update: well after a couple days passed, i tried my extra special technique again, only to curious see a picture of the location with a bus passing by -- again. then of course, it dawned on me that street view was not being updated in anything close to real time. so, no epiphany after all.
if i were a good boy who saved his pennies, i'd bring my lunch to work. i'm not.
which means my daily routine at about 2 p.m. is to wonder what to have for lunch. one of my favorites is a hot dog cart called, da beef. i don't eat the dogs, but get a delicious italian beef sandwich, which is a thinly sliced steak sandwich drenched in au jus and topped with spicy peppers. that's good.
the problem is that these cart people don't show up consistently. and since they're a cart, they don't have a phone (they need to make use of modern telephony, i.e. a cell phone). which means, i walk -- fortunately, it's only three blocks -- only to find them not there. then i'm upset.
but today, i decided to use my brain instead of my feet and that's where google maps, street view comes in handy. punch in the address and voila, i see the location where the cart is supposed to be, but today is not. no fruitless walking for me today.
now my next epiphany needs to be what i can eat. and there it is. today's the day to try 'good pizza'.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
about RailsPlayground
to say i'm a novice systems administrator is giving me too much credit. outside of knowing how to list the contents of and change directories, i really don't have any idea of what i'm doing. okay, that slightly understates my skills, but not actually by that much. but when you're trying to get a startup going sometimes -- often times, really -- you end up taking on things that you suck at (like RoR programming, but that's another matter).
i love the idea of open source software and want to give back, but i really don't know how i can contribute in a meaningful way. but you have to start somewhere, so instead of hacking out something, i'll detail my experience getting a rails app up and running on RailsPlayground.
but first, i want to give a quick review of their service after one week.
- the setup of my VPS with an image including Rails, Passenger, mySQL, SVN, and Centos 5.2 from registration to completion was less than 30 minutes. that is excellent. the whole process is apparently quite streamlined from their end.
- the response time on tickets has been excellent. none of the issues that arose were particularly tricky but they were all resolved within an hour. they also have a live chat for quick questions. response is not quite instantaneous -- the techs seem to be monitoring chat, while doing other work as well -- but it's quite convenient when you have a small question that doesn't necessitate the opening of a trouble ticket.
- their pricing is competitive with the other providers out there. it falls on the lower side, but they're certainly not the only option at this price point.
- now, the bad. their documentation is quite poor. it's not only sparse, but it's often either outdated (which i assume is the reason why it's incorrect in spots) . on the other hand, lxadmin and hyperVM -- their two server administration tools -- are pretty easy to use and seem to be relatively robust in their feature set.
- the various components of the system aren't tightly integrated. as i mentioned, there are two separate admin tools. in addition, the SVN repository needs to be setup separately at a site called sourcerepo.com. that seems odd and inefficient.
overall so far, i'm happy with RP. their service in helping a very new linux admin has been well worth dealing with the outdated documentation and somewhat odd set of components. i suspect the documentation thing will get fixed soon enough, and that would give me the chance to give them a non-qualified endorsement.
i love the idea of open source software and want to give back, but i really don't know how i can contribute in a meaningful way. but you have to start somewhere, so instead of hacking out something, i'll detail my experience getting a rails app up and running on RailsPlayground.
but first, i want to give a quick review of their service after one week.
- the setup of my VPS with an image including Rails, Passenger, mySQL, SVN, and Centos 5.2 from registration to completion was less than 30 minutes. that is excellent. the whole process is apparently quite streamlined from their end.
- the response time on tickets has been excellent. none of the issues that arose were particularly tricky but they were all resolved within an hour. they also have a live chat for quick questions. response is not quite instantaneous -- the techs seem to be monitoring chat, while doing other work as well -- but it's quite convenient when you have a small question that doesn't necessitate the opening of a trouble ticket.
- their pricing is competitive with the other providers out there. it falls on the lower side, but they're certainly not the only option at this price point.
- now, the bad. their documentation is quite poor. it's not only sparse, but it's often either outdated (which i assume is the reason why it's incorrect in spots) . on the other hand, lxadmin and hyperVM -- their two server administration tools -- are pretty easy to use and seem to be relatively robust in their feature set.
- the various components of the system aren't tightly integrated. as i mentioned, there are two separate admin tools. in addition, the SVN repository needs to be setup separately at a site called sourcerepo.com. that seems odd and inefficient.
overall so far, i'm happy with RP. their service in helping a very new linux admin has been well worth dealing with the outdated documentation and somewhat odd set of components. i suspect the documentation thing will get fixed soon enough, and that would give me the chance to give them a non-qualified endorsement.
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