G-Loaded Journal » Announcements http://www.g-loaded.eu An open-source software and technology related journal Fri, 11 May 2012 13:37:42 +0000 en hourly 1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ PHP syntax error caused 48-hour web site downtime http://www.g-loaded.eu/2011/06/14/php-syntax-error-caused-48-hour-web-site-downtime/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2011/06/14/php-syntax-error-caused-48-hour-web-site-downtime/#comments Tue, 14 Jun 2011 11:50:50 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=2365 Today I realized my web site had been serving an empty HTML document for the last 2 days on every HTTP request no matter what the path was. When I initially noticed the issue, I was a bit worried, but, after taking a closer look at the Apache error log, I found out about a PHP syntax error causing the issue. A couple of days ago I had edited a WordPress plugin on my live web site and, apparently, I made a typo which led to a syntax error and an empty document being served on every request. But, I recall I had checked the website after the modification of the plugin but I hadn’t noticed any issues! Actually, this happened because I had forgot to clear the cache, so when I checked the site after the modification of the plugin, it seemed OK. My modification didn’t change the visual representation of the web site, so, having forgot to turn off caching, there was no way for me to find out about the typo. Lesson learned: never modify the code of a live web site, but, if you have to do it, always turn-off caching before doing so.

PHP syntax error caused 48-hour web site downtime, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2011/06/14/php-syntax-error-caused-48-hour-web-site-downtime/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Full G-Loaded content in Planet feeds http://www.g-loaded.eu/2010/10/04/full-g-loaded-content-in-planet-feeds/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2010/10/04/full-g-loaded-content-in-planet-feeds/#comments Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:20:09 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=1985 Although the full content of the posts is available in the website feed, until today I had been limiting the content (to just the post’s summary) that would be retrieved by UniversalFeedParser, which is the user agent string the PlanetPlanet software uses. This was done so that any buttons or ads do not appear in the Planet feeds. Unfortunately, several people perceived this action very differently, which led to some problems in the past. Recently, I realized that I am probably the only one who cares about such things, so, I announce that no filtering is performed on my side any more. Although the feed items do not contain any ads, social network buttons may be displayed. This change might lead to the re-appearance of my older posts in the Planet feeds. I apologize in advance for that (if it happens). This change is permanent, and I will work with the Planet administrators to resolve any potential future issues with my feed items.

Full G-Loaded content in Planet feeds, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2010/10/04/full-g-loaded-content-in-planet-feeds/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ The G-Loaded Experiment – 5 years of tech blogging http://www.g-loaded.eu/2010/09/16/the-g-loaded-experiment-5-years-of-tech-blogging/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2010/09/16/the-g-loaded-experiment-5-years-of-tech-blogging/#comments Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:26:13 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=1835 Okay. It’s been five years since I started this website and I feel I want to share with you one or two things about it. In this post I’ll try to go back in time and write about why I started it and what this web journal has accomplished so far. I also post some thoughts about the future plans.

The Past

First, let’s go back to September 2005. At that time, it had been about 5-6 months since I had begun to experiment with the Linux Desktop, more specifically with Fedora Core and later Fedora. Before that, I was a Microsoft Windows power-user. I also spent a lot of time on a spare computer powered by Red Hat Linux and later Fedora Core 1, which was used as an experimental server in my home LAN. The main reason for trying the Linux Desktop was the exploration of its features and to check how they compared to those of Windows. Although I had already noticed some shortcomings from the very first months of use, I guess it was the excitement about the new platform that kept me going and made me eventually switch to Linux for my everyday computing.

There is one thing I am 100% certain I did right. Keeping detailed notes about almost everything: my modifications in the configuration files, how to accomplish certain tasks quickly from the command line, notes about features that were not so obvious, etc. This had helped me a lot to adapt to the new environment quickly. At that time, the first tech blogs had already made their appearance in the blogosphere and several people published tips and tricks about open source software, so, being inspired by the openness of the Free Software world, I had decided to publish my own notes, hoping that others would find them useful. It happened that, at that time, my first complete server configuration, which was safe enough and moderately tested, was almost finished, so I could use it to power a website in the real world instead of using a service like Blogspot, WordPress or Livejournal.

