Before we go to pengsan.com (there’s nothing there anyway) here’s a
photo that you don’t see everyday. Another san, I mean sun – The Sun –
a daily newspaper provided free in racks like this. For the life of me,
I’ve never seen the racks filled…everytime I see these, it’s empty.
However today was going to be different. I knew it was going to be. I
had inklings. I came in at a little past 7 am and walked into Wisma Antarabangsa…
This is the rack at the entrance and lo and behold it was partially
full! Granted, it was only partially full, but for someone who’s only
seen it empty, it was a sight to behold. I stood there for a few
minutes, admiring the beauty and decided to document it by taking a
photo. The Sun! A rack partially full! Will wonders never
cease? Soon after I took the photo, a woman walked in and grabbed a
stack of the papers and walked out…such ephemeral beauty…I’m glad I
took a photo of the rack, even though it was only partially full. 😉
Anyway, after a lot of research, I’ve decided to go for a VPS/VDS
(Virtual Private/Dedicated Server) solution for my hosting needs. I got
a decent custom package – US$ 17.50 per month for 1 GB disk space, 30
GB transfer, 64 MB RAM, 1 static IP and root access. Additional excess
bandwidth is US$ 1 per GB and the same price goes for storage. Which
brings us back to pengsan.com – I registered that this morning (no
don’t check, it won’t progate until 24-48 hours and there’s nothing
there anyway) to test the VDS with.
I didn’t have to, since there is after all a static IP assigned, but
I figured it would be fun to get. sixthseal.com is biblical in nature,
castitas.com goes into Latin and now pengsan.com, local! 🙂 I don’t
know what I’m going to do with that domain yet, but currently, I’m
going to use it to test the server with and store images for the time
being, and I’m looking to move castitas.com soon (it’s MUCH smaller
than sixthseal.com and thus more forgiving if I fuck up) and if all
goes well, sixthseal.com will be hosted at this new server.
Anyway, a VDS (or VPS) is basically a quasi dedicated server…it’s
not like shared hosting where everyone shares the system resources, OS
and everything. VPS/VDS solutions are more secure and for all intents
and purposes, it’s a dedicated server, minus the cost of one. 😉 The
custom package I wanted is bare bones – nothing installed except Debian
(a Linux distro). I chose that over Red Hat due to size considerations
and I have experience with apt get. Er…in uni labs anyway.
Thus, you manage your own account – you get root access and you can
install stuff and all that. It would be good practice, I haven’t been
around Unix/Linux for a while. Because it’s empty (except for the OS),
I’ll have to install everything myself so it won’t be up and running
immediately, but it’ll be fun and it’s a learning experience. Anyway,
once the account is setup, my first priority is to install and
configure Apache (HTTP server) and use it as an image server. I still
haven’t figured out what to do with my existing
accounts…sixthseal.com’s is expiring soon, but not that soon, so
probably will get more domains and do the funky domain dance to get
load balancing right.
I’ll get around to installing PHP and Perl modules later and set up
MySQL databases soon and the test blog will be up when that happens.
It’ll be much more versatile than shared hosting – you install what you
want and only what you want. I got one month first to test things out
and we’ll see how it goes. Thankfully this host (jvds.com) does allow
the content of castitas.com, and he’ll move me to Amsterdam if it
violates US laws, so yeah, I’ll have my own server to play around with
soon. Stay tuned…
big league logbook you’ve hold