Google has created a great site with information about various organizations that are accepting donations for the Haiti earthquake.  In fact, as their page describes, donating can be as simple as texting a message to the following:

From Google.com:

SMS text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts

SMS text “YELE” to 501501 to Donate $5 to Yele Haiti’s Earthquake Relief efforts

SMS text “GIVE10″ to 20222 to donate $10 to Direct Relief

Remember how blessed we all are, and how easy it may be to give life to those who are suffering…

Could this mean that my site may be a little slower?  Honestly I have to answer yes, because in theory I have significantly downgraded the server that my site is running on.  Maybe not in CPU power, but definitely in memory.  However, the flexibility to manage the server as I see fit out-weights the cons of such a service.

That all being said, I did some research (which included a recent gallery forum post that went through recommended host services) and decided to go to a VPS (Virtual Private Service).  In the case of Linode.com, it is a virtual computer that I can manage as I see fit, thanks to the power of virtual computing.  I was extremely impressed with how easy it was to load a Ubuntu 9.10 minimal image onto my linode, from which I’ve been able to setup the way I want.

Currently I’ve built up the system with Apache2, Php5, Mysql5, with Python 2.6.  Additionally managing the firewall with ufw, and monitoring with munin and monit.  I did decide to use Google Domain Apps for my email, however I have loaded postfix for managing forwarding accounts with the other domains the system is hosting.

Currently, the only limitations / drawbacks I’ve found so far are:

• I have to manage the system myself, which of course takes more of my time.
• The uptime of the system is also up to my ability to deal with issues as they arise.
• Backups requires me to backup to a local / personal system (same limitation I had with the web hosting service).
• The service requires the the knowledge to configure and manage a Linux server.

So, for the time being, we’ll see how this works out.

However, if you follow my blog, you’ve noticed that we’ve had quite a few problems with them recently.  First, it started with a late fee for returning a movie that had been rented through a trade-in.  While the receipt for the rental had extra text indicating the new fee’s, it was never brought to our attention, nor did the receipt indicate how much the fee’s would be.  We begrudgingly went ahead and paid the late fee and contacted Blockbuster support.  The response from Blockbuster regarding how the store handled the new fee’s was less than satisfactory.

My biggest grief of course being the lack of communication from Blockbuster regarding this policy changes.  The straw the finally broke the camel’s back was another recent chance in trade-in policy, such that a trade-in is considered to be part of the online services queue.  So if you have a maximum of two movies out at a time, and I return one to Blockbuster for an in-store movie, Blockbuster used to go ahead and ship out the next movie in my queue.  However, if you were do the same thing now, a movie in your queue will not be shipped until you return the in-store movie.

Again, as I’ve said on other posts, the ability to change their policies is their own prerogative.  However, the lack of communication about these changes is my biggest problems.  In fact, my posts regarding this have been some of the most popular posts on my site.  Blockbuster Quietly Reinstates Late Fees has more comments than any other post on my block.

With all these problems, and with the new XBox 360, we decided to switch back to Netflix since we never had these sorts of problems with them.  The new streaming capability is a big plus, minus the available set of movies and shows.  In fact, we were part of the customers that recently received a pro-active credit on our account due to connection issues with the Netflix/Xbox service.  There’s a very important word that Blockbuster needs to learn, regarding their customer service:  Pro-active.  I don’t exactly expect you to give a 2% credit for problems, however I’d be nice if you simply warn us before you change how your going to operate.

So that all being said, Goodbye Blockbuster, and good riddance…

I know this was a little late. Was celebrating at work

Of course... The day I leave home my BFG 9K!

Lately I’ve tried to not re-post news articles that I’ve come across because there are already too many blogs out there that already do that.  However, this one I couldn’t pass up.  What happened was some pranksters re-programmed a traffic information sign to say “Zombies Ahead” instead of it was originally displaying.  While Austin Public Works wasn’t exactly amused by the prank, they at least seemed to have a good sense of humor about it.  The part that I find interesting about the hack is that in all reality it wasn’t even really a hack.  They posted pictures of inside the unit, so obviously it wasn’t sealed or locked plus the pranksters know (and posted) what the default password is for the unit.  If I was part of Austin Public Works right now, I’d be a little embarrassed.  The first thing anyone ANYONE should do with ANY device that has password control is change the password to something other than the default.  Especially for a piece of equipment such as this…

Sources:  I originally found this on FoxNews.com, and later found the original hack information on  I-Hacked.com.

Correction:  I had originally said, TxDot, and it was actually Austin Public Works that owns the sign.