I set up an old computer as a production server. The hardware may sound ridiculous, but that thing was powered by an Intel Pentium II 350MHz CPU overclocked at 392MHz, 128MB of RAM and a very old (even in 2005) Quantum Fireball 18GB hard disk (which I still have around for historical reasons). And the website went live. Later I upgraded RAM to 256MB and finally to 512MB. Needless to say that the server was connected to the internet through a consumer broadband line. Also, the website was powered by the WordPress personal publishing platform, which is the dynamic content engine G-Loaded uses until today. Of course, I later moved to a VPS, but I admit that the home server was pure fun…

So, that was it. I started publishing detailed guides about how to accomplish several tasks in a server or desktop environment, workarounds about various issues I had encountered, news I considered important and also some source code snippets. One of my goals from the beginning was to reach a broader audience and not just computer geeks. I rarely used geeky language in my posts and often provided detailed explanation about what was happening behind the scenes when a specific command was invoked in the shell. I never wrote about anything that I hadn’t previously tested extensively. Whenever an article was published, that meant it was complete, had accurate instructions and worked 100%. I think this made the guides even more helpful and educational, which eventually made the website more popular as more Linux newcomers visited it while looking for information about how to accomplish certain tasks.

G-Loaded evolved to something bigger than just a spot on the web where I published my notes. First of all, it made it possible for me to test my server configuration in the real world and eventually greatly improve it. To be more specific, the server configuration has been re-written 3 or 4 times since the first deployment and I have also developed some deployment scripts, which can set up the server from scratch. Moreover, G-Loaded has been a window, through which I had the opportunity to see how things work in the webmaster world, including website administration, advertising etc. Most of these things cannot be learned in a class or by reading a book. You have to check them out on the go to have a better understanding about them. This is why I call the whole thing the “G-Loaded Experiment” and not just a web journal. It might seem like a journal, but practically it’s more than just that.

Nowadays, the website has small to moderate web traffic, producing around 150k to 180k page views per month, as measured by AWStats, which is quite good for a website covering topics on open source software. The traffic could have been bigger, but I never really cared about web traffic. It was something that came naturally. I never used any “recipies” to drive traffic to the website. Had I cared about traffic, I bet you would have noticed…

And next comes another thing, which I consider quite important. This is about whether a website, which generally spoon feeds new users of open source software or carries advertisements together with the content, is accepted or not by specific audiences related to open-source software. My conclusions regarding acceptance are the following:

  • Acceptance by new Linux users: strong — The website is accepted as is with or without adverts as the visitors are generally interested about the detailed information they can find inside the guides and they never care why the guide was written or why the web site carries advertising.
  • Acceptance by hardcore FOSS users (non IT professionals): small — Adverts and spoon feeding is something geeks do not generally like. (That’s OK. Still love you guys, but this website was not made to teach you anything you do not already know.)
  • Acceptance by IT professionals: varies:
    • The website is moderately accepted by those who can handle the popularity of their profession well. They usually do not mind seeing non IT professionals blogging about things related to IT and they often correct their mistakes and generally enjoy being gurus.
    • On the other side, IT professionals who cannot handle the popularity of their profession very well or have a strict elitist approach to FOSS, generally do not accept the existence of such websites. Please allow me to believe that this is how the majority of IT professionals feel about tech blogs run by non IT professionals.

Finally, let me talk about today and the future plans regarding G-Loaded.

The Present and Future Plans

Several things have changed since the initial launch on September 9th 2005. First of all, the 5-year anniversary finds me using a Windows 7 desktop, after testing it for a full year. I’ve already spent around 400 EUR on Windows software, so I guess going back to a desktop powered by a Linux distribution won’t happen any time soon. It seems that the Linux Desktop experiment did not work out very well for me. I needed an operating system that would let me focus on things that matter to me and the Linux Desktop often distracted me from my goals, requiring a significant amount of time for maintenance every now and then. There will be a separate post about this, so I won’t go into the details here.

