Luna Tail

Oh boy. What is it.. my third day working on this? I bought the VPS on Saturday. Spent most of Saturday on it… some of Sunday (went to a friends to watch dog sport videos for 5 hours), then I’ve been working on it today too (no not at work, never at work).

So anyway, I have the PHP working, the MySQL, and finally I got the Virtual Hosts working. Ugh. That was a pain. I had to have a main one for the main IP, even though the whole darn VPS is a Virtual host! Anyway it works now. Thank goodness. I spent about 10 hours on that problem alone.

So I haven’t been blogging much, or doing much of anything except getting this VPS going. I did get the email configured and working right. And I’ve moved Pixie Tail and Tatum Tail over. The domains have not transferred yet, though. And I still have the old ones up just in case I need them.

I’ve installed a firewall and various other security measures. I have a couple more to go, and gotta work out the kinks in the ones that are not quite right yet.

Tomorrow I will sleep in, and go to the dog park, and then work on the VPS some more. And hopefully take a nap too!

Super weird dreams last night.

I remember someone wanted to adopt Tony (our foster collie), someone in, go figure, Iraq. And it actually ended up being the US government. I asked if he would be loved and have a nice bed and family, and they were very elusive about telling me. I was so worried but I was going to let him go anyway… and they led him down this ramp into an airplane.

While they led him down, I started crying to one of the soldiers and he caved and said Tony was going to be used in nuclear experiments! I cracked, ran down the ramp, and jumped into the plane. I grabbed Tony and got him out with me. I was not going to let that happen! I was so scared and worried about him! Fortunately it had a good ending as I got Tony back.

—-

Another dream was long and twisty… I was in some sort of big house, mansion.. estate maybe. And we were planning on going somewhere and doing something. Some adventure. Not sure what. And we were preparing. Maybe it was some island… but it was dangerous. And I needed to have my underwear washed because I was running out. :p

Anyway there were these big mean Grizzly bears and they were dangerous, so one of the members of our team started to catch them in a trap. It was like a jar, and they would all go in and get trapped in the dark. I think we were in it for a while at one point, not with the bears though. So he caught like five or six of them.

The leader of the team, he was good and I respected him… might have been Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager.. not sure. After a while he realized the bears could not be kept in there and had to be let out. But once let out they had to swipe something with their claws, probably killing it. But he let them out anyway and we stood at the glass doors and watched outside as they got some people, but mostly they got fish. The fish, somehow, had gotten into the trap with them and we were glad they were getting the fish instead of the people. I said, in a whisper, that that had not been a good idea, to trap all the bears, and the leader agreed with me.

There was more to that second dream, but I don’t quite remember it all. The estate was nice, carpet everywhere, fancy furniture. I remember sleeping with a couple of men.. not sex, just sleeping in the same bed because it was cold and we needed to get some sleep. One of them was my husband.
It was an interesting night.

Well, sitting here at the laptop with the TV on, figuring out my new VPS server, and it’s 7:41 pm. It really, really feels like it should be about noon.

Granted I took a two hour nap today. I love naps. Might have only been an hour and a half but still, a nap is a nap. Today is a down day for me. I love down days! I bathed all six dogs.. that was a project. We think we might still have some kind of bug because I have been bitten again. Ugh. I hate bites.

Time goes by so fast… that, more than anything, bothers me. Things that make the time go by faster are naps (lol), and being on the computer. Which I have been most of the day.

Things that make time go slow… one of them is camping. I love camping. Can’t go now, too cold with a foot of snow outside, too. But still. We like our trailer, it is a step up from our canvas tent. The trailer has a heater.

Okay back to VPS setup…

Okay, I made the decision. In my prior post I talked about the hosting options I was considering.

I found a company that is getting great reviews for uptime and service, and their prices are amazing. They offer VPS. And so, I signed up.

So now I have to brush off my server management skills and start installing. I didn’t get a managed account, as they cost more. So I get to manage it all myself.

