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My first experiences programming where on a Commodore 64 and an Apple II+. In both cases there was no separation of the end user interface and the development interface…you could just start entering code at the command line and it would begin building. Things have come a long ways since then – this is good and bad. It is no longer quite as easy or essential to get involved in programming, on the other hand one can much more rapidly build complex applications.

If you ever long for the throw back days you may think of QBasic, which became ubiquitous due to its inclusion with Microsoft DOS…but all these concepts are so from yesteryear – in computer terms they are almost millennia away.

So what if you want to do some simple programming these days with a BASIC feel to it? One good option is FreeBasic. FreeBasic was built to be largely backwards compatible with Microsoft’s QBasic and thus can run many old QBasic programs with only minimal modifications, but FreeBasic has also gone far beyond this and delivers a fairly powerful development environment.

If you do decide to use FreeBasic I recommend downloading a free copy of FbEdit as well. See development usually consists of at least two components – the compiler and the editor. A compiler is the program that takes your code and turns it into an executable program while an editor is what you write the code in. Granted, you can write your code in any plain text editor – but trust me, FbEdit will be a big help.

The FreeBasic forums have a very friendly and active community that will help you along through the learning process. Just take some time to explore the entire site and community, it is pretty impressive.

All this said, FreeBasic isn’t the language I primarily use for development – or the language I would recommend. In general, I’m a Microsoft .NET guy – mainly ASP.NET and VB.NET. Microsoft offers free copies of the lite versions of these applications as well, and while I say kudos to the FreeBasic team and hope they keep up the great work, if you are looking for a job in technology, you might be better off starting with a Microsoft .NET technology. Actually, probably C#.NET instead of VB.NET as I do (old habits die hard).

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Tonight I’m going to share one of those humorous stories – or at least I think it is humorous…though it was not so when it occurred to me earlier this evening.

I was working a late shift at Philadelphia Biblical University and performing some standard security patches and software updates. Earlier that day I had removed a chunk of unused space from a database server virtual machine. Everything had continued operating normally and I’d thought nothing of it…

Imagine my surprise when, upon rebooting to complete updates, I received a black screen with those tiny glowing white words, “Operating system could not be found.” These are not the words you desire to see – especially at 8:30 p.m. when you are thinking about going home and relaxing shortly. Visions of long-nights of yesteryear fill your mind.

It is at this moment that the first comical occurrence of the evening occurred. Microsoft decided that on this very night at this very moment it needed to give me an inescapable four minute count-down to reboot my system in order to complete windows updates! COME ON! I happened to be burning a new ISO of Windows Server 2008 EE R2 at that exact time and I watched in desperation as the four minutes chewed away more quickly than Windows was able to burn the new ISO to disc. Yes, at 99% Microsoft overrode my every whim and desire and rebooted the system – if I did need that disc I’d have to burn it all over again!

In any case, after the system came back, I did some googling – but it isn’t all that easy to google some topics. See, the problem is in making Google (or any search engine) understand what you want. For example, I really needed to information about the “Operating system could not be found” message where there was also information about VMWare‘s vSphere and information about deleting unused space. I found a few relevant articles – but none that exactly addressed my issue or provided a resolution.

I booted into Windows Server 2008 EE R2 recovery mode off the ISO and attempted to run a repair – but it didn’t see the drive. Great. I went into the command line just for kicks and giggles and typed in C:. Hmmm…That’s interesting. The C drive is showing all the databases which are not on the C: drive…

It was at this juncture I recognized the next humorous tidbit – VMWare seemed to have arbitrarily reorganized the drive letters. If the drives were supposed to be Drive 1 – C, Drive 2 – D, Drive 3 – E they now here more like Drive 1 – E, Drive 2 – C, Drive 3 – D. No, this doesn’t make sense to me either.<ref>That said, I think there probably is a logical reason, just one that I don’t understand. This didn’t seem like a bug in VMWare’s software, rather like a logical but obscure process that one doesn’t run into except in awkward situations such as this.</ref>

More anxious scrabbling. More googling. I booted into the BIOS and looked at the boot order. Ahh, yes, it was booting off of Drive 3, not Drive 1. I began slowly rotating the drives – each one in turn to be the primary. After a few tries Windows booted without issue.

My evening was redeemed! The moral of this story is that when you do something really stupid with computers – it oftentimes works. When you do something that seems mundane and simple – it oftentimes backfires. Woohoo!

Lee Mathews has written over at Download Squad about a new application (currently in private beta) called Insync. It works with Google Docs – and in this manner is able to offer a lot of really nifty features at really, really low (free?) prices. Go on over to Insync’s site and get yourself on their private beta list now!

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1. ^[1] mainly b/c of its really crummy support for sharing files / auto-synchronizing across multiple users….in spite of constant requests from users for this feature. ↩

Later I would save for months to purchase Visual Basic 5. $100+ is a lot of money for a teenager – but I wanted to program so bad that I scraped and saved.

