Connect to your box via ssh and run the following commands to create a backup of your site.


cd ~
mkdir Backup
nohup zip -r Backup/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM.zip www/ > backup_log.txt &

(Replace YYYY with the 4-digit year, MM with the 2-digit month, HH with the 24-hour format of the hour, and MM with the 2-digit minute)

cd ~ navigates to your home folder

mkdir Backup creates the backup directory in which the backups will be stored

nohup is short for no hangup and allows processes started by users at the terminal to continue running even after the user logs out

zip is a program which combines many files into one and compresses them to make the end result even more portable

-r tells zip to burrow into all subdirectories in order to grab all of the files

Backup/YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM.zip is the path to the backup file

www/ is the directory to backup (it may be html, htdocs, httpdocs, etc. on your box)

> backup_log.txt redirects all output from zip to the backup_log.txt file so you can review the file later

& tells linux to run the zip program in the background so that you can logout or perform other tasks without killing the process

Now all you need to do is download that zipped file. Use your favorite SFTP client to login to your box and snag it. I recommend FileZilla Client for all platforms. If you’re looking for an FTP server, FileZilla Server is perfect.

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Midway through Heroes: Season 3 I realized how quickly video streaming technology has evolved in the last few years. Think about the multitude of ways you can now get your fix.

• Regular old TV
• Digital Video Recorder (DVR): TiVo, MythTV, cable box DVR
• Hulu
• YouTube (and other video-sharing sites)
• NetFlix’s Watch Instantly
• Networks’ websites (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, etc.)
• NetFlix and Blockbuster DVDs to your door
• Video rental stores
• Red Box (at grocery stores and various other locations)
• On my iPhone using NBC’s mobile player.

EDIT:
Loren brought to my attention another category which I left off entirely, which is software/hardware combos for consuming the aforementioned services:

• Boxee
• Apple TV
• Roku Digital Video Player
• Xbox 360
• LG Network Blu-ray Players
• Samsung Network Blu-ray Players

Just 15 years ago that list was a lot smaller: TV, video rental stores, VCR.

What’s your favorite viewing service?

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Amazon S3 is storage for the Internet. It is designed to make web-scale computing easier for developers.

Amazon S3 provides a simple web services interface that can be used to store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web. It gives any developer access to the same highly scalable, reliable, fast, inexpensive data storage infrastructure that Amazon uses to run its own global network of web sites. The service aims to maximize benefits of scale and to pass those benefits on to developers.

It is simple. So simple.

• Sign up for an account.
• Download and install the awesome S3 Firefox Organizer (S3Fox) Firefox add-on.
• Upload the files you want to be served up like hotcakes.
• Update the links in your HTML files to point to the new location.
  Example: http://s3.amazonaws.com/jeremy/blog/images/large_bandwidth_sucking_header.jpg
  Note that the example is intended to show the format of the URL and does not point to a valid resource.

Too good to be true? Nope. The S3 files are served up lickety split and best of all it takes the load off of your cheap host which allows it to function much more efficiently. So far I have moved my site’s header and the LightBox JS file. Why didn’t I move the other JS files and images? Because Google hosts all of the popular JavaScript libraries for free.

How much does it cost?
Very little, unless your site becomes wildly popular. 1 million requests costs one dollar plus 17 cents per GB transfered. That’s right. 1,000,000 GET requests = $1.00 + $0.17/GB.

Let’s assume the average size of the elements being served from your Amazon S3 bucket is 10KB.
10KB = 0.01MB = 0.00001GB
1,000,000 requests x 0.00001GB = 10GB
10GB x $0.17/GB = $1.70
1,000,000 requests x $0.01/10,000 requests = $1.00
Total Download Cost: $2.70

Your cheap site can now support 1,000,000 requests per month for a whopping $9.65 ($6.95 for BlueHost and $2.70 for Amazon S3). And if your site gets Dugg or on the front page of Reddit, Amazon S3 will scale without sweating a drop.

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While synchronizing the drives, I decided to monitor the progress. What I saw was truly amazing.


jeremy@fileserver1:~$ cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [linear] [multipath] [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]

md0 : active raid1 sda1[0] sdb1[1]
879084736 blocks [2/2] [UU]
[=>...................] resync = 8.1% (71688192/879084736) finish=116.2min speed=115709K/sec


Holy cow! 116MB/s!

That means the SATA bus is processing at least 332MB/s since it has to read the data from one drive and then write the data to the other drive. That’s 2,656Mb/s or 2,656,000,000 bits per second which equates to 2.7 bits per picosecond! I’d like to see anyone do anything 2.7 times in one picosecond.

I figured with this much throughput the CPU would be chugging away. Nope. 4%.

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Tonight I used Speakeasy’s speed test and the DD-WRT’s bandwidth monitor to determine if the QoS was obeying my settings. I think the results speak for themselves.

Up: 300 kbps
Down: 5000 kbps

Down: 4809 kbps
Up: 292 kbps

Down: 4819 kbps
Up: 294 kbps

In this graph you can see both tests. The two pieces of each test are the download and upload portions which ended up being about 4815 down and 293 up. Not bad at all!

I really couldn’t ask for more from my $50 router. Thanks again, DD-WRT!

