Using my Nikon D5100, a tripod, my Macbook Air, the Sofortbild app and some magic, it has come together nicely. The Sofortbild app is used to take the pictures, which are then saved. Once the photos are saved, our friend Photoshop comes in to run a few actions on the photos to shape them and place them into a custom framed before being saved. Saved where? I’m glad you asked.

Using a combination of DrobBox and ifttt.com (aka “The Nerd Machine”), those image will be automatically uploaded to Flickr and posted to the White Roof Photo Facebook page so that the attendees can download them, tag themselves in them or do whatever they want.

Poolside Vegas. DIY Photobooth. Should be fun! Hope to see you there!

It’s been sometime since we’ve spoke and quite a lot has happened. Actually, not really that much has happened, but some stuff has happened. The biggest of those things that has happened is that I’m no longer gainfully employed. So, I’m back to keeping myself busy.

Job searches are happening as you would expect, but searching for work isn’t billable. I know, right? Back to doing what I do, plus a few extra things. 2 WordPress projects are in some fashion of completeness, I’ve done some on-site computer repair and I’m trying something completely new with photography.

I have decided to open whiteroofphoto.com. White Roof Photo is for my automotive and other photography. A place to keep a portfolio and a place to promote the service of automotive and event photography to those that might need it. I’ll be doing pool-side portraits at AMVIV X later this month and hopefully will get the chance to do some automotive portraits as well.

Otherwise, I am again offering my services for anything that you might need. PC/Mac configuration, repair and training. WordPress implementation and training. Social Media, community building and Internet marketing. Content creation (writing, audio, video, photo). I’m available for your project immediately! Click over the Contact page to get started.

I’ve also been feeling the need to write more. This makes me happy since it has been a while. I’m glad that is coming back. Expect to see more regular posts at all of the donburnside.com properties.

Thanks for your patience.

xoxo

donburnside

One server fails to restore, becomes hosed and takes the other one, mostly, with it.Gonna be a very long night.

March 27, 2013 3:13 pm via Tweetbot for iOSReplyRetweetFavorite

@dbwilldo

db

We can say I have had a month. A month, in this case, being the 30 days prior to this one, not a month like you see on your calendar. I know, it’s like the new math, but try to keep up.

Anyway.

I was tasked with replacing the ancient Windows Server 2003 (circa 2007) and Windows XP Filemaker Server (!) (circa 2006) earlier in the year. A single replacement sourced to replace 2 machines, easy peasy. Costs were told, ideas about buying new or refurbishes shot, budget was approved, and I went to work!

[A Team Theme here]

A series of calls to my friendly, neighborhood Dell server specialist to build a reasonably priced machine that could serve as both Active Directory (re: nerd stuff) and Filemaker (re: nerd database stuff) server. Done, done and done as the kids say. Now, in my server closet, quietly hums a very nice server with 16 cores of processing power, 16GB of RAM with a pair of 500GB drives (RAID 1, re: more nerd stuff). Fast and quiet, I’m happy.

So, configuration begins. I’ve done this before, so I wasn’t worried. Also, needs are low and the user base is small, so most defaults are completely adequate. As a bonus, we use Google Apps for email (suck it Exchange), so I don’t have that nightmare to deal with.

The tricky part, at least for me, was still to come. You see, I was upgrading from Server 2003 to Server 2008. I’ve never done that before. I’ve added servers to systems or where one didn’t previously exist. Migrating from one to the other, not so much. So, to the goog!

Oh, easy. Well, easy enough. And everything was going along quiet nicely if I do say so myself. I was even able to remove the old server from the network and the new one did it’s thing. Rad? Rad!

I might have gotten over confident. The minute I start to decommission the old server, the new server got lonely and started being mean and nasty. Great I say. Just. Great. No worries, I say, I’ll just bring the old one back from a backup.

Ahem. I said, I’ll just bring the old server back from backup.

