I’m running a couple of servers full of Drupal sites hosted in a multisite configuration (one copy of Drupal used to host dozens of sites, each with their own sites/sitename directory. I’d been using sympal_scripts to automatically run Drupal’s cron.php script for each site in order to keep search indexes up to date and run other routine maintenance functions as expected. It’s easy enough to drop a curl http://server/site/curl.php into a crontab, but as you start adding sites to the server, it becomes unwieldy to maintain a current crontab of sites to cron.
Just got a funny automated email from Skype, reminding me to use up my Skype credits before they expire. But I’ve used up my credits long, long ago…
Hi there dlnorman ,
It appears that you haven't used any of your Skype Credit for a while now.
Skype expires inactive credit balances and you have 30 days left to take
action to keep your credit.
Your account details:
Skype Name: dlnorman
Balance: CAD 0.00
Expiry date: 2007-01-29 00:00:00+01
I’ll be sure I use that credit up. Maybe I’ll call nobody, for zero minutes. That should just about do it. Phew!
For a project I’m involved with, we’re setting up a shiny new server to handle hosting of lots (and lots) of Drupal sites in a shared hosting environment. We were able to pick up a decently speced Dell PowerEdge 2950 at a really good price. Dell wanted a tonne of cash to pre-install RedHat on the box. Um, no thanks. So, our friendly neighbourhood colocation provider installed Ubuntu Server on the box for me (I’m about 1000 km from the server, so couldn’t actually do the physical install myself). The PowerEdge is a 2xdual core Xeon, similarly speced as the new Xeon XServes, but not as nicely packaged. This one requires 2U of rackspace, where the XServe is shoehorned into a single 1U slot.
That’s so freaking awesome. Thank you so much! I would like to also thank all of the little people (you know who you are) who helped me make this milestone possible. It’s things like this that make blogging worth all of the hassles, the paparazzi, the extreme financial burden, and the constant continuous partial attention. Wow.
And, I get to brag about the awesome company I’m keeping on The List. Stephen Downes. Alan Levine. Brian Lamb. Bryan Alexander. George Siemens. And it just goes on and on like that! Wow. Seriously. I’m blushing here.
I just tried to file my GST payment for the quarter, using the GST Netfile website. I figured it’d be the easiest way to do it, with the whole process taking maybe 5 minutes. I’m trying to be a responsible little consultant, filing proper papers and paying The Man to let me do it.
But, the business end of the NetFile website is actually unavailable outside of regular office hours. I don’t think they back the website with a database. It must actually fire off submissions directly to the desk of an overworked civil servant. Probably for security reasons, they don’t even hook the website up to a printer, where the pages could safely stack up in someone’s inbox. Nope. They just flash the numbers at someone in realtime. Maybe there’s a cool Wall Street ticker wrapping around the internet call centre or something.
Dang. I got tagged with the Five Things Meme a couple days ago, but procrastinated on responding. Then, I just got tagged again. Better play before the tags build up…
So, five little-known things about me. Without feeding identity thieves, hopefully…
I’m not a programmer. I suck as a programmer. I’m a total hack. I know just enough to let me get into trouble, but I’m too stubborn to give up until something kinda sorta almost works. potaytoe, potahtoe…
I’m a huge introvert. Is that an oxymoron? I get uncomfortable in crowds. I hate talking on the phone. And yet, I can get in front of a group and give presentations and participate in discussions etc… For some reason, I seem to be much more coherent in group settings (including writing on my blog) than I am normally. wtf?
First job - “fabric folder” at Angel Distributing, the company that provided fabric to all of the Fanny’s fabric stores. Got to work with the reams of fabric, splitting and rolling into the little bundles that get trucked to the stores for scrapbookers and crafty folks to make all kinds of crappy stuff. Got to see all kinds of nice foreign bugs that hitchhiked into Canada along with the fabric…
I still haven’t finished my MSc. Actually, it’s been so long that all of my coursework has expired. I’ll get to start from scratch once someone convinces me it’s worth doing. It’s not very high on my list at the moment.
Met my wife while we were both working at Heritage Park 16 years ago as a summer job. She’s still putting up with me… Who says workplace relationships are a bad idea? We worked together for 3 years.
I guess I should tag a few more folks. If I had to do this, I’m bringing y’all down with me! Alan, Brian, Cole, Paul and Josh.
No. Not crud. CRUD. Create, Read, Update, Delete. The basic operations a web app needs to do on database records.
I’ve been working on the Provisionator module, which helps with institutional-scale deployments of Drupal sites on a shared hosting server. The module began life as a separate PHP application, and evolved into a Drupal module wrapping those functions. It essentially managed a table within a Drupal site’s database, adding rows for each website deployed.
I’m planning a vacation in the spring. The tickets are all in place, and we’re looking forward to it. Can’t say more, because it’s a surprise Christmas present. I’d love to leave the laptop at home, but would currently need to bring it along to dump photos off the camera every day.
Does anyone have any great (and cheap) solution to offload photos from a camera (Canon Digital Rebel xt) without a laptop? I’ve got a 5G iPod (30 Gig), and have looked at the Apple and Belkin media readers - both of which apparently suck the soul out of the battery before finishing the job.
