Plesk. Ubuntu & Rails

Well its no surprise that Ubuntu and Ruby / Gem  dont like each other that much since they both have competing version managers.   Its even more confusing when Plesk has something like this too..

My solution, ignore them.. I deinstalled ruby using apt-get remove ruby  ...

then compiled from source

./configure --prefix=/usr

which pops it in /usr/bin

I also learnt to put my source into /usr/local/src

It seems to work.....

DNS and Plesk

Ok ok, so I was missing the glaringly obvious step.  

When you register the domain name, the domain name registrar has a box that looks a bit like this :

domain name server   ns1. [   your domain here here ]    =  ip [ your ip here ]

so I simply add in the ip of my server, and select ns1.  ns2 etc.   Then the domain nows where to find info about this subdomain.   

Why was this so confusing.... BECAUSE my frackin domain name registrar does not let you do this and every time I emailed them on what I was trying to do  they made some nonsense up, until I finally figured out exactly what it was I wanted. Then they stopped replying to the emails because I had worked it out.   UK2 stuff you.     

I went to namecheap.com and got a cheap domain name from them and used that instead.  

Bu Bye UK2 , I had no idea you were overcharging so badly

DNS Plesk and my domain provider

There's something I dont understand and am trying to...

I have, as you may know, a vps with plesk installed. I have a myriad of domain names for different projects. Im quite familiar with using the domain name sellers services to point different parts of the DNS at different ip addresses, however they charge for this service. There is the option on my domain name to host the dns elsewhere.  On Plesk for each domain, you can turn on DNS hosting, it actually seems to happen automatically. So my understanding is this server is now acting as name server for its own domain, but its not active until the domain reseller updates their records.

Figure 1

Figure 2

So it appears to me that I should simply be able to select the domain server my vps creates in plesk and copy those entries into my domain sellers nameserver change boxes...

Figure 3

Except it doesnt seem to work.. what am I doing wrong ?  

Whenever I set it, it doesnt seem to save the change. It just goes back to uk2's

This is what it looks like when i change nameservers....

Figure 4

but if u go back and check after this....

its reverted back to uk2's servers as in Figure 3.

My understanding is the following...

My server starts bind/dns  - registers itself as the authoritive nameserver for clubsite.info with the nameservers at .info.   

Anyone looking up clubsite.info gets forward to the nameserver at .info which forwards it to my server which returns the ip address.

Plesk Installing Components - fastcgi

I had some hosting for my wow guild website. I learned to use rails by making a guild portal. It was a bit clunky but it was a nice learning project and it got us going. Recently we switched to the more 'powerful' dkpsystem.com, which is useful but a bit clunky.  but its proved v useful.

So

My virtual server was empty, and I have 4 other sites being hosted on different hosting company servers... bit silly.   I've held back from putting stuff on the server, but when my main website went down due to a changed cc number, I decided i should start pushing 

them all onto the one as it was pretty good. Sadly last time I used it I remembered that it was a bugger to find out how to add fastcgi tho it was there if you looked hard enough.  So I logged in, reset the VPS, nothing like a clean slate eh. 

But

I could only add 1 client and 1 domain, which wasnt right. Next i tried reloading the vps to see if I missed anything.  No change, 1 client, 1 domain and no option for cgi...  many wasted hours ensued and length waits in queues for tech support.  

So

I thought, well maybe I know more this t

ime round. Let me just order a new vps and I'll close the others account. Which I did, but the new server was also missing the same components.

 Meanwhile tech support fixed the domain/client issue on the old server. doh....

... but I was unhappy with that one. Who knows what mess I already made of that.

HERE IS THE ANSWER...  so that if I ever have to do this again.... i know

Go into Plesk. ( not Virtuozzo) and select System:Server:(Services):Updater.  

If your lucky you should see an update package.

Click on this.

Inside you should find a list of things to update AND install if they aren't already.

THERES THE SOLUTION. 

How helpful am I !?

Now. Im adding some nice tags so people can find it  ( including myself )

mod_fcgid psa_mod_fcgid-configurator

and some pics ( ooh blogger is way better )

iphone innoyance

Well, I think like a lot of people, the initial burst of excitement ran into some hidden limits to the sdk.

I think an issue for many people is going to be the sandboxing, its not that I want to access every last file throughout the device.

Do we all have to write sync solutions to get our own data back and forth? Thats a bit annoying, apple must have a better way we could do this.

I dont mind the background app thingy, tho I think there is a case for a background stack that calls every n minutes to service low level info. But I think we all know why its not allowed... but hey, some of us keep our devices plugged in all the time. Couldnt u give us the option of when powered allowing apps to tap into a background cycle stack. hmm. Its not holding me up personally tho.
I guess apple will do their own ichat thingy or aim thingy, that will solve that issue for many.

Perhaps a mechanism to deliver info in via the email could solve some problems for people. or is that a security hole waiting to happen.

Has anyone been accepted as an official beta developer, noone seems to know.

oh well. lots of reading to do.

seems funny being encouraged to use the UIViewController to contain the view as well as the controller code. Roll on the interface builder update asap.

iphone SDK

Well, I can barely contain my excitement, and wrote the obligatory hello world/rich app.

But have you tried registering as a full developer, im still waiting to put it on the real device. I wonder if its not quite finished, that part. surely not.

anyway. my biggest hurdle is nothing to do with iphone dev, its looking for the correct framework and technique for my app. no im not saying what.

having a ball. wish id been able to start with the jailbroken one earlier but at least its not our properly til June. im glad i'm busy, but i wish i had more time.

Ecto or Mars Edit

I haven't posted anything for a little while because my trial on marsedit ran out.

I had found it was a really useful little app except for one thing. When you go to edit a post, its all just plain old html all over again. This seems so retro. I don't get it. Was I doing something wrong ?? Is there a setting?

Anyway by chance I found this Ecto app and although its not as pretty as Mars Edit, it does seem to be more like a notepad/text editor than a html editor, so I'm giving this a whirl.

Maybe this is the one and maybe it will get me updating my blog again.

If so, I'll pay the fee