Musings from a Software Development Geek.
Welcome to episkey!
I’ve started to transition my primary services (starting with the web stuff) from my home network to my new server installed at Red Rocks Data Center in Morrison.
I will be moving more stuff over the weekend.
While I might not be such a do-it-yourselfer around the house, I certainly am when it comes to the Internet.
Case in point: my email, web, and IRC infrastructure.
When I moved to Fort Collins, one of the first things I did was obtain a Comcast Business Class cable connection for my home. I did this for the purpose of running my own e-mail, web, DNS, and IRC servers on my own. Setting all this up was a marginal cost increase over a residential cable modem (due to the relatively inflated costs of Internet access in Colorado — thanks Qwest!) plus hardware.
However, like residential cable, business class still suffers from being a “best-effort” IP delivery service. Comcast likes to do “maintenance” at odd hours and this causes interruptions to my service. In at least two events over the last 3 months, my connection flapped wildly for hours at a time. This sort of behavior really isn’t conducive to running a reliable IT infrastructure, even if it is just for me (and a few others)!
So, I’ve decided to expand my scope and look for colocation. I have a 1U short-depth rack mount server that’s on its way and I’m looking to install it in a facility with a bit more data-oomph that I’ve got. I’ve looked at a lot of different companies throughout Colorado, including Front Range Internet, Red Rocks Data Center, EarthNet, RockyNet, and NeTrack. I’ve tentatively decided on NeTrack.
NeTrack offers the best bang for my buck: $75/month for the rack space and 200kbit (95th percentile) of bandwidth. However, I’m principally concerned over two things: 200kbit is probably too low to be sustainable and their slow/nonexistent response time to requests. I’ll saturate 75% of that 200kbit initially with my current traffic patterns and their bandwidth overage charges are very high. What I’d really like is someone who can provision me 512kbit (read: breathing room) and stay competitive with the $75/month rate. Native IPv6 would be a major plus, too.
I suppose I’m what you might call a high-powered IT hobbyist. 
I took my cats in to the shop, er, the vet today for their (belated) annual checkup and shots. Talk about an experience.
I took my cats to the VCA Fort Collins Animal Hospital; home of a friendly staff and moving dust. As part of their annual checkup, these folks do blood work and urinalysis in addition to the shots, the physical exam, and the great poo float (if one remembers to bring in poo samples!).
As it happens, the blood work was just too much for my little ones. The vet tech took each cat, one at a time, to “the back” to perform the extraction. To make a long story short, the process scared and pissed off both cats. They had such a rough time with the rest of the exam (hissing, swatting, biting, screaming) that the vet and the techs weren’t able to finish it! In an unusual mood, Max took to biting, hissing at, and attacking everything (before falling into the trash bin) — including the vet, her sister Alex — but, excluding me. I was apparently the only one who could calm her down. (I feel so loved.)
I left the cats at the vet to calm down (and so they could finish the exam!) and proceeded to work (by way of home to pick up a second carrier and a new shirt). I picked up the little ones 2 hours later and drove them home to a symphony of sad meows. I decided to stay home to supervise, just in case Max was still having violent tendencies.
I’m happy to report that no cat-on-cat confrontation has occurred, though Max is holding a pretty significant grudge at the moment. I think it’ll be a while before she forgives me. But hey, at least they’re healthy (pending results of the blood work)!
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been doing some shuffling of my computer equipment. It’s been an interesting process to optimize everything.
Recently, I setup a 500GB mirrored array in valiant (an IBM PC Server 325 ; P2 300/192M). I found that in this configuration, I maximized at 10MBps writes to the array and 3.8MBps peak over FTP (GigE with 7936 byte MTU).
I moved the array into relax (P3 1GHz/1.2G) and am now getting 30MBps writes to the array and substantially better network performance (15MBps; but I need to rerun these tests as they were contaminated by a background fsck). Huge improvement! (I could probably achieve even better performance in a faster box). NFS still sucks, though.
I finally bought a new laptop - a 15″ MacBook Pro (2.4GHz variety). It’s tentatively called aparecium and it rocks. The old laptop, spiritfolk (an 800MHz Titanium PowerBook), is boxed and headed to California to assume new duty as my Mom’s laptop.
Other thoughts - I am likely retiring flyer (the kitchen iMac) and valiant in the near future. I’m slimming down the equipment as I optimize!
Braindump complete. You may now continue about your normal activity.
My internal combustion engine has been firing on all cylinders today. I’ve been going for health and whipped this up with some left-overs: a lime-barley salad.
Whisk in a mixing bowl:
Then add and stir into the bowl:
Eat.
00:04 <@Bender> nowadays parents wouldn't even let their kids onto IRC at age 13
00:04 <@Bender> but back in your day, they didn't even know about it
This got me thinking about what might have happened had I not been active on IRC in my early teens.
From approximately 1996 (age 13) to 2001, I was active on DALnet, SorceryNet, and marginally, EsperNet (as well as several smaller networks). (you may remember me — I went by ‘magician’ then, often in #StarTrek on DALnet).
00:05 <@eri> had I not got on IRC, i would likely not be a software engineer now
IRC introduced me to a community that completely reformed my way of thinking about computers. As a result, I got into Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD. I got into compiling and installing open source packages on my own (including really early and hairy releases of KDE). I still remember (albeit a bit foggily) when I made the precipitous decision to completely erase Windows 95 from my PC in favor of Slackware Linux (kernel 2.0.29!). The community I found shaped who I became; I am avid Unix geek, an IT generalist, and a hacker (see the proper definition as it relates to software development).
