406 Not Acceptable

I haven’t really had the time to update this site in a long time. If I get some time free I’ll try to create a number of posts that will post automatically.

I am also looking at migrating posts across from an old site, so that I can shut it down and save some cash on hosting/domain names. My only concern is Google classing the relocating as ‘copied/duplicate content’ and blacklisting this site.

It looks like – for the second time – a random Turkish ‘hacker’ has decided to take down my old site. Tech Rant is a dead site running a dead Content Management Service (CMS,) hence it is going to be an easy target! I can never recall why I chose Postnuke… There’s probably a number of weaknesses in the CMS in it’s current state and with no updates available since the developers decided to drop version 8 and start with a clean slate; the site is effectively a dead duck. Let that be a lesson for anyone deciding to not choose the popular option! Be sensible and get a well supported, popular CMS like Wordpress — or do a Katy and make your own (again!)

This little escapade has reminded me that since I have already ported over all the posts from Tech Rant to here; there is little point in the site being alive. After all it will simply be waiting for the next script kiddie to come along… Once I get round to setting up a downloads database here, then the domain will simply point here for a year or so before getting dropped. I have moved the files over for now, its just setting up all the files will be a boring and loooooong task.

I have set up a few posts regarding the N900 and some nice software, so there should be some content here! At the same time I have gone through the usual duties of updating Wordpress through a good few thousand builds (it updates soo fast!) alongside a bunch of plugins.

Google has released a beta of their new search engine algorithm: Caffeine. Many analysts see this new release as a direct reaction to the launch of Microsoft’s new Bing search engine, which will soon be used by Yahoo.

The new algorithm looks to give Google a much-needed jolt by delivering more results, and better results. The engine seems better at removing, or not indexing, spam and hence shows more good Web sites. So there should be less instances where the top results for what you want are simply parked domains or the now ubiquitous price comparison site (how I hate those sites!)

A simple search for Toshiba 37″ in the current Google engine brings two comparison sites in the top 10, one in the number 1 position; however, on the new Caffeine engine no comparison sites appear in the top 10. For me that is progress. Often I will search for a product, to look for information on it before buying the item. The current engine is cluttered with these comparison sites, many of which are useless in the first place (often the cheapest seller has a fake price…) So I am happy this this change.

Other changes are much more subtle, typical searches keep the same site/page in the top rank and just shuffle the rest of the top 10 around. So whilst no-ones SEO looks like it is going to be shafted, the changes seem to be less dramatic than all the hype would suggest.

I mentioned previously that the site would be moving to a new host, Linode. Well I can now confirm that everything has worked out fine and for all the hard work I’ve treated this place to a new lick of paint. I hope you like the new look! The site loads faster for me, so I hope that’s the case for everyone (my 3 avid readers.)

I have copied across all the articles from Tech-Rant, as I plan on deleting the site. I know Google penalizes duplicate content, but the old site should disappear in a few months. I have FINALLY found a download manger for Wordpress, so the old downloads database can be moved here too. I guess the downloads will work a lot better now they are supported by 25Mbit of bandwidth, instead of whatever could be salvaged from the line at Dreamhost. I’ve kept all my domain names with Dreamhost, they never caused me any problems so I felt like keeping some business with them.

The SpeedForever Trackmania server is also being hosted here; although, that ran fine on my home connection.

Hopefully I will try to post more often, even if I can just schedule some dull posts here and there.

With some regret I have left my old host Dreamhost. So I guess I better do a mini-review, which explains why I have left them.

I started using Dreamhost in the middle of 2007 and started by Postnuke powered, but now dead, site Tech-Rant. This was back before they launched the single price plan system that they currently use. They had a mixed reputation; however, their hosting experience, user forum, and rather cheery blog brought me round to using them. In my opinion, a host without a forum for their customers is a host to avoid; although, I am sure there are some good ones out there!

I had no problems setting up Postnuke and the webpanel provided by Dreamhost was rather handy with simple administration tasks. I tried using their automatic install and updating Wordpress and Mediawiki installs on other domains. The automatic install feature is good, but restricts users with plugins, so I never stuck to it. I did experience moderate downtime, but overall my sites have been up for around 98 to 99 percent of the time.

