GoDaddy Shared Hosting vs. 1and1 VPS

I currently have a Linux shared hosting with GoDaddy.  I wanted to get some flexibility with the server and thought of moving to a VPS.  After much research, I finalised on 1&1 (1and1).  And then started my nightmare.  The basic VPS provided by 1&1, has 512MB 'Guaranteed' RAM and 2GB of burstable RAM.  However once the RAM reaches about 200MB, other resource limits will bring the server down.

The rest of the article has moved to http://blog.sukoonghar.in/2012/02/16/godaddy-vs-1and1-hosting/

1and1 VPS for vBulletin - 1 - Plesk Setup

I recently decided to move from GoDaddy shared hosting to VPS.  Finding a VPS wasn't tough.  What was tough though was to find one that was cheap and gives a ton of features.  Now that took me a while and I zeroed on 1and1.com.  Their VPS Linux L server seemed to fit my bill.

Now started my ordeal.  Nor was I a Linux expert nor had I managed a VPS before.  Then came internet to my rescue.  I found a lot of helpful posts and I've started to move along.  In this blog I'll write down all that I encounter and the solutions I found that helped to overcome them.

Steps:

1. Login to Parallels Power Panel.  Go to "Container Services"--"System Services" and start "mysqld" and "psa" services.  Also enable auto start.
2.  Login to Parallels Plesk Control Panel.  I'm currently on Plesk version 10.1.1.  Plesk version 10.4.4 is available.  So I upgraded Plesk.  For this go to "Server Management"--"Tools & Utilities"--"Updates".  A new window opens and shows that Component upgrades are available.
   
   
   Instead I choose "Upgrade Product".  This will upgrade Plesk as well as upgrade the components as well.
   
   
   Once the upgrade completes, I get a confirmation.
3. Then re-login to Plesk.  You will get T&C to agree.  Click on 'Agree' and if you wish mark 'Do not show again' as well.
   

The Urban Civil War

We hear about recent trends in urbanisation.  The rate of growth of people in major Indian cities has been more than what the administration had predicted.  This brings huge challenges to the existing infrastructure & resources in these cities.  The pushes & pulls finally starts to show in different ways, most of them are not very pleasing.  Take the incidents in Mumbai - people turning against north Indians.  These and other 'sons of soil' policies in other cities are not very pleasant & has the potential to bring India to a near civil war kind of situation.  And by that the growth stories of one of the most promising Asian economy is going to come to a stand still.  There may be a few countries in our immediate neighborhood who would be happy to see such a turn of events.  However it will be a serious blow to us & for the world at large.  With the kind of politics & administration that we have in the country now, it will be next to impossible to recover in a generation or two from such a position.

EconomicTimes Top 5 Picks Analysts Performance

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The stock markets are throwing up surprises everyday.  One thing is for sure that this is not a bull run.  The market is definitely heading south, however there are instances of up trend and everyone starts wishing the markets to continue the same up trend.

In the middle of all this there are plenty of analysts who are trying to guess the market direction and its mood.  You can find these analysts predictions in all business newspapers and websites.  There are even websites fully dedicated to making these predictions and claim to be making money for you.  Or are they just making money for themselves?

I'm not very financially well versed.  I try to read the articles and figure out what is right, what is wrong, when to invest and in which company.  However the innumerable analysts and their predictions makes it difficult to put my trust behind any one of them and follow them blindly.  In my effort to figure out who amongst the many have been able to make the 'right' analysis and who have had more hit rates, I couldn't find just a statistics.  There are many who claim they can predict the market, but no info about how many of them have correct.  I understand no one would be 100% accurate, but who have got it right the majority of the times?

I think since there is no such comparison data available, it will not give much incentive for these analysts to do a thorough analysis.  Not that most of them may not be doing that.  However I'm sure there would be some at least who would be gaming the people.