I’m glad my parents let me onto IRC (most of the time).
(02:05:28 PM) Dave Paul: got you bookmarked so i can stalk you
(02:05:32 PM) Sean Rees: sweet.
It’s been a busy few weeks. Lets see…
At work - we’re making a concerted effort at work to get our product development cycle to the “Feature Complete” state. This means that all the prescribed features are implemented and that after this date (3/31), we will be in stabilization (”polishing up”) mode. As a team, we opted to make our ‘death march’ a twice weekly event (with company-provided dinner) instead of a whole-week pain fest right at the end of the cycle.
At home - I had the pleasure of entertaining David over the last few days. He was gracious enough to drive out from California and hang out with myself and Mary. We enjoyed some cycling along the city of Fort Collins trail system and out in Lory State Park. We visited some breweries and did some evening outings in downtown Fort Collins and Boulder. Fun was had all around.
In the community - I’ve started volunteering for the Betsy Markey for Congress campaign as a writer. Due to the incredible workload at work, I haven’t had time to put my thoughts to text. I’m hoping that when April rolls around, I’ll have more time. In addition, I’ve been selected as a delegate to the statewide Democratic convention in Colorado Springs as a delegate for Congressional District 4 and for Larimer County. Yay!
In the eCommunity - I’m actively (as active as I can :)) executing my role as a server administrator on EsperNet. I’m also heading up efforts to replace the IRC daemon currently in use with a custom set of patches to ircd-hybrid. So far so good!
In my glass - New Belgium Springboard. Yum.
Today was the day - the Larimer County Democratic Assembly and Convention. You may remember that I was sent by my voting precinct (the fighting 238, as Stephen Colbert would say) as a delegate to this convention.
I arrived at Fossil Ridge High School (a LEED-certified green building) a little after 0800 to register. After being issued my delegate credentials, I made my way to the auditorium to review the agenda and the list of propositions before the assembly was gaveled into session.
This event was really two events: the Democratic Assembly, charged with selecting the county’s choice for nominee to the US Senate seat soon to be vacated by Wayne Allard (and other “local” business). The Convention, on the other hand, was charged with selecting the county’s choice for nominee for President of the United States.
Once gaveled into session, we took floor votes to pass various measures before the assembly (Robert’s Rules of Order). This phrase (and variations like it were heard often):
Chair: Is there a motion on the floor to <do something>?
Someone on the floor: So moved.
Chair: Is there a second?
Someone else: Seconded.
Chair: Motion before the floor to <do something>. Those in favor say Aye.
Floor: Aye!
Chair: Those opposed, say nay.
Floor: Nay!
Chair: The (Aye’s or Nay’s) have it. Motion (passes or fails).
After a short while, we broke into our house groups. I got the opportunity to meet and talk with my representative in the Colorado House, John Kefalas. He addressed us (House District 52) about his candidacy and goals. By acclimation, we voted to nominate him and hopefully, send him back to the House.
We broke for an early lunch while alternates were seated in the delegation. At 1145, we were gaveled back into session to vote on perhaps the most important item before the Assembly: the nomination for US Senate. After a speech to the floor by the leading candidate’s wife, we voted by paper ballot to send our entire contingent of 356 delegates to the State Convention in support of Mark Udall.
This voting process was hectic; attempting wrangle about 700 delegates into voting lines was rough going. This was substantially rectified in the next voting session.
At this point, the Assembly was recessed and the Convention was gaveled into session. I was sent as a delegate to both the Convention and the Assembly, so I stuck around (this was the most common arrangement).
The Convention took up its sole issue: a preference poll on our choice for the Democratic nominee for President. It was about a 60/40 split for Barack Obama. This vote was also a paper vote and was much more orderly. *Whew*
At this point, the convention adjourned and the assembly was gaveled back into session.
The final items on the agenda for the day included a breakout session for Colorado Senate District 14, where we nominated Bob Bacon (for those that have visited me, he has a namesake elementary school) and floor votes on the remaining issues before the assembly.
All in all, this was a very eye-opening and exhilarating experience. Whereas my former state has an anonymous primary system, Colorado’s caucus system involves voter participation at a very high level. At the convention, I got to listen to the candidates for the various local, statewide, and national offices. I got to talk to my representative in the Colorado House. I got to meet (again) a local labor leader. I got to listen to the fiery Betsy Markey (candidate for US Congress, CO-14) give a rousing speech to the floor. All in all, an exciting day. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud to be a Democrat.
Hopefully I’ll get selected as a delegate to the statewide convention in Colorado Springs.
Cheers to Microsoft for IE 8!
An unusual thing for me to say, to be sure. Those of you who know me best have likely been the victim of my railing against Internet Explorer, Microsoft, and all things silly between the two in my profanity-laced description of how web design actually works (this comic describes it fairly well).
Then Microsoft came around, announced IE 8 would pass the Acid 2 browser test and many cheers were heard the world over. “Oh, but wait!” say some, who read more deeply into the announcement. You had to request specifically, that IE 8 use its improved standards-compliance mode; it wouldn’t use it by default on well-formed documents (see here and here). More than a few web developers thought that was silly, myself included.
Microsoft has reversed it’s previous decision! In a recent blog post, Dean Hachamovitch, GM for Internet Explorer, announced that IE 8 would use its new more-compliant Standards mode on well-formed pages. Web developers who want IE 6 or IE 7-compatible rendering modes would have to specifically request that of IE 8.
So, kudos to Microsoft and its IE team. Thank you for supporting web standards!
Software Developer, Consultant, and Geek.
