Monthly Archive for September, 2006

Digital Certificate Expired

Published on September 30, 2006 in Server: websrv01. 0 Comments

On Wednesday of this week the digital SSL certificate for secure.digitalorphans.org expired before I had a chance to renew it. Ouch. If you attempted to access Plesk from Wednesday to Friday evening on websrv01 you would have been presented with a warning message from your web-browser stating that the digital certificate for the domain has expired.

I apologize for not getting this renewed on time; however, it was successfully renewed and installed this morning. The old digital certificate is still installed when sending e-mail through secure.digitalorphans.org if you have SSL enabled, but I will get Greg to copy that over today.

A Web-Journal Entry (i.e. Blog Post)

Published on September 29, 2006 in Useless Babble. 1 Comment

A quick post today about a few letters: i.e. and e.g.

Have you ever felt imbecilic for using terms in sentences that you weren’t 100% sure of? I’ll admit, I’ve used “i.e.” and “e.g.” extensively throughout my life writing technical documents, teaching and even just in day to day blog posts I suppose. I’ll assume that I have used the terms correctly because no one has ever corrected my uses, but I never did know why I was writing “e.g.” in place of “Example”. Where did the G come from? I really never even questioned it before yesterday, to be honest.

This morning before I got into my work routine I needed to find out.

Well a quick search of the net turned up Yahoo Answers, which made me happy because someone else asked this question. It turns out that this is commonly misunderstood.

From my extensive research (ha), I’ve turned up the the following:

i.e. stands for id est, Latin for “that is”.

e.g. stands for exempli gratia, Latin for “for example”.

If you previously did not know this… you do now! Lucky you. If you did already know this… oh aren’t you a smarty pants, don’t think less of others who aren’t so linguistically savvy!

DigitalOrphans Update (v12)

Published on September 24, 2006 in Server: websrv01. 2 Comments

Server Maintenance Report: websrv01
The scheduled maintenance of websrv01 went very well today with no problems to report. All relevant Red Hat updates were installed and I’ve upgraded PHP on the server to PHP 4.4.4.

Greg and I have not yet decided on a date to upgrade Plesk to version 8; however, we will be looking into it shortly and we will definitely post a solid date and time. I’m thinking arbitrarily sometime in mid-November… I’ve actually heard that SWSoft is going to be releasing Plesk 8.1 very shortly so at this point it might be better off to wait and see what they are doing first.

DigitalOrphans Update (v11)

Published on September 18, 2006 in Server: websrv01 and Server: websrv02. 0 Comments

Server Downtime: websrv02
On Saturday, September 16th at approximately 5:25PM EST we had some unexpected downtime on websrv02. This was caused by a permissions problem during a standard RedHat package update. The issue was resolved after about 15 – 20 minutes when Greg found the issue and corrected it. Users may not have actually noticed an issue at all since it was a problem with DNS and it only affected new queries to Bind. websrv02 was rebooted during this update.

PHP Updated: websrv02
Thanks to Greg’s persistence and assistance, we have also upgraded PHP on websrv02 to PHP 5.1.6. If you had PHP scripts running on websrv02, please check them out for any compatibility issues.

Server Maintenance: websrv01
We need to do some updates to websrv01 as well and we’re thinking that Sunday morning would be ideal for this. Updates will be performed to RedHat Enterprise on websrv01 on Sunday, September 24th @ 10:00AM EST. Downtime should be minimal if any, although we will need to perform a reboot of the server. A PHP upgrade to PHP 4.4.4 will also be done at this time.

Future Maintenance: websrv01
We still have not decided on a date to perform the upgrade of Plesk on websrv01 to version 8.0.1; although I will consult with Greg about this shortly and provide a solid date. After we have upgraded Plesk to the 8.0 release, we will shortly there after be upgrading PHP to version 5.1.6 as well. As previously stated, please make sure that all PHP scripts on the server are compatible with PHP 5.1.

Crocodile Hunter: Sadly Missed

Published on September 4, 2006 in Useless Babble. 0 Comments

I awoke this morning to some terrible news… the world famous crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin, was killed while filming a TV series in Australia.

The official statement from crocodilehunter.com is as follows:

Media statement – 4 September 2006

Steve Irwin

At 11am today, the 4th September 2006, Steve Irwin was fatally wounded by a stingray barb to his heart whilst filming a sequence on Batt Reef off Port Douglas for his daughter’s new TV series. Emergency services were called from Cairns Rescue Base and met Croc One, Steve’s rescue vessel at Low Isle on the Great Barrier Reef. The Croc One crew performed constant CPR during the thirty minute dash to Low Isle, but the medical staff pronounced Steve dead at approx. 12 noon.

His producer and closest friend, John Stainton said on Croc One today, “The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest Dads on the planet. He died doing what he loves best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. Crocs Rule!”

This unfortunate accident leaves behind Steves loving wife Terri and his two small children, whom, from what I’ve read, were “the reason he was put on the Earth”. For a complete research resource on Steve Irwin, please see Wikipedias fantastic write-up.

The Crocodile Hunter can without hesitation be referred to as a staple TV series, one that is both timeless and entertaining for people of all ages. For years I have enjoyed watching Steve risk his behind in-front of the camera; his love of nature, wildlife and education was an inspiration to millions of people around the globe. He will be missed, may peace come to his family.

Crikey!