A few days back, and we had an outage at Relio.

Check out the dip on Friday
Simple put, Rob took down one of the 2 routers we use, to upgrade it from FreeBSD to OpenBSD for better IP usage, with OpenBSD we can save 2 ip’s per allocation, currently each time we allocate an IP block, we set aside 3 ip’s, one for router 1, one for router 2, and one for gateway.

With OpenBSD on the routers, we only need to use 1 ip .. how it works, I leave to the Sysadmins, but it has the potential to save us loads of IP’s in the long run, since we are getting new ip’s soon from ARIN, it’s worth doing it now.

So, one of the routers was put down, which meant while the upgrade was being performed, all traffic was routed to thru the second router and a single provider (Time Warner - TW) .. and thats when trouble happened, all of the sudden, mid-way thru the upgrade, the TW link went dead, and with the second router down, we had no way to go out thru the other providers as usual.

What’s the odds of it happening ? very slim, but it happen .. So the guys had to get on the phone with TW and get the link back up, we were dead on the water for about an hour and eventually the TW link was restored and we were back in business, since the second router has been upgraded and we are back 100%, and with a bruised ego.

It just goes to show, you work with a system for years, it’s so reliable that you think “I can rely on it for a few hours” while you take other system down for an upgrade, and BINGO .. your uber-reliable system goes down the one time you need it up.

Is it Karma ? Cosmo-misalignment ? Ex-Wife’s curse ?, who knows ..

One thing this episode made me realize .. we have/had a big flaw on our system, even so the US DC was the only one down, the UK went down as well, why ?, because even so we have a great DNS system, with a separate physical server for each DNS as the book recommends, both DNS servers site on the same datacenter, with it down, it was a matter of minutes before some ISP’s started to drop the sites on the UK, that while they were UP, they had no DNS; So, we are now moving the DNS2 server to the UK to prevent it from ever happening again.

The good thing was, the forums http://www.relioforums.com site both off-network and off-dns .. so they were up and people were able to get information during the outage.

After 7-8 years on this business, you think you know and seen it all, then something comes along that smacks you right on the face and tells you never to forget that SH*T Happens and you need to always be prepared.

Technorati Tags: Outage, Relio, WebHosting, Work

Popularity: 17% [?]

I Have been testing a new script that Jeff (hspheretemplates.com) is creating for H-Sphere.

Basically it’s a Reseller Walkthrough .. the idea is, the reseller get their account, then then login and immediately are presented with a screen that highlights 15 steps they need to finish.

15 steps to success

Until all steps are completed, thats the screen they get every time they log into their Admin account, the Walkthrough also has some tooltips and will link you to the right page to perform the step in line, it will also force you to d the steps in order .. as some later steps depend on earlier ones to be complete.
There are a few bugs, and I have sent jeff a list, but overall, it’s 95% there, and it’s better than the alternative, which is a html file describing what to do, that most people seem to have a problem with.

Our resellers at Relio are now using it, and they seem to love it .. I’m quite happy, because on the next H-Sphere 2.5.1 we will have the ability to not need to create an “Admin user” anymore (resellers got confused, they had a regular user and an admin user), and the ability for Resellers to “Inherit” plans from the Admin (Called Markup Plans) .. instead of having to create their owns from scratch .. this coupled with this plug-in will make reseller’s life in h-sphere so much easier.

Technorati Tags: H-Sphere, HSPhere, WebHosting, Relio

Popularity: 16% [?]

This one was short and sweet, just an every day event that happens many times when you get short staffed.

I wrote the script and Dirceu from FastIcon did the Art.

I should have a bigger (like Ep 1) Ep. 3 ready by the end of the month.

Technorati Tags: FastIcon, Funny, NullMind, Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz

Popularity: 25% [?]

This morning I got an email saying my company (Relio) was featured on pages 10 and 48 of Issue 33 of HostingWeekMag.

I had never heard of them, so I downloaded the PDF, and sure enough, there is was:

Can’t beat free advertising.
It’s basically the announcement we made a few weeks back about the introduction of MS Exchange Hosting, they had it under 2 separate section of the magazine, the mag itself was mostly a compilation of news of the past few weeks and some OK articles, but PR is PR, and the more exposure the better.

Technorati Tags: ADS, Relio, WebHosting

Popularity: 13% [?]

Once in a while I Google for pages that contain references or links to Relio, this time I came across something truly amazing, somebody on “getafreelancer.com” was taking in bids for a Relio Website Clone

A friend of mine asked me if I was upset, amazingly enough, I was not, it’s quite faltering, they say plagiarism is the biggest compliment one can get, and you can never be as good as the original
The only part that upset me was the price, the average bid was $1040 .. the original site, just in man-hours of the designers, and the caliber f the designers that worked with me, would have been over 10k .. there is allot of trial and error when you are designing a brand, but then again, we were coming up with something from the ground up, i guess if I was just making a copy, $1000 would have been ok too.

Technorati Tags: plagiarism, Relio, website

Popularity: 14% [?]

Since the release of the New Relio Website that I have been nursing the idea of doing a cartoon feature with it’s mascots and the Crazy NullMind created by Thiago.

So less chat and more work and the first cartoon strip is here, this is just an introduction of the cartoon staff ..

The idea is, Rea & Leo are the Relio’s support staff (and their names sound like Relio as well), she is smart, he thinks he is smart, the boss is not a bad person, he is just a workaholic who believes everybody should work 23 hours a day like he does, he also does not subscribe to fairness or democracy on the workplace.

I have lots of ideas for future issues, hopefully we will release the next one by week 1 of next month.

Just for kicks and to have it saved somewhere, here is the original mockup

Technorati Tags: Funny, Rea & Leo, Relio, Toonz

Popularity: 25% [?]

I was playing around today with http://www.blogthings.com .. just for fun

Your Famous Last Words Will Be:

“I dunno, press the button and find out.”

Technorati Tags: blogs, Blogthings

Read more…

Popularity: 13% [?]

I found this site today that asks you a few questions and “determines” which file extension you are

I got .ogg

Which File Extension are You?

It was a bit of fun

Technorati Tags: .ogg, website

Popularity: 15% [?]

I have been working with a team of Brazilian artists on a new design for Relio.com

I mentioned it in past posts on my blog, today, after more than 8 months, the site is finally up, both the US and UK sections of it

I was ecstatic when I put it LIVE, this is the best site I worked on to date, but it’s risky, and not everybody will like it, but I love it, and the type of clients Relio attracts will surely love it as well

Actually, I just got an email back from a client commending on the new site

… gotta love the blimp

Technorati Tags: WebHosting, Relio

Popularity: 17% [?]

Yesterday I bought a 360 from a local chap, it’s 3 weeks old and it came with Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero … price .. 230£
It looks stunning on my new TV .. HD is the way to go, I saw the trailer for Ice Age 2 on 720p and I could not believe my eyes

I also registed for Xbox Live, I was a beta tester when it first came our years ago, but since moving to the UK I have not used it, I generated a new Nick, my GameTag is “NullMind UK”

Technorati Tags: 360, NullMind, XBOX, XBOX 360, XBOX Live

Popularity: 16% [?]