Tag: server

New Web Hosting

This is the first proper post on my blog since December 2009, or May 2018 if you count the recipes posts I imported from a separate blog earlier this year.

After 14 years of hosting with Hostgator I got fed up with the sky high renewal fees of 172 USD, about 150 GBP not including the currency exchange fee from the bank.

Last year after I renewed the hosting with Hostgator I decided that would be the last time and that I would find hosting someplace else. That gave me a year to sort out my blogs and other websites I run.

With a new resolve, and a deadline, I started by reorganising my blogs. The first thing I did was to get rid of the recipes blog and import the posts into the main blog. I then moved the JavaScript section from the main blog onto a new site.

Next I started working on Linux Links. I had originally built the site from scratch but now I wanted to move it into WordPress. The first task was to export the data and import it in to WordPress, which to be honest was quite easy! The next step was to get the new site running exactly like the old one but by using WordPress functions.

To be honest I haven’t quite finished Linux Links, the front end works as I intend, but I still have to finish off an admin section I added.

With the change to a new host I could also publish a new site, Bristol’s Lost Pubs, I had been working on this for a couple of years after the original site closed down.

Here is a list of all of my sites.

And with that my new hosting is OVH. Welcome.

Has anyone noticed?

Lol if anyone is subscribed to my blog, then you may of recently received about 144 new emails from this blog.
That’s because when I imported all my posts in to my blog, I forgot to disable the Subscribe2 plugin!

Of course why!?
I have moved hosting, I am now no longer hosting my website and blog on Lycos webhosting, I have moved to Hostgator!

I was with Lycos for about six years, and three of them was using Tripod, Lycos free hosting!
I have been meaning to move hosts for a while now.

I have had no trouble with the service provided by Lycos, and the times I have had to contact their support I got quick answers!
But, there was some limitations with the way the server and PHP were setup.
For example, to get my blog working correctly I had to have two additional plugins. One of them changed the default compact WordPress rewrite rules to the verbose type.
And the second was to disable canonical redirects. The server was setting an incorrect $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_URI’] value, which sometimes caused some pages to time out with constant redirects.

I contacted their support staff and they said that they were unable to support a 3rd party product.
I installed their One Click Site install of WordPress, but it was version 2.3.2, which doesn’t suffer from the same problem. They told me that they had no plans to upgrade their version of WordPress.

I can’t remember where I heard about Hostgator, but so far its been good!
The control panel is a little confusing, but that’s only because I’m not used to it yet.
They allow you to have multiple databases, so I have separate databases for my blog, website, and linux-links.
I went with their baby package, which still works out cheaper than Lycos.

And the best bit!?
I have been able to ditch the two plugin’s, and all parts of my blog still work!
But I am still using Lycos to serve my domain’s from.

Linux Links 2.0.1 Released!

It’s April the first (just!) and no, this is not an April Fools joke, Linux-Links.co.uk has been updated, on time!

This version is a complete rewrite of the server side of the website.
I have rewritten it all from scratch and have collected all the functions into one place, this means that all the settings for displaying and collecting the data is set in one place, and means that everything is displayed uniformly across the whole site.

I have updated the search function, and hopefully it will return more relevant results, its still not perfect, but it is working better now!

I have added a “help” section, but the only area it gives help on is the HTTP Status Codes that are displayed on the URL pages.
The basic structure is there and can easily be added to when more areas need to be added!

There are a couple more things I would have liked to have included, but I ran out of time!
I will add these updates when they are ready!

Ok, its now past midnight and it’s no longer April Fools Day!
Hope you believe me now! Lol 🙂

Fix for wordpress breaking mod_rewrite/friendly URLs

If you’ve just upgraded WordPress and find that when you browse your blog your web browser displays the following message

“the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.”

To fix this all you need to do is edit one file in the WordPress installation.

The problem is due to the canonical redirection functionality, it redirects incorrect permalinks to their correct ones.

To disable that functionality edit /wp-includes/canonical.php and comment out the last line:
[code]add_action(‘template_redirect’, ‘redirect_canonical’);[/code]
change to:
[code]//add_action(‘template_redirect’, ‘redirect_canonical’);[/code]

Here’s the post on the WordPress support forum that details the problem and solution

This post was at first intended as a note to myself, so that in the future when i update WordPress and find my blog does an infinite loop then I can quickly change it.
I then decided to keep the post open, so that others with the same problem can quickly search and fix it!

Whoops! My mistake!

Whoops, I made a mistake! I brought the wrong memory for my mini server. I brought the Corsair 1GB PC3200 Value Select (2x512MB) memory from Aria, but I should of brought the Kingston 256MB PC133 168 Pin SDRAM CL3!

I’ve brought the right one now, I got it from Amazon, and its the low profile one, so its the same as the one I have at the moment!

I’m going to keep hold of the memory I have for the time being! It might go into my new computer!

In this post I was going to write my specifications for my new computer, but I don’t have any time to as I’m going around my girlfriends in a little while, so I’m going to leave that to a separate post, hopefully tomorrow!

Till then
See you!

I didn’t decide to stay on holiday!

I should start this with a link to my holiday photos on flickr.
I know that its been over a month since i got back off holiday, and i haven’t posted anything on my blog!
But I’m going to now!

I was going to start this post with details of our holiday, but I’ll now leave that for another post!

What has caused the long delay on posting? I don’t know really, but I think its time!
Ive been busy at work, and when I’m not at work I’m with my girlfriend, and I just don’t seem to have the time left to do anything else!
But I have managed to build myself a second computer! I am going to be using as a file-cum-web-cum-print-server.

A couple of years ago I brought a Via EPIA Mini-ITX motherboard from www.mini-itx.com which I was intending to put inside my old radio alarm clock.
I did put it inside the radio alarm clock, but I never got around to actually installing an operating system onto it, and ever using it, so its been sat on my desk gathering dust.

I’ve been wanting to change my main computer for something a little faster, and I thought now would be a good time to do something with the little computer!
So I brought a case, installed Fedora 7 onto it, and now I’m just trying to get file sharing going between it and an aging Intel Celeron (333MHz) via wireless, and two other relatively old computers (both AMD’s, a K6 500MHz and an Athlon 850MHz)

I’ve just brought 1Gb of memory for it, as when I initially got i, I only brought 256Mb for it!

I’ve already got the web server running, and webmin, now I just need to install the printer, and its practically done!

I’m typing this post up using the new computer!

I’ll post more details soon!
Until next time!
Bye!

Edit: I’ve fixed the type of my Mini-ITX motherboard to a VIA EPIA series motherboard, and I have updated the link to point to the correct url (http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=21)