It's not a bug … It's a convenience issue

Random tech things that I come across.

Archive for category Software

Server 2008 Bluetooth

Jul 18

Posted by Ryan in Operating Systems, Windows | 3 Comments

Why did Microsoft feel the need to remove bluetooth drivers from Server 2008? Seriously? The installation data for these drivers is MINIMAL disk overhead. We’re talking < 2MB. There isn’t even RAM/kernel overhead if the user doesn’t have a bluetooth device! Yet, Microsoft shipped Server 2008 without Bluetooth drivers. This of course was a pain for me because I run Server OS on my personal laptop.

Server 2008, on a laptop? Yes. Basically the server operating systems are less frilly, more performance oriented versions of Microsoft’s latest OS. So Server 2008 is nearly the same platform as Windows Vista. And since I am a university student with a school that has an MS partnership I get my choice of OS free.

So as you probably gathered by now, I’m frustrated that MS removed Vista’s bluetooth drivers from Server 2008. Well luckily we have friends on the internet who help out in these situations. If you’re trying to track down bluetooth drivers for Server 2008 see Komeil’s blog for downloads and instructions.

Lastly, booooo Microsoft for doing this. I haven’t tested Windows Server 2008 R2 (Windows 7 comparable server edition) but I hope you included bluetooth drivers!

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Virtual server changed

Jul 18

Posted by Ryan in Linux, Operating Systems | No Comments

Last April I moved this website to a new virtual server with the same hosting provider. Previously I was on an OpenVZ platform. This was such a nightmare for me. I’ll explain the details in a bit. I really liked the hosting company, VPSLink, because of their communication practices, network speed and full-featured control panel. So I stuck with the same company but bought a new server on the Xen virtual platform. Now I’m much happier.

The real problem I had with OpenVZ was the lack of swap space. Swap space is disk space set aside by the operating system to be used as a stand-in for RAM when there is not enough RAM free to run all of your programs. Using swap space has a penalty and that is access time because program data has to be fetched from your hard drive before it can be used. Leased virtual servers typically are quite limited in the amount of RAM you are given so swap space is really a must unless your server will only be running 1-2 applications.

For example, my leased server is a one stop shop for website and email. To perform these tasks it needs these daemons running all of the time:

  • Apache webserver
  • Named/BIND DNS server
  • Spamassassin spam filter
  • Sendmail smtp
  • Dovecot IMAP server
  • Mysql database server

I should have known I was in for trouble when I couldn’t even start Apache + Named at the same time with their default configuration without running out of memory. I followed a few guides on the net and got their footprints trimmed down to a workable state. But the penalty was that now all of my applications were so memory constrained their performance suffered a bit. Furthermore, I was at the threshold of memory usage. Linux would routinely kill my dovecot mail processes to try to reclaim memory, this of course closed IMAP connections which I noticed from a client user perspective. I also could not run yum to update packages without running out of memory.

So one day I got fed up and bought a new server with the same company but the new server was Xen based. I couldn’t be happier now because I have swap space. Most of my applications are still quite fast and my dovecot processes are no longer getting killed.

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Wanna go green? Start with business practices!

Jul 18

Posted by Ryan in Rant, Software | 1 Comment

Its about time I dust this blog off! I have had 3 post ideas in my inbox for months and never sat down to write them! So lets start with going green.

These days it doesn’t matter where you look, you will find a reference to going green. CFL light bulbs, ‘green’ household cleaners, ‘green’ billing practices, etc. Green is as much a buzzword as it is an actual attempt to save the environment. Well in this post I’m going to do what everybody else does and use the ‘green’ initiative as an advertisement to further my cause.

Here’s the real point. Why are companies asking me to go ‘green’ and sign up for e-billing for their service while AT THE SAME TIME their marketing department is paper-mailing advertisements addressed to me by name asking me to sign up for SERVICE I ALREADY HAVE? First of all, that advertisement is going straight in the trash recycle bin. Second, this is an annoyance to the customer and as a software person its a disgrace. Why can’t different groups communicate just enough to check if someone has a service before sending an advertisement? Surely you could do the math and prove if this is rolled out nationwide the cost of developing software to check the customer database before printing ads would pay for itself in no time.

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