Enom Outage…

James Garrett

If anyone is seeing their website not working, or website up but email down, etc, several people in twitter have posted that ENOM is having outages issues.  We currently have 273 domains registered through ENOM and we’re seeing the same issues as everyone else on most every domain.  I’ve placed the correct IP addresses into my etc/hosts file and I’m seeing everything correctly.  Our support technicians over at RackSpace have confirmed that they’re seeing the same thing.  If you’re seeing this, good luck reaching ENOM support, I’m just getting a busy signal.

I guess the only “fun” thing to come of this is having angry clients call and getting to calm them down.  I’m not sure why I enjoy it, but there’s something very rewarding about having someone upset with you when you start the phone call, and thank you by the time you get done.

Edit– ENOM posted an update on their twitter account, but seemingly can’t post one on their homepage.  That’s TERRIBLE customer service!  Screen shots below.   At least we know something now, I guess we’ll lead by example and do a mass email to our clients explaining what happened, and post an alert on our homepage.

12:06pm – “We are currently managing through a DDOS attack. All resources are focused on solving this issue ASAP. More updates shortly.”
12:25pm- “Customers should begin to see a significant improvement in services. We are still addressing some remaining issues. More updates pending”

Another interesting tidbit is that their outages page doesn’t reveal the info their twitter account does.

Over troubleshooting the problem…grr!

James Garrett

So last night I changed a client’s DNS over around 8pm. For those of you who aren’t familiar, DNS settings are somewhat like physical mail address settings in that if I want to go to our office, I type in 1802 N Alafaya Trail into my GPS, just as I type in www.yourdomain.com to get to “your domain”. Let’s say we move physical addresses, it takes propagation time before Google maps phone books, and various GPS software update our company’s location. Well, there’s propagation time (only a few hours typically, max of 48 hours) when you change the IP address behind a domain to switch the server the domain points to.

Anyways, back to my story…I did it this late because they had requested that we do it after hours due to email being their primary means of taking and receiving orders, and they couldn’t afford being down during the business day. 7:30am my cell phone was ringing and waking me up with a panicked customer on the other line. My first thought is “oh no, I missed up the DNS switch”, but I had stayed up to make sure I saw the DNS swap go through on my end. I asked the customer to ping “mail.yourdomain.com” and it was seeing an incorrect location. My first assumption is that this machine had cached the IP address, so I asked if I could remote control the computer with LogmeinRescue (this software is the best thing to ever happen to technical support), which they agreed.  I ran a “ipconfig /flushdns” and then redid the ping with the same bad results (ipconfig /flushdns would be like throwing your address book away so that you have to look up new addresses each time, referencing the analogy I was using earlier).

Now here’s where this whole post starts to have a point.  The customer was upset because their email was “down” and in a moment of panic, I started looking for answers as to why a computer might not respond to “ipconfig /flushdns”.  The truth is, I had no reason to believe that this command didn’t work.  The solution was letting the customer know their internet service provider’s DNS information was outdated and might take a few more hours to get refreshed.

Lesson learned: When presented with a problem, focus on the primary causes,  then eliminate them one by one.  Don’t let frustration or panic on a customers end cause panic on your end!

Choosing Web Hosting — What to look for?

James Garrett

I’ve had several friends, and even some family ask me my opinions on general web hosting, and there’s only a select few names in the business I’ve come to recommend.   In general, ignore the price, start figuring out what you want, THEN price shop.

Let’s Look at the basic terms used in web hosting-

Storage Space
Storage space in regards to web hosting is basically referring to anything that you store on your hosting account, FTP, web content, and email all included.  Really the only thing that can eat through storage space is email, photos, file sharing, and video.  If you’re uploading tons of high resolution photos form a modern DSLR, using your website to send large files to friends, or uploading every holiday video known to man, you’re going to need a ton of space.  For the rest of us, space isn’t an issue.  For email, I recommend Google for your domain, which is a service Google provides, basically like Gmail, except it allows you to take your current email address with you, and take the load off of your hosting account.