Apart from using a computer as a tool for work and research, I am still very interested in administering a Linux Server. During the first 3 years G-Loaded was powered by a Fedora Server, but for various reasons I had explained in an older post I have now switched to CentOS. I intend to continue to work on and improve the server configuration I’ve been developing all these years. Maybe I try to use a configuration manager this time instead of my custom shell scripts. I’ll need to check these tools out and also collect some information and experiences of others first.

So, time permitting, I intend to post some guides/tutorials about how I setup the various services in a Linux Server. Generally, my posts will mostly cover things related to servers. But, you know, since I use Windows on my desktop now, one or two posts about this OS might sneak into my blog every now and then. But, this won’t happen often for sure. I really do not care about desktops regardless of them being open-source or closed-source, embedded, customizable or not, as long as they do not get into my way. Also, during the last month I’ve been thinking about releasing my server configuration and some other software as open-source projects. Many people could possibly benefit from them by using them on their VPSes. But, this is just a thought… Before opening anything up, I’ll need some serious guarantees that some people will also work with me on the project or take it over for further development and fine-tuning. I’ll think about it during the following months and keep you updated.

Final Thoughts

I’ve always been interested in open source software. The main goal of the G-Loaded Journal is to bring you information about how to utilize FOSS more effectively. This goal has not changed and never will be.

The G-Loaded Experiment – 5 years of tech blogging, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2010/09/16/the-g-loaded-experiment-5-years-of-tech-blogging/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ G-Loaded Feeds http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/11/19/g-loaded-feeds/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/11/19/g-loaded-feeds/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:52:03 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=1473 During the last weekend, I made some changes to the website’s feeds. It seems that, after 4 years of blogging, I have finally made up my mind about what is needed and what is unnecessary regarding the syndicated content on G-Loaded.

The first major change is that I no longer use Feedburner for content delivery. I used that service for several months, but, although the delivery of my content was flawless and I was generally 100% satisfied, I’ve come to the conclusion that I do not really need it. Fortunately, I was redirecting my feeds using the 302 (temporary redirect) HTTP code, so the change probably won’t be noticed by you.

The second major change is that all feeds, except the RSS v0.92 feed, are now redirected to the my RSS v2.0 feed. No more Atom feed. No more RDF (RSS v1.0). As I had written in the past, despite my work on WordPress’ old Atom feed, RSS is my preferred feed type. There is nothing wrong with the other formats. I just do not need them. They add nothing to my website, but cause me trouble when I have to do any redirections or other manipulation of the syndicated content. I still consider the Atom format more advanced than RSS 2, but, since RSS was my choice for this blog, I find no reason to change it now.

I understand that redirecting the Atom or RDF feeds to the RSS one might cause some trouble to some feed readers (software). I apologize in advance for any such inconvenience, but this was a necessary change.

The following diagram shows the redirections that take place when any of the website’s feeds is requested:

Feed redirections on G-Loaded.eu

Feed redirections on G-Loaded.eu

Some remarks:

  • No matter which of the RSS2, Atom or RDF format you request, you always get the full content in RSS 2.0 format.
  • If you just want a simple notification about the latest posts, you can select the RSS v0.92 feed. This feed delivers a very small summary of the content.
  • There is a special exception for the Planet Feed Reader, which always gets the Atom feed. The amount of content this feed delivers is variable and is determined by the author of the post (me in this case). This is done using a custom plugin.

Getting the content

Here are the links to the G-Loaded Feeds:

Please feel free to ask your questions or report any issues.

G-Loaded Feeds, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/11/19/g-loaded-feeds/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Redmine http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/09/21/redmine/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/09/21/redmine/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:31:12 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=1160 Redmine is an open source, cross-platform and cross-database project management platform, written using the Ruby on Rails framework. After doing some testing in August 2009, I decided to switch to this platform on CodeTRAX.org. Redmine is so feature rich and well-designed that it is difficult to go unnoticed. Some of the features include:

  • Multiple project support within one Redmine instance
  • Multiple subproject support
  • Flexible role based access control with user-defined roles
  • Flexible issue tracking system with user-defined statuses and issue types
  • Automatic gantt chart and calendar based on issues start and due dates
  • News, documents & files management
  • Feeds & email notifications
  • Per project wiki
  • Per project forums
  • Time tracking
  • Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users
  • SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and Darcs)
  • Repository browser and diff viewer
  • Plugin system
  • Issue creation via email
  • Multiple LDAP authentication support
  • User self-registration support
  • Multilanguage support
  • Multiple databases support (MySQL, PostgreSQL and SQLite)

This platform is here to win.

