frankly at a glance.

It seems to me that large corporations are having trouble keeping up with the pace of IT development… and the expectation of the business users as more people become savvy enough to know how unworthy their IT department is.

It is true that as a corporation expands, the demands on the critical hardware increases dramatically. An email that will usually be delivered in minutes gets delayed… and the users voice their concerns. However, things don’t just “happen” in large companies… they are giants and they move half a step at a time. The IT guys aren’t exactly on good terms with the business users… well after writing the millionth “I apologize for the inconvenience but…” email how can you expect them to be?

I think the simple solution here is outsourcing the critical services within the company to the cloud. For example, using Google Mail to manage your company’s growing email infrastructure. It manages all the anti-spam, AV scan and it provides a large inbox for $50 a head per year. Google recently released an entire suite of new Apps that will let you run Microsoft Outlook with Google’s Mail and Calendar.

The point is companies shouldn’t be afraid of moving their local infrastructure to the cloud. Not only do cloud services like that of Google produce much better performance, but also the cloud can save a lot of money for the company.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Posted in: Other.
Tagged: Google

I have been having this annoying problem with my DVD burner… the tray won’t eject unless I use the pinhole release. After Googling, I noticed there are a lot of DW1640 and rebranded Sony drives having the same problem. However, no solution was found.

So today I decided to take a crack at it and see if I can figure out the problem. The drive is out of warranty anyway… and it still burns fast and solid.

After some testing, I realized the cause of the problem was the little rubber belt connecting two spin wheels that controlled the ejection and retraction of the tray.

I guess the elasticity of the rubber must have worn out over the years, and the wheels were left to spin freely.

The simple solution was to replaced the worn out belt with an elastic band.

I found an elastic band with slightly shorter circumference than the original, so it was a bit tricky to put on. I hooked up the small wheel first, then used two tweezers and pull the band around the bigger wheel.

Problem solved! and gave the old drive a few more years to live.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Posted in: DIY.

I switched my Snow Leopard kernel to 64bit after reading an article online about the performance advantage in Lightroom, and a few other apps.

However, lately I realized my iPhone tethering is no longer working. The Macbook cannot see the phone in Network Preferences, and iTunes spits out an unknown error (0xE800006B). I did everything from resetting my settings on the phone, and deleting iTunes’ plist file. Nothing worked! Every time I plug my phone in, the same error message pops out… didn’t know what to do.

I eventually realized the problem was caused by the 64bit kernel and the lack of proper driver support for it… and apparently iTunes (as of 9.0.2) was not rewritten like most other apps for Snow Leopard.

That made me wonder… Apple has a Windows 64bit version of iTunes but not a Mac version?  What is going on here?

Anyway, I thought I’d let the world know since this problem isn’t documented by Apple.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Posted in: Apple Inc., Macintosh, iPhone.
Tagged: iTunes · Operating System · Snow Leopard

As many of you know, Google Chrome OS is now available as a VMware VM. You can download from gdgt
http://gdgt.com/google/chrome-os/download/

I think the guys from gdgt just compiled the source from the Chromium OS project… and using this as bait to increase traffic to their site. Anyway, they did an ok job and you do have to register on gdgt to download it.

Here are some screenshots of Chrome OS.

The OS looks extremely similar to the Chrome browser, and it is basically a complete standalone version of Google Chrome. This early developer build has very little configurable options… actually apart from those security and web related options you get from the Chrome browser there are only options to enable Tap to Click, and some mouse/touchpad sensitivity settings.

From the screenshots you will notice that ChromeOS detected that it is running on a laptop computer and it has a space to display battery levels. You can also config timezone settings. The only problem was that the screen resolution was locked to 1024 x 768 and could not be changed.

Page rendering performance was also quite poor, possibly due to the lack of 3D acceleration from the VM. This is very noticeable as you scroll up and down, and when you have a Flash movie loaded.

That’s right, Flash is supported! Youtube works… but the performance is horrible, and again probably due to the lack of graphic acceleration.

