I’m so sick of my web host’s anemic memory allotment that I’ve finally decided to look elsewhere.  I’m not going to mention who it is (hint: =2), but 40MB of memory for a web platform in 2010 is just not enough.  Sure, I have unlimited bandwidth, 20 MySQL databases, 150GB of webspace, 2500 email accounts, 10 FTP accounts and on and on, but my single little Wordpress install chews up 60% of the memory that I have.  That leaves me with ~16MB for any other project that I’d like to do…one of which includes a migration to Drupal.  I can’t test it, because I can’t import anything without choking on the amount of leftover memory I have.

I’m in the process now of forwarding a subdomain to a web host that I signed my mom up for over a year ago that is going unused.  It was going to be her online storefront for her B&M children’s store, but she hasn’t had the time to invest in taking pictures and whatnot to get things started.  I transferred her domain from ‘=2′ to InMotion Hosting almost immediately after purchasing due to resource inefficiencies.  I’m considering moving over there also.  They are a little skimpy in some areas, but have 256MB for their shared hosts.

In the meantime, I’m probably going to just fire up Uniform Server and do some local testing until ‘=2′ takes its customary forever-and-a-day to do its DNS updating voodoo.

I wish I had known more of what to look for when I went to find a hosting service, but hindsight is 20/20.

The wife and kids were gone to NY for the weekend, so I got a chance to do a few things that I had been forced to put off for a while.  The biggest was replacing my mother-in-law’s HTPC with ‘new’ parts and a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro x86.  She had been on an ancient HP system with MCE 2005 and not even MyMovies to help her manage my collection.  I had a TForce 6100-939, AMD X2 3800+, 3GB PC-3200 and an ATi x600 video card lying around, so I decided to cram it all into that HP case with a spare 350W PSU and slap Windows 7 Pro on it.  Long story short, she’s pretty  happy…she watches way more than we do, so she really appreciates what Media Browser adds to her experience.  The 7MC-included Internet TV and my Netflix account didn’t hurt either.

The second thing I did was get my previous ESXi server up and running, but I opted for another install of 2008 Server x64 to go on top of it instead of ESXi again.  Running WSUS on my WHS wasn’t fairing too well as it was eating up too much memory, so I decided to move it.  It’s not doing much else at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll find some additional uses for it.  I may make that my dedicated ImagesByName workstation so I’ll have a specific box to hold all those files.  We’ll see…

The last thing I did was take a closer look at the HTPC that resides in our kids’ playroom.  It works perfectly fine, except it would never power on with the remote.  I always had problems with those old 945G chipsets, so I assumed it was just to be accepted.  However, I found that I was actually overlooking one small BIOS setting – enabling wakeup for USB keyboard.  I don’t know why I never enabled that, but that fixed it.  I had looked at that BIOS screen on 3 similar motherboards probably a combined 100 times, but never enabled that.

Just repeating a few links to the leaked Windows Home Server 2010 (Codename: Vail) that is starting to make its rounds on the Internet.

The Missing Remote has a good look at it here, complete with plenty screenshots.  ZDNet also has a short write-up here.

Well, I’m pretty excited about.  I gave up a 2008 Server install to use WHS and while I do like the protective features of WHS (duplication and automated backup), I have not been impressed with the performance.  Anyway, I can’t wait to take a look at this, but I’m wondering about the upgrade options…if there are any.

The media streaming looks intriguing, although I’d never give up unRAID for it…

OK, I figure I’m not really holding off for anything important, so I should just go ahead and open the doors for you to do your thing.

theHTPC.net Wiki Project is open for registration.

I could not get rid of the nasty escape backslash issue and so opted for separate account creation on the wiki.  I think it’s best as, albeit a sub-domain of this site, I want it to be somewhat of a separate entity.

If you’re interested in creating new content on the wiki, please sign-up and do so.  It is a completely blank slate and is awaiting your pens!

Please thoroughly read the documentation available regading the DokuWiki syntax.  If you have never done work on a wiki, you will find that it is a bit different than what you may be used to.  However, it is quite logical and not hard to get a grasp of.  There is also a good set of additional plugins that have been added at the bottom of that page that offer more functionality.

I’d like to see this wiki become a launching point for those new to HTPCs, or for those that just want a central location for finding the vast amount of information spread about the Internet.  I’m not as interested in seeing information repeated as I am seeing concise descriptions with good links to more extensive documentation.  However, if “primary sources” of some type of HTPC technology are not being kept up, please, feel free to make theHTPC.net Wiki the new primary source for it!

Go wiki!

Note:

Please use the contact form on the wiki for any issues you may encounter over there.

Thanks to one of my wary readers, I was informed that users of at least IE were affected by a caching mechanism that was corrupting my cached content – displaying a bunch of garbage on your screen every time you clicked on something.

It’s been fixed and won’t be back.  Sorry!