Computers ‘n’ sports
Fri Mar 20, 2009 20:29 (UTC -5)As you may know, I’m the webmaster for the Dean of Students Office at my university. This week, I got a bit more experience with running a web server. The techie higher-ups wanted to move the website from a server at the DSO office (redundancy, anyone?) to a new server that they could have physical access to. Which isn’t a bad idea, really, as they know more about this kind of stuff than I do.
Also, the old server runs Mac OS X 10.3 (redundancy, anyone?). That in itself is a reason to move. Do I really need fancy graphics on a web server? Think of how much more RAM and how many more CPU cycles the server software would have if windows didn’t slither away as I minimized them. Do I need a graphical interface at all? And who thought shipping servers with GarageBand was a good idea? Why?
Anyway, the techie higher-ups gave me some pointers on moving the web site to the new server, which runs FreeBSD, a free operating system that deservedly enjoys wide usage among servers (including the one that brought you this page). In short, I learned a bit more about transferring and manipulating files via the command line in a Unix-like environment. It was a bit odd at first because I wasn’t sure how much the guys would let me do with their machine. But before long, my co-worker Mark and I were editing configuration files, adding users, and changing the system’s time zone.
And so the switch to the new server was made. A real test came yesterday when the formatting of the site started displaying incorrectly for some people. Internet Explorer 6, which some people unfortunately still use, was displaying pages on the new server wrong. For the technical types who are curious, I pinned it down to an XML declaration I had removed from the site on the new server because it conflicted with PHP’s short opening tag syntax. (Yeah, you know PHP’s short opening tag syntax, right?) So I edited php.ini to turn off short opening tags and added the line back, and IE 6 was placated.
For those of you who like sports, I saw Tim Tebow today. Who is Tim Tebow? He’s possibly one of the greatest college football players of all time, having won the coveted Heisman Trophy between leading the Florida Gators to two national championships, all before his senior year. Men want to be him; women want to be with him. And probably vice versa in some cases. I wouldn’t doubt it.
Anyway, he was on the North Lawn of the Reitz Union, where some girls were talking to him. I think they wanted to take their pictures with him. It’s about the fifth time I’ve seen him around campus, but I never say anything to him. All I would really say is, “Hi, Tim Tebow, you’re a great football player,” but he’s heard it all before. Still, whenever I see him, it brightens my day. Squee?
Audiobooks are awesome. Last month, I pointed out a collection of ridiculous soundbites from Barack Obama’s autobiography, as read by the author. Well, it turns out that Bill O’Reilly wrote a novel and narrated the audiobook version himself. Why should you listen to these clips? Because you want to hear Bill O’Reilly describe various sexual acts, or just to hear him say, “I wish I were a lesbian.” (Via waxy.org)
Fifty years ago, Buddy Holly died. Yeah, the guy mentioned the Weezer song. Anyway, he had a popular song called “Peggy Sue,” which was apparently based on a real person.
Those of you in North America will probably find this familiar: Please stand by. (Via waxy.org)
7 comments
#1 by kristen: Sat Mar 21, 2009 11:54 (UTC -5)
wow, a mention of buddy holly WITHOUT mentioning his signature drew carey-esque glasses! i’m amazed.
#2 by Jordon Kalilich: Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:05 (UTC -5)
Um, that’s usually not what I think of when I think of Buddy Holly.
#3 by kristen: Mon Mar 23, 2009 08:18 (UTC -5)
idk. most articles and things always throw in “bespectacled” if they mention someone with prominent spectacles. whatev.
#4 by Keith: Wed Mar 25, 2009 17:05 (UTC -5)
Doubtful. I use Window Maker as my window manager, and Mac OS X isn’t that much different, except more animated. I still have all the docklets I could hope for and fast startups (KDE and GNOME take forever!). I have to admit, Mac OS X is cool, but way too graphics-heavy for my modest little computer (I couldn’t do Vista either).
I actually fixed my blog’s theme to display correctly in IE6 not too long ago. My various <div>s are positioned and have overflow: auto, but IE6 doesn’t display the scroll bars, so I just used an IE hack (that IE < 7 thinks the document-type declaration is an element) to enable the scrollbars on the body in it but not in decent browsers.
#5 by Jordon Kalilich: Sat Mar 28, 2009 20:27 (UTC -5)
If I were running a web server, I might use a basic window manager, like one of those lightweight ones some people are crazy about, but I probably wouldn’t use one at all.
I’m really glad that IE 6 is in its death throes. I don’t think I’ll cater to it on my own site anymore. Anyone who is still using that thing deserves what they get.
#6 by Keith: Thu Apr 02, 2009 11:50 (UTC -5)
I know, my brother is crazy about just using the command-line and not starting X at all. I could do that, if so many sites weren’t so badly designed.
#7 by Jordon Kalilich: Thu Apr 02, 2009 22:21 (UTC -5)
That itself is pretty hardcore. I don’t know if surfing the web would be pleasurable at all in plaintext.