Rest In Peace, Penguin
Tuesday, March 1, 2005, 11:07 - Personal
Tonight, after about six years of good service, there finally came an end to the life of my oldest server, Penguin. Penguin was a Celeron 333 machine with 160MB memory running (off course) Linux.

He has hardly ever had any physical issues, apart from some noisy fans in the power supply. But either swapping the entire PSU or just the PSU fan helped alleviate the problems. I even once replaced the PSU fan while the machine was still running to preserve a record uptime.... DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME YOURSELF. Some parts of the PSU carry high voltages and are therefore dangerous. At the time I thought I knew what I was doing.

Over the last few months most of the tasks of Penguin have been moved to my new linux server Raven (which has been online for a year now; my migration plan slipped a little...). But until tonight two main applications where still running at Penguin: my personal web portal and my personal stock portfolio web tool. I finally have moved both applications to Raven as well, as I can no longer wait for having time to do the modifications to both tools that I have in mind for so long now.

So at 22:20 today I finally pulled the switch for the last time, but not after having said a few thank you words.... It has been a great server.

As soon as I hit the switch I realised what deep down I always had known: Penguin was a very loud server!! He left a deafening silence for a few minutes. But now I can hear the next noisiest machine in the room: my old desktop Eagle. Thankfully I am migrating that one to my new desktop Condor which indeed is very very quiet! Just that friggin' high speed VGA fan is bugging me!

Once I am fully working on my new desktop, the old one will become a server and will be moved to my server room (yes you read that right...). Then my room will be really quiet. Finally!

And for those of you that are counting: I didn't even mention my fifth computer. Na na na na na.
No wonder I'm still single.


New desktop components
Thursday, January 27, 2005, 08:15 - Personal
Last Friday I ordered hardware components for my new quiet desktop PC. I already received the case (Antec SLK3700-BQE), CPU (AMD Athlon64 3200+ S939) and harddisk (Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB SATA).

I'm still waiting for the remainder of the parts. Especially the mainboard (Asus A8N SLI Deluxe) is currently very hard to get. It supposedly is a great mainboard and stores are selling them much faster than Asus can supply them.
I was promised that my mainboard would ship this Friday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It's a pretty important part of the new PC...


New SPHPBlog version
Sunday, January 2, 2005, 21:42 - Personal
Alex has released a new version of SPHPBlog: 0.3.7r
Most noticeable change is entry categories. I will be categorizing my posts in the coming day(s).

Yesterday I also moved my blog from my home web server (ADSL) to my external web server, so performance should be a little better for most of you.

I also updated the looks of my blog. The picture in the banner is a stitched together panorama photo that I took a couple of weeks ago from my balcony.
It hasn't the detail of the 2.5 gigapixel zoomable picture of TNO, but it still is a nice picture.


Happy 2005!
Saturday, January 1, 2005, 22:31 - Personal
Happy new year to everyone!
I wish you all health, money and the time to enjoy it!



The police
Friday, December 31, 2004, 00:16 - Personal
Last night something happened near my apartment building that attracted an ambulance, five marked police cars and two what I think were unmarked police cars.
The ambulance stopped just out of my view, but I saw an empty gurney being returned to it and then they drove off with sirens only a few minutes after they arrived. I suspect they could do nothing for the victim and where called to another location.

My first guess was something like the murder on Theo van Gogh, but then I would suspect the police to search the surroundings and they did not do that.
As it happened immediately next to an 18-story appartment building with free access I suspect it was a suicide jumper, although I'm not sure that would attract that much police attention.



In an attempt to find hot police info on the internet about it I came across this site that has a live police scanner feed of my police region Haaglanden. I have been listening to it for a while yesterday and today.

Most of the stuff isn't interesting at all. A lot of small fires and some arrests for lighting fireworks. The occasional accident.
At one point a police car was directed to an address where a man was threatening his wife with a knife. When the police arrived the man had left in his car, saying that he was going to get himself killed on the highway. A message was sent out to all listening units to look out for the car and to apprehend the man who was intoxicated with alcohol (at 11:00 AM!).
Very soon one unit had spotted the car and made it stop and arrested the man.

BTW I still don't know what happened last night, but it was fun to listen a little to this stuff.


Christmas menu
Friday, December 24, 2004, 22:05 - Personal
It is by now a tradition that my sister, my brother and I cook a full-size multi-course diner for the whole family (seven) on Christmas Day at my parents' house. I think having a good diner together and catching up is a great way to celebrate the holiday.
All shopping has been done by now. Tomorrow a large part of the afternoon is spent on preparation ("Mis en place") so in between courses only the final cooking needs to be done.

Tomorrow the menu will be as follows:
* Aperitif
* Creamy Celery Gorgonzola Soup
* Tomato-Ricotta Timbale
* Pork Filet with Apple and Ginger Stuffing / Mushroom Strudel with Nuts / Stuffed Tomatoes, served with Potato Truffle Gratins, Smoored Leek and Corn Salad with Tomato Vinaigrette
* Steamed Pears Sorbet
* Coffee

Merry Christmas to everyone!


rootz.nl
Saturday, December 18, 2004, 22:45 - Personal
If you ever happen to be in The Hague looking for a nice cafe-restaurant, I definitely can recommend rootz.
We went there Friday night with a couple of colleagues and had a great time. The food was very good, and the drinks were as well :)



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