Mark's Tech Notes

What the heck is he talking about you ask?  I was recently told by Intel Server support, that they do not support (or intend to support) using the Intel server diagnostics (Intel® Active System Console) on servers that provide a website using forms authentication (a really common type of login authentication).  I was told that their tools only work if you use ASP.NET authentication on the primary website on your server.

My understanding from them was that if  you authenticate against another database (which many pages do), then you can not check the status of the hardware on your Intel server.  WTF?

Over a year ago, we bought a couple of big Intel servers for a new website that our company was launching.  After several issues getting the hardware delivered, we were finally up and running.  Then, our hardware guy decided to check on the status of the RAID and things went downhill rapidly.

The tools that Intel provides to check the RAID, redundant power supply etc, just generated errors when we tried to start them up.  We spent a lot of time talking to support about this and getting stupid suggestions like “reload all the software” or “reinstall the OS”.  Finally, we had to actually take the machine apart in order to get ALL of the part numbers so that they would escilate the issue.  Apparently it had never occured to them that we might want to use this for a production server where we need it to reliably run 24/7 and not be taken down and taken apart to address unrelated software issues.  I begged and pleeded, but they would not escilate our software issue unless we did this!

After that, there were more delays.  Some days I would get told that they had replicated the issue and were working on it, other days they somehow could not replicate the issue.  This was pretty baffling since it is really simple to replicate and we had been told that they had gotten that far.  Then they returned to suggestions like “try reinstalling the OS and see what happens”.  Did I mention that this was the production server?

Eventually it came out that they assume that  you have a default website set up with the default ASP.NET authentication.  I was told that they do not support any other setup.  This is from what I thought was a serious sever!?

The last email that I got (7/31/2009, now I just get an automatic response when I email) said:

Hello Mark,

We have been informed by engineering that they have not been able to reproduce or fix the issue you are experiencing with your own form authentication. The only recommendation we have at this point is for you to uninstall the Intel® Active System Console completely, install its standard pre-requirements and use the software in the normal way it was intend to be used. If this is not suitable for you then you will not be able to use this software at this point.
Engineering at this point says that the only fact is that your authentication method will not work with the Intel® Active System Console 3.5.1, and the only other option would be for you to provide us with a copy of the software you use on this server and detailed information about the setup and the environment for us to try a more accurate reproduction.

Sincerely,

Jorge S
Intel Technical Support

Maybe I read it wrong, but it looks to me like it says “we can not reproduce the error, but we know that it will only work with authentication method that we intend you to use on your server”.  Seriously?  This is a server, but I can not use it to serve a website?

I have not heard from them since and since then, they don’t even bother to answer emails…

Needless to say, until Intel starts to support what they sell, we have stopped purchasing their equipment.

If anyone at Intel wants to explain this better, it is case number 8969057…

Tags: Intel, Intel Active System Console, Intel servers, Intel tech support, Intel Technical Support, tech support

I am having an interesting issue with my WordPress 2.9.2 blogs.  On one of our computers, when I go to upload a file to it from my computer, I select the file and it says it is uploaded and says “Crunching…”.  Then I just get a blank rectangle with no image. 

• I tried “the Browser uploader instead” but it also failed.
• If I click “Save All Changes” I just get a blank list.

After a while of trying to solve this, I was rather frustrated and decided to try something that has worked for some issues that I had with Google Maps recently.  I deleted all the temporary files (in IE8, go to “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Browsing History” and click “Delete”.  I made sure that “Temporary Internet Files” was selected (you should be able to leave “Cookies” alone so that you keep your account info).

After a while, it was finished and the graphics loaded perfectly!

Tags: add media files, Crunching, IE8, internet explorer, Wordpress 2.9.2, WordPress issues

I have used Drupal for a long time on all of our websites, but recently I needed to set up a simple blog for the Airdrie Cadets.  I needed something that would be really simple for them to use and maintain.

After looking around a bit, I decided to try out WordPress.  Since then, I have started  porting several of my other blogs (including this one) from Drupal to WordPress.  Now, I have seen a number of posts recently on this and I realize that basically there is a lot of religous preference involved (meaning that it is more based on beliefs and gut feelings than any definite provable facts).

This morning I was quickly reminded of why I switched.  Basically, I didn’t need a lot of Drupal’s more advanced features and was starting to find that it was a bit like taking a helicopter to the corner store.  Sure, it is really cool to do, and the helicopter can do a lot, but then you spend hours on maintenance.

So, when I opened up my WordPress site this morning, what did I see? 

• There was a note next to the plugins letting me know that there was an update for one of my plugins.  So I told it to update.
• There was also a note showing how many comments I had and how many the SPAM filter had caught.  So I checked the filter.  It was correct, so I deleted the comments (I could just let it do it too).

All told I was done in a minute or two.  To do the same thing in Drupal took me a lot longer and involved opening various pages to check if there was anything that I needed to do (WordPress gives me a central dashboard highlighting all of this).  To update my Drupal modules, I had to:

•  actually be on the server (or at least have access to the drive)
• download and unzip the module
• copy it into the appropriate directory
• put the site into maintenance mode
• run an update script
• enable the site

Sometimes, this still failed to properly mark the module as updated and I would then keep getting a warning about the module being out of date even if it was not.  Overall, it is a pretty painful process.

To filter my comments, I was actually using a Drupal port of the WordPress anti-spam module, but checking comments was still took a lot longer than   through WordPress.

So far, I have been really happy with the WordPress sites and soon I will probably switch my wife’s main site Green Colored Glasses over to WordPress.  I just can not justify the extra time that it is taking me to keep it running properly under Drupal.

Tags: blog updates, Blogging, compair Drupal and WordPress, Drupal, easy blogging, WordPress