I have a new project. Up to now I have always use home networking equipment in my study and around my home. However I recently added an FTP server to the mix and found that I need to run it 24/7 to cope with the night owls among the people I work with. Until recently, I shut down everything before I went to bed so that there was no risk of fire or infection when I was away from the keyboard. So how was I going to adapt my network to remain safe and infection free while I try to sleep?
My network is made up of - 2 windows PCs, a Mac, a web server that I use for testing, a file server, 2 laptops and a media centre plus any 'visiting' PCs or laptops. To run this I was using a Netgear ADSL wireless router and a collection of Netgear switches and Wireless access points powered by three UPSs. This network like most networks had not been planned in any way - it just grew as I felt the need or acquired kit.
When I installed the FTP server I realised that I needed to power only part of the network 24/7 so I swapped the UPS round so that the Router and the FTP server were on one UPS and the rest of the network on the other two. Now I can leave the FTP server running but shut down everything else.
I still wasn't happy with this so I aquired a Netgear 24 port Gigabyte switch that is rack mountable. That got rid of the collection of small switches I was using which, although silent, got quite hot by the end of day. The 24 port switch is cold to the touch but noisy due to the 40mm fans that are used to cool it. This lead me on to think about a cabinet to hold the switch and my two servers.
At the moment my file server is a large old fashioned server case that has so many fans (12) that it has to be tucked away in another room. To take its place I have bought a rack mountable 2U server case that will hold 3 HDDs and fit with my FTP server and the Switch in a 6U data cabinet. The idea is that this cabinet can be powered via one of the UPSs and in the mains wiring run I will fit a thermal switch to cut off the power if the temperature rises above a fixed level. That should help to make the setup fire proof.
I haven't explored the world of business servers before so what will happen next will be very interesting, I hope. This weekend's task is to physically build the new server, install the software and commission it. Watch this space to see how I get on.
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Sunday, 12 April 2009
I decided to try and refresh my web site this week as everyone was away on holiday. On my main computer I have two versions of Internet Explorer, Avant, Opera, Mozilla, Google Chrome and Safari. When I build a page I always check it in all of them as you wouldn't believe the mess the page can be in as the different browsers interpret the code differently.
I am using IE 8 on my main machine now and at last it seems Microsoft have at last brought out a browser that is standards compliant. Now when you change the pages style sheet you have a good idea of what will appear on the page and borders, margins and padding all display as they should. It is also good that when you then open the page in Mozilla or Opera the page is relatively unchanged.
However the same can not be said for IE7 or IE6. Looking at my site in IE7 showed all the margins and padding were slightly out of place. That was annoying but I could live with it. When I looked again in IE6 the whole page was corrupt with menus twice the width they should be and forms were moved right across the page (I was using the DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional DOM and CSS 2.1). I fiddled with the CSS and XHTML for a while then went to look at the Browser stats on W3C.
I was interested to read that IE6 has dropped away to less than 17% of Internet Browsers.
That means that 1 in 6 people can not see my page as I would wish. Is that a low enough number to ignore? What do you think? You can leave your vote by clicking on the Comments link at the bottom of this post. In the meantime I will carry on trying to find a way to make the code look the same in every one of the popular browsers.
The publisher I do occasional work for has managed to get some of the books off to the printer. We have missed the deadline for the major conferences but there are a lot of orders on the system for these books so it wasn't wasted effort. Due to all the holdups we have had to have a hard think about how to process a book from authors script to printer ready files. Hopefully the next book to go through the system will not have so many holdups along the way.
I am using IE 8 on my main machine now and at last it seems Microsoft have at last brought out a browser that is standards compliant. Now when you change the pages style sheet you have a good idea of what will appear on the page and borders, margins and padding all display as they should. It is also good that when you then open the page in Mozilla or Opera the page is relatively unchanged.
However the same can not be said for IE7 or IE6. Looking at my site in IE7 showed all the margins and padding were slightly out of place. That was annoying but I could live with it. When I looked again in IE6 the whole page was corrupt with menus twice the width they should be and forms were moved right across the page (I was using the DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional DOM and CSS 2.1). I fiddled with the CSS and XHTML for a while then went to look at the Browser stats on W3C.
I was interested to read that IE6 has dropped away to less than 17% of Internet Browsers.
That means that 1 in 6 people can not see my page as I would wish. Is that a low enough number to ignore? What do you think? You can leave your vote by clicking on the Comments link at the bottom of this post. In the meantime I will carry on trying to find a way to make the code look the same in every one of the popular browsers.
The publisher I do occasional work for has managed to get some of the books off to the printer. We have missed the deadline for the major conferences but there are a lot of orders on the system for these books so it wasn't wasted effort. Due to all the holdups we have had to have a hard think about how to process a book from authors script to printer ready files. Hopefully the next book to go through the system will not have so many holdups along the way.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Holiday NBG
Can't take the holiday Jackie won as the hotel has no lift, steep steps up to it and nowhere to park the car. Oh well I would have been nice but someone will get to enjoy it. Loo finished at last and it looks just fine, as you can see, Jackie has already claimed it to store things in. I just hope I can still get in there when I need to.
