Bigger, Faster & Better Web Hosting

General, Internet

I last wrote about web hosting back in May 2005 when I changed from HostCentral to McGooHQ on the lead up to our wedding for price reasons. Since then my site has been sailing along without a worry in the world, super fast and with next to no downtime.

I’ve been blogging away since then and not so long ago Andrew & Belinda also started blogging which has been great. I set them up with a sub-domain and we kept on trucking along but it wasn’t too long before I was getting warning emails about disk space usage and the like.

A quick email conversation with the fine folks at AussieHQ about an upgraded web hosting plan and I was en route to a bigger, faster & better everything. Gone are the days of using Cpanel and I’m back in the high gloss world of Plesk – which is what I was using when I was at HostCentral many moons ago.

The migration staff at AussieHQ moved everything for me from server to server and I provided a few bits of vital information via email to smooth things over. Everything has gone smoothly, all data migrated successfully and the server configuration was spot on. All that was left for me to do was a simple change to DNS and away we went.

I hope the next few years of this hosting plans life are as pain free as the last few have been, keep up the excellent work AussieHQ!

Hugo, Sleeping Machine

Family, Photos

Australian Bureau of Meteorology radar image showing high intensity rain/storm activity on 16 November 2008This afternoon we had a monster storm which brought with it lots of lightning, thunder and even a moderate amount of hail. I wouldn’t normally mention it, however this was enough to make the Bureau of Meteorology issue are storm warning into South East Queensland.

When I say lots of lightning and thunder, we’re talking about dozens of lightning strikes less than two kilometers from our home, rolling thunder that makes your house shake and high intensity cracks that are loud enough to be uncomfortable.

While all of this was going on outside though, Hugo was inside having his mid-afternoon nap and was completely unaware what was going on. When the house and glass started to shake, I thought that he’d wake up for sure or on the really large cracks – but nothing, not even a stir.

His tolerance to noise while he sleeps has been such a blessing for Claire and I as it lets us get on with things around the house, such as vacuuming or mowing, without worrying that it’ll disturb him. It has also been great for when we’ve had family or friends over and we’re making a small racket – happy to sleep or when we’re out at the shops, still happy to sleep.

With a bit of luck, his knack for sleeping will continue; who knows, maybe he’ll be able to sleep whenever and wherever like I can!

A Series Of Unfortunate Events

Hardware

Back in the middle of September, I wrote about faulty products and customer service and followed it up with a short story about the installation problems I had with my CoolerMaster power supply. After another six weeks, I’m happy to report that I finally have a working desktop again!

Thankfully the replacement for the dead on arrival power supply only took two weeks to arrive and not 5-6 like the original replacement. Unfortunately, after plugging everything back together I received a different but equally high pitched squeal from my computer. Taking my computer to pieces component by component, it ended up being the Asus video card. It turns out that when I plugged in the faulty power supply, it some how damaged the video card.

A trip back to the computer shop to have it replaced, approximately a month in waiting and I have it back in my hot little hands. Excited that I might be getting my main computer back, I leave work a little early to go and pick it up and get home to have the same thing go wrong. To rule out something else on my end, I ask Jacob to check it on his home machine and he had the same thing happen.

First thing on Saturday morning I go back to the computer shop and tell them that the repair work wasn’t successful and ask them to expedite the replacement and they were more than happy to help me out. Just as I was about to pull into the garage, I get a phone call from the computer shop telling me that they’ve just put the video card in two different machines and it worked without fault. I was actually in disbelief but relieved at the same time – so i immediately returned to the stop to collect the video card.

Saturday afternoon, i disassembled my machine again and after putting it all back together – as certain that the sun will rise tomorrow – the video card worked without fault. A little bit of fiddling later and I had all of the computer back together and in working order again.

It was great to have the laptop available across the last few months but I’m very happy to have my main computer back as I was really beginning to miss the speed and screen real estate. Next time when I put my computer back together, I’ll be sure to be a little more thorough as it was clearly a case of PEBKAC when the video card was returned to me.

Tracking Outdoor Pet Movements

Animals, Humour

Ever wondered where you pet might go while outside, does he just laze about the house or does he prowl the neighbourhood. Apparently that question was just too much for Mr Lee, so he developed a set of utilities to solve that problem:

  • CatTrack: Affix a small GPS logging device to your favourite pet and when they return home for the night – you can download the GPS data and view the path/route within Google Maps.
  • CatCam: Affix a small camera to your favourite pet and actually see where they are. For those that don’t deal well with maps, you know who you are.
  • CatCam Live: Affix a small camera and wifi equipment to your animal to stream their pictures live, no more waiting for your animal to return home to download the pictures taken during the day.