertise the forums would probably have closed last year. And without our members taking the time to post and share their questions, feedback and opinions we wouldn’t be much at all. Thanks guys!

Have you noticed any changes? In November 2011 we added a commercial theme from DzinerStudio and in March 2012 we added a commercial logo from Logo-Design-Studio. You can see the new logo on the right hand side of this article. We’re talking about adding a chat box and potentially a portal mod to host other content.

The forums have grown significantly over the past year. We’ve seen a 50% increase in page views over the past year compared to the previous year. We had 108,402 unique visitors to the forums generating some 172,054 visits and 413,953 page views. We currently have a total of 1,420 registered users with 826 users having made at least one or more posts. Over the past year we’ve had visitors from 199 different countries or territories so we are truly international.

I get a lot of requests for forums around different topics, ex. Microsoft Server 2008, CentOS Administration, etc. I’m happy to create whatever forums anyone would like but there’s a catch to running a forum. You need subject matter experts to answer questions and offer advice or no one will every post any questions. Without that commitment most forums never get off the ground. I’m happy to create additional forums but don’t be surprised if I ask you to help moderate that forum and provide users some insight on how to work through their problems or issues.

Is there anything else you’d like to see over in the discussion forums? Any critiques? Leave a comment below.

Consulting

I started doing small consulting engagements last summer and that endeavor has slowly grown over time. It’s been a great learning experience running a (very) small business and all the paperwork and communication that is required to be successful. This is where I thank my lovely wife, my personal secretary without who I would be lost – no really I would. While I’m no where near quitting my full-time job but the consulting has kept me busy on the weekends and my off time.

A few months ago I decided to take the endeavor to the next level by securing a PO box, registering for an Employer Identification Number (EIN) with the IRS, registering a fictitious name with the state, and setting up a business checking account. I also setup and registered a new domain and KJMJ Consulting was born. I’m currently working with a local graphics designer to design and refine the draft logo you see to the left. What do you think? Be honest please! As you can expect I don’t have a lot of free time so I have to turn away a lot of work. Where possible I will actually refer companies to other full-time/part-time consultants who I personally vouch for in terms of their technical knowledge and work ethic.

If you have a problem or issue that requires more than just a discussion thread post please contact me here and explain your problem. I’ll let you know if I feel I can help or provide value and we’ll take it from there. All communications will be kept in strict confidence.

Future

I’m actually in discussions with a few individuals about starting a podcast although I’m not sure if that endeavor will ever get off the ground. I think it’s a great idea but there’s a large commitment needed to make something like that successful. There are a few folks still following me from the first days I started blogging and they have already commented to me that it’s evident to them that the discussion forums are really soaking up a lot of my free time which is hindering my blog writing. I make a huge effort to reply to every comment although I know I’ve missed a few in the past year and all I can say is sorry! I’m also hoping to start making some screencasts this year (I know I said the same thing last year). I think they are a great way to demonstrate various concepts, ideas and configurations although again they can be time consuming to edit and assemble.

It was energizing to meet all the guys and gals from Networking Field Day 4. It helped spur me at a time I was beginning to consider hanging up the mouse and keyboard. I thought we could have taken a few hours to solve some mammoth world problems – the delegates were that smart. And it wasn’t that they were arrogant or pretentious, they were confident and passionate about technology and specifically the future of the networking industry.

Interested in getting involved in a technology (networking, server, storage?) focused podcast? Want to be involved at the start? Drop me a line on the discussion forums or here.

Thanks!

Let me say Thank you to my current sponsor, Thycotic Software.

And all those that take the time and effort to follow my blog and participate both here and on the discussion forums!

What would you like to see? What would you like to see changed? Let me know what you think?

I really do promise to use the spell-checker more! Sorry!

Cheers!

Cheers!

I ran some quick and dirty benchmarks using Unixbench (1 parallel test) and here’s what I found;

Note: I currently use the IBM x345 Series server as my test and development server so I don’t have to worry about destroying my live production server.

