Projects

So i have finally started on it! It seems to have generated quite a lot of interest from MediaUK – i’ve had over 400 unique hits in the last few days alone. You can find it here with usage info here Give it a go if you like, but it is pre-alpha so expect it to be buggy.

If you have any suggestions/ideas and you havn’t already mentioned them on MediaUK, then post a comment here or email me and i’ll try and get it in.

I should add, that this post seems to get quite a lot of hits, if you’re using my system anywhere, please do let me know (since i’ve stopped development i don’t care where it’s being used, commercial or otherwise).

If you’d like to see this project continued, please do comment or send me an email on dave@lewty.org.uk and i’ll re-start development.

I have made extensive backend changes to the website – it is now fully PHP/MySql driven! I will get around to making some sort of editor soon, but for now PHPMyAdmin will do.

This site: http://www.tizag.com/ has been fantastic, it explains how to do each little step without the mess but still goes onto some advanced features.

The website i have been developing for work has benefitted a lot from that site! The new work site is up at www.irisradar.com  and currently does have its own CMS editor.

This should make management of my site far easier – being able to edit in phpmyadmin when on the move will be great adding pages is now a doddle – i add a new entry into the table on the database and if i set the ranking properly it will appear in the navigation bars as if by magic!

I also have flags whether or not i want it to be a main link on the nav bar, a admin type link on the top of the page or not to appear at all.

This weekend i attempted to give linux as a desktop ago, trying out the new Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and it’s still a no-go. X is still unfathomable when it comes to multi monitor multi display card interfaces it simply does not work. Until i can get my dual graphics card, quad monitor setup working properly under linux then i’m not interested in using it as a desktop. In that respect it still has a long way to go i think.

I was fully prepared to live with it permantly – using Rdesktop and SeamlessRDP for Outlook from my terminal services server because i can’t live without it but alas no, i will try again in another year or so but i suspect still no further progress will have been made.

My other new server arrived this morning, and quite beasty it is too!

I have decided to install Ubuntu 6.10 Server. This allows me to software RAID-1 the boot disk (2x 72Gb) and RAID-0 the ‘incoming’ disks (2x 36Gb). I’ve had to do this as there is no hardware RAID card with it, although it did come with the DELL DRAC2 Card and another Dual Intel Pro/100! So now i have one spare…

I’ve also gone for the free VMWare as GSX was too hard to get hold of and ESX was out of the question (the whole non supporting software RAID and that).

Currently i’m installing Server 2k3 into a VM, i think this first one will be the ‘incoming’ server, then after that i need to create VMs for Exchange and AD/DNS.

A busy week for me then! Hopefully it won’t take too long to get sorted, in the intervening time im going to run mail servers both here and home and simply use seperate MX records for accepting the mail.

Yes thats right!

One more is on it’s way to me as we speak!

Spec:

Dell Poweredge 2500 (a lot more U than i realised!)
Dual PIII 1.4Ghz
1Gb RAM
2x 36Gb HDD
2x 72Gb HDD

This is going to be my ‘virtual’ datacentre – many 2k3 VM’s each doing singular tasks – AD, DNS, Exchange and so forth, this should make reliability better.

I’m moving the webserver – see the service status below on how this affects services. But should all be sorted within a few days.

There are a couple of scheduled Outages planned for the next few days:

Sunday 5th August:
Web services will be intermittant all day, this affects:

www.lewty.org.uk
gallery.lewty.org.uk
forum.lewty.org.uk
intranet.lewty.org.uk
download.lewty.org.uk
mongol-rally.lewty.org.uk
www.crazydave.org.uk
www.salfordunion.co.uk

Webmail may also be affected for a short while.

Monday 6th August

E-mail, Webmail, DNS, SSL Explorer and AD Auth will be unavailable all day, service should resume by 8pm.

@lewty.org.uk
@crazydave.org.uk
mail.lewty.org.uk
ssl.lewty.org.uk
vpn.lewty.org.uk

Me and Matt have finally tied our systems together, i am fully routed onto his LAN(s) and vice versa – with DNS even! We can now get to each others internal services including Samba and IRC, quite quite genious – took quite a late night to get it working and some swearing at IP Tables but we got there in the end.

We’re currently looking at applying for a Class C subnet so that we dont have to faff about with NAT onto the web, we can simply route everything everywhere with multiple entry points into the system.

Thats just about all i achieved yesterday and today all ive done is housework(!) Back to work tomorrow, hopefully my new fan will turn up so i can fix my PSU, it might stop smelling of fire then.

Yup, just got the water bill – ?380, although that is per year, its still quite a lot – around ?32/month. The electric isn’t working out too bad – roughly 10-11 units per day im using at the mo, and given that im off work, and everything is on all day, thats pretty good.