So I went about zeroing in on EconomicTimes newspaper.  It publishes "Top 5 Picks" of the day and "Mid Term" predictions from analysts.  I created a page where I plan to put in these predictions along with the analysts info.  I have a few scripts that would track the market and see if the stop loss was triggered or the target.  I just started this today and am not sure how the things will turn out.  I'll write an update is about a month's time to see how this experiment worked.

I'm skipping the "Mid Term" predictions as there is no stop loss mentioned only the target price.  My limited understanding is that it is not prudent to enter a stock without appropriate stop loss.

This is no longer maintained.

I would really appreciate if before you switch away from this page, if you could write a short or long comment about your experience as well.

Woman shocked & amused to find British PM David Cameron travelling in London Tube

"Excuse me, are you the Prime Minister?", a stunned 27-year-old Indian woman inquired from David Cameron, who chose to travel in a tube train during rush hour.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/nkZlX9

Human Rights of Traffic Cop & Road Users violated by Govt.

The fines & penalties for various traffic offences currently being levied in India were set in 1988.  These are very very low.  See this example below.

Traffic Fines as per Transport Act 1988, India

When petrol price is around Rs70 and inflation is close to 10%, what is the value of Rs100.  No one bothers to follow the rules.  The govt. by not revising these fines is making a mockery of the people and their lives.  And not just the lives of the road users but the lives of the traffic policemen who have to put up with the people, environment and the polluting vehicles all day long.  Most traffic policemen who man busy junctions are given a surgical mask to protect them from the dust & pollution.

The fines should be revised to at least by 10 times the present rates to be effective.  Again once revised, it may not be revised for another 10 years.  So much for Govt. efficiency.  Does 10 times the current rates seems excessive?  Well, this is not mandatory duty.  Once has to pay this only if one commits an offence.  However in our country the very next thing on everyone's mind would be corruption and bribe.  You would be thinking, well this is not going to bring any of those offences down, but only going to increase the "take home" of traffic policemen.  Thinking that these changes will not bear fruit because of corruption and doing nothing is not going to make things any better.  And the whole corruption angle has to be dealt in another blog.

If over-speeding fine were to be say, Rs2000.00 instead of the paltry Rs100.00, would that reduce more than half the accidents due to over-speeding?  I don't know, just taking a wild guess here.  If the fine for carrying goods more than allowed tonnage were say double the cost of the entire goods that is being carried, would most people try to carry goods more than the allowed tonnage.  This may not reduce accidents, but sure will prolong the life of our not to well maintained roads for may be another monsoon.

Also the fines for offenses committed by autos, taxis, buses and other vehicles that carry passengers should be more than the 'normal' fines by a factor.  These vehicles are on the road most of the times.  Some drivers are plain stupid & some just feel too comfortable on the roads and start using them as race tracks.  They need to be reined in too.

Hoping for a change for the better India and its people.

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Is a certain IQ/Intelligence required to drive vehicles on road?

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You can't be a pilot unless you have a certain qualification and go through a bunch of exams.  You can't be a train / loco pilot unless you again go through a set of exams.  However come driving vehicles on road, there seems to be no qualification - especially in India.  There may be other countries in the world where the situation is similar to here in India.  Please excuse my ignorance here.

Now coming back to aircraft pilots case.  It is understandable why they should have the necessary certification.  You need to handle tons of instruments and it's enough you can read the numbers of those devices.  You also need to understand what they mean.  And in some cases even use what those instruments are telling you and take life saving actions.

What about loco pilots or those who operate ships?  I guess the complexity may be less compared to pilots but they do have manage a vehicle that is pretty big.

Now coming to drivers on road, they seem no qualification.  Kids start driving 2 wheelers on road.  The technical qualification exam or driving test is a sham.  I agree that the vehicle size may not be big, there are no hoards of instruments to handle.  However what the sheer number of vehicles?  What about the fact that pedestrians and bicycles share the road with these vehicles.  What about the different size of vehicles on the road?  Educational qualification may not be required.  However I'm sure some common sense training may be a good.  Also the time has come to makes those "driving tests" to make it more stringent.