A number of the servers above are virtualized with either VMware or XEN and some are physical. I’ve provided some comparison data in servers 1-4, the two of interest are 5 and 6.

You can see from the numbers that the Linode server beat out the RIMU server by quite a margin. I also chose to have the Linode server placed in their Newark, NJ data center which is geographically closer to me in Pennsylvania than the Dallas, TX data center that my current VPS resides in. With that location change I noticed a big delta in the RTTs to/from the two locations. From my Verizon FiOS home broadband I get around 50ms to the Dallas, TX data center while I’m getting around 20ms to the Newark, NJ data center.

There are other pros and cons between RIMU and Linode which I won’t completely go into here but in my specific example it was the storage and transfer bandwidth that caused me to look elsewhere. I have nothing bad to say about RIMU, they’ve given me more than 18 months of great service.

Last week I moved the blog (that’s this site) to the Linode VPS and it seems to be running great. If everything continues to run smoothly I’ll migrate the discussion forums and remaining sites over to Linode and cancel my RIMU account over the next two weeks.

Have you noticed the speed increase or any other issues with this site?

Cheers!

Content

While I haven’t been winning any awards for my journalist talent it has been rewarding to hear the feedback from all the wonderful people that I’ve met either on my blog or in the discussion forums. I’m hoping to round up some guest bloggers in the future and try broadening the topics I generally cover. If you’ve got a knack for technical writing and you’d like to see your name in lights please drop me a line.

Forums

The forums have been a pretty big success in my opinion although there’s still a lot more I’d like to see us achieve. I’ve had a lot of help which I need to acknowledge here from Flintstone, Dominik, Paul and Artur. Without these guys the forums wouldn’t be half the place they are today. Thanks guys!

The forums have grown tremendously over the past year, we’ve seen a 359% increase in overall traffic with some 51,116 unique visitors to the forums generating some 81,766 visits and 239,651 pageviews in total. We have a total of 681 registered users with 421 users have made at least one post or more. Over the past year we’ve had visitors from 125 different countries.

Finances

The financials are pretty straight forward. In calendar year 2010 I paid out around $378.42 to GoDaddy, and RIMU for domain names, hosting, etc. I collected around $367.41 in advertising revenue which came from Google Adsense and a few direct advertising sales. So while we were in the red again this year I was only down $11.01 which made my wife quite happy.

Let me say “Thank you” to the sponsors and all those that take the time and effort to follow my blog.

Blog Traffic

There’s been a slow but stead increase in blog traffic over the past 12 months. Looking at some of the Google Analytics data I can see that there has been approximately a 94% increase in visits (23,633), unique visitors (17,944) and pageviews (44,489) comparing the June-July 2011 timeframe to the same timeframe in 2010. Over the past year there were some 159,872 unique visitors to the blog generating some 232,498 visits and 440,725 pageviews in total.

The traffic increase has been steady enough that I’ve had to investigate CDN solutions and deploy caching plug-ins such as W3TC in an effort to keep up with all the traffic. In January we received a free upgrade from RIMU that we applied to the VPS and increased our memory from 480MB to 740MB. With the upgrade we were able to increase the number of web clients we can support concurrently. We were also able to install APC to help with PHP caching and increase the amount of caching within MySQL all in an effort to boost the servers overall performance and decrease the time which it takes to serve up the content to you the user.

Future

I’m not sure what the future holds. The global economy has been all over the place this past year and the uncertainty ways on everyone as people try to “do more with less”. You’ll probably find me here again next year blogging away. Perhaps I’ll make good on my last years claim to start making some screencasts.

What would you like to see?

Cheers!

I’d encourage anyone interested in password management solutions to give Thycotic’s Secret Server and Password Reset Server products serious consideration.

Thycotic Software

Thycotic is a Microsoft Silver Certified partner that has provided secure software products, development and training to the information technology industry, individual consumer and small business markets since 1996.

