Sure, I clamoured with the rest of us to get my invite and see what wave was all about. Then I checked it daily for about 2, maybe even 3 weeks. After that, I think I did the same as most people - realised I had no real use for it, and ignored it. I might have check it 3 or 4 times since then, but that's about it. I think I was made part of 1 new wave in all that time. For me, this is a real shame. I'm actually of the opinion that Wave has a potential to be awesome. If you don't agree, please, hear me out.

Imagine you're working on a small project with 2 or 3 people, Wave provides a brilliant way to collaborate and share ideas with each other throughout the development of the project. The problem, I imagine, for a lot of people was the fact that the entire thing was hosted on Google, and we all know at least 1 person who is genuinely concerned about using any Google product for privacy reasons (I'll be honest, for me, this is less of an issue as they have the last 5 years worth of emails I've ever received on a personal account) which is fine.

With Google announcing the cessation of Wave development, I was concerned that some of the ideas it brought would simply die out. Luckily, they've also announced 'Wave in a Box', which essentially means that Wave will be open-sourced, and people will have the ability to run their own Wave server. I find the idea of this rather exciting, partly because it will be interesting to see what kinds of directions it may take in development from whoever picks up the project, and partly because it means I get to play around with something on the server again.

If possible, I'll try and actually get some use out of a Wave server, however, I can't guarantee that'll be possible. In fact, it's far more likely that the install would be just that, an install, after which, I'd ignore it Either way, I - personally - am looking forward to the release of 'Wave in a Box', it might even increase the uptake of the project so more people can use it. Certainly, some of the things Google are putting into it before releasing it mean that it will have a solid base upon which to build.

However...I have (as of yesterday) migrated the site to a new VPS with Linode. I have almost the same VPS (now a Linode 512), however I was suffering from some high memory usage with the Fivebean VPS, which have inexplicably gone away with the Linode host. I don't think this was the way the physical server was setup, it could quite easily have been Ubuntu 9.10, which is what the previous host was running. The new server is now running 10.04.1 LTS.

The main reason for me moving the service to Linode was not because of bad service from Fivebean/Bluemile, or because of the high memory usage issue. It was, in fact, because I almost always experienced lag when I was accessing the server via ssh. And when you run some things in screen via ssh (IRC being one of these), and frequently use the ssh connection to the server, you'll soon come to realise that it becomes frustrating using it with lag all the time.
Again, this was nothing to do with the server (as far as I'm aware), it was more to do with the fact that the datacenter is in Texas, whereas I'm in the UK. The new Linode host is in a datacenter based in London, which is around 100mi away from where I live, thus, much better in terms of lag. Not to mention a convenient iOS app from Linode which allows me to check the stats of the server wherever I am, as well as reboot it, if necessary. Combined with the SSH app I also have, remote administration is remarkably easy for me.

I'd still recommend Fivebean/Bluemile to anybody who is in the market for a VPS, as they offer incredible service, however, Linode is a strong competitor, and it's hard to promote one before the other.

I did have possibly the most unusual method of moving my blog over - in that I zipped up the directory, moved it over to the new VPS, and imported the database, same for the apache2 settings. Luckily, 98% of it went without a hitch! A few issues with virtual hosts and mod_rewrite, but that's all.

I now have a constant IRC presence, because I'm no longer limited by the VPS provider on what I can and can't use (gotta love having a friend with a server!). And yes - it's running Ubuntu 8.04 Server

Well I found out that's not quite true! Slicehost give you FULL root access. How or why may be what you're thinking...well it's because you actually have a virtual machine on one of their servers. What's even better is that they're not slow servers either!

I personally have a 256 Slice as I don't really need a massively powerful server. I'll let you read the other types of slices on their website, but the 256 Slice gives me:

• 256MB RAM
• 10GB Hard Drive Space
• 100GB Bandwidth

I personally think it's a brilliant idea, and it costs me $20 per month (now as I'm in the UK that works out to about £11.50). Some people may have noticed that I'm on IRC 24/7 now too...screen and irssi work great for that I should also point out that all the servers you can install are Linux servers, they offer plenty (I noticed Gentoo 2007.0 got updated to 2008.0 recently) - mine runs...Ubuntu of course

From my (albeit brief) experience, I'd highly recommend Slicehost to anybody looking for hosting of any sort next time you're in the market for it.

Originally I tried (I don't know why, so don't ask) to share the printer over the samba share that I currently have in place on the network, as it seemed a good idea...at the time, I know no that it's something that should never be attempted (currently).

After many tedious tweakings of many various things, and still no printing across the network. I finally stumbled across this thread on the forums which I followed, and happily...it worked!!! I now have printing across the network. I checked by printing a test page from my laptop (Ubuntu) and then an XP desktop downstairs.

After all that effort of trying to share the printer via samba, it turns out that I managed to share it using ipp - which even Windows supports (though not many people seem to know about that). I think that the main issue I was having is that searching for how to share a printer via Ubuntu gave GUI options suited to the desktop, and not Ubuntu Server - which is CLI only, so I had to edit

Anyway - it works now, I'm happy - and the rest of the family is happy too, and it's 10x more convenient than before.