This week we are supposed to have the conservatory roof repaired but the weather isn't co-operating so it may have to wait. I must admit after all the upheaval of the loo I could do with a few days peace and quiet.
Friday, 3 April 2009
This week @ Omega Cottage
Two tentative enquiries this week for new web sites. Looks like I won't get bored in the coming weeks and months.
Neil has returned from Hong Kong and is full of ideas about what to add to his new site. That was helped when I found that PowerPoint presentations could be saved as web pages. They are rather large files so only run slowly if they are full of images but this week end I am going to investigate making the images smaller so cutting down the file size.
I have also upgraded the hub of my network to a Netgear 24 Port Gigabyte Switch. It replaces several small switches that were slowing down cross network file transfers. It is a bit noisy as it has several small cooling fans inside it so maybe the next move will have to be a data enclosure - that leads on to thinking about a new file server. Is a network ever just as you would want it to be?
The downstairs loo I have needed for a long time is now built and working. All that is needed to finish is the tiling which will happen this weekend. It will make my life a lot easier as I don't have to struggle up the stairs to use the loo and I suspect visitors will find it useful too.
My wife Jackie won a holiday in an Internet competition this week. That makes three years in a row she has done that. It isn't as grand as our trip to Los Angeles last year but a week in a large hotel in Blackpool with all food and accommodation paid for is well worth winning. It is 20 years since we went to Blackpool so it will be very interesting to see what changes have taken place since our last visit.
Neil has returned from Hong Kong and is full of ideas about what to add to his new site. That was helped when I found that PowerPoint presentations could be saved as web pages. They are rather large files so only run slowly if they are full of images but this week end I am going to investigate making the images smaller so cutting down the file size.
I have added a new gadget to my network. It is a Synology USB Station. It links via my network to a USB external HDD which can then be configured as an FTP server that can be accessed across the Internet as long as you have a fixed IP address which I do. It is also a print server which allows anyone on my network to use the printer attached to it. I have configured it so that anyone I am building a website for can access their own personal folder on the server where they can upload material for me to use in building their site. I think that this is going to be a very useful bit of kit.
I have also upgraded the hub of my network to a Netgear 24 Port Gigabyte Switch. It replaces several small switches that were slowing down cross network file transfers. It is a bit noisy as it has several small cooling fans inside it so maybe the next move will have to be a data enclosure - that leads on to thinking about a new file server. Is a network ever just as you would want it to be?
The downstairs loo I have needed for a long time is now built and working. All that is needed to finish is the tiling which will happen this weekend. It will make my life a lot easier as I don't have to struggle up the stairs to use the loo and I suspect visitors will find it useful too.
My wife Jackie won a holiday in an Internet competition this week. That makes three years in a row she has done that. It isn't as grand as our trip to Los Angeles last year but a week in a large hotel in Blackpool with all food and accommodation paid for is well worth winning. It is 20 years since we went to Blackpool so it will be very interesting to see what changes have taken place since our last visit.
Tuesday, 24 March 2009
Scan International Computers
Scan International Computers claim to be one of the biggest and best online computer suppliers. This is my experience of dealing with them.
I ordered an AKASA Infinity Tower case from them costing £79.21 inc vat and postage -not a cheap case. When it arrived it was obvious it was not new as parts were missing (including the instructions about how to assemble the case) and it was also badly damaged. I rang Scan and expected an apology for sending out goods in this condition, what I got was an accusation that I was trying to claim for goods I had damaged myself. I asked for a replacement case and was told that I first had to return the case to Scan who would decide if the case was damaged in transit and then decide if it could be replaced. This is a long way short of the way my regular supplier works (CCL Computers, Bradford) who would have sent a replacement and picked up the damaged case in one operation.
I did send the case back and after a few days Scan's website informed me that the case had been examined and was found to be faulty. However there was nothing on the site that said that a refund or replacement was on the way. After 7 days I rang the company and was told that the refund would be processed that day. To confirm this I emailed the company and received an email telling me that the repayment would be updated.
One week later with no refund received I rang the company to be told that they had by law 28 days to action a refund and it would take several working days for accounts to process the payment. When I asked why it had taken this long to process the payment I was again told they had 28 days to process the repayment.
I would strongly suggest that anyone reading this blog should think twice and then think again about dealing with this company. Any company dealing with a lot of orders can make a mistake - this is quite normal. It is also normal business practice for the company to try to put the mistake right as quickly as possible to keep the customer's good will. What isn't normal is for the customer to be made to feel responsible for the mistake and then to be punished for asking for their money back.
I ordered an AKASA Infinity Tower case from them costing £79.21 inc vat and postage -not a cheap case. When it arrived it was obvious it was not new as parts were missing (including the instructions about how to assemble the case) and it was also badly damaged. I rang Scan and expected an apology for sending out goods in this condition, what I got was an accusation that I was trying to claim for goods I had damaged myself. I asked for a replacement case and was told that I first had to return the case to Scan who would decide if the case was damaged in transit and then decide if it could be replaced. This is a long way short of the way my regular supplier works (CCL Computers, Bradford) who would have sent a replacement and picked up the damaged case in one operation.
