Server Downtime

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

It is a professional thing to do: When a website experiences downtime, the administrator should explain to the users what happened.

In this case, we do not know what really happened, but we shall try and explain what we know:

At around 12:20PM (PST) this afternoon (Friday, October 30, 2009) our website became inaccessible. Events went down as listed:

First, the Internet cut out due to a failing router (still in the works of being replaced). This was the initial problem that made the site inaccessible.

Second, all services provided by MySQL ceased proper function — MySQL reported on the physical server’s main terminal that MySQL ran out of memory. This caused MySQL to quit.

Third, unexpectedly, the server “froze up” completely. MySQL may have been doing some sort of redundant processing resulting in the server running out of memory, but this is only speculation.

Server functions resumed around 4:30PM the same afternoon, with approximately 4 hours 10 minutes of downtime.

Future changes to prevent such issues:
Router replacement. This was not entirely a programming issue.

Other changes:
Forum removed.

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Quick Kudos to our new theme

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

We’d like to give a quick kudos to the new theme we are using on our blog, to Devolux.

The theme we are now using is called “JQ”, and it seems to work with our setup just fine. Unfortunately, if we have a spike in users, it’ll have to either be modified or removed altogether due to the images in the page.

It brings back a few rather scary Mac memories, but it’s a clean interface and well organized. Thank you, Devolux.

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PlayOnLinux: A whole new way to game

Posted on October 25, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

I think, back a while ago, I said that a major part of my website would be software reviews..
I lied, I never kept that focus. But, here comes a great Review for you Linux users (or those considering)!

PlayOnLinux: a program that works with WINE to create a better gaming experience for Linux users.
PlayOnLinux is a very easy way to install various programs and games.
How so, you may ask? PlayOnLinux (PoL) is not a Wine  Replacement, it is more like an extension of Wine. For programs (namely Games) that will not run natively on Linux with Wine installed, PlayOnLinux provides installer scrips and other modifications to assist your games and other programs.

Though games are it’s main focus, it also supports many other programs, such as: Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer 6/7/8, WinAmp, Windows Media Player, and much more.

A few of PoL’s games and programs can be seen here:
http://www.playonlinux.com/repository/

Granted, many games work natively with Wine  installed properly, you can check out the Wine Database to see if your game may work with Wine. If Wine mentions PoL in your game’s description, or in the installation instructions, then you need to install it using PlayOnLinux.

We hope you will check out Wine and PlayOnLinux, and that your games will be available within them as well.

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Ubuntu 9.10 BETA: Final Remarks

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

Ubuntu makes its final release in 6 days (as of this post, October 23, 2009).
I think I, in my personal opinion, can call it “pretty much stable”.
Still, in this currently release (working off of nightly builds), I had a problem installing Ubuntu 9.10 on a newer Dell, due to the network configuration — the base OS worked and I am sure that the final release of 9.10 will fix the driver issue. (The disc I installed off was not the final release disc).

It seems the Ubuntu team has been avidly working out all of the various bugs, and the issues with Empathy crashing constantly on many systems has also been largely resolved. The beta of Ubuntu 8.10 was not this stable at its actual release, and I see quite an improvement over the last builds.

I think most people (even newbies) will be safe installing Ubuntu 9.10 BETA before it’s actual release, without any problems. This brings an end to our stability outlook series. Thank you for sticking with us. As always, you can subscribe to us via. RSS (click the RSS button in your address bar).

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Radio Shows

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

The oldest form of electronic entertainment, the radio show, still lives on.

Unfortunately, due to the furthered technological inventions in our rapidly moving world, radio is being buried underneath various forms of entertainment. Personally, I enjoy radio shows. Don’t tell me you don’t, since chances are you have never actually listened to one.

I have three radio shows that I subscribe to via. Podcast, each has very limited commercial interruption (one short 15 second ad at the beginning of a 1 hour show? That’s fine with me.)

Shows that I personally, and frequently recommend:

“Wait Wait! Don’t Tell Me!” – The NPR Newsquiz.
A radio game-show where everyone wins (and where everyone gets made fun of).
On this radio show, recent news items are covered in sections such as:
“Who’s Carl This Time” where you (the caller) must identify or explain three quotes from this last weeks news
“Bluff the Listener” where three panellists have very exuberant, unlikely stories, but one is true and you (the caller) must identify which one.
“Not My Job” where the caller (usually a famous person, such as a Senator or member of congress as well as movie and television personalities) must answer three questions about a topic which they [most likely] know nothing about.

Website: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=35 (podcast available there as well as regular MP3 download)

Weekly Episodes, during the off season, episodes are available over the web as well (webisodes…)

“RadioLab” – From WNCY Public Radio
Think of RadioLab as a combination of Nova, Nature, Mr. Wizard, and Bill Nye.
Advise listening with relatively good headphones, as sound is treated as a king in this show. Some content is controversial, and some is graphically inappropriate for children (they give a good heads-up, usually a few minutes before anything happens).
It is indescribable, since this show covers so much all at once. You must listen for yourself.

