So the Dell Mini 10v that I’ve been waiting for since Christmas came in yesterday. What a great little machine. Right now I’m calling it the Macbook Mini since I installed OSX shortly after taking it out of the box.
Unfortunately the first thing I had to do was downgrade the BIOS, which was a little stressful, but after that it was smooth sailing. Here are some photos of the unboxing: Continue reading
I recently had a request from someone on how to setup multiple domains on a single IP address. This is something that I’ve thought about doing before, but haven’t taken the time to stop and set it up. After getting sub-domains working, this was a breeze, as it’s the same process. I’m working on an Ubuntu server, so this may be a little different for you.
First setup the DNS, since it will probably take about an hour for that to update anyway, depending on the TTY that you use. If you’re setting this up and you want to make sure it works, you can edit your /etc/hosts file on a mac or linux machine. I think there’s a way to do this in windows as well, but I’m not sure of what file you’d be looking for. Just remember to delete that entry after you know it works.
To setup the DNS you first need to find the DNS control for the domain registrar that you use. In GoDaddy the option would be called Total DNS. Change the A record to the IP address you want to use as a server and you’re done.
Now you need to create a new file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/. Call it whatever you want. I will call it NEWSITE.TLD. In this file you will create a new file that looks similar to this, only substituting information specific to your server:
NameVirtualHost *:80
ServerAdmin you@your-domain.tld
ServerName your-domain.tld
DocumentRoot /var/www/your-root/
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache/access.log combined
ServerSignature On
Now we enable the site with:
sudo a2ensite /etc/apache2/sites-available/NEWSITE.TLDReload the apache configuration and you should be good to go.
I decided this week to switch over my web hosting from Godaddy to iPower. I was a little worried about the process at first, but it was pretty simple and now that it’s all over I’m definitely glad I did it.
I had been thinking about it for over 3 weeks, ever since I got the recommendation. Then a couple weeks ago my blog started being super slow. At first I was worried that it was my design, but even the back-end was going slow. After a little research I came to the conclusion that the GoDaddy MySQL database wasn’t really setup very good for WordPress. I was a little worried because I had just signed up for a two year hosting plan and I didn’t want to be stuck with that service for two more years.
Finally, one day I was just fed up with it and I called tech support to figure out how much money I could get back, if any. The guy I talked to told me that I would be refunded for any unused time, but that they had to manually refund my money. He asked some questions about why I wanted to switch, but I only talked to him for a few minutes.
I backed up my site, setup my my iPower account, and then, after iPower was all setup, I changed the DNS in my GoDaddy account to point to iPower. Then the next day I called GoDaddy and cancelled my hosting account and got 23 months refunded. It was really great. I wish I didn’t have to switch off of GoDaddy, since their customer service was so great, but everything about the experience was slow. Even navigating through their menus was slow with too many steps. When I login to iPower I’m already set to manage my hosting account, but with GoDaddy there were three or four mouse clicks just to get to that point. And with iPower all the options are right there, on one page, whereas with GoDaddy it just feels like everything is more complicated than it needs to be, with too many menus.
One last note: When I first setup my iPower account and I was trying to setup my new blog, it wasn’t working. I didn’t know why at first, but it turns out that CGI scripting wasn’t turned on, so PHP wasn’t working. I went to the support section to submit a ticket for support and within a half hour I had an email explaining what had happened and that the issue had been taken care of. So far the iPower support has also been very good.
I recently upgraded my macbook’s Hard drive and RAM. After skimming the Howtos for the past year, it was a very simple process, and well worth it.
To start, I had to research the type of memory that my MacBook uses. There are a million websites that will give the specs on the RAM you need. I don’t recomend that you buy the “Apple” memory, as it’s much more expensive than just buying regular laptop memory from newegg. Not to mention, it’s the exact same thing.
It turns out that even though Apple only recommends that you use 4GB of RAM in the white macbook, people have been able to get 6GB working, with 1 x 2GB and 1 x 4GB. When I saw this I thought about it for about a half-second and decided against it. 4GB would double my RAM, and dual channel memory works best with two identical sticks.