Thycotic Software leads in the field of Microsoft .NET-based Agile development using Test Driven Development (TDD) and other lean techniques to deliver reliable code that meets the user’s needs. Secret Server, their password management software, has been tested by Veritest, featured on Larkware’s Daily Grind, download.com, and is trusted and depended on by small businesses and large corporations every day.

Secret Server

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With Secret Server enterprise password management software, you and your colleagues can control access to critical enterprise passwords in one centralized, web-based repository. Our password management software offers permissioned users secure access to passwords and other privileged information.

Store, distribute, change, audit in a secure environment.

Password Reset Server

Self-Service Password Reset Tool for End-users

Stop wasting your time doing password resets for employees.

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A self service password reset, Password Reset Server combines ease-of-use with advanced security, and meets Section 508 compliance standards. And our free 500-user trial means you have 30 days of full access to the kind of self-service software your Help Desk will appreciate.

You’ll find trial copies of both Secret Server and Password Reset Server on Thycotic’s website.

Thanks again to Thycotic Software for their support!

As Ben Levisohn recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal “The IPO game is notoriously dicey for retail investors”, but for the companies going public it can provide a windfall of cash to help drive R&D and additional product development. With the recent results of the LinkedIn offering I can see why Avaya might be enticed to jump into the market. However, the IPO game is getting crowded with Pandora going public today (surged to $26 share but dropped back to $18 a share later in the session) and Groupon, Facebook, Twitter and Zynga all looking to possibly go public sometime later this year.

Thursday’s filing disclosed Avaya has lost more than $3.6 billion since it was taken private in 2007 in an $8.3 billion buyout. The engineers of that deal, Silver Lake and TPG, own a 72 percent stake in Avaya, according to Thursday’s filing.

In the past year, Avaya has introduced more than 60 new products and services to boost its revenue. Through the six months ending March 31, Avaya’s revenue totaled $2.76 billion, a 16 percent increase from the same period last year. But its losses have widened to $615 million in the current year from $421 million the previous year.

I will say that I was surprised at the financials reported above in the Yahoo Finance news post. With Avaya selling stock publicly they’ll now need to file quarterly statements with the SEC something they haven’t had to-do as a privately held company. I’m curious if the red ink will drive away future or existing customers. What do you think?

Cheers!

When I initially heard of the soda tax last year I honestly thought it was a joke. Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia is again proposing a two-cents-per-ounce excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in order to close a $629 million school budget spending gap. Now I’m all for supporting our schools and these uncertain economic times are difficult for everyone but you honestly want to tax soda?

How many taxes do we as citizens of the United States of America already pay?

• Capital Gains Tax (15% on long term gains)
• Cigarette Tax ($0.36 per pack)
• Corporate Income Tax
• Federal Income Tax (25% for household making $100,000)
• Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
• Gasoline Tax ($0.48 per gallon)
• Inheritance Tax (4.5% direct descendants, 12% siblings and 15% other heirs)
• Interest Expense (tax on the money)
• Liquor Tax ($0.08 per gallon)
• Local (Wage) Income Tax (Philadelphia residents 3.928% non-residents 3.4985%)
• Luxury Taxes
• Medicare Tax
• Property Tax (assessed value x 8.264%)
• Real Estate Tax
• Sales Taxes (8% in Philadelphia)
• School Tax (3.9280%)
• Social Security Tax (4.2% for employees and 6.2% for employers)
• State Income Tax (Pennsylvania is a flat 3.07%)
• State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
• Telephone Federal Excise Tax
• Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
• Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
• Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
• Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
• Telephone State and Local Tax
• Telephone Usage Charge Tax
• Vehicle Sales Tax (6% for title and registration)

List taken from Yahoo Answers and shorten to remove permit fees, user fees, etc. I’ve added some of the rates for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania above. If you look over the list it’s pretty scary to see all the different taxes that we pay.

So when you make your money you are taxed at the federal, state and local levels. When you spend your money your taxed again via the state sales tax and a host of other “additional” taxes. When you invest the money you’ve made and you in turn make more money you are taxed yet again.

I can see why the politicians wouldn’t mind adding yet another tax to the list.

