Installed the app to my phone.. testing it out.

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Thanks.

* MediaTemple recently got hacked and had to change hundreds of thousands of users MySQL passwords, and their weekly chain of emergency maintenance procedures got old two years ago.

Your mileage may vary, however.

See how I eventually connected that unrelated opening into this post’s premise? Wheee…

I’m building a real-time website tracking tool (for me) and since there are so many tools to choose from, the real issue isn’t “is this possible?” but rather “just how do I connect all of this stuff together?”. It’s a true engineering dream for someone who recently got tired of coding their own tools all the time.

Some stuffs:

* I found CodeIgniter, which will become my standard PHP framework. It handles security, user sessions, promotes high-quality coding and has a great database backend which you can use with almost any storage solution you could find.

* I need to track millions of ‘hits’ a day, for under a thousand dollars per month. It’s doable

* The plan is to use one high-capacity DNS provider to round-robin requests to roughly 10 lower-quality dedicated servers, each consisting of the typical LAMP stack, extending to CodeIgniter handing any PHP routing/processing that I want to have done. 10 slower dedicated servers at $50 each would be $500 per month, and that price could fall to $300 per month with proper server configuration.

* MySQL will be used for backups and storage, with either memcached or Cassandra as the primary system used on each request, and saving everything to disk every fifteen minutes or so. Still debating on keeping the entire database in memory, which could be useful should I offer this tool to other users.

* Installing JavaScript on the pages I want tracked (a la Google Analytics, GetClicky, ChartBeat, Woopra, ect) which will POST a xmlhttprequest to the CodeIgniter backend.

Useless, but conservative numbers are as follows..

* Cassandra can handle tens of thousands of requests per second, pretty much out of the box.

* MySQL can handle exactly 12 requests per second (kidding) but it doesn’t matter since it’s on my layer – not the users.

* Apache can handle enough requests per second to not be considered a bottleneck.

* DNS providers better be able to handle the load.

* PHP and CodeIgniter are the slow points, even with caching, acceleration and the whimsical pipedream.

Since PHP itself is the slow point, I might consider just processing everything in JavaScript (in the user’s browser, before it even gets sent to my system) and connected that straight to a memcached/Cassandra somehow. Has anyone ever pulled that off? (might look into JavaScript + memcached scripts at some point)

Given the situation, peak usage could hit 10,000 requests per second with the average being around 500. I’m not tracking web hits for a normal blog – this will be a huge system unlike anything I’ve built before. Anyway, I’m pretty confident that each of the ten LAMP servers can handle 100 requests per second, and the system itself can hold it’s own unless the spikey traffic gets out of control and, well.. that’s a good problem to have

EOF, brain dump over. Thanks for reading

η’βε ρεποσιτιονεδ μυσελφ ον θε υπαδ/υποδ εκοσυστεμ, αντ βυ εξτενσίων ανυ δεβικη θάτ ονλυ ρυνσ αππροβεδ αππς, βυτ στυλλ ινκλύδες α φυλλ βεβ βροωσερ.

θινκ αβουτ αλλ οφ θε αππς αντ προγραμς υου υσε ριγητ νοώ ον βινδοως, μας ως χ αντ λινυξ. χοω μάνη οφ θεμ κουλδ φυνκτίων εντιρελυ βιθιν α βροωσερ, προβιδεδ πρόπερ σκριπτινγκ αντ ρενδερινγκ συππορτ? μυ ανσωερ το θάτ τελλς με θάτ η κουλδ ρεμοβε μυ χαρδ δίσκ φρομ θε τοωερ, λοαδ υπ γοογλε χρωμη (ορ μυ οων ωεβκιτ βερσιόν οφ α βροωσερ) αντ σαβε πρεφερενκες, καχε αντ σεκυρε δατα το α φλας δριβε. υουρ μιλεαγε βίλλ βαρύ, βυτ η’βε νεβερ υσεδ μορε θαν α γβ οφ ηδ σπακε φορ ανυθινγκ οθερ θαν λαργε βίδεο αντ ημαγε φίλες, αντ έβεν θεν θε κοστ οφ στορινγκ θωσε χυγε φίλες ον θε ‘κλουδ’ (α διστριβυτεδ δατα στόρη) ης σιγνιφικαντ;υ χεαπερ θαν θε ακτυαλ κοστ οφ.. βυυινγκ α ηδ.

βυ θε βαυ, η συσπεκτ θε λαργεστ θρεατ αγαινστ μανδατορυ κλουδ στοραγε βίλλ βε “βυτ η βάντ το κεεπ μυ πόρν ον μυ κομπύτερ,” ιν ωηιχ κάσε ονε κουλδ εμπλου α ηομε μεδια σέρβερ. θεϊ’ρε χεαπ, αντ ιν α φεω υεαρς μαυ βε θε ονλυ ηδ υου βίλλ νεεδ ιν υουρ ηομε. θε σεκοντ θρεατ, ορ ρεασων το κεεπ υουρ ολδ δεσκτοπ αππς ης..
φωτοσηοπ.

