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Small slices of computing (Slicehost) require small MySQL and Apache

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MySQL{Geeks off the starboard bow, matey, arrrrrr!}

I’ve mentioned before that I’m bringing up web sites on Slicehost. It’s a cloud computing environment and that means I don’t know and don’t care exactly what or where the server is, and I only buy as much as I need.

Apache Software FoundationIt’s an interesting experience because in the rest of my life I’m constantly expanding my (personal) computers by adding storage and processor power so they can run faster and faster, but in the case of cloud computing, instead, I’m scaling down the pieces of software so they can run more efficiently in a small “computer” instead. [Read more…]

Slicing up the Cloud

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Slicehost

Cloud Computing– it’s a relatively new term for a relatively old concept. For at least six months now I’ve been thinking about two inevitabilities: 1) that my servers will fail some day soon; and 2) that I may have to rapidly scale (up) some customer’s site because it will suddenly have traffic needs well beyond the capacity of my servers.

The answer is pretty obvious to me – I’ll soon be eliminating my own serves in favor of purchasing computing power in whatever quantities I need at the time. Scalable on demand. From one of the cloud service providers that are coming online now.

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The Quantified Self

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The quantified selfI was amused and delighted by the topic, but a schedule conflict prevented me from attending a meeting at the Institute For The Future (IFTF) about “the quantified self” a month ago. The topic, however, is completely intriguing to me as I find my life increasingly digitized – as if it weren’t already. (See The Quantified Self Group.)

I picked up an iPhone app called EveryTrail, and have been testing it against measured walking/running courses all weekend, and also tried to use it to measure a walk from my house to the Ferry Building and back on Sunday (it was way off due to GPS inaccuracies in the skyscraper canyons of downtown San Francisco, but it’s spot-on when the GPS satellites are unobstructed, such as on the waterfront).

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New Ubuntu 8.10 (on OSX VMWare Fusion) – it works!

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Ubuntu LinuxI have Ubuntu 8.04 running on an old Toshiba “tablet PC” whose touch-screen no longer functions (and Windows therefore malfunctions), and yesterday Ubuntu 8.10 was released so I jumped right on the bandwagon to try to install it so I could test it out.

My choice was to install using VMWare Fusion on Macintosh OSX, so I downloaded the Ubuntu 8.10 distribution, burned a CD, installed VMWare Fusion’s 30-day trial version for OSX, and then first installed 8.04. That installation went without a hitch, as Fusion detects the CD and the version of Ubuntu and goes right ahead and without any problem installs a virtual machine that seems to run flawlessly.

Installing the 8.10 distro, however, was odd. Fusion first warned me that it was a pre-7.0 Linux distribution, but allowed me to move forward.

Once installed (which I let run overnight because it just was a terribly slow process), 8.10 did run, but “VMWare Tools” didn’t install. So I found the VMWare Tools install volume and ran a “manual” installation from Terminal. It required (automatically) recompiling a lot of modules for the (upgraded Linux) kernel. Following that process, I was able to reconfigure the screen to greater than 800×600, which I guess means that the tools were successfully installed. I installed a few plug-ins (such as Flash for the browsers) and they work just great. A bit scary, but looks like it was a success.

I didn’t need to refer to other sources, but look around if you find you need help.

We’re all Amateur Radio Operators now

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I was fiddling around trying to find a good position (on a desk) for my iPhone yesterday in order to get good reception for a phone call, and it reminded me of the “old days” when I was first an amateur radio (“ham”) operator.

Amateur Radio Operator

Can’t tell you how many hundreds of hours I spent fiddling around with antenna positions in order to get good reception. In those days they were mostly long wires strung from buildings or trees, but the principle is the same for a mobile phone antenna. It all depends on the direction the antenna’s pointing, the distance from “ground” (actual earth or metal objects below the radio’s antenna) and other factors that are just too hard to predict. And so we “fiddle” until we get it right.

In the case of a mobile phone, which is also a radio transmitter and receiver, the variables are pretty much the same. They include whether you’re holding the phone in your hand or not, whether it’s near metal objects, whether you’re inside a steel or concrete/brick building, and your orientation with respect to the cell you are currently connected to. So when you hear “can you hear me now?” what’s going on is that you and your callee are each adjusting or moving your radio and antenna to get better reception. We have all become amateur radio operators!