As I previously mentioned I understand supporting our local, state and federal governments and our schools but we just can’t keep adding taxes to close what politicians and administrators see as “spending budget gaps”. On the flip side I do recognize that the US isn’t the worst country in the world as far as taxes goes. Look at Ireland for example, a country where I have many relatives and that I’ve personally visited has a federal income tax rate of 20% for earnings under ~ €45,400 (married couple) and 41% for earnings over that amount.

It’s not easy find a slice of the American Pie with Uncle Sam eating it all up.

Cheers!

Credit: John Lennon, So This Christmas 1971

Cheers!

Staring on Tuesday December 7th this site has become the target of some very serious SPAM commenting campaigns. While the majority of this is hidden out of view from you the users, it has created more than a little work for myself and it is chewing up a significant amount of server resources and network bandwidth. Starting yesterday I’ve had to start blacklisting IP addresses(106 IP addresses to be precise) via the htaccess file in Apache. Now I’m all too familiar with SPAM, and I realize that blacklisting IP addresses is usually a very futile effort but I had to start somewhere.

I’m hoping that I can continue to allow people to post comments on my blog without requiring them to register an account and without having to answer some type of CAPTCHA, but I may need to re-evaluate my options if things continue to get worse.

Here’s my current blacklist with over 240 261 entries.

Cheers!

Updated Thursday December 16, 2010

I’ve replaced the previously included IP addresses with a link, the list is now up to 240 IP addresses. I’m currently looking to see if there is some way to automate the blacklisting of networks where multiple offenders have been detected.

Updated Friday December 17, 2010

Well the SPAM just keeps coming… I’m really amazed that these keep coming at the rate they are coming… the access_log on my Apache web server is now starting to fill up

