The MacDeskBlog

I see that the server is occasionally returning Internal Server Errors since January 10th. I just submitted a support ticket regarding this.

If you receive one of these errors, there is probably nothing wrong with your request. Just try again.

I hope that Dreamhost will be able to diagnose and correct the issue soon.

MacDesktops finds itself with an unusually short submission queue right now. I am currently processing the last of the August submissions, and scheduling them to run in December. While digital photographs of landscapes, flowers, sunsets, etc continue to come in steadily, other categories have seen a significant decline. In particular, Apple logos and Mac-themed desktops have been sparse, as have Movies, Music, Portraits, Animation, Illustration, Games.

So, if you’ve been thinking about putting together some desktop pictures, or have some which you’ve already made and would like to share, this is a great time to send them in.

Historically, the submission queue has run as long as 10-12 months. I think the last time the queue was only 4 months was back in 1999 or so.

My personal theories about why submissions have declined are: the larger resolution requirements (currently 1600×1200 or larger) inhibit some artists; the server problems this year and last year had an impact on performance and may have discouraged submissions; I neglected MacDesktops over the past couple of years while life and work required more attention. Though the resolution requirements will only continue to rise, I think the other two issues are much improved now.

UPDATE: You are connected to the new server. Site preferences can be saved here.

I am cutting over to the new server now. Site preferences saved on the old server after this point will not migrate to the new server. There should be no downtime associated with this cutover. This post will be different on the new server.

I am cutting over to the new server. Changes to site preferences made on the old server after this point will be lost.

UPDATE: I encountered a small problem during the migration. I need to change a bit of code in the site for it to work at DreamHost. So, the migration is postponed until I get that straightened out.

This is a bittersweet time for us. The house is finally finished, and turned out the way I envisioned it. Yah! But we won’t be living there because we moved on a year ago.

I signed the listing agreement last week. The first brokers’ tour was yesterday and the first open house is on Sunday. The listing includes a photo tour and an artist’s rendition. I hope someone likes it as much I do.

The house has grown up quite a bit in the past three years, and I mean that literally. When I bought the place back in 1994 (and right up until the remodel started), it looked like this:

I followed my friend John Engler’s advice, albeit almost a year later, and signed up with DreamHost. I haven’t decided yet whether or not to stick with them. Here’s what I’m weighing …

Pros:
• Designated MySQL server
• One-Click installations of WordPress and phpBB, which I already use, and a couple of other products which I may start to use
• Transparency about downtimes and service impacts
• High disk and bandwidth quotas for a low price
• Pretty quick responses from support

Cons:
• Doesn’t support MySQL database replication
• Doesn’t support DNS slave setup, and some non-configurable entries in DNS management interface are incorrect, so their DNS is unusable for me
• Downtimes and service impacts appear to be fairly common
• Linux
• Pretty inflexible responses from support

Unknowns:
• Performance under load
• Database performance
• Implementation effort required to replicate MySQL via scripting

So, that’s where I am right now. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them here on the blog.

The site was down from about 3am PST to about 10am PST on Monday. A warehouse about two blocks away was destroyed by fire, and the power lines which feed us run right in front of the building. Fortunately, no one was injured nor killed.

The network hosting the primary server went down on August 28th, seven days before my wedding. I thought it would get fixed within a day (since it affects the company which actually hosted the server too), but that proved false. We are back on the DSL line until I find time to set up a new hosted server.

Fortunately, the image server hosted by importGSM is still chugging along happily, so only the pages are constrained by the DSL bandwidth. My apologies for the downtime and any interim performance issues.

Michelle and I returned from our honeymoon last night. We spent five days in Cabo San Lucas. Hurricane John missed the area by about 80 miles three days before we got there. It looked like many people cancelled their trips because of the hurricane, which worked out well for us. The hotel was extremely quiet for the first few days, and was still pretty quiet this past weekend. A pleasant light rain fell from time to time on Tuesday through Friday. For the most part, we enjoyed partly sunny to mostly sunny skies, with Florida-like high-90s for both temperature and humidity. By Saturday morning, the clouds had vanished.

We both were ready for a rest. As a result, we didn’t venture very far from the pool and hence didn’t take many pictures on this trip.

Our wedding last Sunday was splendid. Michelle looked stunning in her gown. Her cousin did a great job performing the ceremony. A traditional sit-down, multi-course dinner reception totally is not our style. Instead, we opted for a cocktail party reception, which worked out great. Michelle kept people out on the dance floor all night. She insists that she’s not much of a dancer, but definitely showed otherwise, cutting the rug for nearly four hours.

On Monday, August 28th, the network which hosts the MacDesktops page server went offline. I didn’t think it would be a big problem, since the Mac Mini server hosting MacDesktops was on the same network as the company servers which provided the Mac Mini for me. “How long would they let their own servers remain offline?” “Not long,” I thought. Well, here it is two weeks later. I haven’t been able to make contact with them (emails, phone calls, YM messages all unreturned), and the servers are all still offline. I can only guess that they went belly-up.

There is never a good time for a server crash. I know this first hand a few times over now. That Monday when the server went offline, I was in the process of queuing up pictures to get the site through the wedding and honeymoon. I didn’t get very far. That Tuesday, I finally returned to work after three months of disability leave. That Thursday was my bachelor party. Friday, I picked up Michelle’s cousin at the airport and drove us down to Carmel, stopping to pick up tuxedos in Salinas along the way. Saturday, shockingly, between the rehearsal in the afternoon and the rehearsal dinner in the evening, I managed to find three hours to convert my development server, which resides on our home DSL line over to production usage, and queue up pictures to get through last week and part of this week. Sunday was the wedding. Monday – traveling back home and repacking. Tuesday morning – off to Cabo, leaving the PowerBook at home.

I didn’t plan on even taking the PowerBook to Carmel with me. Something changed my mind at the last minute, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. Grudgingly, I took it along, and ended up having just enough free time to get the site back online. Whatever the reason was which made me cave must not have been very important, because I didn’t use the PowerBook for any else during the weekend.

It’s time to go back to the grind. I hope site performance over DSL is acceptable for a while. I think it will be weeks before I get a new MySQL/PHP server online. My PayPal account looks like it will be able to handle it. My work schedule, on the other hand, is jam packed and getting jammier.

I’ve been MIA for months now. Ironically, I’ve been at home pretty much the entire time. I herniated a disc in my back in May. Spent June on Vicodin. Spent July and now August in physical therapy three days each week. The PT is much better than the Vicodin.

My plans to finish up a bunch of items on the house went out the window. However, things have been getting done. It looks like the home stretch. I met with our potential property manager, and with our potential realtor at the house today. The property manager had slightly more encouraging numbers than the realtor. I was leaning toward selling before the meetings. Now, I don’t know.

The place should be ready for a tenant some time in September, and ready for sale some time in October. We just need to figure out which option to pursue.