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Well, I canceled FiOS. Ultimately the download speeds were 6 MB/sec slower than Comcast cable and upload speeds were 6 MB/sec faster. For running a server or VPN or getting files off your computer the upload speed is more important but for everything else the download speed is. I had some fancy screenshots of various tests but have since misplaced them so you'll have to deal with the text version.
FiOS Download speed: Consistant 25 MB/sec (rated at 25)
Comcast Download speed: Consistant 30 MB/sec
FiOS Upload speed: Inconsistant 2-20 MB/sec (rated at 15)
Comcast Upload speed: Inconsistant 2-8 MB/sec
Verizon gives you more upload speed but then kills any chance that you'll ever use it by blocking port 80. Thanks guys. The workarounds like using zoneedit to do a web forward were all slow and hackish. If someone clicked on grantmcwilliams.com what appeared in their browser URL bar was grantmcwilliams.com:8080 which isn't very pretty. I might have lived with it had it been fast but it wasn't.
So there were several strikes against Verizon and their FiOS.
- Port 80 is blocked
- Upload speeds not as fast as advertised 80% of the time
- Couldn't move the router between ports like I was promised
- I had to use their router and change my bridged wireless network configuration
- Cost $120 more a year than the same speed of service from Comcast
- They're Verizon
As soon as I canceled my FiOS I got an automated call that said my service was scheduled for disconnect and I needed to pay. Coincedence? Maybe, see number 6.
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I'll be bringing the site down later to switch to FiOS. This is a trial to see if it's worth the extra $10/month over Comcast cable. Currently my Comcast download speed is 30 Mb/sec and upload maxes at 6 Mb/sec which is pretty fast. The FiOS connection I just had installed is 25Mb/sec download and up to 15 Mb/sec upload. The download speeds on both are predictable and consistant, the upload speeds are not. I'm not sure why this is but they range from 1 MB/sec to 15 Mb/sec. I'm not sure why this is which is why I'm doing the trial. So far dealing with Verizon has been nothing but lies but what did I expect? Companies don't just change unless their forced.
The reps said I could try it for two weeks and if I didn't like it I could cancel for free.The salesperson that called to confirm the installation appointment says this isn't correct, I can try it for two weeks and I pay for what I use. I've googled and found people stiffed with the Free Installation that turned to a pay installation when they canceled. We'll see. They also said I can move the router to any coax connection in the house which doesn't appear to be true either.
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I know I've been saying it for weeks but I got tired of not being able to update the site so this morning at 3am I backed up all of my databases, renamed the old database for this site, renamed my new test database, tarred up the test web directory, renamed the web directory for this site, renamed the test directory to take the place of the old web directory, edited all the files that pointed to the test database and here we are. So far it seems to be working.
To refresh your memory I had the strangest things happening. I had whole menu's that would pop up an error 404 - article not found and that was even when the menu didn't point to an article. I had the Superblogger plugin throwing fits, my cookbook was a pain in the arse, I had no reviews module that worked.
What I did was installed Joomla from scratch on a brand new database, installed only the components, modules and plugins that I wanted (database tables went from 167 to 93!), created a theme for Superblogger, saved individual tables out of the old database and imported them one by one into the new one, recreated categories and sections and doublechecked each menu to see where things were broken.
What's new:
- It works. That's right before it didn't.
- All menu items actually point to something and that something actually shows up
- Massive bugs in the old database have been cleaned out.
- Recipebook fashioned out of a cloned Sobi II Business Index replaces poorly designed purposebuilt recipebook
- Reviews component (not quite done though!) fashioned out of a cloned Sobi II Business Index gives me reviews that I've not had in 2 years.
- Superblogger plugin which brings with it article ratings, comments handled by Disqus (you'll like it...), socialbookmarking (facebook, digg, reddit, stumbleupon, delicious etc..), browser bookmarking of articles, trackback URLs and RSS feeds for categories and comments.
- Service map integrator that notifies the search engines when there's updates so they remain more up to date.
- Search works for everything including reviews, recipes, links, articles and photos.
- Many other things that only effect me as an Admin.
What this will do is allow me to keep my recipes online, allow me to go back to putting up reviews, give me more power as a blogger, allow you the reader to spread the word easier with the social bookmarking, allow trackbacks, more thorough RSS feeds for everything including recipes, comments and categoies and keep more up to date in the search engines.
What's not done:
I started working on the fields and themes for the Reviews modules but I'm not quite done yet. I'm also not done with modifying the templates for the blogger plugin.
Overall it will be a much nicer and more stable site to browse.
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I ended up recreating this entire site from scratch. The database was so convoluted that I just couldn't do anything with it. After spending 4 hrs dropping tables, cutting records and cleaning it had gone from 172 database tables to 167 and decided to just start over. I saved out all the tables I wanted (ie, users, menus, categories etc...) and rebuilt Joomla from the beginning and added only the stuff I wanted, inported the tables I neeeded and the rest I did manually. The result was I went from 172 database tables to 97, a huge improvement! The muck in the database came from doing 15 updates during the Joomla 1.0 days, migrating that database to Joomla 1.5 and then proceding to update it another 11 times. Over the course of a couple of years I've also installed countless components, modules and plugins in an attempt to add the functionality that I needed. Most of these I've eventually uninstalled. For the record I've purchased over $200 in software for Joomla and I'm currently using $7 worth. So much for looking to the commercial Joomla developer for great software.
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I was having weird issues with my recipe book not showing up and then it migrated to my Food blog. The result was that I'd get an error 404 whenever I tried to access it. Fearing muck in my database I started cleaning house and removed massive amounts of tables and records left there by components and modules that I no longer use. I also fixed a bunch of bugs associated with more than on category having the same link. You may have noticed it when you clicked on Photography Blog and got something completely different (or Food Blog). Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. All of that is fixed now and the database is much leaner.
However, I've introduced something new that I don't understand. Guests can view the Food Blog just fine but if you're logged in you'll get an error 404. This makes no sense whatsoever. I'll try to track it down later. Also the food blog refuses to order articles by date. Sometimes I think I need to install Joomla from scratch and start over but I have way too much stuff here to do that.
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I've been in the mood to work on the site in the last week because I got SuperBlogger. While looking at that pluging I discovered K2 by the same team which looks like it will "finish" Joomla. What I mean by that is it will provide Joomla with all the core functionality that Joomla should have to start with. Anyway while watching a video about tips and tricks to do with Joomla I got in the mood to edit my error 404 page to make it nicer looking.
You can try it out by just typing in a page that doesn't exist. Or you can try this link to see if you like it - Error 404
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I've installed the Superblogger plugin for my site and things look promising but there are issues. This is a general plea for patience from you my faithful viewers.
Over the course of the next week I will as I get time be tweaking the operations of the blogging plugin. I've noticed that formatting on articles has gone screwy which I'll fix later today (I hope). Also as an experiment comments will be handled by Disqus (pronounced discuss).