# BEGIN top-spammers

Order allow,deny
allow from all

deny from 12.132.193.71
deny from 41.190.16.17
deny from 46.17.100.79
deny from 46.73.91.248
deny from 46.73.92.22
deny from 46.73.92.135
deny from 46.73.93.82
deny from 46.73.94.207
deny from 46.73.94.218
deny from 58.246.217.81
deny from 59.57.14.154
deny from 60.19.24.7
deny from 60.19.24.10
deny from 60.172.229.90
deny from 61.35.191.250
deny from 61.145.121.124
deny from 61.152.188.143
deny from 61.244.235.34
deny from 62.75.168.245
deny from 62.129.245.186
deny from 64.120.31.69
deny from 66.212.133.180
deny from 68.37.24.38
deny from 69.147.240.53
deny from 69.162.147.31
deny from 69.246.73.139
deny from 70.23.36.131
deny from 72.229.251.243
deny from 74.54.131.18
deny from 74.82.164.39
deny from 74.118.195.117
deny from 75.91.46.150
deny from 75.126.170.50
deny from 76.93.67.46
deny from 77.92.233.198
deny from 77.232.128.198
deny from 77.245.210.132
deny from 79.98.31.241
deny from 79.111.166.176
deny from 79.111.170.50
deny from 79.142.55.199
deny from 79.142.67.65
deny from 79.142.67.85
deny from 79.142.67.137
deny from 79.142.67.193
deny from 79.142.68.93
deny from 79.142.69.75
deny from 79.183.50.248
deny from 80.67.13.45
deny from 80.67.13.102
deny from 80.67.13.217
deny from 80.245.86.19
deny from 81.18.116.66
deny from 81.97.119.107
deny from 82.185.204.67
deny from 82.206.129.160
deny from 83.234.189.197
deny from 85.17.230.8
deny from 86.62.75.115
deny from 87.70.127.227
deny from 87.70.131.53
deny from 87.117.202.25
deny from 91.79.65.9
deny from 91.195.13.162
deny from 91.201.66.6
deny from 91.201.66.24
deny from 91.201.66.43
deny from 91.201.66.84
deny from 91.201.66.87
deny from 91.201.66.88
deny from 91.201.66.192
deny from 91.210.105.127
deny from 91.210.107.80
deny from 91.212.226.102
deny from 91.212.226.133
deny from 91.212.226.239
deny from 92.81.70.82
deny from 92.241.164.105
deny from 92.241.164.108
deny from 92.241.165.236
deny from 92.241.168.206
deny from 92.241.168.209
deny from 92.241.169.175
deny from 92.241.169.176
deny from 93.100.116.104
deny from 93.185.193.173
deny from 94.137.162.52
deny from 94.142.128.140
deny from 94.142.130.30
deny from 94.142.134.178
deny from 95.66.1.1
deny from 95.66.7.1
deny from 95.66.32.1
deny from 95.66.38.1
deny from 95.154.230.40
deny from 95.168.178.82
deny from 95.168.183.233
deny from 95.215.164.16
deny from 98.199.89.60
deny from 98.218.249.131
deny from 109.86.251.227
deny from 109.160.238.75
deny from 109.226.14.222
deny from 109.230.217.22
deny from 109.230.217.28
deny from 109.230.217.183
deny from 109.230.217.208
deny from 109.230.221.164
deny from 109.235.48.106
deny from 110.92.75.244
deny from 111.1.32.23
deny from 111.1.32.56
deny from 111.1.32.83
deny from 111.93.6.206
deny from 111.160.68.26
deny from 111.160.70.196
deny from 111.160.70.199
deny from 111.161.3.220
deny from 111.161.3.231
deny from 111.161.3.235
deny from 112.65.8.53
deny from 113.30.73.123
deny from 113.193.95.227
deny from 118.97.224.2
deny from 118.98.31.2
deny from 119.148.161.116
deny from 121.18.126.12
deny from 121.18.126.21
deny from 121.34.20.32
deny from 121.52.146.89
deny from 121.96.216.105
deny from 121.97.59.11
deny from 121.229.216.75
deny from 123.231.232.35
deny from 123.231.252.162
deny from 150.140.172.9
deny from 150.254.196.44
deny from 173.172.75.58
deny from 173.192.170.80
deny from 173.201.184.158
deny from 173.208.13.198
deny from 173.208.13.253
deny from 173.208.14.223
deny from 173.208.16.42
deny from 173.208.19.63
deny from 173.208.24.147
deny from 173.208.24.185
deny from 173.208.51.33
deny from 173.208.51.107
deny from 173.208.57.158
deny from 173.208.57.159
deny from 173.208.57.167
deny from 173.208.57.168
deny from 173.208.60.27
deny from 173.208.61.185
deny from 173.224.217.74
deny from 173.224.220.173
deny from 173.230.93.191
deny from 173.234.11.236
deny from 173.234.18.216
deny from 173.234.30.233
deny from 173.234.46.186
deny from 173.234.47.60
deny from 173.234.93.81
deny from 173.234.116.18
deny from 173.234.143.77
deny from 173.234.158.114
deny from 173.242.114.60
deny from 173.242.118.218
deny from 174.132.115.98
deny from 174.132.149.34
deny from 178.150.51.131
deny from 187.16.57.170
deny from 187.17.218.66
deny from 187.110.168.105
deny from 187.111.9.134
deny from 187.141.66.98
deny from 188.92.75.43
deny from 188.92.75.82
deny from 188.92.77.124
deny from 188.143.232.39
deny from 188.240.32.154
deny from 189.11.211.237
deny from 189.19.161.149
deny from 189.39.176.244
deny from 190.24.222.40
deny from 190.95.136.218
deny from 190.187.49.242
deny from 190.202.87.131
deny from 193.105.210.42
deny from 193.107.16.143
deny from 193.107.16.241
deny from 193.198.185.3
deny from 195.162.68.84
deny from 195.162.68.143
deny from 196.29.161.84
deny from 196.29.161.85
deny from 196.201.208.32
deny from 196.219.126.173
deny from 200.88.113.147
deny from 200.101.83.131
deny from 200.122.132.176
deny from 200.124.14.101
deny from 200.155.27.55
deny from 200.210.240.82
deny from 200.216.186.42
deny from 201.20.18.165
deny from 201.92.215.75
deny from 201.92.219.87
deny from 201.159.5.12
deny from 201.219.17.29
deny from 202.28.25.40
deny from 202.29.58.33
deny from 202.43.178.41
deny from 202.164.60.125
deny from 203.151.20.180
deny from 204.124.182.82
deny from 204.124.182.226
deny from 205.213.195.70
deny from 207.191.191.21
deny from 208.43.48.89
deny from 208.43.93.64
deny from 208.177.72.184
deny from 209.29.25.180
deny from 209.112.233.4
deny from 209.250.226.253
deny from 210.51.37.102
deny from 210.51.37.110
deny from 210.51.45.121
deny from 210.51.51.173
deny from 210.51.58.102
deny from 211.24.188.186
deny from 211.138.124.207
deny from 211.138.124.227
deny from 212.45.5.172
deny from 212.50.255.228
deny from 212.67.153.53
deny from 212.138.69.24
deny from 212.138.113.15
deny from 212.235.107.106
deny from 213.5.66.16
deny from 213.5.67.4
deny from 213.5.67.185
deny from 213.5.69.179
deny from 213.5.71.155
deny from 213.5.71.163
deny from 213.5.71.191
deny from 213.5.135.50
deny from 213.89.25.91
deny from 213.108.2.6
deny from 213.221.7.252
deny from 216.183.120.22
deny from 217.218.250.202
deny from 218.50.52.210
deny from 218.199.208.20
deny from 221.130.162.219
deny from 221.194.132.229
deny from 222.73.218.225
deny from 222.73.218.233
deny from 222.124.249.114