From what I can tell from this early development version of Chrome OS, I’d say that Google has done a great job of moving from desktop computing to cloud computing, and bringing desktop applications to web applications. From the start, you login with your Google ID and everything you see is generated and supported by the cloud… and of course the courtesy of an active connection to the Internet.

Aside from the buzz it has generated, Chrome OS is not going to be too useful to the average user right now. Especially when you have Windows or MacOS preinstalled on your machine already. Maybe it will make more sense for low-power netbooks, but even then it will be useless without access to the Internet.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Posted in: Reviews.
Tagged: Chome OS · Google · Operating System · review

I get this question all the time… Should I do an update or a fresh install of my operating system?

Short answer… Fresh Install > Upgrading

Long answer… it depends on how the upgrade went and what you are looking for. I recently did an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard and noticed very little problems. the most noticeable problem was the long bootup time… and I know that Snow Leopard had specific optimizations to decrease boot time. Furthermore, I had some apps that were incompatible with Snow Leopard… so I finally decided to give the system a good wipe and install from scratch. and since then… all the problems have been solved… especially after installing the 10.6.2 update. Just always remember to backup your data and apps before wiping things out. Time Machine is very useful in this respect.

On the Windows side, I successfully upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7 without a glitch. The two systems are extremely similar under the hood, and I did not notice any problem after upgrading. I even did a clean install of Windows 7 and noticed no improvements. To be fair, I didn’t have anything installed in Vista anyway… just Office and Adobe CS.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Posted in: Macintosh, Other.
Tagged: Operating System · Windows 7

Here we go again… I don’t mean to revisit this ancient old debate of which system is better… but I JUST CAN’T HELP IT! =)

Since now I own both systems… I think I can bring some new perspectives and observations to the table.

First of all… I’ve been a loyal Windows user since the 3.0 days. and I guess that’s how long this endless debate has been going on for… However, we are looking at a completely different landscape than those old days.

The common myth that Apple made “better” hardware than your average PC is dead now that everyone is on the Intel train… and we have normal PCs running hacked versions of MacOS… and Intel Macs booting Windows XP and Vista. (official Win 7 support is also coming.) So if you really look at what Apple is offering and charging for… is basically your average hardware stuffed in a fancy chassis. Surprisingly enough… according to official stats there are now more people who are willing to pay the premium for Apple’s fancy design.

But here is my story… I’ve been a Windows user for quite a while… and the ONLY reason why I now own a Macbook Pro is because I needed to run the iPhone SDK. It may not have been the wisest 2 grands spent… but the new Macbook Pros are amazing looking machines! I have to say… cosmetically I have nothing to complain about the machine! The fact that I can get a Dell with similar specs doesn’t bother me at all.

What bugged and is still bugging the hell out of me… is when Mac users… Apple officials and loyalists portray their OS as the best in the world for anything you do!

This is simply UNTRUE! MacOS looks fancy but it is not the ultimate saviour when it comes computing! It is not! Even with the latest Snow Leopard release… it is not even close!!!
Like Mircosoft Windows… it has flaws! If you install too much stuff… it will get slow… if you don’t do regular maintenance… something will go wrong… The number one thing about OS… not one system out there right now will “just work”. If you don’t take care of it… it will not take care of you. Get used to it!

I’ll give you an example… ever since Leopard MacOS had this weird problem where it cannot open files if they were downloaded from the Internet. The only thing that will fix it… REBOOT! That is until Apple released an update a few days ago to address the problem. This is a problem that existed in Leopard and Snow Leopard. As you can imagine I was extremely annoyed by this problem… because even my Windows machine didn’t have to be rebooted this many times to fix a stupid problem like this.

Second annoyance – Video playback. The codec support for MacOS is extremely poor. Codec packs like Perian are still incomplete when you ever come across one of those rare codecs. Needless to mention WMV support… trying to play a HD WMV file on a Mac is simply PAINFUL. You can either use VLC or Flip4Mac… VLC doesn’t have great performance and Flip4Mac will not let you seek the file unless the file is completely buffered. Bottom line… video playback is years behind the performance you get on Windows.