Me, Martin and Paula went to see Oceans 13 last night, and while it was better than Oceans 12, its still not a patch on the first one in that trilogy – Oceans 11. The cinema was all the way out at Chesire Oaks, which seems to have a lot of shops and resteurants about and should be investigated further.

Tech-wise, im stuck, anything i want to do seems to involve money, so it’ll have to wait, either until i start getting paid or until my bank stop being so silly and extend my overdraft.

Anyways, thats it for now

Yup, thats right, it would seem i have a shortage of IEC leads, i must buy a bulk lot – the theory being that if i have two for every device i own i’ll never run out….i hope.

I’ve been speccing together new servers and whatnot, primarily for my NAS which will run on the lovely Solaris with ZFS and Z-RAID, i found this case linky Ok, so it’s ?600 but it’s 16 SATA-II hotswap bays, with the correct backplane, add that to using ZFS, this means i could keep a monthly disk expenditure, and although disks will get cheaper, i can just get bigger disks as they dont all have to be the same size, right now a 500Gb Seagate SATA-II disk will set you back a mere ?67 which is a bargain. 16x 500Gb….umm….8Tb (think that will be enough?) although its Z-RAID so its approximatly equivalent to RAID-5 costing leaving me with 6Tb or so – using all 500Gb disks, as time goes on the 750Gb and 1Tb disks will be the same price…

One of the problems with this arrangement is SATA connections, SCAN do a Solaris compatible SATA card – 8 ports, but it’s PCI-X which means either butchering an already existing server (but has to have a standard ATX or Extended ATX mainboard and PSU) or buying new – PCI-X mainboards are more than a little expensive, so i need to investigate what second hand servers will have them, or looking to buying on ebay.

The box itself doesnt really need to be all that powerful – 1Ghz, 1Gb RAM or so would be fine, it’s finding somthing suitable which is the hard part, and, i might as well do this properly.

In the meantime i have decomissioned the current fileserver, as having only a single 160Gb drive, seemed pretty pointless, i will put this into the mediacentre for the time being, at least then all the media will be in one place, even if its not accessable 24/7. I did try to install Solaris onto the old fileserver but it was having none of it, it is waay underspec really so i didnt expect much.

I’m off back to Fellside tomorrow, the list of jobs to do is ever increasing (this is on top of the original job i was going in to do) but if i can get a couple of weeks (maybe weekends) in i’ll be happy and it’ll all go towards paying bills and whatnot.

I would like to get back – i want to give my DIY projector a whirl, but i guess it’ll just have to wait.

So here we are then, one week in, still got a ton of things to sort – bath taps, car park gate, intercom, BT and internet, but i’m getting there. Still sat on my laptop as i don’t yet have any form of desk to put my PC onto – which will be solved by a trip to IKEA in the near future (is it just me that thinks IKEA is scarily close to UKAEA? do the UKAEA even exist any more? or have they been renamed?) Anyway, i digress, that solved, there will still be a load of other things to buy – drawers, coffee table and more. I should be about settled by September i think, including having internet sorted out.

I’m probably just going to have to fork out the ?125 to BT for a man to come and look at the line and go ‘ok’ but nevermind, i think the 24meg broadband should make up for it – if the electricity bill isn’t shockinly high which is the way it’s headed.

I’m helping Martin move back to the Wirral tonight, so will be off to Manchester shortly, also checked out the Three Stags pub nearby which is a rather nice little place which does decent, cheap, food. What else…..umm…..back off home on saturday to work at Fellside on this IT job that’ll provide some much needed income (hopefully i’ll hear back from my bank tomorrow about my overdraft otherwise im going to be in muchos troublous).

I might attack my monitoring controller this week a bit more – at least the sockets install side, though i’m probably going to need a new hole saw as the one i have is completely screwed.

Nothing else to report really, so i’ll get on, stick the telly on for a bit – which, by the way i still dont get decent signal – digital is crap unless you live right on top of the transmitter, it’s really rather annoying.

So this is it, i’m all moved out and am in my brand new flat on the wirral (i’ll send out the address to all the important people later) with all my stuff – 5 trips from manchester it took, without any help, i’ve managed to clock up nearly 600 miles in 3 days -quite good going i thought.

It’ll take a while before im all settled – having quite a few issues at the moment – bath taps dont work (so i can’t use the jacuzzi), key fob for the carpark doesnt work and the intercom doesn’t work. Plus most companies refuse to believe the flat exists and BT want to charge ?125 to come and look at the phone line that’s already installed.

I do need to get some more furniture from IKEA soon, but most importantly a desk, rearranging furniture is being awkward as i want to get the projector in somewhere too, i think i’ve found somewhere now, but it will take a while before it’s right.

I’ll update you all with whats going on when i can, but for the next few days its just unpacking and buying new things for the flat and then im off home for a week at Fellside doing some IT stuff.

Will see you all soon, TTFN