During my tests, the only shortcoming was the lack of subversion repository path-based access control, but this might change in the near future. Another thing, about which I was a bit skeptical at first, was the fact that this project is written in Ruby, a programming language I do not know. But, finally, I think that this will not be a problem since I intend to stick to the default functionality. If, for any reason, I have to write a plugin to extend its functionality, that will be an excellent opportunity to know Ruby.

I highly suggest that you try out the demo Redmine installation.

Time permitting, I intend to write an extensive guide describing the installation of Redmine with Subversion repository support.

Stay tuned…

Redmine, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/09/21/redmine/feed/ 2 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Project CodeTRAX discontinued http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/09/21/project-codetrax-discontinued/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/09/21/project-codetrax-discontinued/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:10:24 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=1179 I officially announce that Project CodeTRAX will not be developed any further. This project was an effort to create a hosting platform for multiple software projects using well-established open source software. Although there had been some silent progress in the development of small administrative utilities and software bridges between the various parts of the system, I finally realized that the base software, Trac, could not meet the requirements of a multi-project environment, at least in its current form. Although, there is an ongoing effort by some developers to add support for multiple projects, I think that it is very difficult for Trac to adapt to its new role without major core changes and I doubt that such changes will happen any time soon.

I have already found the project hosting platform which will host my software projects. This will soon be deployed on Codetrax.org. Stay tuned for more info…

Project CodeTRAX discontinued, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2009/09/21/project-codetrax-discontinued/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Back online after 48 hours of downtime http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/12/16/back-online-after-48-hours-of-downtime/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/12/16/back-online-after-48-hours-of-downtime/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:33:50 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=799 The website was down for over 48 hours. My new internet and telephony provider is 100% responsible for this situation and tomorrow I am going to have a word with them and demand an explanation about why my internet and phone lines were down for two days, despite the fact that I pre-pay the standard monthly rate according to their company’s policy. I would have no problem with the outage if they had informed me with an SMS or email about the scheduled downtime. But, I can tell you I received no such information! I’ve also been through their miserable announcements about scheduled maintenance downtimes, but I was unable to locate an entry for my location. I know, you may think that this is about an ultra-cheap low-quality-by-design internet provider. Well, this is the quality of the services of the country’s second best ISP and that’s only some of it.

At the moment of writing the quality of the internet bandwidth is far from good and I still have no phone.

Back online after 48 hours of downtime, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/12/16/back-online-after-48-hours-of-downtime/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Random downtimes during next 2 weeks http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/24/random-downtimes-during-next-2-weeks/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/24/random-downtimes-during-next-2-weeks/#comments Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:19:35 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=571 Last weekend I spent most of my free time revising the configuration of the server. This time my sole intention is to further improve the allocation of resources (mainly memory) to the various services. This involves a lot of testing, graphing and note taking as some of the currently used software needs to be fine-tuned or to be replaced by other similar software, which I expect to perform better on the server’s old hardware. As most of these changes take place directly on the server that serves this website, you might experience random periods of downtime during the next 1-2 weeks. Do not worry; that will be normal.

This time I’ve decided to be a bit more radical than the other times I modified the configuration of the services, but I expect good results. Time permitting, in the upcoming months, I will share my findings by posting articles containing information about the changes I made and the results I got. Also, during the last three years, I’ve written numerous scripts that automate every operation that happens on the server, including backup, log archival and analysis, notifications, maintenance tasks, reporting etc etc. I feel that it is about time I start releasing them. As usual, they will be released as FOSS under the Apache License version 2.

Random downtimes during next 2 weeks, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/24/random-downtimes-during-next-2-weeks/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ Status of content availability via feeds http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/17/status-of-content-availability-via-feeds/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/17/status-of-content-availability-via-feeds/#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:37:16 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=547 In the previous post, I had written a few things about my intention to make the full content and not just the summaries of the posts available through the feeds (RSS or Atom). This was a hard decision as I’ve always considered feeds as a medium for notifying readers that the content of the website had been updated. This turned out to be a mistake as nowadays web browsers, when it comes to reading the news, have almost been replaced by software or web-based feed readers. This means that these feed readers are not just a medium for receiving notifications, but the main medium used to read the news.