Bandwidth
Bandwidth refers to the amount of data transmitted through the server that you’re on.  Let’s say I have a 1mb file and 10 people download it, I’ve now used slightly over 10mb of data.  To put things in perspective, I use about 15GB of transfer on this blog each month, mainly because I use hidden folders on my personal hosting account to transfer files back and forth to work and school as I need them.  If you’re JUST transferring web sized photos to friends and family, you will struggle to use even 5gb of data transfer.  If you’re a company that has several files to download on the site, or tutorial videos you can easily blow through 10-15GB.  In general, if you’re looking at a new website, the typical 30gb or more is plenty, and you can always increase this as you grow.

Dedicated Server–
A dedicated server is extremely useful if you’re in need of custom programs aside from the basic php/sql/apache that nearly every server on the market today runs.  For 99% of the world, it’s unnecessary!  The pro’s are that you don’t share the box with anyone else, so a security vulnerability, non terminating programming loop, or other negative things on someone else’s server won’t effect you.

Virtual Private Server–
Virtual Private Servers (VPS’s for short) are useful if you need to install a few custom apps, but don’t really have the need to be on your own server for performance reasons.  Typically this is what you’ll want to look at once you outgrow shared hosting (we’ll discuss this in a bit!), but before you’re ready for an all out dedicated box.

Shared Hosting-
This is what the majority of the web is run on, Shared Servers.  Just like when you were in college and realized that you could share an apartment and split the bills in half, you can share a server, too!  This blog for instance, is being run on SharkSpace’s reseller hosting package.  This package meets all of my needs with room to grow, and costs less than $25/month, far less than the virtual private server or dedicated server options.  It comes prepackaged with a server management software called WHM/Cpanel which allows me to create sub accounts, and allows those accounts to manage their own site specific settings.

Now let’s move on to some aspects less often discussed!

Support-
Especially if you’re running a business online, support should be the FIRST thing you consider when choosing a hosting provider. Companies like RackSpace are filled with some of the most knowledgeable staff in the business, and willing to help you at any hour of the day.  The company I work for hosts our dedicated servers through RackSpace, and I continue to be amazed at how great the service is.  Other great companies I’ve used when it comes to support are SharkSpace (my current web host) and Idologic.

Hardware-
It’s no secret that Linux is a great OS for slower machines, but don’t let that fool you, you NEED processing power to run the dynamic portions of today’s content management systems and blogs.  Just a single page on this blog has to do a database call to find all of the unique months that I’ve posted a blog, all of the categories, the site name, the first 10 posts to show on the page, all of the photo galleries, etc….the point is, even a single page view involves a lot of database interaction these days.  Budget web hosts often skimp here, as you can install all of the latest versions of common software packages and market it as a new setup, however it becomes painful to browse your website.

Google Voice — Why it’s AWESOME!

James Garrett

About 2 years ago, I registered for Grand Central, which was at the time a free way to get a local Orlando phone number for my apartment gate call-box, since they didn’t allow long distance numbers.  At that time, text messaging was too expensive on my plan, and I never really used it.  Since then, I’ve gotten a work phone with unlimited texting, and I’ve gotten a text messaging plan on my personal phone.  Keeping 2 phones on me at all times just seems silly, especially after 7pm, where unlimited calling is free on my work iPhone….well Google has a solution for that.

The basic idea behind Google Voice is that you’re given 1 phone number, and it then forwards to virtually unlimited other phones.  This is very handy for people like myself, as I can give out 1 number to all my friends, and then after 7pm forward it to my work phone, and during the day forward it to my personal cell phone.

A few handy features–

  • You can set “Emergency Contacts” as a group and during work hours, set the “Do Not Disturb” feature so that no phone calls come through except a few close friends/family who you can trust to only call you at work if it’s an absolute emergency.
  • You can text via your computer keyboard if you’re at the computer and someone txt’s you.  Much faster than using the phone.
  • You can call your own phone number and then use that to make a call to avoid long distance fees.
  • You can forward calls to the FREE Gizmo In, so that you don’t pay for minutes use when you’re near any computer with a high speed connection.
  • You can block certain callers.
  • If your minutes are running low, you can add your Google Voice number to your “My Circle” or unlimited calling plan, and all calls from this number won’t be charged for if you have Verizon or Tmobile’s free calling from xx different numbers.su
  • Supports call screening.  This is where you answer, and it says “__________ is calling, press 1 to receive, or hang up”.  It forces callers to leave their name, so if it’s an unknown number, you know who it is before you talk to them.
  • Voice Mail To Text – Converts voice mails into a text message so that you don’t have to listen to them. It’s not 100% accurate, but I almost always get the point of the message and don’t listen to them.
  • Emailing Voice Mail – Voice Mail’s will be emailed to you in mp3 format so you can save them if you wish.

