Today, I have been having a blast configuing my new ISA Server 2006. I have to say it has been quite a learning experience. It can do some really cool things, but sometimes I think it’s too smart for itself. It goes off and does “stuff” in the background. Now, that “stuff” has sometimes been helpful, like earlier this evening it repaired itself. Slinky! But, then sometimes the “stuff” made the whole network unusable. I don’t know if I like that, but I do think that if the server stays as it is right now, I’ll leave it alone for a bit. Everything is working… I think. I’ll find out more when I go outside and try to get in to see if the configurations I set up work as I thought they should.
Category: Site News
Server Fix!
Finally.
I have been at a loss for quite some time to explain the frequent, daily reboots of my nice, new server. I bought the best equipment I could and still the machine seemed flaky. It was even more unstable with the beta version of Exchange 2007, but I think that was caused by much more frequent usage.
On a whim, I decided to look for new drivers and BIOS for my system. I found them. I found a BIOS update for the motherboard, a BIOS update for the RAID card and a new driver for the RAID card. I flahed them both and installed the new driver.
Voila! The server, which used to reboot daily [or more!] has been up and solid for over three days straight. The problem seems to be solved just in time for me to upgrade the equipment with a second processor and 2GB more of RAM… Fun!
Simple New Look
I’ve made some changes on my professional web site. I ditched the blog for the site and have put an intro page up with a sampling of what is inside. I’ll put more information in later when I come up with good pricing and such. Go look and let me know what you think…
LAN Slowdown
My Gigabit switch has died. Why? Who knows… I certainly don’t. I’m disappointed. I came home this evening and my switch had only one light on it and no link lights on at all. I have for the moment replaced it with a 100MB switch, but I wonder if Linksys will repair/replace it for me…
[UPDATE 7/28/06]: Well, what do you know? Looks like Linksys is going to replace it for me. They say it’s got a lifetime warranty. I’m lovin’ that!
Goodbye SPAM?
I have noticed a massive decrease in the amount of junk and SPAM comments and trackbacks on the site since moving to WordPress. I don’t know if that because it’s harder to generate or that the automated spammers don’t yet know the links to comment yet… which I suppose is more likely the case. Either way, it’s been a good respite and I’m pleased with the overall performance and reliability. Guess I should have done this before.
News Syndication Changes
I wanted to let you know that the RSS/Atom feeds have changed with the new site architecture. They are:
- Atom: http://www.jeffphillips.org/wp-atom.php and http://www.jeffphillips.net/wp-atom.php
- RSS2: http://www.jeffphillips.org/wp-feed.php and http://www.jeffphillips.net/wp-feed.php
- Comments: http://www.jeffphillips.org/wp-commentsrss2.php (none for the other site)
Trackback SPAM
After realizing that my “junked” trackbacks were in the order of 40,000 or so, I thought that maybe my site might be slow for a reason. So, I have completely disabled trackbacks and am in the process of purging them from the site. I may even move to using a “real” database instead of the BerkeleyDB like MySQL. Too bad none of these blogging engines allow me to use the MSDE or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – I can get those for free, you know.
And, if I go with a database like MySQL, I might as well migrate to WordPress…
Changes?
Don’t know if you notice, but things are changing on my site. They will change slowly as I have time, but change they will. Right now, I’m experimenting, so the changes may or may not be permanent. Please have patience… and let me know what you think.
A New Look?
Let’s take a poll: is it time for a new look on my site? I’ll listen to your opinion. Tell me if you think I should:
A) Do nothing – it’s great.
B) Maybe change the picture and color a little, but leave the rest of the structure the same.
C) Complete overhaul.
I may not do what you want, but I’m interested in your thoughts.
Big Oops
I hate it when I “fix” something that was working just fine – and doesn’t work anymore. I did that to my email server. So, I can receive email just fine, but for those of you waiting replies… well, you’ll just have to wait a bit until I get home. Seems I can’t send. Funny thing is: I have no idea how this happened.
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