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| Wednesday, October 11, 2023 |
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The Final Stretch Posted: 12:40:00 AM 0 comments |
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After much stalling on my part, the Overload Game Browser has finally migrated away from Windows over to Linux. This now makes 4 out of the 5 websites I wanted to move off the Windows box completed, leaving one last beast: the Overload Teams League. This means I'm on the final stretch of a project that's gone on for almost two years now. It definitely feels like the light at the end of the tunnel. Now I just need to figure out what that light is. The first thing I want to do after all this is done is give The Observatory its own website. I haven't updated anything having to do with it on this site in a long time, and the database I was using for it is massively out of date. In addition, I need to recreate the bot that was used for it so that the show runs much smoother. That will take time, however, and I'll be lucky to have it done by Season 35. After that, who knows? I have a number of ideas on what comes after that, but haven't made any solid plans for anything yet. There's so many possibilities that I don't feel like I can even choose something until I finish up everything else I'm working on. I feel like I have an ocean of possibilities in front of me, but no clear direction to swim in. Yet! In the meantime, a lot of other things are falling into place for me to resume a regular streaming schedule. More on that to come later, but I have a number of exciting projects in the works for the stream that I will be putting out there soon. Labels: Azure, Coding, Overload Teams League, The Observatory, Twitch |
| Friday, December 17, 2021 |
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It's Done. It's Finally Done. Posted: 1:52:00 AM 0 comments |
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I give to you the complete. The informative. The functional. roncli.com version 2.0. While it's been out here in beta for the last couple weeks, I formally released version 2.0 on GitHub earlier this evening, shipped it out to its new home in Azure, finished up all the remaining content changes I needed to make, and popped off. OK, so the celebration was more subdued than that, but I tell you, this has been a journey. I've done so many things that are new, I don't even know where to begin. roncli.com is the product of nine Docker containers. All of these containers run simultaneously on the same server to get the website to function.
roncli.com uses a whole bunch of tools to make it tick, including some mainstays like express. I also have written my own, including something called Hot Router, an express router that lets me create classes that are picked up by the router to determine what page to load when a certain URL is hit. It connects to a whole bunch of third party services for things such as my blog, my music releases, my coding projects, my gaming stats, and more. And, it has a super cool résumé page that I'd been wanting to do for a long time. Being finished with this site doesn't mean it's time to stop, though. Next, I'll be doing a release of olmod for the Overload folks, doing some long overdue updates to the Overload Tracker and the OTL, and then it's on to moving all the Overload projects off of the Windows server and retiring it, finally. There's still a long way to go, but I feel roncli.com was the biggest project that hadn't been moved yet. It was a complete rewrite from the ground up, which the tracker and the OTL will not be. Hopefully I can complete everything I want to do within the next few months and free myself up to do some stuff other than websites for once. We'll see how that goes in the coming months, but until then, enjoy the new roncli.com! Labels: Azure, Coding, Docker, Node, roncli.com |
| Saturday, October 09, 2021 |
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The Big Picture is Starting to Wear on Me Posted: 10:59:00 PM 0 comments |
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Eight months ago, I wrote on The Big Picture, a summary of my initiative to get off of my Azure Windows VM and on to Linux VMs running Docker containers with Node.js websites backed by MongoDB databases. It's a meta-project of sorts, and it has taken a certain mental discipline to keep at it. The Trax in Space 1 archive was easy to port, and since porting it I've learned that I didn't need to restrict downloads so much on it, so I increased the download limit. Six Gaming was full of challenges, and even today I find things I have to change with it because I didn't do it right the first time. I'm currently working on rebuilding this site and have been for several months now, and I'm itching to get back to the Overload-related projects, and to move on from this whole thing. I said this back in February: This is, of course, a multi-part project that has taken on a life of its own in recent months, and it's one I am enjoying greatly so far. It's really expanded the boundaries by which I am able to operate websites and related online services. Boy, that's an awful lot of enthusiasm. Sigh. We were so young back then. Since then I've worked through major bugs, tackled big architectural design questions, learned a hell of a lot about MongoDb... and have bored myself to death with this project. Look, it's not like I knew this was going to be a huge project. Just the opposite, I knew what I was getting into. I remember how long it took me to complete roncli.com the first time, and I'm still looking at coming in at well under a fifth of the time it took me to complete it the first time around. I've learned a lot in 7 years, and it's showing with how fast I'm getting stuff done. But when I take a look at the big picture, it just seems so... slow. I am to the point I want to work on something else. I want to update the OTL for season 7 and beyond. I want to add some amazingly cool things to olmod. I want to make games of my own. And, I want to get back to regular streaming again. But every time I sit down to code, I am reminded of the plot: get off that monolithic Windows VM, and you'll have the freedom to do what you want and when you want when this is all done. So I go heads down, jam my EDM playlist, and spit out another couple of files on whatever I'm working on, making a bit of meaningful progress until I get bored and go for a walk, play some games, or write a blog post. I'm sure a lot of this stems from the fact that I've been essentially stuck at home for 19 months. I'm bored to death with that, too. No train rides to The City, and very few outings outside of the usual Friday routine of dinner and groceries. While 2021 has been infinitely better than 2020 when I didn't get out at all, I can't shake the feeling this year that I'm accomplishing very little. Of course, my GitHub contribution graph will tell you otherwise, and when I look at things logically, I know I'm getting stuff done. I just wish I could fast forward to the end of the big picture so I can move on to the next big thing... perhaps something a bit more exciting. Labels: Azure, Coding, Overload Teams League, roncli.com, Six Gaming, Trax in Space |
