2018-03-22
In the two decades that i have been doing things on the internet, i have used many web hosts such as FortuneCity, Schlund+Partner, Strato, and 1und1. They were all good at the time i went to them to host my projects. They made my time easier by not having to worry about the technology behind the server. But eventually the performance was no longer adequate, and i had to move on. As you know, i downsized my webspace at the beginning of this year. But apparently, the Friedersdorf based web hosting service ALL-INKL can't handle my traffic and load at that price point, which is why i went to Amazon AWS and created a Lightsail instance for less money, but more performance.
Since i already had experience with running a Apache web server on Linux-based Debian and a headless Raspberry Pi, it was simple to set everything else up. After some hiccups with Ubuntu and an old LAMP stack, i got it all working. On the surface, it looks like nothing happened, but behind the scenes i changed many parts to make it appear like that. For example, i had to set up Cloudflare as DNS and Mailgun as MX record for some of my domain names, to make them keep pointing to the right direction. I also removed the logging of IP addresses to comply with GDPR.
Many years ago, i built and run a blog hosting service for a long time, among other things, like embeddable chat widgets. All written in Perl, from the very bottom, and without any framework. I learned a lot, during and after it. I became quite good in handling file-based databases, even with thousands of hits per hour, because of the techniques i developed to prevent too much load on the server. Later, i installed WordPress for publishing my own posts, instead of writing my own code in Perl. Because why reinventing the wheel, if no one cares anyway?
But i was never a PHP and MySQL person, because of the many external dependencies, which is why i now took the opportunity to write a "flat-file based blog" from scratch, just in case if i ever need to move somewhere else again, so i don't need to fumble around with things i don't enjoy, or don't have time for. FYI, the rooms in our rented apartment have on average three clocks, in almost every direction at least one, because my dad likes it. All pages here are now static HTML files, which were generated by a dynamic Perl script i wrote.
2018-03-02
Last year, i used a similar title for a post on the blog, but on this occasion, i travelled back in time by cleaning up the living room with my parents. In late 2017, our landlord motivated us to do this, because to him it looks dangerous, having mountains of seemingly random things in a place, where normal people watch TV or play board games with friends. But we don't have much time for that, since we have to pay for rent, food, healthcare, public broadcasting, and everything else. Welcome to the bottom of this pyramid scheme.
The origin of most stuff in the living room is "life". I moved twice with my parents, and each time we kept most of our belongings, because everything is precious to us, since we are not smart, or rich. Nevertheless, we are not keeping highly combustible objects around. Back then, in 1992, we run our Restaurant in Ratingen for many years, where my father cooked in the kitchen with heavy woks over real fire, without anything bad happening.
But since our neighbours in Bad Godesberg might not be as thoughtful as we are, i do understand the danger of having too many things around. For example, the way they handle garbage bags or how they close apartment doors is a nightmare. And thanks to their habit to let the house door wide open, i got my MiniDisc recorder and my mountain bike stolen. This is why we now have a basically normal living room, just in case they start a campfire indoors, or some accident happens. After all, no one is perfect, except maybe Julia Roberts. By sorting through all the old stuff, i occasionally get surprised, because things are getting new perspectives to look at. It's like being in a history museum and wandering around in the past.
For example, i found a lot of Colleen Colored Pencils my aunts and uncle sent me from Hong Kong to Germany, over 20 years ago. I was probably anxious to use them, since they are really special to me. This is why i have several packages full of new stationeries waiting to meet a piece of paper. I already doodled a couple of "Stargates", inspired by the TV series, and uploaded them to YouTube. My mom also found my over 15 years old Hohner Echo harmonica again, and i made it a part of some videos.
2018-02-26
In April 2012, i signed up for Amazon Prime Student, because officially i was still a geography student at the University of Bonn. Back then, there was no video streaming available. But the fast and "free" shipping was already worth the discounted price. Later, in early 2014, they introduced Prime video in Germany including a limited selection of movies and shows, which made me keep being subscribed to it. But in the past months, i basically stopped shopping on Amazon, because of Aliexpress. Things are taking a lot longer to deliver, but the prices are hard to beat.
Now, in February 2018, Amazon sent a email telling me they will upgrade me to "regular" Prime without discounts, which makes it all even less compelling, since i have already seen many of the contents in their video catalog. And in Mai 2016, i discovered Torrent "in the cloud", which opened a door to new options, next to Prime video. It's safer than a standard setup, where you run everything local, because the Torrent client here is not directly installed on the computer. In December 2015, i got to try Netflix too, which i had for one month as a free trial. FYI, my first order on Amazon was in October 2006, and i bought a Sony ICD-SX56 digital voice recorder for capturing audio at university.
2018-02-10
Over six years ago, when it launched in mid 2011, i was one of the first users of Google Plus. While i was exploring this new upcoming social network, i discovered people like Lisa Bettany and the TWiT podcast network in my Google+ stream. I got sucked in because of the live video on twit.tv, which has let me be a part of something i didn't know existed. Thanks to Leo Laporte and his friends i felt less alone at that time. From his studio in Petaluma, he talks about tech and things relating to it. And since this is part of modern life, it really means he covers a wide range of topics.