I did send the case back and after a few days Scan's website informed me that the case had been examined and was found to be faulty. However there was nothing on the site that said that a refund or replacement was on the way. After 7 days I rang the company and was told that the refund would be processed that day. To confirm this I emailed the company and received an email telling me that the repayment would be updated.
One week later with no refund received I rang the company to be told that they had by law 28 days to action a refund and it would take several working days for accounts to process the payment. When I asked why it had taken this long to process the payment I was again told they had 28 days to process the repayment.
I would strongly suggest that anyone reading this blog should think twice and then think again about dealing with this company. Any company dealing with a lot of orders can make a mistake - this is quite normal. It is also normal business practice for the company to try to put the mistake right as quickly as possible to keep the customer's good will. What isn't normal is for the customer to be made to feel responsible for the mistake and then to be punished for asking for their money back.
Monday, 23 March 2009
Everything is still quiet on the web design front so I thought I would have a look around to see what new articles are about that might answer a few questions that have come my way recently. I have long been a fan of Rick Maybury's Bootcamp in the Telegraph newspaper so that was my first stop.
He, like me, has picked up that people are not replacing their computers just because some new kit has come out and has written a series of articles that help you to extend the life of your computer. You will find all the articles drawn together into one article together with a PDF version you can download to work from here.
I have also added another article from Mr Maybury that you might be interested in. It is an introduction to Windows 7 the new operating system from Microsoft you will find that one here.
A lot of small businesses are thinking about trying to expand their customer base by selling on line. I have added an article from my ISP about hosting your web site that will go a long way to answering some of the questions you may have about where you put your site, what it will cost and how to get started. You will that article here.
This coming week everything has ground to a halt here at Omega Cottage as the council are busy installing me a downstairs loo. The mess and brick dust has to be seen to be believed but Jackie and I both feel it will be a big help once it is up and running. However while the power keeps going on and off there won't be much work done at my computer and Jackie's Internet competitions are just not getting done so I guess we won't be flying off to far away places this year.
He, like me, has picked up that people are not replacing their computers just because some new kit has come out and has written a series of articles that help you to extend the life of your computer. You will find all the articles drawn together into one article together with a PDF version you can download to work from here.
I have also added another article from Mr Maybury that you might be interested in. It is an introduction to Windows 7 the new operating system from Microsoft you will find that one here.
A lot of small businesses are thinking about trying to expand their customer base by selling on line. I have added an article from my ISP about hosting your web site that will go a long way to answering some of the questions you may have about where you put your site, what it will cost and how to get started. You will that article here.
This coming week everything has ground to a halt here at Omega Cottage as the council are busy installing me a downstairs loo. The mess and brick dust has to be seen to be believed but Jackie and I both feel it will be a big help once it is up and running. However while the power keeps going on and off there won't be much work done at my computer and Jackie's Internet competitions are just not getting done so I guess we won't be flying off to far away places this year.
Friday, 6 March 2009
No action on the web design front this week - One client in Hong Kong and the other busy writing books so the flow of material for the sites has dried up for the time being. I have no doubt it will start up again as soon as everyone is home again.
The credit crunch threw up a new problem this week. What do you do if your host ceases trading? One of my customers found he had lost control of his domain because it had been registered for him by his hosting company. This meant he couldn't just sign up with another host and move his web site and domain across to them. So the only way round it is via Nominet. This is not too expensive but is time consuming and has to go through several bureaucratic steps to ensure that the previous host is given time to do the 'right' thing. It all takes lots of time and in the mean time the web site is down and email may be going astray - not good.
Typesetting progressing. two books complete, one just needs corrections and two waiting for the authors additions. Maybe, just maybe, these books will get to the printers before I go on holiday this year.
I love the 102mm fans that are being put in computer cases these days. I have just moved my main computer into a new Full Tower case. It has 5 120 mm fans and yet it is almost silent in operation. Compared to my ancient server case that has 10 x 80 mm fans and sounds like a jumbo taking off it is a joy to work with. I don't have to have my sound turned up to be able to listen to News 24 which I tend to have running in the corner of my screen as I work.
The credit crunch threw up a new problem this week. What do you do if your host ceases trading? One of my customers found he had lost control of his domain because it had been registered for him by his hosting company. This meant he couldn't just sign up with another host and move his web site and domain across to them. So the only way round it is via Nominet. This is not too expensive but is time consuming and has to go through several bureaucratic steps to ensure that the previous host is given time to do the 'right' thing. It all takes lots of time and in the mean time the web site is down and email may be going astray - not good.
Typesetting progressing. two books complete, one just needs corrections and two waiting for the authors additions. Maybe, just maybe, these books will get to the printers before I go on holiday this year.
I love the 102mm fans that are being put in computer cases these days. I have just moved my main computer into a new Full Tower case. It has 5 120 mm fans and yet it is almost silent in operation. Compared to my ancient server case that has 10 x 80 mm fans and sounds like a jumbo taking off it is a joy to work with. I don't have to have my sound turned up to be able to listen to News 24 which I tend to have running in the corner of my screen as I work.
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