New toy

My friend get an account at VPSLinks so I had to have one.
VPS stand for Virtual Private Server and it mens that you get a "slice" of a computer from somewhere in internet. The advantage over the normal web hosting is that you have full access to install whatever software you wish but you have to configure yourself.
So I had a look and I found something interesting

• HDD: 2GB
• Bandwidth: 100GB
  
• Ram: 64MB
• Price: $7.95/month

So I have decided to give it a test. After I sing up I get my login informations next day. So I have started to play with it. I have installed the Debian image because I had use Debian on machines with even less RAM then that.
The first thing I had tried was to make a swap file....surprise.... seem that is not possible. So I had to limit to the 64 MB of ram.
So let's heck the memory

myhost:~# free
        total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       3756488    3716804      39684          0     130120    1945208
-/+ buffers/cache:    1641476    2115012
Swap:      8193108     437732    7755376

But this is not the real memory avail so I made a little script to show my memory:

#!/bin/bash
bean=`cat /proc/user_beancounters`
guar=`echo "$bean" | grep vmguar | awk '{ print $4;}'`
priv=`echo "$bean" | grep privvm | awk '{ print $2;}'`
let totl=guar/256
let used=priv/256
let free=$totl-$used
echo "VPS Memory:"
echo "  total: $totl mb   used: $used mb   free: $free mb"

So it looks like this now.

myhost:~# /bin/Free
VPS Memory:
total: 58 mb   used: 35 mb   free: 23 mb

But for this I had to:

• Replace the OpenSSH daemon with dropbear because OpenSSH use about 20 MB of RAM.
• Use lighttpd instead of apache
  
• Limit mysql memory to 1MB instead of 16M for buffer.

But I am still not happy because if I try to install anything I have to stop evrything or else I get a lot of errors.

myhost:~# apt-get install apache
...[snip]...
Setting up apache (1.3.34-4) ...
open2: fork failed: Cannot allocate memory at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/ConfModule.pm line 58

So I started wondering if this is normal on a computer with 64 MB of RAM. So I fire up VMWare on my computer and I installed the same Debian in a virtual machine exactly as the one from VPSLink... and surprise,surprise it worked just fine with the same software running in the same conditions and same configurations. (also no swap space) So seems that the software the use is not so smart and have some serious problems.

Also something ugly that I had notice is that if I disconnect from the server and I leave the web server running after a few hours the first attempt to connect to the web server to check my page is fails and seems and i have to try at least 3-4 times before it starting working. And also seems that is comporting like is under heavy load but as soon as I start pushing it a bit is getting back to normal. So I guess it go to some kind of standby (lo priority)

So I am really not happy with it and now seems that my friend that mad fun of me that I am a cheap bastard because I get the cheapest one for only one month. But now he is regretting because he get the one with $14.95/mo for six month (total $82.26 because of the discount). So I have deciding to also get an account to SliceHost next month and see how it is. (I can use swap there )

I whant a portia spider.

If someone from Africa, Australia, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines or Vietnam is willing to send me a Portia spider for my farm, me and the spider will be eternal grateful to you

This is not a joke. If someone is willing to send me one I will be very happy. If someone is willing to help me, pleas leave me a message and I will tell you where to send it and also the money for the transport and packaging, and a fee for your trouble.

Also I promise to take god care of it and feed him well so it will live an long an happy life. It will be even better if you can send me a pair of them it will be even better, because the life alone is not very happy. I know it from my own experience.

ATV ride.

Just how I had promise , I will tell about the my vacation. So my mother convince me to go with her to vacation, I was indenting to keep working at some projects I had. But I was finally accepted to go with her but I was still intending to come back next day. But because I was pick up two girls there I was decided to stay one more day. Seems that it was a bad decision, seems that the girls wasn't so fun anymore. So I have learn that not allays what seems to be the truth is the truth. So I was in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do.... but some ATV's pass near me. So I assumed that I can rent an quad for a ride. I asked when I can rent an ATV and I finally find where. Is about 20 Euro for an hour, kind of expensive but I was very curious how it is so I rent one for 2 hours. Until now I had drive all kind of terrain vehicles: motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, an tank and a train. So I expected to be extremely easy to drive an ATV, almost like a motorcycle.

Wrong !!!! In the first 20 second I was the ditch near the track. I had felt so humiliated, everyone was looking at me. I get back on road and start thinking what I did wrong. It is very hard to steer and every bump in the road force you in a wrong direction. I hold the handle bar tight and try again. After a few seconds I realize that I can't handle it. So I asked what to do. Should I give up. No way !!! So I asked myself again what is the problem. At low speeds is hard to steer because of the high friction between the wheels and the ground, and when the road is earth road with lot of bumps. So I decided to accelerate. I am going to brake my neck or save my honor. At higher speeds it's a lot more simple to steer so my driving get better. After a few laps I get used to so i decided that I am ready for an off-road ride. The renting company it will not allow you to go off-road without a guide (That is in the price of the renting). So in case you kill yourself the guide to bring back the quad. So I go to the guide and tell him I am ready. I pick up a route and start riding. A 3 hours route by foot take us 45 minutes. It was relay nice.

I started from here and I go somewhere ....

... up there.

It was a a serpentine path so that thy take it so much, even it look easy. Unfortunately I didn't make any picture from up there.

And now some advice how to ride the quad. First I have to explain the controls. The handle bar for searing must be hold really tight. The throttle is not like a motorcycle. The motorcycle throttle is contained in the right-hand grip on the handlebars and twisting the grip towards you increases the speed.The ATV has a thumb throttle that you have to push it forward to accelerate. There are two brakes in the right and left of the handlebar for the front wheels. On low speeds it can help searing pushing only one brake. At high speeds pushing only one brake and will help you make circles. (Spin around in place) The third foot brake is for the rear wheels. I recommend using that one for slowing down. Be very gentile with the brakes because otherwise you will drift. Always keep some distance to the one in front of you, otherwise you will not see anything because of the dust or snow. Also sometimes the rear wheels can trow rocks and dried wood. Don't try to be brave, heroes die young. Always use the safety equipment and the gloves are mandatory even in summer, otherwise your hand will freeze in the matter of minutes.

Just brilliant.

I will marry the first girl that understand the following presentation:(very technical stuff only for geeks)




Long time ago when I owned a 286 computer I had a lot of study about computer architectures. When I have seen this video old memory's was binged back to life. Is just brilliant. I dreamed that some day my hours of study and my technical knowledge about computer architecture will become useful. I was so proud watching this video that I am one of the few people's that rely know what he is talking about. It knows how a PC boots up and about the memory warp around.

So I am serious about marrying the first girl that understand this presentation and has the same filings as me. I don't care how she looks, I don't care how old she is , I don't care anything except that she is able to understand this presentation.

Updated: Seems that nobody want to be my wife... probably this year I am not going to update anything because I will be in vacation. So take your time and watch the movie. If somebody has questions, feel free to ask me. I will explain everything you wish.

Hi.

Today I had some fun flaming. You know, Friday is the flame day. Evrybody makes fun of everybody on mail.And debate unimportant problems like "Linux Vs. Windows", "Sex Vs. Love" and so on.