Website: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/ (Podcasts available there as well)

“A Prairie Home Companion” – The News from Lake Wobagon
A Prairie Home Companion is a story show telling many good lessons. Kid safe, though adults will be required to understand most of the jokes. One can learn quite a lot listening to these [often tall] tales.

Website: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/features/ (podcast available there as well)

“Science Friday” – NRP Weekely show
Science Friday is a weekly show from NPR, going through various scientific topics with interviews from professionals on the topic. It is a wonderful show for learning.

Website: http://www.sciencefriday.com/ (Podcast available there as well)

One other show that I have not looked into yet, but others have suggested is Car Talk.
Two brothers run this show, full of humour and car information. Callers are able to ask about their own car questions, providing they know what kind of car and the year… as described by a listener: “These guys know everything!”

Website: http://www.cartalk.com/ (podcasts available there as well)

Feel more than free to comment about radio shows, even your own radio shows if you happen to run one.

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Server Updates

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

I like telling my users what I have changed on my website, and what I will be changing.

First, I have decided that the forums are utterly useless and that they do not benefit the website in the least bit. Out of sheer curiosity, I may change it into a spam-trap for a temporary amount of time, I advise not visiting it during that period… (I get around 10 spammers in one hour, think of how it would be if the forums were entirely opened up and most spam-prevention disabled?)

Second, we are now using WP-Supercache on the blog. Users who choose to use the WordPress comment system instead of IntenseDebate will find that their comments may not update for up to 10 minutes.
We changed this since it is much less stressful on the server.

Check out WP-Super-cache. It may work wonders for your own server.

Third, we are now using WordPress Sitemaps so as to improve the efficiency of Google crawling our website, and reduce the amount of unnecessary visits from Google.

Right? All Good? Great. Both of those tools listed work flawlessly, and we hope that you may try them as well.

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Ubuntu 9.10 Progress Updates

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

The Sims 3 now works under Ubuntu 9.10 with PlayOnLinux (PoL)

After installing nightly updates, I reinstalled The Sims 3 and it’s working like a charm. I had a few unexpected quits on the game, but after fidgeting with it a bit (kept trying and trying a few times, and saving as well to re-write the save file) it started to work without a problem.

Later (hopefully by the end of the week), I will publish the final revision of my article: “How to install The Sims 3 in Ubuntu Linux”
So, if you are having problems figuring out how to install it, keep yourself subscribe and we’ll keep you posted.

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Blog stats — Last 30 days

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

User visits increasing (partially because we fixed an issue that was occurring with the way we had Analytics set up…)
Anyways, here’s the results of the last 30 days.

Visits Over the Past 30 Days

Site Usage
137 Visits 67.15% Bounce Rate
299 Pageviews 00:02:33 Avg. Time on Site
2.18 Pages/Visit 86.86% % New Visits

Top Pages

1. The Sims 3 Future EP’s « ZylstraBlog – 82 Views
2. ZylstraBlog – 38 Views
3. (not set) – 32 Views
4. Accordion Fingering Chart (bass) « ZylstraBlog – 19 Views
5. (not set) – 15 Views

Top Referrers

1. zylstrablog.co.nr – 62 Visits (*We use a domain redirect, so when people visit us via www.zylstrablog.co.nr, this increases by one)
2. blogs.icerocket.com – 2 Visits
3. computerhope.com – 1 Visits
4. linuxaffinity.com – 1 Visits
5. metacrawler.com – 1 Visits

Top Searches

1. accordion bass chart – 6 Visits
2. accordian fingering chart – 1 Visits
3. accordion bass button chart – 1 Visits
4. accordion bass fingering – 1 Visits
5. accordion finger chart – 1 Visits

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Updated Progress: Ubuntu 9.10

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

So far, so good.
I have been keeping top of the bleeding edge nightly updates for the BETA operating system. Ubuntu 9.10 is really undergoing quite a bit of active development.
I have noticed stability increase quite a bit, though Telepathy is still not working, and I have been unable to play my one video game, The Sims 3 under PlayOnLinux.
I’ll be reinstalling it and trying again by the end of this next week.
We’ll keep you posted.

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Ubuntu 9.10: Stable?

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Jesse Zylstra

Okay, I got Ubuntu 9.10 working, and have started restoring my lost files.
After re-arranging my drive architecture 3 times and slowly moving files over, it’s all in place (for the most part).

The Verdict:

It’s kind of stable. I would definitely not run it on a production machine, or your grandma’s new computer yet. I do think it’s safe to test out and have a little fun with. For the most part, it’s the same as it was before. I do get quite a few program crashes, but it hasn’t stopped me from being able to work.

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