Leo Laporte showed me that there are others out here, who are into technology as much as i am, and that we are like each other in many ways. He is basically a Swiss Army knife, just like me, with a wide range of interests. We know a lot about different things, interdisciplinary, to drop a fancy word. Maybe not perfect at everything, but close enough where it matters, to see the bigger picture and connect all parts together. Unlike me, since i don't have that many resources, he can do whatever he wants. Because of this, Leo Laporte inspired me to keep doing what i enjoy, put myself out there, and see where it goes.
2018-01-29
Over five years ago, in 2012, i have read about the Raspberry Pi by Eben Upton for the first time. Back then, it was barely available, because of its low price for a real computer. But it was still quite expensive, if you don't know what to do with all the potential. Last year, in July 2017, i got my hands on the Pi Zero W, with built-in Wifi and Bluetooth, made in the UK. I have built a CCTV camera, and it turned out great. I have let it run in my room for three weeks, while i was with my mother in Hong Kong. It captured all movements, saved photos on the microSD card and uploaded them via FTP to my web server as a backup. Thanks to motionEyeOS by Calin Crisan, and the Camera Module by the Raspberry Pi Foundation: The whole thing was like putting Lego bricks together.
Now, in January 2018, i got my second Pi Zero W, installed Linux in the flavor of Raspbian Stretch, and built the foundation for a private server, exclusively through a CLI, also known as "command-line interface", without a display and keyboard attached to it, or simply called "in headless mode". Since i like to code in the Perl programming language, i had to do some digging into a couple of Apache server configuration files, to get my scripts working, as i already know it from my dedicated web server on the public internet. I also have set up Duck DNS pointing to my dynamic IP, and installed Let's Encrypt to get a secure connection via HTTPS for external access.
My parents like listening to BBC Newsweek in Cantonese, which is run by the British Broadcasting Corporation in London. But their website is not really reliable: Sometimes a new episode pops up and vanishes for no reason, by not being able to download the audio file, or just not showing up in the BBC podcast feed at all. This is why i wrote a Perl script, scheduled in "crontab", checking every 30 minutes for a new episode, and downloading it automatically from the BBC server, if it becomes available. Now they can take it down later, but we are still having a copy saved on the Pi Zero W. I made a simple "web user interface" for my parents, so they can listen to the episodes on demand, without to depend on the abilities of the BBC.
Back then, in September 2013, i covered the Fashion Week in London as independent photojournalist, and Reno Macri talked to me, after i made photos of him and his team attaching graphics at Somerset House. He offered me to print a photo of my choice on a Dibond Panel, if i send him the photos. I didn't know he was the founder of Enigma Visual Solutions, a Office Design & Exhibition Stand Design firm, based in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. But after some research, i sent him everything, and later, he asked me to send him a photo to be printed on a large piece of Aluminium Composite Sheet. I never had a photo in "real life" so big before, and i'm happy that i created something from scratch entirely for this purpose: My left hand holding three origami cranes, upcycled from old European maps. Cheers to Reno for being so nice.
FYI, in April 1987, as a British Dependent Territories citizen, born in Germany, i got my first British Passport from the British Consulate General in Düsseldorf. And i'm not sure how i feel about the UK leaving the EU, since i have a German Passport now, just like my parents, who were born in Hong Kong and therefore British Overseas Territories citizens. Whatever happens, the United Kingdom will always have a place in my heart, and not just because of the movie Notting Hill, or the TV show Doctor Who. I also have relatives in England, who i visited and enjoyed being with: Thank you to Andrew Cheung and Ringo Tsang.
2018-01-16
In December 2002, i tried to run my own dedicated "Root Server", but i had not enough Linux skills to get it running only via PuTTY and a command-line interface, although i already had some experience with SuSE Linux 6.x on the desktop computer through a GUI, also known as Graphical User Interface. They even sent me a printed copy of "1&1 Root-Server Benutzerhandbuch", but i was a student at school, with no time left for studying a user manual, and still doing everything else. In 2005, i got me a "Managed Server" at 1und1, so i could keep up with the high traffic on my websites. On two occasions, i even had 2 servers running at the same time, because i needed to upgrade the server, by moving from one to the other. For example, in 2009, i had to move to another web hosting company, to keep the loading times of my pages low, at a reasonable price.
To give you an idea: In December 2015, i had over 12 million HTTP hits, with over 5 GB traffic, and in December 2017, i had over 13 million HTTP hits, with over 7 GB traffic. Years before, there was even more going on. FYI, i became quite good in optimizing efficiency. But i can't get it to break even since a while: I'm just not getting enough from advertising to make it all work. Google Adsense and Amazon Associates are not cutting it anymore. After 14 years, in January 2018, i cancelled my dedicated web server, and i'm sharing a random server with other customers again, almost like twenty years ago, in 1998, when i had my first websites hosted for free on FortuneCity. But i had a lot of fun, while we grew up together. I hope we stay in touch and think about the good old days, when everything was still possible. Maybe we do something great at a later point. Thank you, Internet.