Third annoyance – Lack of software. especially quality free apps. Trying looking for a decent MySQL client for your Mac… paid or free… I bet you cannot find a single one worth competing with SQLyog! Also… when Apple wants you to think that their iWork bundle is any competition to MS Office… DON’T BELIEVE THEM! I’m a university student, and I have to say Numbers is years behind what MS Excel is capable of… same thing with Pages. The only thing I like is probably Keynote… it makes your presentation looks a bit prettier. =p

If you are a Windows user. Be ready to tolerate these annoyances because they are likely to stay for a long time. You might miss that good old Windows UI… I’ll bet you on that one!

On the “dark side” of things… Microsoft just released Windows 7 not too long ago. and big thanks to the University of Waterloo I was able to get an early copy of the OS. I have to say… Windows 7 is everything that I hoped it will be. It is a smart and stable system that is light years away from what Windows Vista had become… and performance-wise Win 7 even leaves XP in the dust! I love it. and I am really considering switching back to Windows for my general computing needs… especially when more Windows Live apps are being released Windows-only.

The bottom line is… Mac was never meant to be a mainstream machine! Its design is amazing… but there are so many things that aren’t perfect on the software end. I honestly think you might find it useful to run Windows on a Mac to get the most out of it.
While Apple keeps bashing Microsoft for the lack of innovation… Microsoft has made a very strong point with Windows 7 and their Windows Live series of services and software. It will be interesting to see how the game plays on from now on…
However, as a consumer I think people should always remember that nothing is ever exactly as advertised. nothing is ever perfect. just because you have spent a lot of money on something… doesn’t mean it’s worth it.
To be happy with your purchase… you need to think about what compromises are you willing to accept… it doesn’t matter how much money you have… you can’t have everything. =)

Popularity: 23% [?]

Posted in: Apple Inc., Macintosh, Me, Other.

I’ve been searching for a cheap VPS for some of the projects I’m working on. I needed an affordable plan… (by that I mean CHEAP! <$20) with great stability and reasonable support.

This sounds almost impossible to pull off… even in today’s world. Most popular shared plans cost more than $20…

But wait, introducing Unmanaged VPS service.

An unmanaged VPS is basically an empty VPS space with a metred uplink. The hosting companies will not install ANY software for you… no Apache, no MySQL… no PHP. You must do all the work yourself. Their job is keeping the physical servers and their uplinks online. (Previously I worked remotely for a web hosting firm… so I know a fair bit about keeping things running.)

Before choosing a hosting company, you must understand some of the terminologies used to value VPS packages.

CPU Speed/Limit: some hosts will give you an estimate of CPU in megahertz; obviously the higher number the faster. However, as a user you do not really have any practical way of measuring performance by looking these numbers… so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Other hosts will specify if multiple CPU instances are allowed on the VPS to create a virtual multi-core space. These options are probably very expensive. Choose wisely according to your budget.

RAM: like the RAM in your computer, RAM on your VPS will be a great limiting factor of performance. The OS, Apache, MySQL, PHP instances all require quite a bit of RAM to run. I would say that 128MB is the absolute minimum you should have. I would recommend getting at least 256MB… because after I installed everything on my VPS… it was eating up more than 200mb while idling. I seriously would not recommend running production sites on a 128MB VPS.

Burst RAM: since resources on the physical server are still shared among multiple users, each VPS instance will have a guaranteed RAM size and a burst or peak size. The burst RAM specifies the maximum amount of RAM the VPS is allowed to allocate should the resources be available. You will see companies advertise their plans as 512MB RAM/1024MB Burst. This indicates that your VPS will get 512MB in any situation, and it is allowed to go up to 1024MB or 1GB when it is under load and the other VPS spaces on your server can spare you a few MB of RAM.

Bandwidth: no explanation needed here. definitely more the better. Most hosts will offer you quite a bit of bandwidth. A few hundred GBs will do for small to medium sites.

