Updates

I’m not sure how many people follow my GitHub, but I’ve been learning React and Angular. So far if I had to pick a favorite it would be Angular, I prefer it’s stricter separation of code and markup, and it’s bigger collection of functionality that’s built in. I’ve got another domain (garbagefile.io), that I’ve wanted to do something with for a while, so I’m thinking I’ll build something in Angular and host it on there. My main site will stick with WordPress for right now, unless I get the motivation to rewrite it in Laravel or some other PHP framework.

I’m also working on a new version of my AIM server in .NET Core that should be a lot more scalable and feature rich. I’ve wanted to build it for years now, but I didn’t feel as though I had the skills or the technology stack to do it successfully. My goal would be to have it support up to 5000 connected users at once starting off, and to have it possibly scale up to 500,000 users (highly unlikely to ever get that amount, but I can dream can’t I?). Other goals include having it support AIM 1.x – AIM 5.x, as well as possibly creating plug-ins for those versions to support OSCAR over SSL, and stronger password hashing methods such as Scrypt or BCrypt.

Anyway, I hope to update this site soon with more updates, but if not, I guess i’ll see you next year!

Goodbye DreamHost, our relationship was short lived.

Dear DreamHost VPS Aficionado,

Change is good! I’m not just talking about the kind that jingles in your pocket like sleigh bells, but that’s nice too. I’m talking about HOSTING!

You may have noticed over the past year or two that we’ve totally amped up our VPS game. We’ve increased memory. We’ve installed super-fast slick new SSDs for lightning-fast data access. AND we’ve lowered prices.

Now we’re about to roll out another change to our VPS services that may affect you!

We will be removing admin (sudo) access from all DreamHost VPS instances.

All of our Virtual Private Servers are managed. That is to say that we provide you with a specific software environment and we work hard to keep it up to date with security patches and all the latest updates. When users take server management into their own hands with the “sudo” command, this can limit our own ability to provide a safe and reliable managed hosting environment.

The good news, for users looking to have more control over their hosting environment, is that our cloud computing service, DreamCompute, is completely unmanaged. Install whatever software you like! Don’t need a web server? No problem! We’ll provide you with a base OS install (or you can even upload your own!) and that’s it. Use sudo, or heck, just login as root if you want!

DreamCompute provides the full and complete remote server control that so many of our VPS users have been craving for years.

Timing!

Sudo access will be disabled on Monday, November 30, 2015.

Please be sure to check out DreamCompute if you’re looking for virtual computing resources but want full control of everything! We think you’ll find it’s a great complement to traditional, managed VPS services.

As always, our brilliant tech support team is on standby if you’ve got any questions about this change. You can contact them from the Support section of your account control panel at any time.

Love Forever,

– The Happy DreamHost VPS Ongoing Improvements Team

Well after spending hours compiling and configuring a custom Apache 2.2/PHP7-FPM configuration on DreamHost not even a month ago, they decided that on November 30th they were going to disable sudo/admin access to their VPS offerings. That wouldn’t be such a bad problem had they actually offered an alternative, but instead they keep referring everyone to their DreamCompute platform which is currently at capacity and not taking any new signups. I’m not sure what their game plan was here, but it was clearly not well thought out.  I’m going to be setting up a DigitalOcean droplet here soon, which should offer everything I need, and isn’t “managed” by a bunch of boneheads. I’m not sure why they advertise these as Virtual Private Servers, they clearly don’t want you having any ownership over them.

I’m sorry you missed me too, I guess I won’t be using you.

dreamhostdreamcompute