Well, the new year is nicely in full swing as I come wandering along with my first post of 2009.
To be quite honest, I’m not really sure if you are going to be able to
read this because at this moment, my hosting company responsible for
the up (and down) time of the knightwise.com is really making a mockery.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First of all I would like to start of
by wishing all of you a happy new year and may all that is good and
glorious cross your path in the next 356 days. I am not one to make new
years resolutions, nor am I the kind of person that dares to "predict’
just what the coming year is going to bring. I am a creature that
floats in linear time. Yesterday is merely a set of memories, tomorrow
harbors infinite combinations of possible outcomes and the only
fleeting impression we have of the world around us , is at this very
moment.. The present.
"Maiden white as this screen is the future to all of us. Waiting for the
next character we enter. Paused at the blinking cursor of the now, I
can only read back on what I have written and ponder on what is to come."
The past then : Well , the new year started of very well with my own
Macbook Pro becoming the victim of a deadly cocktail : My own
clumsiness mixed with the inevitable presence of gravity. As i was
recovering from my modest new years celebration I had perched myself
onto our sofa and had the Macbook pro on my lap (closed). Since it was
suffering from battery deprivation syndrome I decided to pick up the
wire of the power supply that was on the floor. Before I knew it, the
tilted surface of my lap became an empty place as my laptop slid off
and fell on the floor. Merely 20 centimeters separated my lap from the
floor, but the Macbook Pro impacted on the tiles with the left lower
corner first, and tipped over to fall flat on its closed display lid
afterwards. The result : No structural damage whatsoever, but
unfortunately both the hard drive and the LCD display suffered damage.
The new year had only started a few hours and my Macbook Pro was ready
for the apple store. Bummer. Resulting new years resolution ? Hook up
an external USB drive to serve as a Time machine drive. I had backed up
most of the data on the Macbook pro, but had not yet gotten down to
moving the recorded instructional videos i made the day before, to a
safe place. Backup backup backup !
Since the incident I’ve been relying on my Acer aspire One to offer me
its services as my main system. So far i am very pleased. The
combination of my command line experience (using the terminal to run
apps like Alpine for email, Centerim for instant messaging and IRSSI
for IRC) combined with tabs in the terminal window, tabbed browsing in
firefox and multiple virtual desktops, make up for the lack fo screen
size the device offers. I have also noticed that the command line way
of working is much easier when it comes down to working with the
device. Where the small touch pad could appear to be clunky and
awkward, just using the little keyboard and some keyboard shortcuts
helps me to be very productive on the little device. Add an apple might
mouse to the mix (with a small scroll ball and short cable) and you
have quite and interesting device. Not as powerful as my Macbook Pro ,
but surely much more portable. Even watching video’s stored on the SD
card or streaming them from the NAS works like a charm. Ubuntu does run
like a dream on this little machine.
Benesol.be Blows.
However the other thing keeping me awake these days is (as I mentioned
before) my current hosting company. Many of you have reported problems
with the Knightwise.com website over the last few weeks. Failing SQL
database servers, corrupt SQL databases, large unreported downtimes and
so forth. It was edging towards the point where it just was not funny
anymore and I started resenting the whole thing. The comments section
got spammed like you would not believe, things did not work anymore and
stuff like that. I didn’t even want to login to the websites control
panel just because I loathed having to fix yet another problem , or
even worse , finding out that the site was down (again). Yesterday was
the final straw. The SQL database became corrupt at 9 am ( taking the
3000+ posts down) and was restored in the afternoon. When I got home at
night the whole database was empty ! There was NOTHING in it anymore. I
was furious.
So I have taken up an account at Bluehost and am in the process of
(thanks to the help of Codemonkey Rob) moving everything away from my
current hosting company. The hosting formula at Bluehost offer me more
storage capability so I might even be able to do something special. Who
am I kidding " might be able ". For the first time I have the chance to
put ALL of my content on line (all the 38 episodes of the previous
season, the 20 episodes of this season and of course the KWTV
episodes.) So I’m planning and scheming to get everything moved over,
upgraded, cleaned out and in order for the coming year. Being able to
put all my stuff in one place and use one "master" rss feed to push out
my content has given me a lot more motivation to carry on and produce
more content.
I’ll keep you guyz and girls posted on how it goes, but in the meantime
it might be a little "silent" here at the site. No worries, you can
look me up on facebook or twitter if you need to find me. Now stand
back .. we have a site to move.