What’s happening with our projects
We had to undergo another server change. This one was necessary due to poor server performance on behalf of FDC Servers and their VDS infrastructure.
Because the last server we leased was located in the FDC Servers data center, but not under their management, we wanted to keep all our data within 10 minutes of driving distance. But that was not the the reason for the switch. The issue was that renting a dedicated server from FDC Servers, with decent configuration, would have cost me beyond what I was willing to and more so able to spend every month. We had to settle with leasing a virtual dedicated server. This did not work out very well, because FDC is using VZ for their virtualization software. We use Webmin and Virtualmin, and those two in conjunction with MySQL just do not work very well with VZ. The server would hand ever couple of hours and become inaccessible from the outside, that resulted in a lot of down time and very poor performance from the hosted websites. Toped with countless hours of lost productivity, due to the slow performance of the system, something had to be done.
After some hunting we ended up leasing a server from ThePlanet. We did not want to lease from any other data center in Chicago, because of stories we were told negative customer experience. We are very happy with ThePlanet and the performance we are receiving from the dedicated server we are leasing from them.
Due to increasing costs of operation the host, from which our server was being rented, closed its doors yesterday. Because of the number of sites hosted (not yet listed on the MFI website, but a list and a short description can be viewed on the Hive Minds Hosting website), and the comfort of being in control of a server and its resources, and because we like to keep our data close, we decided to move everything to a VPS - a virtual private server, rented from the same data center in the CBOT building, where our last host had collocated its servers. It was a fast and affordable solution for the situation.
Because the VPS servers, FDC Servers offers, are simply server shells, the last 5 days were spent looking through RPM repositories, installing and configuring software. Work often ended early in the morning, about 2:30 AM every morning. But service interruption went pretty much unnoticed, because the server setup and the data migration were completed on time. It is good to have a sufficient notice when vital changes are about to take place.
Just about a week ago I acquired Morpheed.com. I came across Morpheed.com, again last week, as I was looking through some of my thousands of bookmarks. As I was browsing through the site I noticed that it was listed for sale. So, I decided to buy it and see what I can turn it into.
What is Morpheed.com?
Morpheed is a RSS aggregator. In addition to headlines aggregation, the site provides job opportunities for freelancers by aggregating listings from variety of job related feeds and sites, as well as CSS tutorials. Morphed’s backend is Wordpress, which I was surprised to find out, because I never looked at Wordpress as a RSS aggregator tool. But in the end, Wordpress has come a long way in its development and now can qualify as almost an accomplished CMS (Content Management System), especially with its extendibility through plug-ins. Currently Morpheed runs on three separate installations of Wordpress. In addition, the headline categories are somewhat concentrated on specific companies (Apple, Google and Microsoft), instead of general terms like travel or sports.
What is next for Morpheed.com?
The first thing I am going to do is bring the site from operating on three independent Wordpress installations to one. This will make easier managing the various sections of the site (headlines, jobs and css), as well as adding other sections in the future without having to install Wordpress once again. Following that, I will restructure the headlines’ categories. Articles need to be better calcified and thus easier to browse. A contact and “include my feed” forms will be added as well.
After the above are completed, I will look into adding more sections to the site and a possible redesign.
More to come for Morpheed.com in the future. In the mean time go on Morpheed and see what is happening in the world.