Jeremy Phillips

The graph of time spent downloading a page from Google Webmaster Tools pretty much speaks for itself. May & June = Dreamhost, July = Server In My Garage Hosted On A Cable Modem.

I’ve decided to take a slightly different approach with my tech consolidation. Instead of Windows Home Server I’m going to consolidate my multiple boxes down to a single SBS 2008 box EDIT: plus whatever else I need for my studies. Not exactly sure of the path I’m going to take yet. My current systems are deployed as (1) DC/File/Print (DIONYSUS), (1) Exchange 2007 (HERMES) & (1) Debian Linux box that doesn’t do anything anymore. For the whole process I’m thinking something along the lines of this;

1. Reinstall Debian Linux box with 2008 x86 as BRAVO. Promote to DC in existing domain, transfer all FSMO roles.
2. Move all data from DIONYSUS to BRAVO temporarily.
3. Dcpromo to remove DIONYSUS from domain.
4. Reconfigure DIONYSUS hardware. Pop out old 2.0GHz x86 Xeons, replace with new 3.2GHz x64 Xeons.
5. Install SBS 2008 on DIONYSUS. Rename box to ALPHA as I’m tired of typing the names of greek gods.
6. I’m aware I could use the existing domain through some interesting contortions but I would honestly rather not. I’m going to build a new domain from scratch.
7. Export mailbox data from HERMES, import to mailboxes on ALPHA.
8. Move SSL cert from HERMES to ALPHA. <– Is this any harder than moving it from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007?
9. Change static NAT entries on SonicWall to repoint mail.domain.tld to ALPHA. DNS won’t need to be changed.
10. Move user file share data from BRAVO to ALPHA, remap file shares on all workstations. Re-join workstations to new domain.
11. Shutdown HERMES.
12. Dcpromo BRAVO to remove old domain entirely.
13. Dcpromo BRAVO to function as second DC/DNS for new domain.
14. Reinstall MozyPro on ALPHA to ensure everything is backed up.

Let me know anything I’m obviously missing. It’s been a long time since I’ve done much with SBS so I’m sure there is something I’m not thinking of.

I’ve got a large selection of movies from DVDs I’ve ripped (yes, I own them all) that are currently served to the Tivo by DIONYSUS using pyTivo (highly recommended btw). I’m going to leave those movies on BRAVO, install pyTivo there and call it good. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with HERMES but I’ll figure something out eventually.

Although I doubt it does, I have still yet to get an answer on whether or not this affects my business class cable connection. Since I pay a hefty premium for it I would be somewhat upset if it does, but…

For those of you on residential connections, be aware. It’s supposedly ‘protocol agnostic’ but Comcast has a history of screwing the pooch.

Comcast Internet throttling is up and running- The Inquirer

If you can read this, you’re hitting the new server which is sitting in my mini-datacenter in the garage. Comments on speed and appearance would be appreciated.

I upgraded my Sprint Q9c to WM 6.1 last night and so far have been fairly impressed. The exception would be that I lost all my personal settings but everything I really care about is synced to Exchange, so it was a quick 10 minute reconfiguration.

There are quite a few things I absolutely love;

1) The Delete key in E-mail is the left soft key again. I was pissed when I moved from WM5 to WM6 and found that I had to hit Menu -> Delete -> Yes every time I want to delete an e-mail. I get 40k messages a month and while the majority end up in the correct folders via rules, I end up deleting quite a few out of my Inbox manually still. This has made my life simpler.

2) I’m not sure if it’s true but that data seems a bit snappier. I just ran this speed test with the phone tethered to my laptop. I used to get in the mid 300s down when tethering. Even ActiveSync connections appear quicker somehow.

3) Threaded IMs – THANK YOU! This is an amazing feature, turning txt conversations into IM like conversations. Amazingly simplifies my life.

4) The new home screen. This is just beyond cool and amazingly useful.

The only feature that it is lacking, and I desperately need, is QoS. I run a lot of torrents (I’m a Linux ISO fanatic, collecting every ISO of every distro I can find) and I also run a VoIP PBX (3CX) with a SIP trunk to VoicePulse Connect. Unfortunately VoIP & BitTorrent don’t play well together without QoS of some kind.

Solution? I used to be a big fan of pfSense so I’m going to give it another shot. I’ve got a spare Dell PowerEdge 1550 (2xPIII 1.0GHz, 2048MB, 1x18GB U160 SCSI, 2×10/100 LAN) and just downloaded the pfSense 1.2 ISO. I shall go forth and install now!