syamsul's domain

It has been 2.5 years now since I changed hosting providers for this blog.

As you (probably don’t) recall, this blog began its life on Blogger. Not satisfied with the limitations of Blogger (which has since joined the Google family), I was excited to discover WordPress which I then found the super affordable Focushub to host on. A year or 2 later, I needed a little more and went on to hosting by Oryon Networks (by the way, Oryon Networks is an EXCELLENT webhosting – the hosting is incredibly speedy and any emails and support tickets I sent to them were responded to in about an hour or less – even on weekends!)

Today, I’ve finally made the next step, from a hosted solution (Blogger) to a shared hosting (Focushub & Oryon Networks), and now a Virtual Private Server (VPS).

Now what is a VPS you ask? Basically it works almost like a dedicated server, only that it’s much cheap since you’re paying for a virtualised instance of a dedicated server, utilising a fraction of its resources (CPU, RAM and hard drive). The advantage of using a VPS is really root access – you can install ANYTHING, compared to a shared hosting environment. You also have more RAM available to you, where in a shared hosting environment this will be shared with all the other websites on the same server (probably up to 150 or so – or even more, if the hosting provider engages in overselling!).

So why isn’t everyone on a VPS? Even though the prices of VPSes have fallen rather dramatically especially recently, you do need to be a little more adept technically as you have to essentially become a system administrator for a (virtualised) server. Asking for easy-to-use control panels like cPanel, or even getting the hosting company to manage the VPS for you will incur additional (and sometimes, substantial) costs.

For me, I’ve come to a stage where I’m willing to learn how to manage my own (virtual) server. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that my hosting provider also offers semi-managed services for free i.e. hand holding for times I mess up bad

In preparation for the launch of my school’s blogs community site, I set about migrating the school band’s website over to the WordPress MU platform.

Now, the Band site was running on Joomla 1.0x. It featured an integrated Gallery2 for photographs, MSO Shoutbox for a shoutbox and discussion forums via the Joomlaboard component. Alas, the site was getting dozens of spam posts (including some from Band haters??) What this meant was that there were several registered users that were undesirable and ought not be transferred to the new site.

Importing posts from Joomla was very fast and easy thanks to the Joomla2Wordpress Import Wizard. Static content were not imported and I had to copy-and-paste the content into Wordpress manually, though this probably wouldn’t have been necessary had I first migrated the site to Joomla 1.5 and assigned categories to the static pages.  Images didn’t seem to transfer well though, and needed to be re-inserted manually too. Users were not imported, which was also fine with me.

The Joomlaboard migration on the other hand was not quite as straightforward and needed  a bit more searching. The ubiquitous phpBB3 or SMF would be too massive for the site’s purpose, and a fast loading forum was a priority, which lead to the decision to use PunBB. But the complication was that the Joomlaboard project seemed to be defunct and there did not seem to be any direct way to import it directly into PunBB. So in the end, the migration process would be

Joomlaboard –>upgrade to  Fireboard –> import to phpBB2 –> import to punBB

Here’re the links to the relevant pages and downloads:

• Fireboard 1.04 component
• Fireboard to phpBB2 import script ( I used the XMAS Script 0.3. Also note that it imports to phpBB2, not 3)
• PunBB Migration Tool 1.40

The migration tool only worked for PunBB 1.2x though, but the import did complete successfully without hitches. After verifying everything was OK, I then upgraded the install to PunBB 1.3 with no problems encoutered. All users and posts have been migrated successfully from Joomlaboard to PunBB True the forum and blog are no longer closely integrated (an intentional move), but the forum’s latest posts are reflected via an RSS feed block.

In all, the migration went very smoothly and the most time consuming part was sourcing for the best migration path.

Now, the next step would be to determine what is the best way to integrate Gallery2 (visually) into WordPress, and check out viable shoutbox type blocks that can be moderated (even more important now that the site is more closely integrated with the school websites).

With the launch of the Jesus phone iPhone locally, I thought it would be a nice time to take a look back at all the mobile phones I’ve owned…and also see how far phones have come.

Siemens S25

My first ever mobile phone, it was really advanced in in its time, featuring 8-colour screen at a time when most phone displays were still monochrome! Very sturdy and had much better reception than most other phones available at that time. Got it for FREE too with my first 2-year contract with Starhub in 2000.

Siemens SL45i

The black-and-orange was a step down from the S25, but it was the first ever mobile phone to feature actual MP3 playback! Yes, play MP3s! The included (proprietary) headphones sounded pretty good too. Bought it with my second ever paycheck in 2002.

Sony Ericsson T610

Finally made the jump to a color mobile phone. The interface was intuitive with nice icons and the phone even had a built-in camera too! No more antennae either. Bought this in early 2004.

Motorola RAZR V3

It wasn’t easy to resist the phone. Its sleek metallic finish and futuristic clamshell design are stunning even today. Its amazingly slim size and light weight meant it was infinitely pocketable. The interface was not quite as intuitive as the Sony Ericsson’s though. Traded the T610 in for this in mid 2005.

Palm Treo 650

I’d always hated the fact that I was lugging my phone, PDA, iPod and camera everywhere I went, so when I stumbled on the (second-hand) Treo 650 being sold at an amazing price, I just jumped on it. This phone did not disappoint – Palm had clearly tweaked the Palm OS so that we would have a smartphone rather than a phone with an operating system for PDAs tacked on. Of course, having the ability to run the thousands available Palm OS apps didn’t hurt either. The only thing was, I really hated the antennae – something I hadn’t had to contend with in 4 years! Voice quality wasn’t too hot either. So I had this for all of 2 months in late 2006 before replacing it with…

Palm Treo 680

Ah, an update to the Treo 650. Slightly slimmer, better voice quality and slightly improved interface too. Thumb typing was amazingly fast on this phone and finally got me to send hundreds of SMSs every month..Bought this in early 2007.

Palm Centro

A repackaged Treo 680 essentially – but smaller, slimmer and lighter, had longer battery life and was more stable. Yes, no longer could my colleagues joke about me lugging around a “brick weapon” which was my Treo! The thumb board was changed – the keys were smaller, but ended up being even easier to use because of its elevated and rubbery feel. Probably my last phone with Palm OS inside….Bought this in early 2008.

So what will my next phone be? Will it be another Palm – whether Windows Mobile or Palm OS Nova-flavoured? Or the iPhone? Or even a Blackberry? One thing for sure – it’ll definitely be another smartphone!

While I’m still an avid Palm user ( I presently use the Palm Centro phone), it saddens me to see that the pace of software development for Palm OS devices has slowed down dramatically in just a few years. It’s also annoying that recently available iPhone applications appear to be more attractively priced than most Palm OS applications :p

So it was nice to see efforts like MobileHeist coming along

Even more exciting though is the beautiful form factor for the leaked and soon-to-be-released Treo Pro

Yes, it’s Windows Mobile – something I’m not planning to switch to. But if Palm’s next new Palm OS phone looks anything like this, it just might stave me off the iPhone for a while yet!

Whoever could have imagined when the iMac was first introduced by Steve Jobs 10 years ago

that it would evolve into something like this?

Throughout its many incarnations, the iMac has never ceased to amaze with its unique visual looks and ease of use.

Enjoy a video of Steve Jobs’ introduction of the very first iMac way back on 15th August 1998!