This blog, as well as all my other sites, will be moved to Steadcom. Hopefully, depending on my rusty root skills, the move will be painless and should happen in the next couple of weeks.

I’ll need a mail server, will use PostFix as I’ve used it before. PHP5. MySQL. Webmin. And spamassasin. THEN I get to start setting up my sites.

Wish me luck!

Oh my gosh is looking for hosting is complicated and confusing.

I’ve been spending a lot of time at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ trying to decide what I want to do, and what I can afford to do.

So the hosting options are as follows… cheapest to most expensive:

Shared Hosting - Where you share the server with many more accounts/domains. Like sometimes up to 500. These sites may limit your CPU Usage, but dangit they don’t say that on the specs. They can give you a ton of Bandwidth but if you exceed the CPU usage of the box for your little corner, your account gets suspended for a few minutes (this is what my current host, Bluehost, does).

VPS - Virtual Shared Server. The host splits the server into, say, 30 accounts. Each account has a virtual server installed. You get 100% of your allocated usage… RAM, storage, bandwidth etc. But, unlike shared, you only get 100% of your small percentage of your virtual server. So it may or may not be better than shared. Plus, it’s more expensive, and if it’s unmanaged (cheaper) you have to install and maintain all your server software, from OS (like Linux) to Apache, PHP, etc. Ugh.. I did that when I ran my own server and it’s so time consuming!

Semi-Dedicated - Like VPS but you don’t have to manage anything, you just get a portion of a server. More expensive than VPS.

Dedicated - You get your whole server. This is the big bucks I cannot afford!

So anyway.. not sure what I want to do.. what I can afford. Shared or VPS. VPS, however, is in the $30 to $40 per month and upwards range. I don’t think my blogging earnings can really cover that. Shared is less, maybe $25 a month or so… with decent storage and bandwidth and CPU usage. I can probably pull that off with blogging earnings. Bluehost, that I’m on now, is only $6.95 per month, but I’m getting so many Exceed CPU usage errors now that I really need something more than what Bluehost can provide.

And so the search continues… anyone with knowledge of reliable shared hosting with decent storage, bandwidth, and CPU usage… please let me know.

Oh and I want to add… I have 10 domains, 13 MySQL databases.. I run a number of Wordpress Blogs, 2 Galleries, and a phpiCalendar. So my account is fairly resource intensive. Bluehost says I have 4500 Meg (4 Gig) of hard drive space used, and I use over 10Gig of Bandwidth per month. I am starting to get, too often, the Exceed CPU usage message on my sites. And I apologize for that!

Last night I dreamed about Owen Wilson most of the night. Now I don’t remember what I dreamed about, I just woke with a sense of him… blond hair.. so darn cute. I just love him.

I went to see I Am Legend yesterday and outside the theater were posters of Owen Wilson’s new movie. Plus, I just watched Shanghai Noon, which I love. I love Jackie Chan movies too, and Owen Wilson is just a bonus.

I’m glad I didn’t dream about I Am Legend. Too disturbing. Good show, but not something I want in my dreams (unless it’s Will Smith, hubba hubba).

Well last night I remember having three distinct dreams. However, they all had a common theme, they were all about going on a cruise.

The first dream, I remember walking down a very long deck of a ship. It was huge, and it seemed, rather, like it was a city block. We stopped in shops and looked around. But then suddenly we were in a hurry to get to an excursion, and get onto one of the life boats and make it in time.

The second dream I remember being in the cafeteria on the ship. I was with my friends and, again, we needed to leave to go on an excursion. But I was hungry and wanted to eat. The food was good and I think there was jell-o there…

The third dream we were finally on the life boats to get off the big ship. I have never been on a cruise so the life boats are what my brain made up. They were very small, may have even been blow-up boats. But the pilot guy wouldn’t let me on because i didn’t have any shoes. And I seem to remember during all these dreams, I was walking around without shoes on.

