TechgnosisWeb Prime

And so it lives again. It took me a big chunk of the weekend, but the Pimprig is up and running Debian once more. It was probably a good thing in the end, as I used a lot of the stuff I’ve learned about handling a Linux rig to make this re-install go as painlessly as possible, and everything worked like a charm. The system’s updated to the latest Unstable-branch software (don’t be put off by the name: Debian’s ‘Unstable’ branch is still more stable than most other distributions ‘finished’ branches), updated my kernel to the latest 2.6, and installed the Plastik (and Plsatig for GTK+) visual theme into KDE, which makes it look damn spiffy. So now my system is fully set up, and working better than ever… and that GeForce FX 5600 card makes everything look all *purty*..
In other news, I’m looking to save some money, and so I’m looking at costs I can cut. One of them happens to be my web site hosting fees. I own three domain names: anigaming.com, techgnosisweb.com, and hotnakedelfchicks.com (that last one isn’t being hosted anywhere right now, it’s just cool to be able to say I own it. I used to own paraleluniverse.com, but I let it lapse (it was misspelled anyway). Each domain is hosted on a different server, and each one charges me $10+ a month for the privilege. Now, I’m not really getting any truly heavy use out of those domains, as AniGaming is mostly dead and I keep it around in the hope that maybe someday I’ll do something more with it, as well as for the email address control, and techgnosisweb.com is where I keep my blog, which isn’t exactly the most high-traffic site on the web. So.. I’m thinking that if I can get those domains to point directly at my home box, I can just run those sites from home with the DSL line and save myself nearly $30/month. Problem is that I’ve got a dynamic IP address, and usually you need a static IP to run a decent server. So I’m looking for a dynamic DNS provider to keep my domains pointing to my ever-changing IP (like I do with katsushiro.is-a-geek.com). So far I’ve found two decent-looking ones: ZoneEdit.com, which is free for up to 5 domains, and DynDNS.org, which is where I currently have my dynamic DNS service for free with katsushiro.is-a-geek.com, but they charge $25/year per domain.

I’ll probably try the ZoneEdit folks first, seeing as they’re free and they let me have 5 domains, and if I find them too slow or unreliable I’ll start looking into the DynDNS.org service. I’ll likely start trying to move this domain first, so I can test what it’s like running a full-on webserver and mailserver for a fully qualified domain from my home box, and if it works, then I’ll move the other domains over too. So if you notice any weird behaviour or service outages on this site over the next week, now you know what’s happening. Wish me luck!