About that. This system was something that I inherited. I had no control over the original setup or configuration of this system and have been keeping my fingers in the dyke to keep everything running smoothly. Including the backup. All of the user data was being pushed (up hill in frozen molasses) to Carbonite and the system was being backed up by our old imaging friend Acronis. Which, as it turns out, doesn’t like to work with USB KVM switches. A fact I learned about after the restore failed about 20 minutes in.

As awesome as that sounds, it really wasn’t. In very short order (the span of about 6 hours) I had to start the new server back from almost factory (just dcpromo’d, not a full restore), and do what I’ve done many times before. Build an Active Directory domain, from scratch, including all new user accounts.

Sure, that sounds pretty awesome too, right? I know. Trust me, I was there. It gets better. Not only did I have to build a new domain, and all that entails, but I also had to rejoin all of the workstations to the ‘new’ domain. I swear, it was like a party in there that night. Really!

To make this long story even longer, the entire process ended up taking me close to 3 full days. The new server should be repopulated with Carbonite sometime mid-2016 and the server is backing up to the tape drive using Windows Backup (for now). Everyone can log in, access their data and the network. It’s been rough, but I’m just about finished. This weekend I get to bring the new Filemaker server online and upgrade all of the workstations to the latest version of Filemaker Pro. It’s mind numbingly boring but I expect it to complete without issue.

The final piece to the great upgrade of 2012-2013 will be ditching the very, very old Dell switch with a new, shiny Dell switch that is managed and supports speeds greater than 10/100. Good grief, 10/100? What is this, the 20th Century?

The story you just read was true. The names weren’t changed to protect the innocent. I just wanted to write.

Time to ditch @mailbox. Would make more sense if my phone was my default email device.

March 19, 2013 9:20 am via Tweetbot for iOSReplyRetweetFavorite

@dbwilldo

db

I gave it the old college try. For the last 3 weeks I have been using Mailbox on my iPhone. It’s a fantastic app, but it’s not for me.

The Mailbox App team have had a very interesting ride. I remember seeing their initial video about the app months before it was actually released and I thought it looked revolutionary and awesome. Then it was released in a way to garner as much hype as possible while allowing them to properly manage the roll-out. Since this is email, I thought that bit was pretty awesome, especially since email has moved into the category of “always has to work”.

So I signed up and waited. Luckily, I joined early and only had to wait a little more than a week for my reservation to kick in. The app itself is very nice. The interface makes sense and the controls, once you actually figure it out, also makes sense. I had a minor issue with my reservation, however. Nothing that they weren’t able to correct via their Twitter account and support email.

So far, so good. I’m beyond impressed at this point.

After playing with Mailbox (and archiving my inbox), I put my phone down and do what I always do. Opened mailplane to work on email.

Mailbox only works with Gmail, and for it to work, it actually gets into your Gmail inbox and takes over for you, adding labels and archiving messages. It’s the way it worked and on the phone, it’s pretty awesome.

But my phone isn’t my primary email device. My phone is where I triage email. Sure, I reply to some messages via mobile, but those are the quick hit replies to answer an easy question. Anything with any substance, I want a keyboard. Same goes for creating new messages. I almost never send an email from my phone. It’s not part of my work flow.

I also don’t practice inbox zero in the strictest sense. Instead of going for zero messages, I shoot for zero unread messages. When I hit that, I color myself done and about once a quarter I’ll archive my inbox to produce true inbox zero.

Finally, if I had to pick on Mailbox for anything, it’s the lack of search. While I seldom do this mobile, I do need this feature.

I’m not saying this is a bad app. I’m saying it’s a bad app for me. It’s a fantastic app and I’m sure it will continue to be even more fantasticer since Dropbox bought them. In fact, as long as you don’t mind a 3rd party having unfettered access to your Gmail account, use your phone as your primary email device (or don’t mind the changes it makes to your inbox) and are ok not having search (for now I would almost bet), I would very much recommend Mailbox.

I’ve started a page here chock full of notes to get your started on your cord cutting. It’s so much easier now that it used to be that almost anyone can do it without trouble. Even if you aren’t looking to drop cable, there is some information on some of the latest bits of gear that you can add to your entertainment system for added features.

