Due to a technical issue with a wordpress update, this blog hasn’t been available for quite some time. Now it’s back.. stay tuned for more ;)
Gentoo: “Silent” upgrade from Apache 2.0.x to 2.2.x
Finally, Apache 2.2 is running fine on this server! :) Upgrading, i.e. manually merging all the changed configuration files, recompiling old Apache modules (unfortunately, Gentoo doesn’t care about this automatically) was quite an effort though. The “silent” upgrade was thus not silent at all but rather just silently ended with a no longer working Apache and the according web server downtime. Conclusion: I should really rethink whether I want to stick with Gentoo for this server or rather switch to something more administrator-friendly like Debian, SUSE or Fedora.
My mobile/cell phone currently out of service
Unfortunately, my mobile phone broke during my (nice :) vacations and therefore, I can’t be reached by mobile phone currently. Please use e-mail (mettlerd “AT” numlock “DOT” ch), skype (‘mettlerd’) or instant messaging (see below) instead:
Skype: mettlerd (most likely reachable, preferred)
ICQ: 196122009
MSN: h2o_ch@msn.com (don’t use this account for sending mail)
AIM/Groupwise: dmettler (business account)
Google: daniel.mettler@gmail.com (don’t use this account for sending mail)
Jabber: mettlerd@swissjabber.ch (don’t use this account for sending mail)
I intend to buy a new mobile phone the upcoming weekend (If the Apple iPhone was available in Switzerland I’d buy one. Unfortunately it isn’t.. too bad for Apple and myself. Any suggestion for another decent mobile phone to buy?)
MODx Content Management System, Magnolia CMS, Alfresco
I’ve just discovered the new ajaxified, PHP-based MODx Content Management System. It looks and feels great (test it here!). If there wasn’t any need for a dedicated admin interface (i.e. instead, content editable in-place for privileged users), it would be even more userfriendly. Maybe that’s the next step to take?
Another not-yet-ajaxified but nonetheless cool CMS (JEE based, supports JSR-170) I already mentioned before: Magnolia CMS (live demo, currently out of duty).
Further, a nice JEE based Open Source DMS/CMS/ECM supporting JSR-170: Alfresco.
For this site, I might switch to MODx instead of keep using WP (which basically still fights with the same problems it always did). The more as I’ve been dealing with AJAX professionally for a while now (but focussed on JEE as the enterprise server platform). As a DMS, Alfresco would come in handy. Now all I need is enough spare time to realize my plans ;)
QR-Code for this blog’s RSS feed
The QR Code of this blog’s RSS feed, provided by Feed2Mobile:
Posting JavaScript code doesn’t seem to work in WP and as I lack the time to properly include it in the template, here’s the link to the JS:
http://feed2mobile.kaywa.com/202181538.js
(will include it ASAP)
Yep.. going strong as always ;)
While trying to process my to-do list (lower prio things will have to wait, as usual) I just noticed that Andres and Pascal have blogs too for quite a while.
Regarding my own blog, I still need to finalize the migration to wp. As you guessed, there are lots of higher priority tasks that need to be done first. Of course I’d also have lots of interesting things to blog about. Let’s see whether I can again share some of the findings and experiences with you from time to time..
Server (almost ;) migrated
I’ve finally managed to migrate this server from the Via Eden barebone to the new, powerful Dual-Xeon EMT64 server :) Now it runs as a Gentoo Xen domU guest on a Gentoo dom0 host with LVM2 (If in doubt, use LVM2 instead of a flat file for performance reasons). It’s neither fully operational nor fully optimized yet (I will do another migration in the background), but it does its duty for now.
New server will arrive soon..
Finally I’ve ordered a new server to replace the not-so-reliable barebone Mini-ITX server that runs this site. Initially, I actually wanted to build the server all by myself, assembling the best SME server components I can get. As it turned out, I would have had to import most of the components from different suppliers, making do-it-yourself assembling a very time consuming and risky (ad)venture. I thus decided to order a nice (but not cutting edge), hopefully well-tested, pre-built server from Dell.
It’s a customized variant of the Dell PowerEdge 1800 with the following specs:
- 2 x Intel Xeon Irwindale 3 GHz with EMT64 (the Intel analogon of AMD64), HTT and XD/NX-bit support, 800 MHz FSB [ UPDATE: Dell upgraded the two Xeons to 3.2 GHz for free! Thanks! :) ]
- 2 x 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM
- SATA RAID Controller PCI Card (seems to be an Adaptec RAID controller)
- 2 x 160 GB 7200 RPM SATA hard disks for HW RAID 1
- Remote Management PCI Card
All that for about 3.2k CHF which is a reasonable price (not counting a 500 GB SATA II HDD for incremental backups I will buy elsewhere as Dell has only 250 GB HDDs).
If I would have assembled a server myself, I had probably chosen AMD Opteron CPUs, an ASUS K8N-LR motherboard, a 3ware 9550SX SATA II RAID controller and two fast 500 GB SATA II HDDs. But it’s very difficult to get these components in Switzerland, not to mention getting them from a single supplier. Further there’s the risk that the components don’t harmonize once they have been assembled.
The server will arrive on April 21 and I expect that migration will take at least another 1 to 2 weeks (as I need to recompile Gentoo and adjust the settings for the new environment).
numlock.ch changelog partly updated
As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve finally managed to migrate the posts and comments to the new publishing software (which is WordPress, mainly due to the fact that it can be conveniently kept current using Gentoo’s portage system). The outgoing links/blogroll is still not migrated though (as I don’t have them ready in an OPML file for easy importing) – it will be done ASAP.
Note that links of RSS/XML/Atom feeds and of the blog itself are not necessarily final yet (expect some changes during the next couple of weeks)
Stay tuned and thanks for your patience!
Dani
P.S. If you’re wondering: The design of the blog will be migrated too, of course ;)
Apache: How to deny access to a parent directory/location only
If you want to deny public access to a parent location (let’s say /projects/), but allow public access to a sub-location (/projects/myproject/), use the following statement in httpd.conf:
<Location /projects>Order allow,deny</Location> <Location /projects/myproject>Order deny,allow</Location>
(can also be used for <Directory> statements etc.)
Note that the URL of the sub-location must include a trailing slash (e.g. “https://news.numlock.ch/projects/myproject/”)