Review

I'm working on a video conferencing project for a client that does work in India. We wanted to set up a video link between the USA and India that would allow weekly status meetings and to help build relationships between staff in both countries. After looking at various solutions from PCs with Webcams to very high end systems, we ended up picking up some used Polycom VSX 5000 Video Conference devices (1 for each end) and hooking them up to a 40" Samsung 720p LCD TV in the USA and a 22" Samsung LCD monitor in India.

I really like this little laptop from ASUS. I tested the 4gb model running the installed linux and was very pleased with the features, functions, and capabilities of the system.

I bought the unit for $320, including shipping, and was pleased when I opened the box and found a lightweight power supply, a cute little laptop, and an XP driver CD.

I picked up a Nokia N800 internet tablet for a project I'm doing for a client. We wanted an inexpensive wireless access device for a warehouse control project. Since the custom application is web-based (using SugarCRM as the base), we needed something that would handle full web browser functionality in a hand held package. The N800 fits the bill with a few caveats.

UPDATE: I no longer use yourserving.com because their customer support staff forwarded my email to a hacker's account, without any security verification, based on just an email support ticket request from a gmail account that was unrelated to me. This allowed the hacker to hack my domain hosting account access my domain name inventory and attempt to transfer away one of my valuable (3 letter!) .com domains. The attempt failed because of the security monitoring by my domain name host, but I figured that since it was easier for a hacker to get a support ticket processed than it is for me when I ask for support, maybe I'd better switch providers.

I switched to yourserving.com in August 2007. I didn't have all the details at the time I switched other than I would be getting a 256mb VPS with 40gb of disk and 200gb of data transfer per month.

I moved from a shared hosting server with 220 other domains and a first-page-to-display start time of 15 seconds to a Virtual Private Server (VPS) with dedicated resources (memory, processor, processes, namespace...) and a less than 1 second first-page-to-display start time. The cost went from about $10 per month to $30 per month, but so far, I think the increased speed and extensive access (ssh command line) makes it more than worth it.

I'm going to document what I learned since switching, but first, a word or two about the configuration of my new server...

Avoid nodevice.com. The site offers downloads of commonly available files, including service manuals (which is what I wanted) for a 1 day, 1 month, or 1 year subscription.

I have to say I'm really impressed with Acronis. I've used their products for a couple of years, ever since I started using their backup/disk upgrade software product called "EZ Gig II" version 6 to upgrade and backup a laptop. This was after suffering a painful recovery process using traditional backup methods.