Domain change, Impending re-design
Site - September 26, 2011 - Leave your commentDecided to once again get a proper domain for the site but since my previous (krill3.com) has been taken by a squatter who’s weirdly hard to get a hold of I had to pick a new one, decided on gerefalk.com after some brainstorming, it’s a very unique “brand” only 11 people share that last name, and christian@gerefalk.com looks kinda cool.
My current host and domain registrar is namecheap.com a very affordable host that’s easy to deal with, I’ve had some bad experience with godaddy.com in the past and dreamhost is a lot more expensive for basically the same package.
As of today the old dyndns domain re-directs here, though it expires if it’s not kept in use, as such if you have a bookmark/favorite/similar pointing to krill3.dyndns.org you should update it to gerefalk.com.
The current design and content are mostly leftovers from my previous site that has been offline for a spell, due to a change in DSL provider I was left without a proper internet connection for a while and the provided 3G stick they gave me in the meantime didn’t allow incoming port 80, which makes hosting your own server somewhat tricky. All the old content (except the blog posts obviously) and the design are due for an overhaul and re-design.
I quite like this design but it’s somewhat simplistic, which was what I was going for, but now I feel like making something a bit more visual, the ever looming specter of Internet Explorer is the only thing holding me back at this point, very annoying having to pander to an outdated rendering engine incapable of most useful CSS3/HTLM5 when Firefox/Chrome/Safari all support some pretty stunning visuals through CSS3 alone.
Server Hardware Overhaul
Server - March 28, 2011 - Leave your commentBeen planning a re-build of my server/NAS for a while now, the old case had no cable management what so ever and was cramped to boot.
I bought myself a Fractal Design Define R3 White, a Swedish made fairly mid-range case price wise, it’s not the most expensive feeling affair, it’s mostly steel and plastic (though it by no means feels cheap), it’s main redeeming qualities are the layout and airflow, it’s laid out like a modern case should be with emphasis on internal 3.5” slots (I don’t use optical drives anymore, nor do I need an external 3.5” for a floppy drive or similar) and it has superb cable management behind the back of the mobo tray, which has a big hole in it to fit CPU cooler backs without removing the motherboard.
4x 120mm fan slots & 3x 140mm fan slots (ships with 2x 120mm and thick noise insulating foam over the unused slots) makes for excellent airflow without much noise, the entire case is fitted with sound insulation.
Took the time to install the hardware properly, reversed the HDDs to hide the cables and routed all the cables to be as hidden as possible, only part I’m not quite pleased with is the GPU cooler’s fan cable, but I don’t trust the onboard fan headers enough to avoid having to pass half the mobo with it.
If I had enough patience I might have sleeved the visible cables (black or black & white).
Isn’t it shiny?
Proper cable management, HDD racks not kept in place with zip-ties!
What it looked like yesterday for reference. Held together with zip-ties, hot-glue and prayers to the server gods.
Exact same hardware used, only the case differs between the pictures.
Specs:
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (Used to be WHS2 preview “Vail” until they time-bombed it before releasing the next build)
CPU: Intel Pentium E5300 2.60GHz (34C)
RAM: 2.0GB DDR2 334MHz
Motherboard: MSI P45 Neo-F
GPU: 8500GT 256MB (43C)
HDDS: (29-33C)
1.5TB WD Green WD15EARS
1TB WD Green WD10EARS
1TB WD Green WD10EADS
1TB Samsung HD103SJ
500GB WD WD5000AAKS
500GB Seagate ST3500630AS
Case: Fractal Design Define R3 White (Old one was a NZXT Lexa a “gamer case” from the windows, cathodes and blinking LEDs era)
4x 120mm Fractal Design fans
1x 140mm unknown orange fan
Headless; no input devices and it’s controlled using RDP, only connected to 2 cables: GbE and mains power.
Runs:
XAMPP: Apache, MySQL, FTP (This site!).
Minecraft server where friends and family and friends of family collaborate in making environments.
IM, IRC and Skype pass-throughs for my other devices
Air Video Server for streaming and transcoding of media to my iPhone via WiFi and 3G.
Growl (pipes notifications to my other computers and iPhone and from my iPhone to my computers (incoming calls, messages etc).
File server: 5.1TB actual capacity 5.5TB if HDD manufacturers understood binary.
Also occasionally used for file crunching of various kinds: re-encoding music, video etc, basically anything that would make my main machine slower than ideal can be shifted to the server instead.
Everything important I need running 24/7 is on the server this allows me to power down my much more power hungry desktop machine while I’m not using it (nights, away from home etc).
Data Migration and OS-reinstall Complete
Server Site - January 13, 2011 - Leave your commentTurns out XAMPP for windows is quite literally portable, well it can be with no absolute paths, I didn’t configure it that way but I did put it directly onto C:, putting it back in the same place on the new OS install and enabling the services from it’s admin GUI to ensure it starts on startup was all I had to do to carry over my entire site, handy.
