Two small changes need to be made first though to make it less desktop like; and more Server Like (yes before installing Lion Server App).

Power

The single biggest issue with Mac Minis is getting them to power on automatically after a power cut, or when power is removed. If your server doesn’t switch on when the power is restored, this will have the effect of turning your machine off.

and change the settings to

Other things worth poking are:

Turn the Firewall on

and turn off location services.

Running without a screen

My mac mini gets upset if I ask it to boot without a Screen (VDU, or Monitor) the easiest way of dealing with this is to make a simple terminator to convince the Lofn that a (non-DDC) monitor is attached. All that’s needed is to connect a 75Ω resistor between pins 2 and 7 of the (analogue) VGA connector. I have acquired a DVI to VGA ( DB15) converter and have bent its legs into the holes; and glued it in place on the connector.

Setting up as a server

At the moment due to nbArianrhod having a broken engine I am currently living at my parents in Swindon, so I am going to try and set up Lofn in a testing environment off my parents Virgin Media connection using uandc.co.uk as my test domain (being that Daniel Webb has failed to buy it off me). as I bring it up and get it working I will continue to blog my findings.

If you want details on how to take apart a mac mini there is a guide here

So my mac mini now has 2 Gigs of Ram meaning that installing lion is easy now. there are a couple of hard drive mounts for making use of the optical drive bay available [1 2] so the next addition may be a second internal hard drive; or an upgrade of the primary hard drive.

The Plan then will be to reduce my hosting charges, but increase the amount of Hard Drive space and Ram I have available (there may be a reduction in Traffic allowance); by moving my machine into Mythic Beasts Mac Mini Co-Lo hosting.

Once all this is up and Running; b0atg1rl and I plan to try and get some more clients; and work to formalise Just Vigilantes, My more Professional blog is at PhilipMcGaw.co.uk

My Project 365 site seems to have been blocked from being accessed over 3G by O2, I have written about my feelings on O2′s content blocking before, most people I assume have already got pissed off with it and bitten the bullet since and ‘verified’ themselves since content blocking was imposed in March 2011.

The restrictions are at the DNS level, meaning that there is no easy way round it. and you can not use your 02 Modem, Android phone as a portable hotspot, or teather your iPhone. If you switch from O2′s 3G network to a Wi-Fi hotspot, however, then the restrictions disappear. There are suggestions that O2 is a using a reference directory from the ICMB (Independent Mobile Classification Body), so the problem may be on other networks as well.

O2 claimed back in March last year:

This is solely to ensure that children are protected from inappropriate content when using the internet on their phones. That’s why we require customers to prove they are over 18 before they can use these sites.

and pointed to the “UK code of practice for the self-regulation of new forms of content on mobiles¹” (see also their FAQ). however it looks like there is no procedure for either getting a copy of the block list; or an easy way to getting your placement on  it independently checked. I phoned o2′s customer service number; however they were adimunt that there was no way of unblocking the site; or telling me why the site was blocked; however O2′s Twitter team seem to be the people to contact, but again they only pass the details of the block on, and have yet to provide me with any information. The IMCB (Independent Mobile Classification Body) has a copy of the Classification Framework² available to read that says I have to complain to O2 and then wait 28 days before I can speak to them (the IMCB).

However the one thing that I would like, that no one seems to list on any site is a copy of the blacklist, or a tool for checking if your page is blocked.

Bmi.js, and I guess the image compression are a result of ByteMobile‘s “Smart Capacity”

Through a wide range of patented optimization techniques, as well as caching, Bytemobile web optimization solutions enable network operators to cut internet and mobile application traffic by 30-35%. This includes traffic generated by the automatic download of software updates. The result is reduced network congestion and significantly faster web page downloads, leading to superior quality of experience (QoE) for mobile subscribers.

Some of the annoying problems with it are:

• All the images are pipes through a proxy to degrade their quality and reduced their resolution in order to speed up the browsing experience, this can get annoying very quickly. However hovering over the images ushaly reveals a hint that: “Shift+R improves the quality of this image. Shift+A improves the quality of all images on this page“.
• bmi.js is not very well written it hijacks event handlers and stands a high chance of messing up the scripts you want to run.
• Non-deterministically inlines some of the CSS and JavaScript into the main source files of the web pages. This can create errors either because of mistakes in their algorithm or the consequence of stripping white space from source files.
• Strip copyright messages from copyrighted javascript libraries and css libraries.
• Breaks Local Caching: For example, A user is visiting a sequence of pages on your site which all use the same jQuery libraries. Instead of letting the mobile browser locally cache the library, ByteMobile inline the library on every page, forcing your phone to load the entire library over and over again for every page.
• Its not just my Browser that these alterations are made in, any where that an image is displayed (or html page is pulled in) the alterations are made, so emails, RSS reader, iTunes for example.