IP: each VPS should be accompanied by its own IP address. usually this is included in the initial process of setting up your account. You may also ask for more IPs at your expense.

Control Panels: Unmanaged VPSs do not include goodies like cPanel, which is slightly annoying at times. However, I’m a guy that grew up on Webmin – an open source, generic remote management application. I will be posting a guide on how to set up Webmin as your control panel and perform some of the tasks you do in cPanel. No big deal! However, if you really need cPanel, you can licensing it at about $10/month extra.

Virtual Machine: I do not know a lot about virtualization to create VPS spaces… However I can tell you that most people favour Xen machines because it is impossible for the host to oversell the server. When you have Xen, what you see is really what you get. OpenVZ and HyperVM are usually geared toward low-end VPS spaces where servers are packed with clients, and they offer very limited admin interfaces. So go with Xen if the price is within your budget, otherwise try to look for OpenVZ… HyperVM is the worst as reported by other users.

After reading some reviews and getting some recommendations from friends. I nailed my choices to:

linode.com – Genuine Xen powered VPS spaces, not oversold, awesome admin features, quad-core CPU instances.
intovps.com – OpenVZ powered, very cheap.
fsckvps.com - both OpenVZ and Xen spaces. fairly cheap.

However, after reading encouraging reviews and seeing some very pretty benchmarks on webhostingtalk.com…
I was introduced to this particular host – ramhost.us
They are a new and small company, but the feedback on the forums are surprisingly positive and their prices are VERY competitive!

I went with their 40GB, 512MB RAM + 1GB Burst with 500GB uplink package for $11.99/mo. The server is SUPER fast! low latency! and their support is simply amazing! Someone will respond to your request in minutes, and the support person goes out of his way to help customers.

Right now I’m in the process of transferring my sites from this shared server to my shiny new VPS.
At this price, I will certainly choose VPS over shared hosting from now on!

I will be posting guides soon on this blog to teach everyone how to setup a CentOS 5 powered VPS from scratch!

Popularity: 100% [?]

Posted in: Development, MySQL, PHP.
Tagged: CentOS · server · VPS · web hosting

First, we need the pecl command so we can download and install APC from the repositories. I use the “remi” repo to give me the latest packages, so use “–enablerepo=remi” if you have it installed.

yum install php-pear
But, this will not run on its own, we need the following package for the phpize command:

yum install php-devel
We also need the apxs command, which is installed via the following package:

yum install httpd-devel
Now we have all the software we need, so we install apc via the pecl command:

pecl install apc

I also recommend installing uploadprogress, because Drupal 6 will ask you to do so.

pecl install uploadprogress

Now we have to enable apc and uploadprogress in php.ini.

Add the following lines to /etc/php.ini or wherever your php config file is located.

extension=apc.so

extension=uploadprogress.so

Then we restart Apache:

/etc/init.d/httpd start
And we are all done. Watch for less execution time per page, and decreased memory usage per Apache process compared to what you had
before.

Popularity: 92% [?]

Posted in: Development, PHP.
Tagged: PHP · server · VPS

Maybe someone out there already found this… but Gmail and Mail.app are singing together quite nicely.

Today I was replying to an email from Mail and noticed something very interesting…

Mail syncs your reply with Gmail as you type.

Then when you keep typing more… you will see the little box on the bottom saying your conversation in Gmail has been updated… Clicking on update will bring in the rest of the things you typed in another thread.

After the reply is sent, all the temporary threads in Gmail will be deleted and you will be left with one single reply message.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Posted in: Other.

If you are a Drupal developer… you know there are no good, free UberCart themes out there…

I know that TopNotchThemes is teaming up with Acquia to produce such a thing… but they are taking forever!  I’ve been waiting for more than half a year… (don’t get me wrong, they produce amazing stuff)

Anyhow… I’ve decided to write my very UberCart theme.  Stay tuned!

Popularity: 87% [?]

Posted in: Other.