For a while I have had one Postnuke site, two Wordpress blogs, and a Mediawiki wiki hosted on the plan across various domains. The sites load fast enough for me and Dreamhost have never complained about about the server load under reasonable use. The one time they did was due to a bug on a Postnuke comment system, which led to the games on Tech-Rant being spammed over nine thousand times each. Hence you can imagine the SQL query for each load of those pages! Still they were reasonable about it and gave me ample time to fix the problem.

I did consider moving to Dreamhost’s Private Server plan; however, I find it rather expensive for what you get. For a new user it costs $25 a month for a private non-database server, with the databases being placed on a shared server. This server only has 150 mhz and 150 MB of memory and based off these specifications I would estimate that the pipe will be shared across somewhere between 50 and 100 users (so 20Mbit to 10Mbit each.) Now a simple Ubuntu Server LAMP install with Apache2, PHP, and MySQL will use around half of this when idle. Add a blog, forum, or your favourite content management system and you can see that the server will be nearing its limitations. Whilst Dreamhost have offered long time customers a discount ($10 off for life in my case,) this still is expensive for a private server; although, it is a semi-managed solution. I did kindly send support a ticket stating that I would be leaving and from their response the cost seems to be an issue for a number of users.

In comparison my nice new host Linode offers me 360MB of memory and the system will only be shared over 40 users (so 25Mbit bandwidth.) Now this is only costing $20 a month, for a superior service; on a host with a better reputation than Dreamhost. So it is easy to see why the Private Server option is rather poor! I already have the LAMP set up and the server is running a Trackmania Server, which has been much better than running it off my broadband (against Sky’s terms!)

I will be sticking with Dreamhost for domain registration as, against my original thoughts, they aren’t that many cheaper registrars… shame really!

I can still honestly recommend Dreamhost to anyone looking for a decent and cheap webhost; just not their private servers!

Since I have now recieved my grade, there is little reason for me to continue to withhold any J2ME based posts. So unless something else emerges to take up my time (apart from filling in crappy job application forms, seriously why did I bother with a CV?) I should be able to publish them.

I’ve noticed that the most popular posts on this blog/waste of space on the internet, are those on the more technical subjects or problems with software. Namely J2ME Polish and Ubuntu. So maybe I should post more about them; although, I really did not intend for this blog to be heavily technical.

As you may have noticed, I’ve changed the theme on this site to Diary Notes. I found one annoying issue with the theme — the author decided to leave his/her meta tags in. Mmm… not so smart! I don’t think many people will want those in!

So this post is just to make sure the happy google bot has another look at this site, before the dodgy tags break stuff. Nice to see that this site actually ranks in google these days.

Project inspection/demonstration on Tuesday (silly department can’t organise themselves.) Now, that’s not so bad… but its at 9:30 in the morning! No I am not that lazy, it’s just I live around an hour and a half from Birmingham — that’s without the morning traffic! Lucky for me the drive in means I’ll be on the main commuting road in my county… and I have to pass through another city… brilliant! So I’ll have to set off well before 7 am to give myself the time so set things up for the demonstration.

In even better news, I should see my project supervisor beforehand. Now I can’t do that on Tuesday, so I have to go in on Monday too!

Perhaps an allnigher will occur? Me thinks so!

Looks to me like the upgrade to Wordpress 2.6.1 was successful. Everything looks so shiny now

Still busy with my project, stupid head of the course can’t be arsed to sort out his timetable… brilliant.

If anything gets screwed up today, then that’s due to some boring maintenance work. I really needed to upgrade Wordpress as this site is stuck on version 2.3.x when it should really be on 2.6.x. I know for a fact my web hosts have kicked people for not upgrading software (security reasons.)

To be harsher on comment spam (no follow really increases that crap!) I’ve decided to use a plug-in to stop comments from being posted on posts older than 30 days. I am also going to delete all the comments in my ‘moderation queue’, sorry about that if you wrote an essay

This plug-in to block comments after 30 days was quite difficult to find, the main result on google was to a deleted plug-in (BRILLIANT!) So incase you googled over here, this is the Close Old Posts plug-in you want.