For a little less than a year now, since shortly after I got my macbook I have been looking at hard drives to replace the one that came in the system. I explored many options, including small SSD drives and large 7200RPM HDDs. In the end I decided to go with the new 500GB 7200RPM drive from Seagate. I was a little worried at first that the drive would be loud or create noticeable vibration, but so far neither is true. It is also running quite cool, currently at 35 degrees Celsius after running almost all day.
As I’ve already mentioned, it was quite easy to install the new hardware and get working again quickly. There are a zillion tutorials online about how to do it. The first thing you need to do is check out this episode of Systm, all about upgrading laptop hard drives on Macs and PCs. This one is google: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=macbook+hard+drive+upgrade.
Swapping the RAM is a very simple process. Take out the battery, take out 3 screws on the L-bracket, push the little switches to the other side to pop the RAM out, replace it and put it all back together.
The Hard Drive is even easier. Once you get the L-bracket out, you pull the tab on the hard dive to get it out, put the new hard drive on the tray and slide it back in. If you want to restore your documents and settings you’ll also need a 2.5″ hard drive enclose with USB or Firewire.
After the Hard Drive was back in I put in the OS X disks that came with the computer to install OS X. After the install I plugged in the old hard drive, now in a USB enclosure and chose the option to get documents from another hard dive on the computer. It copied everything in my home directory along with all my applications and network settings. When the computer booted up it looked like I never replaced the hard drive at all. The only thing left to do was Software Update.
I finally figured out how to get trac and svn on their own subdomains since when I originally setup the web server awhile ago. The only thing that changes is the vhosts file. In that example it was “/etc/apache2/sites-available/svntrac”. Here’s what the file should look like now:
NameVirtualHost *:80
ServerAdmin you@domain.com
ServerName domain.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
ServerSignature On
ServerName svn.domain.com
DAV svn
SVNParentPath /svn
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Subversion Repository"
AuthUserFile /path/to/svnauth
Require valid-user
# AuthzSVNAccessFile /path/to/svnaccess
ServerName trac.domain.com
SetHandler mod_python
PythonHandler trac.web.modpython_frontend
PythonOption TracEnvParentDir /trac
PythonOption TracUriRoot /
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Trac"
AuthUserFile /path/to/svnauth
Require valid-user
The new monitor setup with the hacked-together portrait stand for the 19"
I recently got a new 24″ Samsung monitor/tv because the 19″ monitor that I was using was starting to seem small, especially since they have almost all 22″ monitors at work now.
Originally I was just looking at how much 22″-24″ monitors were on newegg. When I saw this monitor/tv I thought it would be great for a dorm room.
The new setup with OS X on the big screen
As you can see in the photos, I decided to go with portrait mode on the old 19″ Samsung that I was using, but it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. A lot of the monitors that are sold come with stands that let you flip them sideways, but mine didn’t. I put together a custom VESA stand out of some wood we had in the shed last night. So far it’s working out pretty good.
Update: By popular demand, here are some pics of the stand I built.
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<a href='http://joshbetz.com/2009/06/new-monitor-setup/dsc00894' title='The New Setup'><img data-attachment-id="1519" data-orig-file="http://i2.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089411.jpg?resize=3648%2C2736" data-orig-size="3648,2736" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"3.3","credit":"","camera":"DSC-W170","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1247158237","copyright":"","focal_length":"5","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":""}" data-image-title="The New Setup" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="http://i2.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089411.jpg?fit=300%2C300" data-large-file="http://i2.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089411.jpg?fit=1350%2C760" src="http://i2.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089411.jpg?resize=150%2C150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="The new monitor setup with the hacked-together portrait stand for the 19"" /></a>
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The new monitor setup with the hacked-together portrait stand for the 19″
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<a href='http://joshbetz.com/2009/06/new-monitor-setup/dsc00895' title='The New Setup w/ OS X'><img data-attachment-id="1520" data-orig-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089511.jpg?resize=3648%2C2736" data-orig-size="3648,2736" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"3.3","credit":"","camera":"DSC-W170","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1247158223","copyright":"","focal_length":"5","iso":"125","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":""}" data-image-title="The New Setup w/ OS X" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089511.jpg?fit=300%2C300" data-large-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089511.jpg?fit=1350%2C760" src="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089511.jpg?resize=150%2C150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="The new setup with OS X on the big screen" /></a>
