Some of the stuff that I have been looking at recently:
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I am heading home today, and will return home late tonight to begin the second FeedLounge migration. Seems that we just did this last week, but it was actually almost 2 months ago. Wow.
The first migration was such a smashing success that we are going to be leaving the poor old alpha server melting down in a small pool of its own solder, and moving on to our own rack in a colo closer to home. Busy holiday weekend for the FeedLounge crew.
After stopping the server tonight, it goes down for one final backup, rsyncing that over to the new server. We will also be adding the DNS changes, so that the new servers are ready to go once we finish the install.
Then it is off to the colo in the morning, with a small truckload of hardware. Cabling and installation (don’t forget the cable ties) should take about 4-6 hours, and then we can stop and have a snack (dinner?).
After all the connectivity is sorted out, then it will be a sit down root-fest, making sure all the configuration is correct, nagios is all set up, etc.
Then for the test run. Start up the daemon to start working the queue, trying to catch up on the feed backlog (making sure to time it to get a feel for the new hardware).
Need to remember to take as many pictures as necessary to document the adventure, so I can share with everyone the joy that is a colo move.
Previous experience (moving the apache.org colo) tells me estimates are an impossibility to get right. One thing I did learn though: a smaller crew, or at least small crews focused on single tasks, get the job done faster than a big crew (too much concensus decision making).
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I decided to load up a post with all the places you need to know to be able to develop nearly anything in javascript. Not just AJAX, but any javascript using web application that will target more than one major browser. So, take a deep breath, and here we go:
- QuirksMode - Tells you about a huge amount of the inconsistencies between the major browsers, in CSS as well as JavaScript.
- Cross-Browser.com - Handy cross-browser utilities. I have personally used several of the utilities from here, and can say that they do help in the cross-browser development struggle.
- JavaScript sucks (volume 1) - Bob hits the nail on the head. Make sure you know about all the little gotchas in JavaScript.
Everything is an object, except for the three or forty things that aren’t. Ugh.
- JavaScript Sucks (volume 2) - Volume 1 was so popular, it spawned a volume 2
- MochiKit makes JavaScript suck less - From the same guy who said JavaScript sucks two volumes, he decided to do something about it. MochiKit is a JS library designed with the programmer in mind, also seems to be designed to return the same answer every time (not always true in JS land). Good on ya, Bob.
- The Tao of Mac - JavaScript - I bookmark many of the pages on this site, as it is a great human edited link resource.
- JavaScript OO Primer - Not a lot of us out here in web-dev land know that JavaScript can do OO. Maybe pythonmac.org should be javascriptmac.org? Bob knows way too much about this stuff. Since I am linking to everything under the sun over there, maybe you should just read the entire javascript category there.
- The JavaScript Diaries - Just getting started? Start here.
- ECMA 262 aka ‘JavaScript’ - What list would be complete without the JavaScript spec itself?
People don’t use JavaScript because they like it, they use it because they have no choice. A choice between bread and water or nothing is not a choice. If you do find yourself out there however, go pick up Venkman, at least it will help ease the debugging pain (if you develop Mozilla first, like me). And always remember to NEVER cross the streams.
Let me know of any links you would add to this list, and do take note of the fact I am NOT adding AJAX-related links up here. That is for another post.
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