So the other week I have been working on my dedicated box, just to make it a bit easier to work with in the future. One of the things I was trying to understand and learn was yum update and bash scripting. So why not combine the two? Right.. This blog entry is the result, hopefully also of some use to others. more…
In the last few years I have hosted the vBulletin Fans Chat Network over at irc.vBulletin-Chat.com and we have grown quite a bit. We are still what is to be considered a small chat network, but we are an open network, have a flexible group of staff and have a growing group of supporters and chatters.
Each year I review the situation and decide whether to stop or continue with the chat network. After all, I pay it out of my own pocket or use the few donations we receive. And it could be that we’re paying too much for too many services when we perhaps only need half of the resources. Or, we might have grown so much that we need to double our set up and increase capacity. To just name a few questions I ask myself when the time is there again to make that decision.
There are quite a few domain names that I own, and they have to be hosted too. Some are small few page-sites, and others are medium to large. But they will all do just fine with shared hosting-, or virtual private server hosting solutions. And each account is only using about 50% of the capacity.
Individually each account is affordable, cheap, works just fine, and could work with a few parked and add-on domains. But as soon as a site peaks in traffic there could be problems. And some have the potential to do so. However, all together the bills I pay add up to quite a bit. A solution was needed, but the solution must have potential to grow without doubling the costs quickly.
Over the last few years I have taken ‘being online’ a lot more serious, especially the security aspect. Trojans, rootkits, viruses, naughty cookies, xss exploits in sites and advertisements, and all that nasty stuff is now a day to day matter. Not to mention fraud, scams, spam and id-theft.
Particularly with being ‘on’ 24/7/365 because of high speed broadband internet. Participating in online communities, social networks, online loans, online banking, online dating and e-commerce, etc. brings risks with it.
My Mac Pro has a bunch of hard drives right now, and I have been adding, swapping, and removing drives the last few months. It was time for me to get a bit more organized and I think that’s a great tip for everybody. It gives you a much better understanding of what is on your computer system.
You might think “What is so hard about finding stuff on your hard drive”, well .. let me give you a simple example: Your browser might store downloaded files on your Desktop, while you have an OS ‘Downloads/’ folder, or perhaps your torrent client stores it in ‘programs/client/downloads/’, making it a bit annoying having to browse around while a single link on your desktop to your ‘Downloads/’ folder might make it a lot easier for you.
