Category: English

  • Running Web Server as a Virtual Machine

    For several months now I’ve been planning to virtualize my home server. That’s the server hosting this blog, among other things. For starters it would give me some more room to test different applications on separate operating system, but without the hassle of dealing with several physical computers.

    One of my ideas is to test web application prior to deployment. This is kind of hard now that I only have one machine. It’s would be shameful if I accidently killed the web service because of a faulty configuration. Also I have a few projects which I want to separate from the machine visible on the internet.

    VMware Server is a free product which can be installed on top of either Windows or Linux, so it’s not a bare-metal hypervisor. I recommend running it on top of Linux for minimal footprint, not to mention all the rebooting you have to do with Windows. A minimal Ubuntu server installation takes less than 1GB of disc space, and use next to nothing when it comes to terms of memory.

    For the moment I’m doing some testing with one mySQL server, one Apache web server and one server running Varnish, which is a cache/proxy service. It’s not because I’m expecting high load in the near future, but it’s an interesting solution.

    Anyway; the next few months I expect this blog to focus more on virtualization, but I can’t guarantee anything. I would be satisfied if I keep writing semi regular, no matter the topic.

  • Marte Thorsby og IFPI

    Nok engang har Marte Thorsby vært i media og uttalt seg om ting hun tydligvis ikke har peiling på. I følge Dagbladet.no gir hun nå Telenor 2 ukers frist til å sperre norske brukere ute fra ThePirateBay.

    Mener hun oppriktig og seriøst at sensur er veien å gå i et demokrati? At indekseringstjenester som ThePirateBay, Google, Sesam og Kvasir ikke har livets rett?

    Søk gjort på ThePirateBay peker kun til torrent-filer, og disse inneholder som kjent ikke informasjon som er beskyttet av opphavsrett. Et raskt søk på hvilken som helst av de andre tjenestene peker derimot både direkte til mp3-filer, pdf-filer av bøker og annet materiell som er beskyttet av opphavsrett. Er ikke disse andre tjenestene verre da?

    Eller er det kun det faktum at ThePirateBay har kategorisert informasjonen så grundig som gjør at IFPI reagerer og ønsker å sperre tilgangen for det norske folk?

    Forresten; Enda ett kjapt søk på ThePirateBay gir meg side opp og side ned med torrenter som linker til helt lovlige filer. Skal IFPI nekte meg tilgang til dem også?

    Loven er som kjent lik for alle. Faller det en dom i Norge som skal hindre norske brukere å nå ThePirateBay forventer jeg at myndighetene utøver samme praksis mot samtlige andre søketjenester tilgjengelig på nettet i dag.

  • VMware Infrastructure Course

    This week I’ve been at a VMware course in Bergen. More precise VMware Infastructure 3 – Install and Configure. Although I’ve been working with VMware software for a while now, it’s still been very educational.

    The course is held at Augustin Hotel, and the lunch we get is just fantastic. The fact that I’m staying at the same hotel the course is at makes the experience just so much better since I can have breakfast until the course starts at 9 am.

  • AutoStore – Unique and Revolutionary

    One of the more interesting  things I’ve seen after I started working for The Hatteland Group is AutoStore. A warehouse system which utilize the available space to the absolute maximum.

    Or to quote the website:

    AutoStore is a unique and revolutionary warehouse system for the effective storage and handling of small goods.

    But to fully understand what’s so remarkable, you have to see it yourself: https://youtu.be/_WjAUrc-jhA

    You can find more information about AutoStore at Hatteland Logistics.

  • Windows Photo Gallery – It’s Really Bad

    Today I was processing some images in Adobe Lightroom so I could send them to my brother. After the images was done, I did a quick preview of them. The default program on Windows Vista is Windows Photo Gallery. I was not pleased with the result, so I entered Lightroom and checked the export settings only to find them being set to maximum quality.

    Then I opened the images in both Adobe Photoshop and QuickTime PictureViewer and to my surprise I discovered that the photo was looking better there.

    Take a look at the sample image for comparison:

    Windows Photo Gallery vs QuickTime PictureView
    To the left: Windows Photo Gallery, to the right: QuickTime PictureViewer

    Before you start complaining about the photo being totally awful, and that this has nothing to do with Windows Photo Gallery, but more my camera or my skills. Let me explain to you that this is not the photo itself as a whole. This is a crop of the top right corner of the image. In other words, it’s the background, not the main subject.

    From this crop you can clearly see that Windows Photo Gallery renders the dark areas differently than QuickTime PictureViewer (and Adobe Photoshop).

    I guess this has something to do with Windows using it’s own JPEG-library which differs from the real deal.

    You have been warned.