Stripping Luxfer AL80 Scuba Tank (Stage Bottle)

James Garrett

With the spare time I have due to the holiday break (no school or work!), I decided to strip one of my AL80’s that I’ve had sitting around so I can finally stick the MOD decals on it.  I guess I could have just put the MOD stickers on it, but the clear coat put on from the factory was starting to yellow, and just didn’t look good, so I didn’t want to spend any money on stickers for it that would just end up coming off as soon as I had the free time.  A friend recently sold me a cheap Halcyon AL80 stage strap as well, so I guess that helped motivate me…

The Procedure–

  • Purchase paint stripper from Home Depot. (Click here to see what I used)
  • Put an old yoke valve, or something you don’t want on the tank to ensure nothing gets inside it, and you don’t ruin a good valve if you spray any stripper on it.  I had an old OMS H valve that was of no use to me, so I used that.
  • Cover the tank in paint stripper.
  • Use a scraper to get the foam-y paint stripper off the tank. (Wear gloves and do *not* get this stuff on your skin!)
  • Rinse the tank.
  • Scrape off all the paint you can scrape off easily.
  • Coat the remaining painted areas with paint stripper and let it sit for 15 more minutes.
  • Scrape the remaining paint off.
  • Rinse cylinder.
  • Put the new valve on it.
  • You’re DONE!

Pics-

Oleno State Park aka River Rise State Park

James Garrett

Got off work a few minutes early and decided to use whatever daylight was left to go for a quick hike in Oleno State Park with Whitney.  We took the suspension bridge across the river and hiked the obvious trail (not sure if it has a name).  After walking about 1/4 mile beside the river, we encountered several deer having their afternoon meal.  Each time I head to Oleno, I see deer, but with the brush, it’s often hard to get a decent shot at one, always sticks and trees in the way.

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Looking Back…my best courses at UCF

James Garrett

Well, my final semester is fast approaching at UCF…amazing how fast that went.  Filling out the intent to graduate was an interesting tidbit, it really makes you think about what you learned!  I thought it would be a neat blog post to link to when some friends who are up and coming at UCF ask me “Which courses should I take!?!?”.

Computer Science 2 (COP3502) – I won’t even lie, I struggled in this one.  If you’re not a Computer Science student, stay away!  The course is currently being taught by Ben Douglas, and focuses on algorithm analysis.  The course starts off really easy, and after the first exam it gets incredibly hard.  The course is designed with a recitation, and I really think that most people who fail it, do not attend.  Ben is one of the most knowledgeable professors I’ve had at UCF, but sometimes that comes at the expense of him talking over your head in class.  If this happens, be sure to have the TA go over it in recitation, as topics build on each other, and the tests are near impossible to guess on.  Topics in the course include backtracking, sorting algorithms, brute force, object oriented programming, graphs, and many more.  All tests and assignments are Java based.  Tests are closed notes & closed book.  The course does not have a set grading scale, the final grades are determined by the overall class average after the final exam.

Digital Investigative Technologies (CET4885) – (Click for syllabus) This course isn’t terribly difficult due to the fact that Dr. Philip Craiger has really taken his time to produce a very thorough selection of course materials (no book required), but it does take a lot of your time to complete the projects.  The course begins by teaching you how to take a digital clone of a hard drive to avoid messing up the “evidence”, and explains data collection methods to ensure that your investigation will hold up in court.  After that, the course will teach you how to modify the access dates of files and recover deleted files in Linux by hand using only tools freely available online. Once you understand how these tools work, the course then introduces a few professional tools that you will need in order to complete the final project.  One of the most hands on courses in the UCF Information Technology curriculum, I recommend this course to any student.  One final word of advice…do not ask a question answered in materials already given to you, and don’t ask something that’s easy to find out with a Google search.  Dr. Craiger really forces students to seek out answers on their own as a first option just like you will have to in the real world when you get a job.  He’s not someone who got a PhD and never had a real job outside of teaching, so his methods are different than professors you might have had before.

