Two Second Memory

I’ve finally got lighttpd (or lighty as it is more commonly known) going! It’s taken a while but I’ve finally managed to to it. The machine that this blog and Limes and Lycopene runs on is what is known as a virtual machine and the funky bit of software that makes all this happen is called Xen which was developed at Cambridge University.The machine is hosted by a local company called Solutions First who provide an excellent service. The only downside to this is that the amount of memory is quite low but given the amount I pay for it this is by no means a complaint. I really do mean it when I say that it’s not a complaint as it has made me tune the box so that it is not a complete dog. Hence my conversion to lighty —- I might write a post about my fun and games with the spammers and getting my MTA (postfix) tuned so that it doesn’t kill the box but I will leave that for another day.
The blogging software used by this blog is the fairly well know Wordpress which was running under apache, using mysql. I’ve tuned mysql to not use much memory but apache really does use a lot so when a contractor at work suggested that I use lighty I gave it a go. Only it wasn’t very satisfactory, it keep dumping core (which I think was more to do with php that lighty itself) and I couldn’t get it to do anything else so I put it on the back burner. So after recently updating my trusty vm to Ubuntu Dapper Drake I thought I would give it a go. And lo and behold there was much rejoicing for now you are reading this on web pages that are being served up by the mighty lighty! The only problem I had was getting the url rewriting going. The various web pages taking about lighty and Wordpress suggest the following:

server.error-handler-404 = "/index.php?error=404"

This worked fine on Two Second Memory but not on Limes and Lycopene until I realised that Limes and Lycopene has /blog in the path whereas mine doesn’t. D’oh! So after a quick edit of lighttpd.conf the results looks like:

server.error-handler-404 = "/blog/index.php?error=404"

The results really are quite dramatic. The site is much more responsive and the memory consumption is about half. It just goes to show that a little effort, patience and belief in Open Source Software and good things really do happen. So a big thank you to the lighty developers.

Filed by rgh at 20:51 under OSS
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Exactly two weeks ago I went down to the Sydney Food & Wine Fair (see Limes and Lycopene for a full write up). Since I was somewhat late instead of getting the bus I cycled down and given that there where loads of people in Hyde Park and that I was in a hurry I decided to cycle on the grass. Unbeknownst to me there was a large hole in front of me. Anyway to cut a long story short I went straight over the handlebars and did a face plant in the dust (we’ve been in drought for a good few years now). Normally I don’t wear my glasses when I cycle as your eyes just water and you can’t see a thing. For some reason on that day I was still wearing them, needless to say they suffered more damage than I did — The bit that the right arm attaches to completely snapped off the frame.

I really like my glasses I’ve had them for years and you really cannot buy anything like them anymore (maybe when they become fashionable again I will but until then … ) and given that a new pair is going to cost something of the order of $700—800 including lenses I thought I would get them fixed. I was recommend (thanks Tommy) a clock repairer on Parramatta Road but whilst he was very helpful he really didn’t know what he was doing when it came to fixing glasses and declined to fix them. I tried various opticians and jewelers and they weren’t interested so it was down to me to fix them.

I did a bit of brazing (not to be confused with braising) when I was at school (which I have to remind myself was over twenty years ago!) and I’ve spent more than half my life soldering stuff so I figured it couldn’t be that hard. I spent a significant about of time research brazing and which filler rods to use etc. Do you know how many different permutations of filler rods there are? Hundreds! They all have different properties and you have to get specific rods for specific metals but after some advice from Colin the welder and Gavin the mate who knows stuff I fixed them! I went to BOC and after much amusement on their behalf I got some silver solder I then bought a Toolex pencil torch and made a little jig out of a piece of steel, two pound coins (from my last trip to the UK), two dollar coins (from my pocket) and much blue-tack. And know I really happy and a bit full of myself but the key point in all of this is that I don’t have to shell out $700 for a new pair of glasses. You’ve gotta be happy with that!

Filed by rgh at 16:09 under General
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