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Why does VPS hosting take so long to setup?
Update: After 3 days, I finally got my activation letter. It took a post to WebHostingTalk to get JVDS' attention. It seems that the activation email was sent, but it never landed in my inbox.
This is the 2nd time I've signed up with a VPS provider and it's taken too long for my account to be set up. Linode took 16 hours to set it up when they promised:
Apply now and your account will be activated within hours!
16 hours does technically qualify as "within hours", but it's a mighty long wait. But I do understand that there's a lead time needed to setup a VPS so it's acceptable.
But now that I'm intending to switch from Linode to JVDS (for reasons which I'll expound in an entry in the near future), and I'm again left waiting, this time for more than 34 hours (at the time of writing). And this after sending in 2 support emails asking about activation, and being told that the account details will be given to me "shortly". Sigh. Even the expensive (comparatively) The Planet dedicated server that I ordered for my company was built within 12 hours. And I signed up with JVDS because of their excellent reviews in WebHostingTalk. They may be mighty quite to reply to support tickets and emails, but what good if you can't deliver. I wonder if I'm just unlucky. Maybe the dedicated host on which they were setting up my VPS blew a hard drive.
And so I wait... And I wait...
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WordPress hosting up for grabs
Update: All gone! Thanks everyone!
Update: seeing how pathetic the (non-)response has been, I've lowered the donation amount to USD2. C'mon people. Even as a gift for your non-tech-savvy uncle/auntie/grandma who wants to blog, it's a good deal!
Update: There
are 3 of the accountsis 1 account left. Thanks Jannah and Phu for making the donations to WordPress!Jeff Holman of Revise Media wrote me awhile back to put up ads for his new WordPress weblog hosting service, and I gladly agreed because I was kind of a WordPress fan (caution: heavy understatement in use). His ad is on the left where you've probably been seeing it for awhile (if you're not reading via a feed reader). (On the subject of ads, well, they fund the webhosting for this blog and then a little more.)
Anyway, Jeff offered to give me 5 Plus plans (1 year subscription) for free to give away to you, my dearest readers. There was supposed to be some contest, but I gave up trying to think of a good idea for one. So I spoke with Jeff on this other idea I had and he has agreed to let them go for a donation to WordPress (rather than for "free").
Well, the Plus plans are going at $9.95/year each, and I ask of you to make a donation to WordPress of at least
$5$2 (this amount was of my choosing). Write me first (or leave a comment) if you're thinking of donating and claiming a free Plus plan - Jeff has 5 of them for me to give away. -
Half-Life 2 goes gold, we think
Voodoo Extreme: Half-Life 2 Submitted to Euro Agencies. Gamespot Rumor control: "Half-Life 2 is gold... Not bogus."
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Search Keys Firefox extension for the accessibility and the keyboard-loving
Jesse Ruderman has just rolled out the amazing Search Keys Firefox extension that:
lets you go to search results by pressing the number of the search result instead of clicking
Its premise is simple, but it's so darn useful to people like me. I'm a keyboard- and keyboard shortcut-loving person, so this is another extension I've added to my must-install list (of extensions). I can imagine this does heaps for accessibility as well.
It works in "Google, Google News, Google Groups, Google Desktop Search, del.icio.us, and Bugzilla" at this time (most important being the Google support of course). You can see the numbers next to the links in Google search results pages, and you can open the link you want in a new tab by pressing Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2 and so on.
It also works for del.icio.us bookmark links.
A big pat on the back for Jesse.
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Half Life 2 review in PC Gamer (and Vampire: Bloodlines)
I went to get some DVD+Rs today (TDK 8X DVD+R RICOHJPNR02) and went to the magazine rack to look for the issue of PC Gamer with the exclusive review of Half-Life 2 (it was all over the web and even Slashdotted). And there it was calling out to me to buy it for SGD7 (SGD1 ≈ USD0.60). Well, I used to have a subscription to PC Gamer when I was a hardcore gamer a few years back, even though it cost ridiculously high compared to the USD1.99 per issue you can get in the US. Anyway, enough with the life story... Check out the PC Gamer December issue cover (at IGN.com).
Just finished reading the review (it got 98%, if you don't know by now), and damn I'd so like to get my hands on a copy of Half-Life 2 (no, it's not out yet) to play with the Zero-Point Energy Gun (aka the Gravity Gun). And maybe shoot down some Striders.
The recommended system requirements are a little worrying though - the low end 3D card is an ATI RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB, which PC Gamer equated to be the same as a GeForce FX 5700 128MB. I only have a (now) crappy GeForce FX 5200 128MB. I do have a 3.0GHz HyperThreading processor, but that hardly helps when the graphics card is the bottleneck. Upgrade? Sigh.
And what's more in this issue, there's also a hands-on scoop on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. What a game this could turn out to be. To tell the truth, I'm marginally more excited about this game than Half-Life 2 (I am, first and foremost, a CRPG player). I thoroughly enjoyed the original Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption and even read the Vampire: The Masquerade novels. I mean, you get to play a vampire from 1 of 7 of Camarilla clans and experience the Vampire: The Masquerade world in its Source engine glory. What's not to like?
The waiting is the hardest part. Please let them be released on November.
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