So I had to go into the little shop that was right by the pull-up spot of the life boat, and buy some shoes. They had some that looked like tennis shoes but they were mesh, so I could wear them in the water. I was all upset because I had forgotten to pack my Merrel’s on the trip. Because it was cold and winter back home, and I didn’t wear them in the winter!

All in all, strange, but it worked out. I got some shoes I liked and they fit well, I remember they even felt good.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

So I had a really good Christmas Eve. My family gets together on Christmas Even and we exchange gifts, have a big dinner, and rice pudding. Not necessarily in that order.

I took some pictures of the new laptop skin my sister gave me! Isn’t it cool! I love it. I’m getting more girly in my old age, and I love color. I love the bright pink. It really personalizes my laptop and makes it happy and colorful.

I also got a digital picture frame, and I’ve already loaded pictures on it. I got a gift certficate to Kirkham’s, and I want to go shopping now! I got some chairs from Ikea, which I really wanted. I also got flannel sheets for my new queen bed. I put them on the bed last night and they are very comfy and snuggly!

I got some other wonderful things, too. And I think my family liked what I got them. I hope so. I got my husband a sewing machine, so he can sew up our blankets. He’s good at sewing.

All in all it was a great day. I ate too much. But now I’m doing my Weight Watchers. I really need to lose at least 10 pounds, hopefully 15, for my cruise next year!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Christmas Eve is our big day for our family. We get together, exchange presents, eat Rice Pudding and find the almond hidden inside. The finder wins a prize.

So I’m excited for us to go over to the parent’s house and celebrate Christmas. It really is my favorite time of the year, and today is my favorite day.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I went to a Christmas Party today, my husband’s family. They are wonderful and I love sitting and chatting with them. And I joke, but it’s true, that it takes me about five years to really feel comfortable with people. Well, it’s been over five years now and I am feeling more comfortable with them.

My husband’s step-sister (I love her, she’s great) was saying how her daughter (about 6 now?) is so shy. She doesn’t much like to go out and it was her goal to say hi, in church, to someone when they said hi first. I told her (step-sister) that I was that shy when I was a kid. And it is really nice to see how aware and gentle they are being with her. Genes are funny things, because my friend at work has two granddaughters, and they are far from shy! It’s very interesting to see kids and how different they can be. Being sensitive to a shy child, and helping her open up without terrifying her, is so important! Believe me, I know, because I was painfully shy and frightened when I was a child (much to the dismay of my very outgoing and talkative mother).

So anyway where am I going with this? Oh yes… having had social anxiety all my life I am just now, in the last four years or so, learning about making friends and keeping friendships. Yes yes I know, I should have learned these things when I was 6. But I did not. I went with anyone who would take me. I didn’t realize that I could chose my friends. I am very fortunate to have learned this belief, and every day I am amazed at how wonderful it is to actually be able to pick friends.

And there are so many people, especially in the dog world, and I’m really finding those who I fit with and I’m trying to cultivate friendships with them. Of course I do realize that some of the women who I want to be friends with may not, in turn, want to be friends with me. And that is okay because I’m no longer a child and I can now realize I have value anyway and not everyone has to like me.

So I am finding people I like to be with, and I am trying to minimize being with those people I don’t feel like I fit with all that well, or those that I just don’t like some of their behaviors. Even though I like them, some behaviors (such as insulting others in a very derogatory manner) are just not what I like to associate with and so I try to stay away. But I am not rude. Never rude. And I do want to be able to span all the ‘clicks’ that have formed in the dog community.

And even when looking for body shop supplies, I can decide who I want to go shopping with!

I am still learning what I don’t like, behavior wise, in some people. Though it’s weird to me to distance myself from them. My friend at work gives me helpful tips about it. And really, I really like the friends I am making so much that, unlike when I was a child, I don’t feel like I have to keep or be close to everyone I meet that I almost fit with, but not quite! Wow!

So thanks to my new friends, you don’t know how much you help me and what you do for me. And, especially, thanks to my sister who really is my best friend and I love spending time with her! (I apologize for this long post but I have been thinking about this and it is a very important subject to me.)