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The new setup with OS X on the big screen
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<a href='http://joshbetz.com/2009/06/new-monitor-setup/dsc00899' title='dsc00899'><img data-attachment-id="1529" data-orig-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089911.jpg?resize=3648%2C2736" data-orig-size="3648,2736" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"3.3","credit":"","camera":"DSC-W170","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1247158413","copyright":"","focal_length":"5","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":""}" data-image-title="dsc00899" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089911.jpg?fit=300%2C300" data-large-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089911.jpg?fit=1350%2C760" src="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0089911.jpg?resize=150%2C150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="dsc00899" /></a>
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<a href='http://joshbetz.com/2009/06/new-monitor-setup/dsc00900' title='dsc00900'><img data-attachment-id="1530" data-orig-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0090011.jpg?resize=3648%2C2736" data-orig-size="3648,2736" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"3.3","credit":"","camera":"DSC-W170","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1247158401","copyright":"","focal_length":"5","iso":"100","shutter_speed":"0.025","title":""}" data-image-title="dsc00900" data-image-description="" data-medium-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0090011.jpg?fit=300%2C300" data-large-file="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0090011.jpg?fit=1350%2C760" src="http://i1.wp.com/joshbetz.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2009/06/DSC0090011.jpg?resize=150%2C150" class="attachment-thumbnail" alt="dsc00900" /></a>
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Safari 4 was released today at WWDC and I’m pretty happy with it. There were more user interface changes than I thought I’d see between the beta and the final product. Not that they changed a ton of stuff, but I expected them to stick with the UI that they had in Safari 4 beta and just fix the bugs.
There were only a couple of things that I noticed that were different.
They did take out one small thing, probably unintentionally, that I really liked. When you have multiple tabs open you can grab one of the tabs and drag it out of the current window to create a new window. You can also grab one of the tabs and drag it to another window, if you have one open, and move that tab to the new window. In the beta, since the title bar was the tab, you could grab the title bar, without extra tabs open, to another window and it would add that window to the other window as a tab. You can’t do that anymore, since the title bar is no longer a tab and it only shows the tabs when there are more than one of them.
It would be really nice if you could drag the title bar of a window with just one tab open to another window and have that get added as a tab to the new window. Maybe even let you drag the title bar from a window with more than one tab and have all the tabs in that window get added to the new window?
Update: I’m pretty sure the new tab button wasn’t included in the beta, as the [+] button was always at the end of the title bar.
After getting everything setup how I want on my web server I want to record how I did it. I know the right thing to do would be to create an image, but I’m just going to write it down instead. That way you can use it if you ever need it.
Thanks to Anant Garg for this part. I’m only going to make a few changes to update things and such.
sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-python libapache2-svn python-setuptools subversion python-subversion
sudo easy_install http://ftp.edgewall.com/pub/trac/Trac-0.11.4.tar.gz
sudo mkdir /svn
sudo mkdir /trac
sudo htpasswd -cm /etc/svnauth myname
sudo htpasswd -m /etc/svnauth myfriendsname
Create a permissions file, “/etc/svnaccess”
[groups]
developers = myname, myfriendsname
[ / ]
@developers = rw
* = r
Now create the Apache config file, “/etc/apache2/sites-available/svntrac”
ServerAdmin your@email.com
ServerName
DocumentRoot /var/www/
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
ServerSignature On
DAV svn
SVNParentPath /svn
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Subversion Repository"
AuthUserFile /etc/svnauth
Require valid-user
AuthzSVNAccessFile /etc/svnaccess
SetHandler mod_python
PythonHandler trac.web.modpython_frontend
PythonOption TracEnvParentDir /trac
PythonOption TracUriRoot /trac
AuthType Basic
AuthName "Trac"
AuthUserFile /etc/svnauth
Require valid-user
Now I have to activate the new config file and change the permissions.
sudo a2ensite svntrac
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
sudo chown -R www-data /trac
Now create, “/etc/trac.ini”
[header_logo]
alt = Logo
height = -1
link =
src = /trac-files/logo.png
width = -1
The logo.png file will go in “/var/www/trac-files”.
Now I create a perl script called init.pl. I wouldn’t have done this, but it was on the tutorial and it is actually really handy.