As I had stated in the past, G-Loaded‘s primary feed is RSS 2.0, so, today, I am pleased to announce that the full G-Loaded Journal’s content will be available through the RSS 2.0 feed. The feed is being made available through the Google Adsense program and is ad-supported like the content on the HTML pages. The full URL to the feed is:

http://www.g-loaded.eu/feed/

Further customizations are planned for this feed. The time of their implementation is unknown and will depend on my free time during the upcoming weeks/months.

Until further notice, the Atom 1.0 feed will still deliver summaries of the posts and should be used by any web-based feed aggregator which syndicates G-Loaded Journal’s content.

Status of content availability via feeds, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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]]> http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/17/status-of-content-availability-via-feeds/feed/ 0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ New stuff on G-Loaded http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/17/new-stuff-on-g-loaded/ http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/10/17/new-stuff-on-g-loaded/#comments Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:09:51 +0000 George Notaras http://www.g-loaded.eu/?p=531 It’s been a few months since I last updated the web site, so apologies for the long period of silence. During the last months, although I was around, I tried to spend as less time in front of a computer as possible, so updating the website was not a priority at all. Not using a computer was good for many reasons, the most important of which was the opportunity to realize the tremendous amount of time I have spent on pointless computer-related activities. It would have been impossible to realize this while in front of a computer monitor.

Of course, the pointless computer-related activities I mentioned earlier do not involve updating the website or administering and maintaining the server or doing any kind of actual work on the computer. They mostly involve things like spending days trying to find a workaround on how to use a buggy piece of software or trying to become an expert on software or a technology which was not designed to be useful or is outdated or trying to make a device, which was not designed with interoperability in mind, to inter-operate with other devices or with various pieces of PC software. I’ve done it all, but these things just don’t entertain me that much any more…

But… I just realized that I am getting off-topic, so let’s stick to what will change on G-Loaded Journal in the upcoming weeks.

First of all is the availability and distribution of the content. Although I was totally against delivering the full article content through the feeds in the past, now it seems that my views on this matter have changed. However, I am still trying to figure out what would be the best way to achieve this. Maybe two choices will be offered to the user: an ad-supported feed with the full content and a separate feed with the article abstracts. I haven’t made any final decisions yet. An announcement regarding this issue will be posted in a separate post soon.

Second, searching G-Loaded had been a pain in the past because of WordPress’ simplistic internal search mechanism. So, I decided to replace it with a custom Google search engine. The new search form is now available throughout the web site pages, so feel sure that you will find what you search for.

Third, a help page explaining the structure of G-Loaded and containing information about how to read the published guides or how to use our forums will be added soon to the main link bar.

The forth change involves money donations via Paypal. Until now, I was totally against receiving money for my work on the HOWTO articles or the software, but, recently, the emails of some kind people who insisted on donating a couple of bucks for my efforts have managed to change my mind about this. It’s not about the money. It’s just the appreciation of the effort. So, a Paypal donation form will be added in the near future.

Finally, the major changes on G-Loaded will involve the frequency of updates and the detail of the tutorials. Until now, I’ve been posting without schedule, but this is about to change. From now on, I will try to transform G-Loaded into a monthly column. It will be updated with a HOWTO document on a monthly basis, but, of course, smaller posts containing tips, announcements or news may be published in between.

Regarding the detail of the guides, some changes will be there too. Until now, I tried to write detailed guides, which, apart from providing the reader with the steps to achieve the article’s goal, contained information about the involved software in an attempt to educate the reader. This last thing, the reader’s education, will not be a feature of the upcoming articles. The only reason for this change is the limited free time.

As I have written earlier, I spend very little time on the computer, so I do not know when all these changes will actually take place. So, stay tuned!

If you have reached that far, thanks for your interest in the upcoming changes of G-Loaded.

New stuff on G-Loaded, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

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