After that there was the ASP.NET Web Matrix – a predecessor to the great tools Microsoft now offers for free. Unfortunately, its development was abandoned and for a long period of time I was left in a painful lurch….but then Microsoft started the trend that has made me extremely happy – free lite development tools.

These development tools include Visual Basic 2008 (for desktop applications), Visual C# 2008 (also for desktop applications, but in C#), Visual C++ (just like the last two), and Visual Web Developer (for web applications) – all in the Express line. Additionally they’ve thrown out there SQL Server Express (database back-end) and SQL Server Studio Management Studio Express (for writing SQL and managing databases).

While these applications are noted as “express” that doesn’t suggest that they are majorly crippled – rather they are extremely full functioning applications which can be used to create many impressive applications. For the new, hobbyist, or small business developer many times the Express Editions will be all that you ever need.

This was a smart move on Microsoft’s part – it gets people hooked on Microsoft development young – and it works great for us as well – because we get free development tools. By the time Microsoft expects us to shell out cash – well, we are probably making some from our now decent development skills. Go grab yourself some free development applications: http://www.microsoft.com/express/.

• Open Source - I’m always a fan of open source projects, not just b/c I like a free lunch as much as the next guy but also because it allows for the project to continue on beyond the lifespan of a given individual or company.
• ASP.NET - Its only been within the last several years I’ve really begun messing around with LAMP, and for the longest time I loved ASP and then ASP.NET. Now I’ve been swung to the dark side recently, though I still find Microsoft‘s development tools to be leagues beyond the open source competition (for speed of development) and still prefer developing in a VB.NET-like syntax to C#, PHP, etc. But, this habit must die…b/c everyone else is going LAMP.
• Simplicity – Compared to Joomla or Drupal, DNN is a breeze. Within minutes of installing the application you can have a full featured site up and running.

That said, I’m now leaving the DNN community (I’ll get to what I’m moving to in a few moments). Here are the simple reasons why:

• Cost – While DNN itself is open source, the Microsoft ecosystem as a whole is much more oriented around cost-based. This especially holds true for the DNN third-party ecosystem of modules and skins. Both of these would have some commercial items in a similar LAMP based project, but there would be loads of free modules/skins. Not so of the DNN ecosystem.
• Development – Feature development in DNN seems to go at a much slower pace than equivalent open source projects (though this may change with the venture capital infusion DNN recently received). One significant example is the forums module which has been without an update for well over a year and has several show-stopping bugs in the current production version.
• Openness – While DNN is an OSS project, the sharing of news about what is happening internally as far as development as well as the ability to get the latest snapshot download to run on the bleeding edge is extremely limited.

So what am I moving to? Good question. Its not Drupal or Joomla. I find both of these overly convoluted (here come the haters). Instead I’m moving to WordPress. WordPress while initially designed as a blogging platform has extended itself significantly to include most functionality that a user could want from a CMS in the core install. Thousands of free extensions make up for whatever WordPress lacks at its core. The development pace is rapid and even minor versions include massive updates (e.g. 2.7 is awesome!). The skins/modules are free, free, free and if one module isn’t receiving development there are dozens others that are.

That said, I’m not abandoning DNN completely just yet. It works well enough for davemackey.net, ocddave.com, and a few other sites. At this juncture the cost to move them over to WordPress (in time and energy) is greater than the lost features (since these are essentially static content sites, they aren’t missing out on much). I plan to in the future – as the need arises.

Before leaving Collages.net I was working a lot with different virtualization technologies – and I love them – and believe they are the way of the future. So I researched various VPS providers over at WebHostingTalk. I finally decided on VPSLand, despite some bad reviews, because of their AMAZING prices. On 7/26/08 I purchased a Windows-EZ Value or Busines plan from them (I don’t recall which). In any case, at the minimum I received 1280 MB RAM 400 GB Bandwidth, and so on – running Windows Server 2003 64-bit. AWESOME!

Unfortunately, I had not had previous experience with Parallels/SWSoft’s Virtuozzo and have since decided I absolutely hate it. I had a number of issues over a period of a few weeks, but knew a few where Virtuozzo’s fault and the rest I decided to give VPSLand the benefit of the doubt on. For those who aren’t familiar with Virtuozzo, it works differently from most virtualization technologies. Rather than completely isolating the virtual OS instance it shares the instance across all slices. The practical result of this is that you can’t make modifications to the Windows core (e.g. apply Windows Updates). Call this the network engineer in me – but when I get a VPS I want full control to upgrade/patch/install/replace however I see fit.

Next step – research alternative VPS solutions. It seems a majority of VPS providers utilize either Virtuozzo or its open source companion, so it took me a while to find ones supporting Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMWare’s ESX. In the end I decided to stay with VPSLand and use their Xen VPS.