So, if this is you, check it out on the cord cutting notes page.

I’m stuck in a bit of a rut during a work trip currently. It’s been a tremendous bore so far and I’ve been, essentially, stuck in a hotel room for the last week and change waiting for something to happen, all the while, nothing does.

To make the best of it, I have been able to sneak out in the mornings to get some exercise in, or a walk on the beach. If you are following on Instagram, you have already seen some of those. Besides iPhone photos, I also have been carrying the Nikon around, just to snap a few photos of things I’ve seen around the resort. I’ve already shared those on Flickr and G+.

I’m really very pleased with how all of these photos have turned out. It’s amazing how nice of a photo you can take when there is a ton of really interesting things to take photos of, with gobs of fantastic sunshine to make the lighting exactly perfect. Of the shots that I have taken with the Nikon so far, these are my favorites.

Lightly processed in Aperture, they really barely needed anything. Just a little bit of white balance adjustment and some saturation of the colors, but just. Everything here really looks pretty much exactly how my camera sees it. These were compressed and resized, but you can view them all in the original resolution at the links above.

Currently, I’m trying to improve the lighting of my shots. Usually I’m shooting in a dark ballroom with red, green or blue LED lighting and it can be quite challenging to get shots that are color correct and well lit. I’ve tried using the built-in flash of my D5100, but we all know how crappy that usually is. To that end, I’ve added a few pieces that I think will help.

The first I got as a Christmas present from Stella and it included a toy dinosaur! The Pop-Up Flash Bounce from Photojojo. It’s a mirror that mounts to your hot shoe, redirecting the flash up instead of straight at the subject. Nice even lighting in room with standard height ceilings.

I’m really pleased with how this device works and really glad that it is now part of my kit. This will be great when shooting indoors where the light isn’t that great. The photos above were taken in our kitchen, with the light being an obnoxious overhead flourescent. This really helped clean that up.

The other flash enhancing device I have recently acquired is the Gary Fong Puffer Pop Up Flash Diffuser. Like the Flash Bounce, it also attaches to the hot shoe of my camera, but instead of re-directing the flash, it disperses the flash more evenly. You can see samples below.

This is a piece I have just started playing with after hearing about it during a G+ hangout with Jason and I’m pretty sure I’m going to get quite a bit of use out of it, especially when I’m shooting for work in dark ballrooms with crazy lighting. The room I shot in above only had filtered daylight coming in, with a little bit of fluorescent lighting coming in from behind. Look closely at the flash, then the Puffer Flash image. You can see the Puffer Flash is much clearer and the lighting is even across the photo.

Cost for both of these pieces is about $60. That’s about half the price of the Nikon Speedlight I have my eye on.

Overall, I’m really pleased with both of these pieces so far and can’t wait to really get to start using them. If there is something that you use along these lines, let us know in the comments!

Disclaimer: The following is concerning networking Apple computers together, using an Apple computer as a server. Windows isn’t mentioned because, for this purpose, it’s not applicable.

Friend of the show, CJ, posed the question above on Twitter earlier. Having a few minutes, we went back and forth on adding a Mac Mini server to a home network. He is looking at replacing an existing Mac Pro and is concerned with file storage. Besides the Mac Mini, he is also considering a Synology DiskStation, which is another great option.

The Synology is interesting in that it is, essentially, a linux server with a custom UI. Within the admin section of the device you can configure it to act as a firewall, mail/web server (complete with WordPress), iTunes media server, DHCP server and even a personal cloud server. All rolled into one device. And, at just a skoosh over $300, a pretty good deal. The biggest con of this is redundancy. The drives are fixed and can’t be swapped without opening the case. You can mirror to another Synology device on the same network (via rsync if you speak nerd) or backup to an external USB drive. The experience that I have had with the Synology has been very positive. It’s reliable and quiet and file transfers are pretty quick.