βεβ-βασεδ αλτερνατιβες το φωτοσηοπ ξυστ καν’τ χανδλε ρεσουρκη-ιντενσιβε φιλτερινγκ αντ ρενδερινγκ, βυτ δεφερρεδ ως μοδυλες (θάτ ονλυ ρυν ωηεν νεεδεδ, λική δελαυ-λοαδεδ δλλς ιν θε βινδοως απί) κουλδ προκεσς αντ ρετυρν χεαβυ καλκυλατιονς ουτσιδε οφ θε βροωσερ σπακε. θης βίλλ οφ κούρσε ρεκρεατε γδη+ (θε 2δ γραφής απί σύστεμ ον βινδοως) ωηιλε βινδοως 7 οφφερς συππορτ φορ αερο τεχνολογι, ωηιχ ης πρεττυ μύχ διρεκτξ (ωηιχ ουσες υουρ βίδεο καρδ αντ οφφερς 3δ καπαβιλιτυ) βυτ θάτ βίλλ βε φιγυρεδ ούτ σώων ενουγη.

θε βαυ μαλικιους σοφτωαρε ης δεαλτ βιθ μαυ βε ιντερεστινγκ το ωατχ. ριγητ νοώ, ιτ’ς α χυγε βυσινεσς φορ ευερυονε βυτ θε κωνσυμερ συνκη θε ινκεντιβε φορ βόθ θε βιρυς ωριτερ αντ αντί-βιρυς προβιδερ ης ιν θε μιλλιονς οφ δολλαρς, αννυαλλυ. ιν θε φυτυρε, η πρεδικτ θάτ εαχ αππλικατιών (ωηιχ υου καν κονκεπτυαλιζε ριγητ νοώ ας α βροωσερ ταβ) βίλλ βε ‘προτεκτεδ’ φρομ θε οθερ αππς, αντ πρέβεντεδ φρομ ρυννινγκ σοδε θάτ βίλλ βρινγκ δοων θε σύστεμ. βινδοως 7 δοές θης, ας δοές γοογλε χρωμη, βυτ βόθ χαβε αλρεαδυ βεεν κομπρομισεδ – βυτ υφ θε φυτυρε’ς κλουδ-βασεδ ως καν φιγυρε θάτ ούτ, ιτ κουλδ εφφεκτιβελυ εντ μόστ οφ θε κωνσυμερ πκ προτεκτίων μάρκετ συνκη αλμοστ αλλ αντί-βιρυς τεστς βίλλ βε προκεσσεδ ιν δατακεντερς βυ εντερπρησε-λέβελ σοφτωαρε.
η γυεσς ιν κλοσινγκ, θης ης ξυστ αλλ μυ θουγητς αβουτ χοω φυτυρε κωνσυμερ κομπυτερς βίλλ βε ρυν, αντ ης μοστλυ βασεδ ον τεχνολογι θάτ βε αλρεαδυ χαβε ιν γοογλε χρωμη αντ ιν οθερ πλάκες, αλονγκ βιθ σομε χολής φιλλεδ ιν βιθ μυ ημαγινατιών.

Think about all of the apps and programs you use right now on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. How many of them could function entirely within a browser, provided proper scripting and rendering support? My answer to that tells me that I could remove my hard disk from the tower, load up Google Chrome (or my own WebKit version of a browser) and save preferences, cache and secure data to a flash drive. Your mileage will vary, but I’ve never used more than a GB of HD space for anything other than large video and image files, and even then the cost of storing those huge files on the ‘cloud’ (a distributed data store) is significant;y cheaper than the actual cost of.. buying a HD.

By the way, I suspect the largest threat against mandatory cloud storage will be “but I want to keep MY porn on MY computer,” in which case one could employ a home media server. They’re cheap, and in a few years may be the only HD you will need in your home. The second threat, or reason to keep your old desktop apps is..

Photoshop.

Web-based alternatives to PhotoShop just can’t handle resource-intensive filtering and rendering, but deferred OS modules (that only run when needed, like delay-loaded DLLS in the Windows API) could process and return heavy calculations outside of the browser space. This will of course recreate GDI+ (the 2d graphic API system on Windows) while Windows 7 offers support for Aero technology, which is pretty much DirectX (which uses your video card and offers 3D capability) but that will be figured out soon enough.

The way malicious software is dealt with may be interesting to watch. Right now, it’s a huge business for everyone but the consumer since the incentive for both the virus writer and anti-virus provider is in the millions of dollars, annually. In the future, I predict that each application (which you can conceptualize right now as a browser tab) will be ‘protected’ from the other apps, and prevented from running code that will bring down the system. Windows 7 does this, as does Google Chrome, but both have already been compromised – but if the future’s cloud-based OS can figure that out, it could effectively end most of the consumer PC protection market since almost all anti-virus tests will be processed in datacenters by enterprise-level software.

I guess in closing, this is just all my thoughts about how future consumer computers will be run, and is mostly based on technology that we already have in Google Chrome and in other places, along with some holes filled in with my imagination.

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Choosing a different path will screw up your groove, Stella.

Allow me to cover my ass with a real life example. I was looking through FaceBook in the nude, as I usually do, and noticed that a rather attractive blonde whom I met in Sophomore swim class was attending the University of Nebraska undergrad economics program. Now I know that trophy wives power our economy like sugar fuels a room full of hyper second-graders, but I just can’t see Barbie McDollface sitting in a library researching macroeconomics, unless it was a brilliantly-planned scene in a million-dollar porno movie.

BRB.

I was half-way through researching how to further explain the above scenario when I got distracted by the second part of this article, which can be summed up as this ugly people provide services to pretty people in exchange for money; ergo know your place or the Earth will crumble.

I just need something that lets me manage a few hundred blogs from one interface, without password prompts every time something is updated.

Above is an older image of one of the computer desks I use.