#!/usr/bin/perl
$sName = $ARGV[0];
$lName = $ARGV[1];
if ($lName eq "") {
$lName = $sName;
}
$sName =~ tr/A-Z/a-z/;
$path = "sudo svnadmin create /svn/$sName";
system ($path);
$path = "sudo chown -R www-data /svn/$sName";
system ($path);
$path = "sudo trac-admin /trac/$sName initenv '$lName' 'sqlite:db/trac.db' 'svn' '/svn/$sName' --inherit=/etc/trac.ini";
system ($path);
$path = "sudo chown -R www-data /trac/$sName";
system ($path);
$path = "sudo trac-admin /trac/$sName permission add yourusername TRAC_ADMIN permission list yourusername";
system ($path);
print "Done!nn";
Now, when you run this it will look something like this.
sudo perl init.pl 'short' 'long'
The ‘short is obviously the short name and the ‘long’ is the long name. If you don’t have a long name you can leave that part out, the script will just use the short name.
Thanks to Anant Garg, for this part of the tutorial. My only real reason for posting this part is to make sure I don’t lose it.
The first thing I want to do now is make the IP address static. I can’t forget to do that. So I have to open the “/etc/network/interfaces” file.
Change this:
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
to this:
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1
Make sure to change “dhcp” to “static”. Then restart networking.
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
sudo apt-get install apache2
sudo apt-get install php5
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin
Now let’s add the following to “/etc/apache2/apache2.conf”:
# Include phpmyadmin configuration
Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf
and restart apache. Then finish setting upu phpMyAdmin:
sudo apt-get install php5-mysql mysql-client
and add “extensions=mysql.so” to “/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini” and restart apache 1 last time.
Finally, Let’s add an FTP server:
sudo apt-get install proftpd ucf
Select ‘standalone‘ when asked to chose between ‘inetd’ and ‘standalone’.
Add the “DefaultChdir” as “/var/www” and restart the web server.
Thanks to HowtoForge for this part of the tutorial.
As many people know, from my postings on twitter recently I have been having an issue getting my web server setup with linux, more specifically trac and svn under linux. For the past year I have had the same server running Windows 2000 and Apache as my trac/svn and testing server and I needed to get everything on linux, but I’ve had more problems than I originally thought I would have to deal with.
In the past three days, I think I’ve spent more time working in the linux command line than all the other times combined. It has been my goal for awhile to get my servers all running linux here too, but big problem was always Trac and SVN. I knew it would be a pain, but since I was on spring break this week I decided that this was the time to do it.
Setting up a LAMP server is no big deal, I’ve done it several times. I’m at the point where I can fly through the intsall in no time. The big problem I had was getting trac and svn setup and then moved over with everything intact.
On Friday night, after some searching Google for tutorials on moving Trac and SVN, I found Subversion + Trac for Multiple Projects (One Click Build) by Anant Garg. This really saved me. It was a great tutorial that went through every step line by line. It might have taken me a couple of times to figure it out, but eventually I got the whole thing setup and moved over to a virtual machine. This was my backup. I knew once I had the virtual machine setup and everything was working that I’d be able to get it moved back to the web server once I had linux on it.
This is where the real problems started. I’ve never had as many problems getting an operating system installed in my life. At first it wouldn’t even go to the installer. It kept dropping back to BusyBox (I think it’s a lack of RAM). Eventually, after about 25 tries, I got it to go through the installer. When it restarted it went back to BusyBox. The stuff I read online about getting past BusyBox didn’t work, I couldn’t even install the alternate version of Ubuntu. I finally gave up last night at 11:30 and walked away. This morning when I went to retrieve my keyboard I noticed that it was still looping through the BusyBox cycle. I typed ‘exit’, and it quit BusyBox and booted into the OS. I couldn’t beleive it. After all that all I had to do was type ‘exit’. I later found out that you have to wait for 3 or 4 minutes after it boots up to quit BusyBox (again, I think more RAM would fix the problem).
Once I got the server all setup and running, I had a small problem moving everything back over, but once I figured out that I had to change a path in one of the configuration files I was up and running.
This install is even more usefull than the previous one. I’m really liking it.
Hat Tip: http://www.supriyadisw.net/2006/12/lamp-installation-on-ubuntu