If your budget has more room, the Mac MINI with an external drive would be a better solution. With the Mac Mini, you get a full O/S computer that can be used as a regular desktop machine. Adding a Drobo or multiple Thunderbolt drives would allow you to extend storage to more than you will probably need over the life of the device. If you are looking to do some cord cutting, that’s another advantage of going with the Mini. Add the Plex Server and app to this machine connected to your home entertainment center via HDMI cable and you have a powerful device that will not only serve your files, but you media as well.

You could go full server on your Mini too, which would get you additional on-board storage and other server only options (user account controls, for example), but if all you need is file serving and you are planning on using external storage anyway, I’d vote against the Server version of the Mini. I’d go with the $599 version, add as much RAM as possible and put the rest toward external storage like a Drobo or a few daisy chained Thunderbolt drives (any of these would be awesome).

If you are looking to have access via Windows machines, the Synology device or a networked Drobo would be a better choice, unless you are looking for a full blow media server/HTPC type device.

Recently, I’ve had another website start to get a bit too large for it’s britches. 1 regulation, class A nasty gram sent (that was missed) and the site was suspended by the host. Why? Resource usage that was 4x what was allotted for that account. Part of the trouble with shared hosting if your site gets popular.

Not to worry, since the host is Site5, I was able to get them to turn the site back on so I could take a shot at reducing the usage and brings things under control. Sure, an upgrade was going to have to happen, but why not try to put that off until after the crazy that is this time of year.

So I donned my labcoat and went to work.

Traffic hasn’t been that much more than normal, and nothing was looking out of the ordinary short of some excessive bot traffic that was quickly blocked. But that was not enough! I trimmed out the plugins, deleted all that weren’t being used and really tuned the cache (WP Super Cache is the one I like). Still thinking there was more than I could, I turned to something I thought I would never do; a GoDaddy Product called WordPress Plugin Profiler (P3).

What it does is check to see what’s happening on your site, which plugin is taking the most resources to execute and display that in a very easy to read graph. I know, strange for a GoDaddy product to be useable, but let’s not digress. After running it, turns out that one of the biggest offenders was our pal Jetpack.

This didn’t please me, even a little. But I started reading around the internet and turns out that Jetpack is, what we call back at the shop, a pig. When it’s installed, everything is running, even the bits that you aren’t using. This isn’t so much a problem on a site where you get low traffic numbers or are rocking things on a your WP Engine account. But on a cheap shared hosting plan with a site getting about 15K uniques a month, it’s a little bit of a problem.

The trick is simple. Go into Jetpack and disable everything that you aren’t using. In my case, it was everything except sharing, stats, publicize and enhanced distribution. Besides those 4 (and Vault Press, which is not free), everything is now switched off and showing blue boxes.

And I’m happy to report that after 22 days of going over the allotted resources, the site has been under 4 days in a row.

If this is you, and you want to avoid the dreaded upgrade as long as possible, you could take one more step and move your data storage to a Content Delivery Network like Amazon S3. That would bring resource usage down even further without having to stop using the plugins that are needed by the site or making radical changes to theme (which aren’t in the budget). You can get more information on doing that on a post from last year.

So, if you want to keep Jetpack around, just take a few minutes to disable all of the bits that you aren’t using. That will keep your host happy and your site cruising along without issues.

Jetpack. By far my favorite plugin for WordPress. So many great features, all rolled into one. It’s pretty damned awesome.

At least it was pretty damned awesome, until WordPress v3.5 was released. Then it was demoted to just ok. It started causing issues with embedded Youtube videos, tossing up some really ugly PHP error messages on the post that had video embedded.

To keep a long story short, you can read all of the details over at the support site. 28 posts later, we have arrived at this post. I actually helped to fix a a major WordPress Plugin. This pleases me.

The shorter version is that there is a plugin out there that is causing issues related to featured images in posts. Actually, it was the lack of a featured image that was causing the issue. The fix is in the post linked up, if you are having the same issue, but I can answer any questions you might have in the comments!