I’m very busy with a lot of updates which I need to test on all my test machines and production systems that I wish there were more than 24 hours in a day to get everything done. My current dayjob is also very interesting and challenging and requires a lot of input from my brain. But I’m still chugging everything as well a I possibly can so expect some more blogposts in the coming week.

Here is nice one for the people wh recently bought a mini, someone found out that it will take 8 Gb of usable memory just like the newer MBP’s. It’s a shame that it still soooo expensive but it is a good thing to look forward to. I’m almost temped to by another mini just to see how this would perform. I think it would make a awesome server, although I must confess that of my current production server only half of it’s 1Gb is in active use.

For people looking to host a server at MacMiniColo.net, they have some second hand mini’s listed on the sign up page which will do the job perfectly for less money. I did this myself as well and it is stil working. I like their service so much I recently renewed for a two year period.

Back to testing…

Update: Forgot to mention that I’ve finished installing everything on a clean install of Snow Leopard. So that now works as it is supposed to do. Next up getting my mini ready for the update and installing everything in 32 bits.

There where rumors floating on the internet that the Mac mini is dead. Sources indicated that european retailers weren’t getting any mini’s anymore. Which would mean that our beloved “server” platform is coming to an end. I guess the price of a second hand mini won’t come down soon if this really is true.

Appleinsider.com however came with a report this friday that gives a little spark of hope. Their report mentions a new mac mini that is on the way. As a source they have Brian Stucky of Macminicolo.net fame who mentions he knows what is coming. Read the article if you want to know more, I for one hope it is true as I really love the mini. Mine is getting a bit old and slow for desktop use and would jump at a newer and faster mini!

PS. On the appleinsider article there is a picture of the macminicolo.net datacenter. I wonder which of the 400 mini’s is mine?

Since having a Mac mini at Macminicolo.net I currently have the luxury position of having two Mac mini’s connected to the internet. This gives me the ability to try new configurations for the DIYMacServer setup.

The first thing I tried, now I’ve got everything migrated, was getting my home server to work as a backup MX server. I found out that it was pretty straightforward and adding one line to the main configuration made it work.

I’ve added it to the documentation set, so if you have the same luxury as I have and have more than one server connected you could use the this as well. Read how to do it here: Configuring a backup (relay) MX server.

I’ve just finished updating all my Mac’s with either Mac OSX 10.5.3 for the Leopard machines or the security update 2008-003 for the Tiger machines (yes I still have a Tiger machine for support purposes). Both updates went without any problem and my setup was not affected in a negative way. Every item had started after the reboot and worked according to expectations.

If you want to read more on what is affected in the updates I would suggest reading the Apple support site for the 10.5.3 update and the 2008-003 security update.

In case of doubt, please make a full bootable disk image backup with Cabon Copy Cloner.

Tis was my first major update of the server located in the Macminicolo.net datacenter. It’s a bit scary as I have had the experience of a freeze of the computer after a big update before. But it that time the server was sitting in a cupboard at home within reach. If that happens now I would be at the mercy of Brian. He normally responds very quickly on my emails and iChat request so it might take a bit longer to get the machine back online because he is in a very different time zone. Therefore I schedule these critical activities at a time where I know he is available.

Update: It is always good to wait a few days and monitor the blogosphere and forums to see if there are any major issues with the last update. It’s good to be prepared!

If you are reading this the page has been fed from the new server at macminicolo.net. I hope you like the new speed. Now this is finished and most of the design has been tweaked I now can spend some time on writing some more documentation again. I hope to get the Leopard specifics for the installation grouped into one place, the aim is to get this done before the end of May.

You all might have noticed the new sponsor banner on the new site for macminicolo.net on the right hand site and wondered why. The thing is I’ve decided to move my server from home to macminicolo.net to keep providing this website and service to the best of my abilities.

It’s not something I decided on a easily, I was always proud to be able to host all the sites with their respective email server from my home using my simple DSL connection. But lately the stability of my DSL connection has gone down. I’ve had two outages this year alone.

I used to have my DSL connection with a small reputable ISP which delivered great service. Whenever you needed assistance you could call the help-desk and someone who actually understood what you where talking about was able to help you and get you going again. But consolidation is the name of the game and large ISP’s are buying the smaller ones and the service deteriorates rapidly. Whenever I call now they tell be to reboot the computer as they assume I’ve got a Windows machine and all the questions are scripted as with any call-center.

I still believe that it is possible to host from home using your DSL line, the outages I had never lasted longer than half a day. Which meant that I would never loose any mail. But too many people are currently depending on my server to be up and running 24/7. If you don’t have that requirement and can live with 99% uptime instead of 99.999% you’ll be fine hosting at home.

Brian Stucky offered me a great deal at macminicolo.net which made the decision to go outdoor a lot easier. In exchange I’m putting a banner on the site to return the favor. I think he is running a great service for us Mac lovers who want to use a mini as their server platform. He’s very quick to respond to any question I had, even the outlandish ones. Besides the standard packages macminicolo offers there is room to customise the offer to your needs. I will keep posting on my experiences with macminicolo but untill now they are excellent… TUAW recently tested macminicolo and they liked it as well.

An additional benefit might be that the site might become a bit more responsive as the bandwidth will be a lot better.

PS. If fiber to my home becomes affordable (which will take a few years) I will reconsider my options again!