ErrorDocument 403 '<title>Access denied!</title><style><!-- p,address{margin-left:3em;} span{font-size:smaller;} --></style><h1>Access denied!</h1><p>Your IP address has been blacklisted because a larger number of spam comments originated from the same source.</p><p>Please refer to <a href=http://ten-fingers-and-a-brain.com/top-spammers.html>ten-fingers-and-a-brain.com/top-spammers.html</a> for a more detailed explanation.</p><h2>Error 403</h2><address><span>top-spammers/0.5</span></address>'
</Files>
# END top-spammers

Here in the United States we’re celebrating another Labor Day holiday and the unofficial end of the summer.

Cheers!

I was greeted with this little gem tonight and couldn’t resist the urge to fire up Paint and make my mark… it reminded me of an article that was posted on the New York Times recently titled, Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime. As of late I would say that I agree with the Matt and the researchers at University of Michigan. I generally try to make sure I balance my life with work and play, with physical activities such as working out or playing ice hockey and with spending time with the family and my growing daughters. I’ve thankfully avoided the crack-berry syndrome and I have intentionally not configured my Droid to use ActiveSync with my work Exchange Server, just using POP3 to get my personal email thank you. There’s no technology pervasiveness around us, just look around yourself. It’s in your home, in your car, at your place of work, and you probably carry a fair bit of it around with you daily.

I’m curious how other IT professionals feel about the subject? Is it just fodder or do you feel it’s visibly impacting your life?

Personally I feel it’s just like anything else in life, too much of a good thing ain’t a good thing.

Cheers!

Updated: September 2, 2010
Just cleaning up my poor grammar and run on sentences.

I backed up all my files to an old server I had setup running Openfiler, it’s amazing how much space all those home movies and pictures take up. I reformatted my primary hard drive and ran through the installation. It took longer than I expected but I later found out that I had left the floppy drive enabled in the BIOS (there was no floppy drive in the desktop) and that may have had something to-do with the longer than customary installation time I experienced.

Now I’m left with re-installing all the different applications that I use from time to time. When I was younger I didn’t mind this task so much because it generally translated into a significant increase in speed and performance of the desktop (at least for a while). These days though I find myself not having the same excitement I once had in the past. I guess I’m getting old and grumpy…

While I’m rambling on let me say that Ubuntu (specifically release 10.1) is really becoming a strong alternative desktop operating system. While it still took some messing, the installation of some basic tools such as the Java Runtime Engine, Adobe Reader and Adobe Flash was much improved over previous releases. I was very impressed with the performance as well.