There seem to be a limmited number of Workarounds; some more use than others:

• Only visit https sites; (EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere available for FireFox and Chrome makes staying on https easer). However not all websites are available via https; while you can go to https://skippy.org.uk/ it will return an error telling you the certificate is invalid.
• Another workaround (if you have access to your .htaccess file) is to on the server you can set cache control by adding Cache-Control: no-transform to your .htaccess file

  # Force no caching
  
  <FilesMatch "\.*">
  Header append Cache-Control "no-transform"
  Header append Vary "User-Agent, Accept"
  </FilesMatch>

  This will stop all modifications and present your site correctly (assuming that ByteMobile respect this), and that you only look at sites where this has been set.

• If you are writing PHP you can control your HTTP by using something like this:

  <?php
  header("Cache-Control: no-transform");
  header("Vary: User-Agent, Accept");
  ?>

• And ASP

  <%
  Response.AddHeader "Cache-Control", "no-transform"
  Response.AddHeader "Vary" , "User-Agent"
  %>

• One that may work (assuming the Telecommunication company haven’t brorken it) is Bytemobile Unison feature called “clientless personalization”. It should be able to be reached via http://1.2.3.50/ups/ - if it’s configured, you will end up on a page which will offer you to disable all feature you don’t like.
• T-mobile it’s called “Mobile Broadband Accelerator” You can Visit: http://accelerator.t-mobile.co.uk or http://1.2.3.50/ to configure it.
• I will try and update this list as I find out where other config pages are located.

I plan to start this challenge on the first of April; so I have a while to make sure that everything works

My name is Philip McGaw and owner of skippy.org.uk.

A website that your company hosts (according to WHOIS information) is infringing on at least one copyright owned by myself.

An article was copied onto your servers without permission.

The original article, to which we own the exclusive copyrights, can be found at:

http://skippy.org.uk/windows-2008-r2-on-my-macbook-pro/

The unauthorized and infringing copy can be found at:

http://www.gadgetdegree.com/gadgets/windows-2008-r2-on-my-macbook-pro/

This letter is official notification under Section 512(c) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (”DMCA”), and I seek the removal of the aforementioned infringing material from your servers. I request that you immediately notify the infringer of this notice and inform them of their duty to remove the infringing material immediately, and notify them to cease any further posting of infringing material to your server in the future.

Please also be advised that law requires you, as a service provider, to remove or disable access to the infringing materials upon receiving this notice. Under US law a service provider, such as yourself, enjoys immunity from a copyright lawsuit provided that you act with deliberate speed to investigate and rectify ongoing copyright infringement. If service providers do not investigate and remove or disable the infringing material this immunity is lost. Therefore, in order for you to remain immune from a copyright infringement action you will need to investigate and ultimately remove or otherwise disable the infringing material from your servers with all due speed should the direct infringer, your client, not comply immediately.

I am providing this notice in good faith and with the reasonable belief that rights I own are being infringed. Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved.

Should you wish to discuss this with me please contact me directly.

Thank you.

Philip McGaw

philipmcgaw.com

{Address block removed}

I got the template letter for my DMCA takedown notice from IPWatchdog,

While I have never received a DMCA takedown notice, and probably would laugh at some one for sending me one; (my server is in Leeds, UK) because they don’t have any legal standing in the UK, and while as far as I am aware there is no UK equivalent of the crazy US law, I would probably act on it; or at least work out a way to mitigate.

unfortunately for GadgetDegree they are in the US, and so are their Servers.

It can deal with all the sites, and the plugins required by each to make them work as required. However one of the things I really hate about WordPress is that it requires MySQL as a backend, which for a site with so little content change between requests, and caching for when there is a huge increase in hits (I use WP Super Cache).

On a number of occasions I have tried to use the PDO (SQLite) plugin, however it has never worked as well as I would like; and now it seems not to have been updated since January 2010, however according to this post on the authors site, he will be looking at bringing the PDO up to date.

Now I know bma has some things to say about SQLite, but compare that with MySQL, and remember all that caching from above reduces the chance of Concurrency (and that seems to be less of an issue in V3).

Now why would I want to use SQLite? my logic is that a database is just a file some where on the file system managed by another process, If I can move that file into the location where that copy of WordPress is installed I can make backups of the state of everything in one go, as well as move the entire install +Database between computers by uploading just one zip, with out needing to do a Database Dump + Restore.

If I could, I would really like to see is WordPress with a Flat File back end, I know there is FlatPress, but its still not looking like anywhere near ready to trust, however I will have a go with it on a test machine.

At some point I should also write a post about the technology and software that goes into running this site, as well as outline my workflow.

Well, since they took over the mostly reliable iFuse hosting has had a number of extended outages, and response to support tickets and emails is non existent.

Things have got even worse recently when they invoiced my for my hosting fees, I went to try and pay them but have they wanted to take my money? Have they responded to my trying to give them money? Well no. so unable to contact them (they have no contact details in the public domain that I can find) my account has been suspended.

Due to my set up not being the normal set up on the server, everything other than CamCrew.co.uk still works.

Now with a lot of digging and poking it seems that Yomura Holdings is a part of LTT, Libya Telecom – and Technology who have a twitter account, so I am now waiting for a response from them.