I’d Run in These Air Max 2009
Oohh, nice. I can definitely see myself running in these new Air Max 2009. This colorway drops at Foot Locker in November.
What the Pho?
What the heck? There’s an actual restaurant called What the Pho?
Yes, yes there is. You can’t make this stuff up!
Seen Over the Weekend
Pictures of things I seen over the weekend.
Foot Locker is making its upstairs return at Ala Moana. Right now, Foot Locker is in the dungeons of the mall.
Here’s an inside peek.
It is true! Build-a-Bear is no longer.
Season or series finale for Janie and Jack kids clothes? This store is looking kinda bare inside. Supposedly it’s to get rid of last season’s stuff, but you never know.
Going with DreamHost Private Servers
Not so long ago, I encountered some technical issues with my hosting provider, DreamHost. The specific server hosting Pulpconnection failed whereupon DreamHost replaced the shared machine. But then things went crazy. Services would fail giving 500 Internal Errors.
Fortunately, one smart cookie, Ryan Kanno, helped troubleshoot the issue. Unfortunately we didn’t find the exact cause of the problem, but Ryan eliminated a lot of possibilities of the potential fault. As a temporary workaround, he suggested I look into dedicated versus shared hosting. That’s where DreamHost’s PS plan came into play.
With a DreamHost Virtual Private Server, you get your own virtual server with protected memory and resources which results in better stability and performance. Nothing sucks like having a down site with all the search engines starting to forget your existence.
The first week of DreamHost PS is free so you can try it out at no risk. One complaint I do have is the time it took for my move to a private server. I submitted my request for PS on a Thursday but didn’t get moved until the following Monday. That’s a long time to upgrade to a “premium” service.
Once my sites were moved to the private server, things felt zippier overall, but don’t expect significant speed increases. We’re going for stability here. That’s when I encountered a second faux pax with my PS move. Although all my files were properly transferred, not all my DNS records were updated so one site would no longer resolve. That entailed another support ticket with DreamHost for resolution. Luckily, that was fixed overnight.
Tech support with DreamHost is kind of hit or miss. I must admit that tech support gets back to you quickly and very courteously. But the resolution of your issue is dependent on the skill level of the customer support agent you get. My original problem went to two different techs. The first helped describe the problem with suggested fixes. The second tech saw a misconfiguration of the server (which I couldn’t see or fix) and made things right. And like I said with the non-updated DNS records, the tech fixed the problem in one shot.
As a premium service, DreamHost PS does cost more. How much more? It depends. Your starting cost is $1/month for each 10 MB of memory, and the smallest memory allocation possible is 150 MB (so $15 per month). That’s in addition to other DreamHost costs you already pay. You can also get a DreamHost PS for MySQL for increased database performance, but this is yet another additional cost. I opted to start small with a standard PS only for web serving and keeping my original (shared) database server.
During the first week trial, your PS is given a whopping 2300 MB of RAM! Keep that and you’re paying $230 extra per month! But to protect you from escalating costs, DreamHost is cool and analyzes your usage over the trial week and automatically sets your RAM. While I love to dream that Pulpconnection is on everyone’s daily read list and I need to allocate plenty of resources to serve up the pulp, I know it ain’t true. So I’m sticking with the recommended allocation of 150 MB of RAM for all my sites. My bill will now be $15 more per month.
Is DreamHost PS worth it? Well, fortunately, I do have corporate sponsorship so the value of paying $15 extra per month is a minimal investment to ensure better site uptime. If I didn’t have this extra finances, I’d stick with a typical shared server and rely on tech support from DreamHost to resolve my original issue.
Zany Articles Around the Web
Some zany articles around the Web:
- 5 Myths of the Male Body
- Television as birth control in India
- Shaq vs. Shaq to challenge stars in their sport? Huh?
- Shaq sans clothes. This is humor, people.
Testing Blip.fm by Giggling Again for No Reason
Just playing with Blip.fm to see what it can do. This should be Alanis Morissette’s Giggling Again for No Reason.
“In Loving Memory…” Humor
You seen those cars with a rear windshield tribute to a departed loved one, right? Check out this joker.
It says, “In Loving Memory of My Youth.” 🙂
Eat That Watermelon!
On Saturday, the extended fam headed to the Hawaii State Farm Fair at the Bishop Museum for some sun and fun. Like last year, the crowds were in full force even though we got there early. We became members of the Bishop Museum to bypass the long line for tickets.
Along with the kinda scary Backyard Monsters insect display, there were farm animals, kiddie rides, and all kinds of food. Here are some pics.
The highlight of the day had to be the Watermelon Eating Contest starring our own family prankster. While he’s not playing tricks on family members, triathlon training, or watching an Alien Ninja beatdown, he’s been known to win some eating challenges. Not the professional competitions, but don’t try to take him on. He’ll handily beat you as the crowds of the Hawaii State Farm Fair witnessed.
Let you witness the domination as well.
Watermelon Eating Contest at the Hawaii State Farm Fair 2009 from Gee Why on Vimeo.
Yes, the challenge wasn’t even close, and yes, that guy in black did upchuck pink puke! If the timing is right, maybe the reigning champ can defend his title next year. Time to start the hype!
Update: the lone female in the contest is none other than Martha, a contributor of ShareYourTable.com where she blogs her experience at the Farm Fair.
Homeless’ House
Not trying to be mean to Hawaii’s homeless or anything, but I was somewhat impressed with this getup.
Vote in Honolulu Weekly’s Best of Honolulu
Lookee, lookee, Honolulu Weekly has its annual readers’ poll asking for the Best of Honolulu. There are many subsections of the poll, but under the heading of “The Medium,” there are some pulpy topics like:
- Best Twitterer
- Best use of social media
- Best local blog
Hmmmm, I wonder how’d I vote for these? For Best Twitterer, I have three choices: @ryankanno, @neenz, and @hawaii (they all influence me according to Klout). But I think my nod would have to go to @neenz for the sheer volume of useful and aloha-spirited tweets she publishes.
Best use of social media would have to go to KGMB9 News. Within the past year, this news station blitzed the social media landscape getting workers to blog and now tweet. The recorded and streaming news broadcasts are cool, and of course, you can’t overlook their interactive News at 5, getting input from the Twitterverse.
Best local blog… Um, of course, I’d have to push pulpconnection.net. That’d be a no brainer, but if I can’t vote for my own work then I have to go with the aptly named Hawaii Weblog. Ryan Ozawa has been blogging the Aloha State and Beyond forever, and his coverage of Hawaii-based issues is always excellent.
What about you? How would you vote? Go ahead and make your choices.
For your ballot to be considered complete, you need to fill in at least 10 entries from the entire poll. All votes must be submitted by July 31, 2009.
And don’t forget to vote pulpconnection.net for best local blog. 😉
Looking for Wireless Headphones
I’m looking for wireless headphones as a gift. Rechargeable batteries, decent sound, works through walls. Looks like a solid product is the Sennheiser RS120 926 MHz Wireless RF Headphones.
Plus until the end of July, there’s a deal for a free set of CX 300 in-ear headphones. Awesome deal!