INeedAttention.com

Please, can someone, anyone, explain a legitimate reason that a dollar store would be selling $60 wedding cake candles?

Why do I have a feeling that not too many people are doing wedding planning at the dollar store?  If these wedding cake candles are like anything else at the dollar store (read: made in China), this thing has got to be either made of lead or it will burst into flames when you light it.

Seriously, WTF is this?

The first encounter I had with paid hosting services was Ipowerweb, now known as just Ipower. Their shared hosting service worked well for me for quite a while at a decent price, although I quickly learned that shared hosting was not-so-great when another user on the system was able to turn the server into a massive spam machine, hijacking my HTML in the process. Ipower was particularly clueless about what might have happened, and a later problem with their domain registration services finally put me off for good. So for quite some time now, this site has been hosted on a GoDaddy virtual private server.

A virtual private server allows webmasters to enjoy security and stability benefits of a dedicated server at a lower cost by sharing a larger server’s hardware amongst separate hosting customers. One major drawback however is that the virtual server is usually not supported by the hosting provider, leaving often inexperienced hosting customers to administer their own systems. Being an informed admin, I was prepared for the day when I got the email below:

Dear Peter, Regarding your server -- ineedattention. Due to the security and development improvements to the Fedora System, we will be discontinuing support for the following Operating Systems as of March 15, 2008: [...] Fedora Core 4 [...] We recommend that you upgrade the server as outlined below at your earliest convenience. [...] Once the plan change completes, a server reprovision is necessary. Please note that by doing this; all data on the server will be erased. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you make a backup of your data before continuing. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns which you have in relation to this matter. Thanks again for choosing GoDaddy.com servers. Sincerely, GoDaddy.com

Considering they outright tell you this will re-provision your server and cause data loss if done improperly, I was hoping this would go a little smoother than the last time I had to upgrade my GoDaddy virtual private server, although last time I was upgrading the Plesk interface, and not the operating system. I figured if anything, it would be more of a hassle to upgrade the operating system.

Surprisingly, the transition was relatively smooth with a few strange quirks. Some of the quirks may have been deal-breakers for other admins, but I was pretty lucky to be able to say things are running smoothly again. Read more to find out what went wrong and how things were fixed.

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“I make myself very available.” This attitude leads to both opportunities and annoyances. More often than not, it leads to annoyances. Once of the key annoyances it leads to is spam. Spam arrives in my mail box, my PO box, my email inbox, and now in my AOL Instant Messenger client. But the spam I’ve been receiving isn’t your typical spam that offers cheap prescription drugs, a larger penis, a second mortgage, or an opportunity to help a former Nigerian prince disburse his father’s estate. This was much different. [Read more →]

Drivers in New York, take notice: the next time you forget to wear your seatbelt or break the speed limit, you may find yourself being pulled over by a taxi or a Honda Civic. The police officer may be wearing nothing more than jeans, an undershirt, and the iconic necklace badge seen ad nauseum on television crime dramas.

At a glance, this is nothing new: police agencies use unmarked vehicles for all kinds of official business, ranging from detective work to drug and gang task forces. But recently in Rockland County, the use of unmarked vehicles has become a bit more ambitious.

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All about Brick Breaker

As the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony Playstation 3 vie for sales in the “next generation” of console gaming – the Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry would seem to pale in comparison, if one were to look only at raw gaming power. Yet the BlackBerry has quite the fan base for a mobile device. In fact, some users refer to the device as a CrackBerry because of its addicting nature, however this is mainly because of its email and web features.

As BlackBerry users can attest, the game Brick Breaker, included by default, is itself an addicting game despite its 256 color, 2-D graphics and single-button game-play. This passion for Brick Breaker extends to the highest levels of corporate America – the CEO and Chairman of one of Wall Street’s largest investment banks had to have Brick Breaker uninstalled from his BlackBerry after finding it “too distracting”, only to have it put back on shortly after! His high score – about 16,000.

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