Double the price. I purchased one of VPSLand’s WindowsXL-1024 Xen VPS plans. It included 1024 MB of RAM and 1000 GB bandwidth. Not bad, certainly a step up – though I would have taken less bandwidth and less HD space in exchange for a lower price. No matter, I’m now paying $79.99/mo. Well, for over double the price I expect some good service and a good system. Now lets follow the timeline:

• Sept. 3rd, 2008 – Order places for Xen VPS around 3 P.M. EST.
• Sept. 4th, 2008 – Account information received around 7:50 P.M. EST.
• Sept. 4th, 2008 – At 10:22 P.M. EST I submit a ticket reporting that while I can connect to the VPS I cannot ping out to any remote server (e.g. Google, Yahoo).
• Sept. 5th, 2008 – At 4:27 A.M. EST I receive a ticket reporting that this issue has been resolved. The support tech. informs me not to apply Windows Updates, that they take care of this on their VPS.
• Sept. 5th, 2008 – At 11:09 A.M. EST I send a response asking why I can’t make Windows Updates since this is a Xen VPS not a Virtuozzo VPS. Also asking for an explanation on what caused the technical issue with my VPS.
• Sept. 6th, 2008 – At 9:52 A.M. EST I receive a response from a different technician that yes, the first technician was incorrect and I can install patches and then a cryptic answer to my question about the cause/resolution of the issue in the first place (something about restarting a network service on my VPS – strange since I rebooted the entire server multiple times).
• Sept. 6th, 2008 – At 12:35 P.M. EST I submit a new ticket. I’ve just noticed that my VPS is down – entirely. No ability to visit the sites, no ability to RDC into the server. No ability to access the web based control panel. This is a complete service outage.
• Sept. 6th, 2008 – At 2:41 P.M. EST I receive a response to my ticket – over two hours later. They are “escalating” my ticket to the “reboot queue.” Two hours and they are just now recycling the server?
• Sept. 6th, 2008 – At 3:47 P.M. EST I write again on the same ticket, “I am still down. The server came up briefly according to a pinging service but went back down again shortly thereafter. Please give me a status update.”
• Sept. 6th, 2008 – At 11:10 P.M. EST I wrote again on the same ticket, “I would love to get an occasional update – say once every two hours or so to let me know what is happening. Right now it kind of feels like you guys just gave up on fixing my VPS. This has been a horrible starting experience with VPSLand. Please inform me of the status – I am still down – nearly twelve hours after initially reporting this outage. How can I even place a minor website on a server that is going to be this unstable? And where support does not respond?”
• Sept. 7th, 2008 – At 3:37 P.M. EST as I write this post my VPS is still down, I have received no further communication from VPSLand and it has been well over 24 hours since my VPS went down.
• UPDATE: Sept. 7th, 2008 – I submit a new ticket in a desperate attempt for attention. Title is, “SERVER DOWN FOR 24+ HOURS!“
• UPDATE: Sept. 7th, 2008 – At 9:23 P.M. EST receive a response to my original ticket that this issue is being escalated to their senior admins (after well-over 24 hours straight downtime) and that they will give me status updates.
• UPDATE: Sept. 8th, 2008 – At 12:01 A.M. EST receive a note informing me VPS has been restored, also that they are giving me a credit for one month free service and apologize for the delay. Issue report is a failed drive (this is why one uses RAID – at least 1, perhaps 5 or 6).
  

At this juncture I feel the neglect is simply insane. “VPSLAND.com’s Virtual Private Servers are perfect for Businesses or Individuals looking for an affordable dedicated server alternative with full Root/Administrator privileges.” I’m running hobby sites folks – and this isn’t working for me?

So here are my thoughts at this juncture:

1. Talk to Us. People are very understanding when they know that there is a problem and that a company is working to resolve this problem. My problem is I don’t know if anyone is even working on this problem. Sure, the ticket is open – but is anyone home?
2. Better SLA. I should have looked at their SLA more closely. While they offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee their SLA more carefully defines this. If you have less than 99.9% in a single month they compensate at 100% if it is 89.9% or below – that’s an astonishing 72+/- hours in a single month (yes, that was the sound of my jaw hitting the floor). The SLA should look like: Below 98% 100% credit plus a 100% refund (e.g. you pay me).
3. How Ya Gonna Change? Why does it take hours to get a reply to a ticket? Why is there no phone number to call in emergencies? Do you need to hire more techs.? Do so. Jump the prices to do so? Okay. But this is unbelievable. Automatic migrations? Manual migrations? A must!

Maybe something at this point will change…and if it does I will inform you. But at this juncture – my personal opinion is – don’t ever EVER ever utilize VPSLand for anything (yah, grandma, not even your hobby site on knitting!).

Anyone out there have a good Windows VPS service (not using Virtuozzo) that wants a new client? I’m good PR if you treat me well (and bad if you don’t).

P.S. I’m softer on companies that haven’t been in business for a long time (e.g. startups). I know the difficulties experienced, but VPSLand or its antecedent have been running since 1994.