So my question for folks… what if anything are you using at home to store your home movies and pictures? Are you using an old PC running some open source solution? Did you go out and purchase an all-in-one solution?

I  just started using an old IBM xSeries 345 with 1GB of RAM and ~ 300 GB of disk space across 6 drives. I’m concerned that my electric bill is going to go threw the roof next month if I run this thing 24×7 as my media storage server. It might be cheaper for me to just purchase a Drobo or something along those lines from an kWh  perspective not to mention the space. cooling and noise issues created by running and IBM xSeries 345 in your basement. I had accidentally forgotten to connect both power supplies when I first turned it on. The beast sounded like a jet engine running full blast until I connected the second power supply and the fans slowed down to their normal operating speed.

Cheers!

Cheers!

Our father who art in Philly. Hockey be thy name. Thy will be done. The cup will be won. On ice, as well as in the stands. Give us this day our hockey sticks. And forgive us our penalties, as we forgive those who cross-check against us, Lead us not into elimination. But deliver us to victory. In the name of the fans,…Lord Stanley, and in the name of the Flyers. Amen.

I realize the “prayer” above has been around for quite some time and adopted over time and it wasn’t written by me.

Good luck to the Philadelphia Flyers!

Game 1: Flyers at Blackhawks, Saturday, May 29, 8:00 p.m. (NBC)
Game 2: Flyers at Blackhawks, Monday, May 31, 8:00 p.m. (NBC)
Game 3: Blackhawks at Flyers, Wednesday, June 2, 8:00 p.m. (Versus)
Game 4: Blackhawks at Flyers, Friday, June 4, 8:00 p.m. (Versus)
Game 5: Flyers at Blackhawks, Sunday, June 6, 8:00 p.m. (NBC)*
Game 6: Blackhawks at Flyers, Wednesday, June 9, 8:00 p.m. (NBC)*
Game 7: Flyers at Blackhawks, Friday, June 11, 8:00 p.m. (NBC)*

I also remember wasting away hour upon hour playing Head-to-Head Football. I can remember playing against my dad and god father on many an occasion.  It really wasn’t until I was introduced to the Commodore PET that I really became excited in technology. I can remember spending hours typing in hundreds of lines of QBASIC code, the introduction of the tape drive allowed users to load and save programs to tape. I was able to convince my parents to buy me a Commodore 64 which was my first personal computer.

What was the first computer that you ever used or owned?

Cheers!

I’m now coming up on the renewal for Go Daddy and I’m considering upgrading to a virtual private server (VPS).

Why? In my role with my current employer I work with hundreds (almost thousands) of servers, both virtual and physical. It’s always been a little depressing to know what’s possible from a real server and then settling for what I can personally afford with this being a hobby. In addition to my wanting more control over the environment I’ve seen a significant growth in traffic to both my blog and the discussion forums which are hosted on the account.

Over the past 6 months the traffic to my blog is peaking daily at around 1,000 page loads which is pretty decent in my opinion for the amount of material I have posted and the narrow focus of that material. The traffic to the discussion forums have really started to ramp up over the past seven months.

As both of those endeavors have grown I’ve noticed the response time of the site go up. I’m the first to recognize that while some of the reason is the traffic a large portion is also the number of features I’ve added to the site over the past 2 years.  Thankfully the little bit of advertising I’ve been running has helped defray the current hosting costs (thanks for the support!). With that in mind I’m considering stepping up to a VPS solution in order to provide a significant performance boost and provide a platform for future projects.

Anyone have any recommendations on VPS web hosting? I’m probably looking at a budget of  $30-$50/monthly, let’s not forget it’s just a hobby and I have no intention of giving up my day job! (I’m told my grammar is terrible and I need to spend more time proof reading).

I was considering RimuHosting based on a blog post from Colin McNamara, not directly related but anyone with that name must be smart ;).

Cheers!