Back with a Vengeance: The Downtime is over!

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Many of you will have noticed that this site has been down for the last few days weeks. Not good I know!

A nasty hacker attack was responsible and I was just too busy getting everybody else’s projects back up and running that this site lacked behind somewhat.

Anyway, a spontaneous day off is the perfect time to have my head filled with code and rebuilds – the result is here before you. We’re back up and running, better than ever at that! And boy have I got some stories to tell you.

New Servers

For starters, I’ve invested in three more servers: IO and HORATIO are my brand new content and database servers for the Guru Network speeding things along.

They’re 20x bigger and faster (and a LOT more expensive) than HUBERT and DREXEL whom I’ve outgrown after only 6 months of service. They deserve a rest and will be integrated into a load balancing cluster I’m currently working on, due later this year.

Server No. 3 is a dedicated box for my friends at Loft London who needed more space. As a little challenge to myself I’ve managed to integrate a funky script that displays the used/free space on that server as piechart diagramme. Check it out here – it works a treat!

Thanks to Rasmus Peters for script.

OSSEC HIDS

With 6 servers on my hands, it’s about time I keep a closer eye on what the Chinese Hacker Mafia are doing with their spare time.

I found a brilliant Log Monitoring System that will keep an eye on idiots attacking my servers. It’s called OSSEC and comes highly recommended by the fabulous folk at WordPress.org.

OSSEC is an Open Source project that detects and prevents unauthorised access attempts to my machines. It’s a little bit complicated, but in fact so good that I’d like to contribute to the project and update the web interface. It’ll be another challenge (if it doesn’t melt my brain).

Changes to versluis.com

While I had a look through this site, I realised that things are a bit too cluttered for my liking. Times have moved on since the last re-design, and I believe it’ll be more beneficial if I re-order some of the content that’s available here.

I have already started this by splitting things up into their own dedicated websites:

Miami Beach Huts and WordPress Guru are two good examples. I think the Lightpaintings Project needs a facelift too.

Hence, I’ll be moving the shop to Lightpaintings.net over the next few weeks.

This site will then become a collection of Lomographic work and Plastic Camera Reviews, with the occasional “can’t really classify into other things” type blog. I believe it’ll be better for readers to see a focussed project per website rather than a collection of seemingly unlrelated bits and bobs.

Arqiva Winchester

If I’m not hacking code on a level my brain can barely comprehend, I’m visiting the beautiful Hamshire countryside a lot these days:

Sport Five from Hamburg have me working several days a week at Arqiva Winchester monitoring several sporting events – mostly UEFA Champions League and Europa League matches. It’s really nice to see Arqiva from the other side, since we speak so often with the colleagues from IMG at weekends.

It’s quite nice to work for a German client doing UK based things – in 10 years of freelancing, my mother tounge was never an advantage in this job until now 😉

Portal – Still Alive

Even though we thought it was impossible, Julia and I have just beaten PORTAL – Valve’s excellent first person puzzle shooter! We fell in love with it ever since we downloaded the demo sometime last year.

It’s the first ever “real” game we completed according to Xbox 360 standards (which means: get all achievements). Usually there’s always something impossible to get like “beat the game in record time with your TV switched off”.

I’m happy to hear that Portal 2 has been announced and will be out early next year. More fun and games for the entire family 😉

Lomography Spinner 360

Thanks to Adam from the London Lomography Store, I did get my hands on one of the most obscure cameras I have ever seen. Had it not been for my scanner currently experiencing some problems, you’d be reading a thorough review of the Spinner 360 already – but I can’t evaluate the pictures just yet.

The “shutter” (read: slit) is always open and exposes the film as soon as you rotate the grip – which in turn takes a 360 degree panorama. It’s mindblowing stuff!

Coming soon to versluis.com – Scanner permitting!

Until next time – love and peace!



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