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Ping statistics for 63.241.192.122:
Packets: Sent = 1177, Received = 950, Lost = 227 (19% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 61ms, Maximum = 478ms, Average = 69ms

The IP address listed above is the last hop before it hits Blizzards’ servers. InternetTrafficReport.com is showing some major issues in North America right now:
Current Index: 83
Average Packet Loss: 4%

Maybe someone needs to reboot teh interwebz

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I decided to do some updates on my desktop computer at home tonight and the download speed was awful. The maximum download speed on my current plan is 90KB/s. That’s not gonna cut it for downloading gigabytes of data in a reasonable amount of time. Hmm…maybe I’ll upgrade my internet connection so the downloads go faster, I thought!

I called Time Warner, waited on hold for about five minutes and then spoke to Dustin, an upstanding young sales rep. I’m embarrassed for Dustin. What. A. Schmuck.

Me: I want to upgrade my Roadrunner internet connection.
Dustin: Ok, our next plan is blah blah blah…
Me: And then?
Dustin: Our standard package. Five megabytes for $39.95 a month.
Me: Five megabytes?!
Dustin: Yes, five megabytes.
Me: Five Mega B-Y-T-E-S?
Dustin: Yes, five megabytes.

Me: Let me speak to your supervisor, please.
Dustin: May I ask why?
Me: Yes, because you don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Dustin: Megabytes, megabits, they’re the same thing.
Me: No they aren’t.
Dustin: Yes, they are.
Me: Let me speak to your supervisor, please.
Dustin: Why, because I don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits?
Me: Yes.
Dustin: I don’t think she’ll let you speak with her.
Me: Make it happen.
Dustin: Hold on, sir.

5 minutes later…

Dustin: My supervisor doesn’t think you need to speak with her about this issue. I’m not in IT, or technical support. Do you want to work for Time Warner?
Me: What?
Dustin: Do you want a job with Time Warner?
Me: No, if I wanted a job with Time Warner I would be working for Time Warner.
Me: Now, can you get me that plan you told me about? The five megabyte plan.
Dustin: Sure, let me put that into the system.
Me: NO! You can’t put it into the system because it doesn’t exist. You don’t have a five megabyte plan! You have a five megabit plan! Now let me talk with your supervisor.
Dustin: May I ask why?
Me: Yes, because Time Warner obviously isn’t training you correctly. The fact that you don’t know the difference between megabytes and megabits speaks to the poor quality of their training.
Dustin: That’s great. It’s not my job to know the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Me: Let me speak with your supervisor.
Dustin: She isn’t going to let you speak with her.
Me: Make it happen.
Dustin: Ok…make it happen.

10 minutes later…

Dustin: My supervisor is going to speak with you and he (somehow mutated sexes during the break) knows the difference between megabytes and megabits.
Me: Good.
Dustin: Hold on while I transfer you to Jocque.
Me: (Hmm…isn’t that a man’s name?)

5 minutes later…

Jocque: Hello sir, how may I help you?
Me: Are you Dustin’s supervisor?
Jocque: Yes.
Me: Well Jocque, I have a problem. Dustin quoted me a 5 megabyte per second connection for $39.95 per month. Can you sign me up for that plan?
Jocque: Haha. No, sir. I would have that plan at home if we carried it.
Me: Well then, can you please teach Dustin the difference between bytes and bits so he doesn’t misquote the plans anymore?
Jocque: Yes, sir. I can do that.
Me: Good. I also wanted to point out that Dustin’s attitude needs some work. Dustin said, and I quote, “It’s not my job to know the difference between megabytes and megabits.”
Jocque: *gasp* That is completely unacceptable.
Me: Yes it is.
Me: Now, what kind of discount can I get for having to deal with that?
Jocque: Let me transfer you to a different rep who will be able to help you.
Me: Ok.

Five minutes later, without hold music to let me know I’m still connected…

Vanessa: Sir? Hello?! Sir?
Me: Yes?
Vanessa: How can I help you, sir?
Me: I want to upgrade my internet connection.
Vanessa: Ok, we have a five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month.
Me: A five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month?
Vanessa: Yes, a five megabyte connection for $39.95 per month.
Vanessa: Ohh…sorry…it’s a five megabit connection.
Me: Did your supervisor just correct you?
Vanessa: Yes.
Me: Good. You need to learn the difference.
Me: Now, what kind of discount can I get for having to deal with this for 45 minutes?
Vanessa: Well, we can upgrade you to the standard plan (5 Mb/s) and it will only add $5 to your account.
Me: How is that?
Vanessa: Well my supervisor authorized me to give you a campaign deal for a year that we’re not running right now.
Me: Good!

So, for $5 more per month I go from 768Kb/s (96KB/s) to 5Mb/s (625KB/s). But I guess really there’s no difference since megabytes and megabits are the same thing!

To any of you who are still confused about the difference, let me make it quite clear:

1 byte contains 8 bits.
There are 8 bits in 1 byte.
A byte is 8 times bigger than 1 bit.
A bit is 1/8 the size of a byte.

MB = megabyte
Mb = megabit

MB = 8Mb
1Mb = 0.125MB

If you’re STILL confused please check out the Wikipedia article on “bit” here.

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~Derek

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When I started jeremyglover.com in 2005 I used MediaTemple. *GAG*. They are overpriced and have horrible quotas for both bandwidth and storage. I searched for a host and found BlueHost. Woo hooo!

All you have to do is take a look at the stats on the right to see how amazing they are. And for $6.95 per month! Hah! Take that, MediaTemple.

When I signed up, BlueHost offered 200GB of storage and 2TB of bandwidth per month. Now they’re up to 600GB of storage and 6TB of bandwidth per month. Wow!

I’ve had nothing but great service from BlueHost.

Thank you BlueHost!

Related posts:

1. Caching With Zend Framework Using Zend_Cache