Dedicated Servers, VPS, Colocation and Everything Else!

We’ve been testing the deployment software linmin and so far I’m pretty happy with it.  The support we’re receiving from them is out of this world.  We’ve run into some snags deploying Windows 2003 onto the Supermicro hardware but the linmin staff are working diligently to get this problem solved.  Leave it to us to find hardware that doesn’t actually work with their system.  So far we’re the only one’s with linmin that has had a problem.

Anyone looking for a bare metal  installation system should definitely check this out.

This video is pretty funny to a techie who has been involved in the hosting industry since before SPAM was an issue. This takes place and the RIPE conference from this year.

We’ve come across an interesting problem with the Supermicro X7DA8 motherboard and Antec power supply. Evidently there is a voltage issue on the 12v side that sometimes causes the motherboard to not fully power up. We have confirmed this compatibility issue with both Supermicro and Antec. This problem can be eliminated in a few ways:

• Run one Xeon processor and fan instead of two
• Run no more than 4 GB of RAM with 2 Xeon processors
• Replace the Antec power supply

Obviously the third solution is the best but may not always be feasible in a pinch. We have decided to take the third option and replace all the power supplies on the Xeons that have this combination. In 90% of cases it is not a problem, if the machine powers on it will stay on. However, in the other 10% we see some irregularity and we make the swap to a new power supply.

I bought an Iphone the weekend they came out, got the 8 GB version. I’m one of those people that always has a problem with their cell phone. I’ve tried dozens of phones over the past few years. My main requirements are:

1. Clear Reception
2. A loud volume speaker (talking in the data center can be tough!)
3. Reliable Email
4. A usable web browser
5. A good calendar

I came close when I was using the blackberry 8700.  The main problem with that phone is that if you aren’t using the blackberry enterprise server it only uses POP3 email.  When you get the volume of email I do everyday that just won’t do.  The web browser was junk but most of all the microphone picked up every little noise.  Whenever I would be at the data center or in the car people would tell me it sounded like I had all the windows down and was driving 70 mph.

So I’ve had the IPhone for a few months now and I have to say, this is the best phone I’ve ever had.  Yeah it has a few shortcomings but all in all this is a quality piece of hardware.  The email client is fantastic and the browser is great.  Having wifi is a great option also.  I highly recommend this phone to anyone looking to upgrade.  Some might say that it only works on ATT and thats a problem for them but I’ve never had a problem with their service any where I’ve traveled.

As for the people who bought the phone and cracked it then complained that Apples new software updates are breaking it, get a clue.  I just read about a guy who is suing Apple and ATT claiming that they sold him a phone he could only use on one network and he couldn’t customize.  Well what phone can you really customize and expect the manufacturer to cover under warranty?   All these people who are complaining knew full well when you bought the phone that it only worked on ATT.  They also knew that Apple didn’t support any of these third party applications.  I don’t think Apple is doing anything wrong here other than trying to support their product and make it reliable.  If you want a phone that doesn’t work, constantly crashes and is a substandard piece of hardware then get yourself a Windows Mobile phone

Many of our customers have noticed that we launched a new site this week. I’m proud to say I designed everything, except that I got softairltda.com to customize our kayako desk and my good friend Leigh at bannaz.com did the flash on the index page. Softairltda did a fantastic job by the way, it only took them about 48 hours when the estimated time was two weeks. I’m not a great designer but I’m pretty proud of this site and I learned a lot along the way. 95% of the site is done with div tags and css, which is the most I’ve ever done in a site. I know a lot of people have been doing sites that way for years but I don’t get to design much while I’m running this place!

The launch of the new site also ushers in some new services for Razor. We’ve been offering them for a while now but now we’ve created packages for everything. The most requested was a backup service and I think we’ve come up with a great service at a rockin’ price. The one that gets me most excited are the VPS packages. I’ve wanted to offer VPS for a long time and I’m extremely confident that it will be successful. Other new services include Xeon Servers, VOIP, Merchant Accounts and a few others.

So take a minute (or an hour) and go check out the design. New Razor Site

I’m excited that we’ve started doing this blog. Hopefully it will become a resource for customers and friends alike. We’ll be having news about Razorservers.com here but we’ll also have reviews about hardware, networks, fun stuff and probably a lot of things I can’t even think of right now. Look for a lot more information here over the next few months and hopefully, years.