Brief update: I got the Linux server up and running with Mandrake and it's working like a champ. There was a huge learning curve at first as I had to pick up yet another system GUI, but with a few tweaks here and there, it appears to be working just right.

I will say that I definitely prefer Fedora's GUI as it is far more intuitive and easy to work with, and I'm sure some super-Linux guru could tell me how to get it up and running on Mandrake, but it's just easier to get used to Mandrake's default (which I think is called KDE).

So now with the server up and running, I can start doing my testing. If only I didn't need to do real work now (not that I'm complaining).

We're back from our winter trip up to Pennsylvania and Maryland. It was a really great trip and we look forward to heading up there again at the end of the month for a few days.

It's been a bit since I updated on my fun times with Linux/Fedora. Here's the short version. I can't get it to do what I want it to do. I can get the PHP version I want installed and I can get the MySQL version I want installed, but I can't get the two to talk to each other. I know it's probably some stupid little configuration option somewhere, but I simply couldn't find it after hours upon hours of playing around.

Fedora seems great, and maybe I'll give it another go when they release version 4, but for now I'm going to try Mandrake Linux. It seems to be pretty popular as well and from the description, it seems to come preloaded with the versions of PHP and MySQL that I want.

I'm installing now, but it's a little difficult to swap CDs with both my fingers crossed.

I've had a little bit of down-time for the last few days, which I can only attribute to my clients holding off until the day we leave for vacation to throw everything I've been waiting on my way. I've been working on some sites that use PHP and MySQL and it's gotten to the point where working with a single account on a hosted site is a hindrance, so I decided I'd look into setting up a Linux server on my internal network for testing.

After a whole 5 minutes of research, I decided to give Fedora a try, especially since it has a lot of the stuff I need already setup, or so I thought.

My first lesson, don't bother trying to run Linux on a Celeron 466 with only 192 MB of RAM. It took forever to load things, and I was getting bogged down by loading times. So I proceeded to install Fedora on an extra box I have here. To be honest, I have no idea what its specs are, but I know it's only a year old and has 1GB of RAM, so I knew it would perform better (and it did).

Lesson number 2, installing some things in Linux is wonderfully complicated. It turns out that the MySQL version included in Fedora is out-of-date. In a Windows world, I'd just download the latest version of MySQL, install, and I'd be ready to go. Not so with Linux.

I installed the version of MySQL I needed just fine, but in the process of doing so, I broke the module that connects PHP and MySQL, so the two couldn't talk to each other. Again, you'd think all I need to do is upgrade the connector, but you'd be wrong.

It turns out that the connector has dependencies on PHP, meaning that it only works with a very specific version of PHP. The PHP install in Fedora is not a standard install, so a standard version of the connector won't work. So now I need to get a standard install of PHP, and here's where the real fun begins.

In Linux, it seems that there are two main installation methods. One is to use a prepackaged installation file, called an RPM. The other method is to download the source code and compile it yourself. Guess which one you need to use for PHP. So what's the problem? I haven't the first clue as to how to go about doing the compile myself.

So that's where I am at the moment. I've been looking for some basic instructions on how to do this, but I don't think it's the same for everyone, so finding something standard may be out of the question.

I came across a link this morning to Mozilla Sunbird, a calendar add-on for Mozilla's recently release Thunderbird mail client. Actually, Sunbird is more of an independent program that can be used as an extension to Thunderbird, but I'm more interested in it's ability to interoperate with Thunderbird.

Right now I use Outlook 2003 for all my personal information management (PIM) needs. It combines e-mail along with a calendar, address book, and note taking capability, and it all syncs with my Sony Clie' (a Palm type handheld). I've considered switching to Thunderbird for e-mail, but I don't want to give up all the integrated stuff that Outlook does. I also don't want to use separate applications for each of those functions.

It looks like the Mozilla team may be working its way towards creating the Outlook killer we all may have been waiting for. To be clear, I have no vendetta against Microsoft. A lot of folks on the internet seems to have it out for Bill Gates and the company he helped create. They hate any and all MS products, and always push the usually less capable alternatives.

I am not one of those people.

However, I do have a number of frustrations with Outlook, particularly in synching it up to my laptop, and then synching it up again to my desktop. While you'd think it would be pretty straight-forward, I always end up with either duplicated info, or a problem that requires me dipping into the registry to fix. It's not intuitive in the least, and usually ends up causing me a good hour or two of frustration. Fortunately I don't do it often.

I'm hoping that Thunderbird and whatever features they add will be as easy to move around as Firefox is. I'm not ready to switch over yet. They still have some functionality they need to add, and I'm not crazy about the idea of relying on a Calendar program that is still pretty early in its development.

I will be watching and waiting, and when the time is right, I will be testing.

Our 2 year anniversary was yesterday, so I would be remiss to not comment on it here.

It's hard to believe that 2 years ago our area had been slammed with a huge ice storm, knocking out power for a good portion of the area for several days. Today it is supposed to be 65 degrees...

If ever there was a time when we knew God was watching over us, it was the day of our marriage. One of these days I'll get around to posting the whole story, but the short version goes like this:

The day of the wedding our church and reception hall, not to mention the homes of our friends and family, were still without power. As I mentioned above, I still had power at my house, so a good many of them came over for hot showers.

We had an emergency plan if the church remained without power, mostly consisting of everyone wearing jackets and lighting the place up with candles. It was very cold that day, and as I arrived at the church and prepared to get changed, it was extremely cold inside (no power, no heat) and it was getting darker. Right about the time that I was putting my tuxedo pants on, I heard a whoosh...the heat was back on. If the heat was on, the power had to be on. We tested the lights and much to our happy surprise, they worked.

As for the reception hall...they got power an hour before we were due to head over. They were the *only* building in their area to get power back.

I haven't said it enough...thank you God.

Someday I really need to type up the whole story and share it, but for now this will suffice.

Oh, and in case you're wondering how we celebrated yesterday...we went to see "Find Neverland" (I was a bit surprised how good it was), had dinner at an Irish pub around the corner, and then headed home and spent an hour or two roaming the lands of Azeroth.

Have I mentioned how lucky a man I am? :)