The Irish band The Corrs released a nice song in 1998: "I haven't slept at all in days. It's been so long since we've talked. And I have been here many times. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. What can I do to make you love me. What can I do to make you care. What can I say to make you feel this. What can I do to get you there. There's only so much I can take. And I just got to let it go. And who knows I might feel better, yeah. If I don't try and I don't hope."
2017-12-10
My father helped me to learn riding a bike. It happened on a empty playground and later on a car park near our restaurant in Ratingen, sometime between 1993 and 1996. In hindsight quite late. Because at primary school we were already learning the rules for biking on public streets, but i didn't even know how to ride a bike. Maybe this is the reason why i never broke a single bone: I'm just not into risking my life. I never smoked either, for obvious reasons. But i passed the test, supervised by the police, and since then, i liked to get around like that.
I took part in bike rides and was even photographed once for the local newspaper, when i visited the Schützenfest in Ratingen on my bike. And i cycled several times from Bad Godesberg to Cologne, along the Rhine river, a distance of about 40 km. But in December 2015, i sold my latest bike on eBay, because there is nothing out there anymore: The human overpopulation is knocking on the door, and i have no skin in the game. It was not the right size for me anyway: My OCR Zero by Giant from 2004 became a waste of space. Nevertheless, one year later, i was interested in the Kwiggle folding bike, claiming to be "the most compact bicycle", which is why i backed the Kickstarter campaign, without success for founder Karsten Bettin in early 2017. The label "Made in Germany" is not enough these days.
I never learned how to swim, and i almost drowned the first time i tried, but friend Luis Diaz from school pulled me back to the pool edge, sometime between 1999 and 2002 in Bonn. No one makes it alone, really. Years later, i wanted to learn it, this time with my father. Back then, in 2009, it seemed like a good way to lose weight. But i have decided that i will not pursue it any further, since i found another path to get it down, just by eating healthy. And the only time when swimming skills could have been useful was in May 2006, when schoolmate Oona Frick and i were invited by friend Daniel Tiedge to go sailing for a week in the Netherlands. This was very generous and nice of him. I have never done that before and afterwards, because it's quite exclusive. There you have it, i'm going to sink with the Titanic.
2017-12-06
Since my parents native language is not German and i didn't learn to read Chinese, i never got into liking to read books for fun. I was only at school forced to consume a lot of literature, especially in the last three years at the Oberstufe from 2003 to 2006. For my Abitur at the Gesamtschule in Bad Godesberg, i had to choose "Deutsch" as advanced course, which made me enjoy "The Tin Drum" by writer Günter Grass, who i photographed many times at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009 and 2010. Since 1998, i was already reading and writing a lot through coding on the computer, just by learning and doing it, or the other way around: I developed and run a variety of messaging and publishing platforms on the web. And since around 2005, i had with Google Reader a powerful RSS tool in my hands. At the peak, i was subscribed to over 600 blogs.
After Google discontinued it in 2013, i moved over to the RSS Reader by AOL. I removed dead sources and still had over 500 blogs filling my stream with things relating to life on Earth: It's a lot more personal than only reading posts from large magazines. With the years, i refined the incoming articles and got down to around 400 sources. In December 2017, AOL announced to shut down their Reader, which made me clean up my subscriptions once again, to a total of over 200 blogs. And even with that lower number, every couple of minutes i get a handful of new articles loading into my stream. Instead of giving you all these RSS feeds i curated, which would go beyond the scope of this post, i publish here a complete list of my over 50 podcast subscriptions in iTunes, just to give you an idea:
Accidental Tech Podcast, America's Test Kitchen Radio, Arts and Ideas, Bookworm, Call Your Girlfriend, Common Sense with Dan Carlin, Cooking Issues, Current Geek, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, DateFails with Kate Quigley, Disruption, Freakonomics Radio, Good Food, Good Life Project, Keith and The Girl comedy talk show, Ladies Who Lunch, Lady Lovin, LadyGang, Let's Get Real, MacBreak Weekly, Material, Modern Love, No Agenda, Quit, Radiolab, Recode Decode hosted by Kara Swisher, Security Now, Story Grid Podcast, Strangers, Stuff You Missed in History Class, The Book Review, The Complete Guide to Everything, The Critical Path, The Dana Gould Hour, The Girls on Games Podcast, The IGN Movies Show, The Incomparable, The JV Club with Janet Varney, The Naked Scientists Podcast, The Nerdist, The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast, The Splendid Table, The Sporkful, The Sword and Laser, The Talk Show With John Gruber, The Writers Panel, This American Life, This Week in Google, This Week in Science, This Week in Tech, Totally Married, Triangulation, Truth & Iliza, WTF with Marc Maron Podcast, Weird Adults With Little Esther, Windows Weekly, and You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.
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