Database Concepts (CGS2545) – Database Concepts is taught by Robert Koeneke, but the most useful portion of the course (the lab) has projects and slides developed by Dr. Mark Llewellyn.  The slides teach you all of the basics on creating a Microsoft Access database, starting from modifying existing databases, creating queries, reports, new tables, and eventually developing your own database.  The step by step instructions are great, and the pace is very good as well.  A final project in the course is worth a large portion of your grade.  This course is very hands on as well, and after completing it, I feel that I have the knowledge to create a database for anything that I currently have a need for.  My only complaint is that the course spends a bit too much time on database planning, and too little time focusing on combined/advanced queries, as these felt very rushed to get in before the final exam.

Manatee Springs State Park – p1900 beyond Friedmans Sink

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth–
Avg Depth–
Visibility– 25-30ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:

Met up with Brian Richardson at Extreme Exposure in High Springs around 8am since he needed some Halcyon stuff, and then headed towards Cave Excursions East to get fills.  Talked with Rich about our dive plan, and was given the advice to just scooter through the buoyancy changes that we would encounter in this cave.

Upon arriving at Manatee Springs State Park, we were told by a park visitor that there’s now a courtesy cart that divers may use to carry their gear (it’s a long hike from the parking lot to Catfish Sink).  This is a REALLY nice upgrade since I had dove there last. With 2 stages, deco, and a scooter each, it would have taken several trips with the dolly.  The air was cool, which made the walks back and forth much easier than it typically is during the summer months.

Once in the water, I ran the primary, as you have to go a ways here before reaching gold line. Brian had offered before hand to “tidy up” the line behind me.  Since we had so much crap on us, and the flow really is bothersome at this site, teamwork is the best way to get a primary into this system.

The flow was up, and visibility was down.  This cave is so dark, with this poor of visibility I felt as if I were scootering and blindly following a line in hope that the cave would clear up somewhere and I could actually start to see something.  Because it was cloudy, we couldn’t even see light come through at Sue Sink or Friedmans.  About 1900ft beyond Friedmans, my 21w HID decided to fail!  I swapped to my Halcyon Scout and began the near 4000ft journey back home.  Having trouble keeping my eye on the line due to the particulate reflecting Brian’s light in my face, I had Brian go to his Scout as well, amazing how fast things escalate!

In the end, we exited via Catfish with an uneventful deco.  While packing up, we did get a pleasant surprise, 5 deer decided to visit us in the parking lot!

Devil’s – Hill 400

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth–
Avg Depth–
Visibility– 150+ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
After diving with Brian in the AM, I had a surface interval and then met Ryan and Sam to do a quick run down Hill400.  This was Sam’s first time off mainline Ginnie, so we covered the dive plan and were in the water.  Sam ran the primary, and had an interesting time due to the fact that the NACD conference visitors had left 5 primaries already in the system, which left very few good tie off spots.  The two of them would lead, and I would scooter along behind them, as I’m still trying to gain scooter hours.  I had a stage bottle that I would breathe, and reserved all of my back gas to ensure that I had enough gas to swim out sharing gas, since scootering out wasn’t an option with only 1 scooter between the 3 of us.

Ginnie Springs -- Devils Ear to Hill 400

Devil’s – To Mainland…or not….

James Garrett

Breathing Gas– 32% Backgas / 100% Deco
Max Depth– 101ft
Avg Depth– 85ft
Visibility– 150+ft
Water Temp– 72F
Dive Time:

Notes:
Met with Brian to do a dive to Mainland.  The plan was to double stage on the scooter ride there, dropping the first stage at stage bottle rock (about p1800), and then breathe the second stage all the way to Mainland.  From there we would use limited backgas to see whatever we could, and then head back.  Unfortunately I got a little ambitious, and jumped about 10ft too early into a low, silty, and probably better off side mount passage.  One thing I learned, make the OTHER guy lead in a siphon, a single errant fin kick blitzed the viz, and we were both left on the line for the exit. Once we returned to mainline, viz was about 10-15ft, but still enough to get on the scooters and try to speed up the exit.  Viz cleared around the Insulation Rooms, and by the time we were getting to the Maple Leaf, no evidence of our error was left (whew! I thought we were going to read about ourselves on CDF or TDS!).