Luckily I’d done this kind of thing before and I’ve learned from my mistakes, when I first switched hardware going from windows home server to the first preview build of windows home server 2 “Vail” I migrated the data across the network between the two machines, one of the primary reasons why I switched hardware (from an aging P4 AGP/PCI/DDR1 etc, to a C2D/PCI-E/DDR2) is because the old machine only had 100Mbit Ethernet, and my network is GbE now.
I guess you can picture it, I should have done what I’ve done since, detach the drives from the pool and put content on them as regular drives, that way the transfer speed is literally what the drives can muster (Most of them are SATA2) which is orders of magnitude faster than 100Mbit and still faster than GbE.
The Joys of Beta Operating Systems
Server Site - January 10, 2011 - Leave your commentI run Windows Home Server 2 “Vail” Preview on my server, this very site runs of that server and it stores the majority of my media, Microsoft at the release of this build and the prior one stated that it wasn’t a good idea to use it in a “production environment” (they do know it’s software primarily designed for home use right?) and that this build would expire 2011-01-10, but ensured the users that they’d release the retail version, or another preview build, or a patch to extend the date forwards before that day.
They didn’t, their official response is “we’ll release another build on a month or so”. Meaning if you want to use WHS2 2011-01-11 and beyond your options are exactly 0.
Now I’m “bailing” my data from the server drive by drive detaching a drive from the storage pool, formatting it as regular NTFS, then moving data from the storage pool to the “life boat” drive, detaching the next drive as room opens up on the pool.
Once that’s done all my data is once again spread across multiple drives and not in a cohesive pool, meaning my data doesn’t go under when the OS finally does, I’ll install Windows 7 on the server machine later and set up shares again, though this time with the peril of having the constraints of individual drives you can’t exceed without splitting your shares in weird ways, I’m also going to migrate the web server and other applications between operating systems, which will take some time.
All Stations Are Go For Launch Capt’n
Site - November 21, 2010 - 3 commentsThe theme is implemented, some minor tweaks might still remain (never say anything is 100% done, nothing ever is, it’s a rule).
Forgot how messy the code was for the comments and archive… The form for the comments is a table, had to strip all that nonsense out to implement a CSS based layout, tables for layout, how quaint.
Oh, right need to style the comments as well… lets hope against hope it’s not another table riddled piece of… well… filler comment:
Implementing The New Theme
Site - November 21, 2010 - Leave your commentAbout 80% done, but as anyone familiar with this stuff knows, that means it’s less than half done. mostly the smaller elements like meta data, comments, random links etc that aren’t yet properly styled.
Done a long series of corrections to the images and fancybox image enlargement, scrapped a whole lot of redundant markup I used previously for thickbox.
And the meta stuff is mostly done now, though I’m trying to figure out where to put the comments link, contemplating not even having it on the front page, only if you go to the individual posts, though I’m not using excerpts thus going to a post doesn’t actually give you anything over just watching the blog in it’s entirety other than the permalink.
iPhone Customization November 2010
Customization - November 21, 2010 - One commentiOS4 customization is finally starting to get revved up, customization takes a dive after a new major iOS version since most Cydia applications used require updates. Though you still can’t style the LiveClock (hence why it sticks out like a sore thumb) embodies the cold beauty of winter.
Stylish, informative and colder than a lamp post.
Netbook Tweakin’ Autumn Redux
Customization - October 28, 2010 - Leave your commentNetbook UI autumn 2010
Put some more work into my Netbook’s UI:
Put most effort into slimming down Firefox 4, now it’s just a single toolbar with an IE9 inspired combined URL and tabbar with a hidden bookmarks toolbar that only appears if you hover the toolbar. Grand total of 28 pixels with the bookmarks bar not showing, 57 with.
The bookmarks toolbar, shown if the toolbar is hovered and keeps showing while you navigate the bookmarks etc, doesn’t hide until you’ve moved the cursor away for 1.5 seconds, doesn’t hide if you return to it in that time, since if it’s instant it keeps jumping back and forth all the time.
Netbook Tweakin’
Customization - August 27, 2010 - Leave your commentBeen tweaking my netbook UI some, refining the look, particularly of Firefox, next step is making my own images for the on screen display stuff (raise/lower volume, other keyboard commands etc) the asus ones are terrible.
Desktop Customization
Customization - July 9, 2010 - Leave your comment
Custom wallpaper based on the awesome Firefox 4.0 Beta 1 illustration by Steven Olds “Building a Better BioSphere” (Firefox pushes the advancement of the web forward). Found here original resolution of 5040×2074 (3x 1680×1050 + 1280×1024 above the middle one, making an inverted T) don’t often come across art high res enough to span all my 4 monitors 
Full 5040×2074 image here
Each beta of 4.0 will have it’s own illustration, telling a story the same way the robots of 3.5 did, can you tell the narrative in that image?
Because the beta process is really all about people in our worldwide community working together to build a better product (there are a few different ways you can help by providing feedback while you browse), the illustration is meant to represent that collaborative, innovative spirit. I’ll leave the specifics a mystery for now
Source: John Slater at http://www.intothefuzz.com/2010/07/08/firefox-4-building-a-better-biosphere/
iPhone Customization
Customization - June 24, 2010 - Leave your comment