| Thursday, February 25, 2021 |
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I Thought I Wasn't Going to Ever Blog about Trax in Space again... Posted: 2:08:00 AM 0 comments |
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Well, I hope at least a couple people get a good chuckle out of the title. Fortunately for them, this post is about something else entirely: the Trax in Space 1 file repository. I've maintained this site, with some interruptions, since around the time TiS1 shut down, which I believe was some time in 2003 or 2004. It was a simple site written in Classic ASP that had one purpose - serve files. When I lived in Houston, I maintained this site on my own server that was literally right next to my desk. I had unlimited bandwidth, great Internet speeds for the day, and was able to let people download what they wanted. Fast forward to October 2015, when I moved from Houston to Belmont. The site was unceremoniously removed from the Internet, and I really had no idea how I wanted to get it back up. I had roncli.com up in Azure for quite a while by that point, but didn't really know what the cost was going to be for me to put the whole 14 GB repository online, so I just... didn't. It didn't take long for people to notice it was gone, either. In December 2015, I received my first email regarding someone willing to host the site. As a man of technological pride, I silently declined, promising to myself to put it up soon. It took me 2 1/2 years to do so. This was the birth of the Github repository for tis.roncli.com, rewritten entirely in Node.js. However, there was a twist. Because I wasn't sure what kind of cost bandwidth would have, I limited downloads to 50 per 24 hours, a limit that still exists to this day. People have been generally happy that it's back, but have been asking for the 50 download limit to be removed. I've largely been unwilling to do that, simply because I'm not sure what the cost of doing so would be. However, it's a question that I will be willing to revisit after this current project is complete. Last year, I started learning Docker, and figured TiS1 would be a great first project. I learned how to set up Azure Storage, where all the files now live. I learned how to run certbot properly, got nginx as the web server, and log failures to Azure so that I can monitor what's going on. It's been awesome. The server is a Linux VM that's super small compared to the one I'm running, and is all open source, so no fees for it being a Windows VM with SQL Server on it. It's pretty cheap to run, too: about $10/month. TiS1's transition has been a success, and kick started me on my next project... moving Six Gaming into Docker, a project that was full of... let's say "learning experiences". I'll talk about Six's challenges in my next post. Labels: Azure, Coding, Node, Trax in Space |
| Monday, February 08, 2021 |
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The Big Picture Posted: 4:16:00 PM 0 comments |
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Sometimes, it's a good idea to take a step back and look at what you're doing and what you've done, and ask, "Can this be better?" I recently did this with my Azure Windows VM. For a while, I've been just loading up any new website or venture I've created onto my VM. This, however, has proven to be problematic when it comes to some of my more recent projects, including the OTL and the corresponding Overload Game Browser. These two projects are by far my most used websites on the server, and they continually push the limits of what this VM can do. Timeouts have become more and more frequent, and as more and more data piles into the database, the problem is just going to keep getting worse. So I asked the question, "Do I need to be on a Windows VM?" Some years ago, the answer would have been "yes". I was running .NET Framework 4-point-something, and had a lot of Microsoft-specific things on the system, including a Microsoft SQL Server. Now, however, every site I host is written in Node.js. The only thing remaining that requires anything Microsoft is the SQL Server. So I asked the question, "Do I even need SQL Server?" I don't think I do. MongoDB exists, and I have been figuring out how to work with that for some time. As such, I've begun a massive project to try to move away from this Windows VM and retire it permanently. For a while, I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, but as part of a learning course pilot at work I picked up Docker. My goal is to move every project that I have on that server into a group of Docker containers and run them on their own Linux VMs. Linux VMs are much cheaper than Windows VMs, and if something starts running out of resources I can just up the VM size accordingly. So what is going to move?
Labels: Azure, Coding, Overload Teams League, roncli.com, Six Gaming, Trax in Space |
| Monday, April 07, 2014 |
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All Good Things and Such Posted: 10:18:00 AM 0 comments |
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It's been a long time since I've written anything of substance here, so let this post serve as a catch up to what's been going on. Since April of 2012, I have had the pleasure of working on the iOS application known as Sift. The company developing Sift is a San Francisco Bay Area startup, of which I am a founder. Needless to say, I put in many hours of work into the product. Sift was more than a job to me. It was an opportunity to do something big, and perhaps make a profound impact in the way people shop online. It's still in its infancy, but the product that we put out there is pretty awesome. However, I decided to step away from the company in February after three months of consideration. It was a very difficult decision for me, as I truly believed in the product and the company. I was a remote worker in a high-impact position, and I found that it wasn't easy maintaining the visibility required of such a position in a remote location while still being able to get done the stuff that needed to get done. This became especially true as the company grew, both with more internal employees and having to work with multiple contractors outside of the company (and the country), which would have me going as early as 8 am and as late as 2 am. Combine that with the demanding travel schedule - I spent only 8 of the final 18 weeks of 2013 at home - and it's not hard for most people to see how stress levels were through the roof. Extreme stress levels aren't something I'm particularly fond of, which led to my decision to move on. I did spend a good deal of time with the company, accomplishing and learning plenty along the way. I learned much about the open source world, and found that I very much enjoyed working with Node JS. I met a lot of awesome people as well, and I can only wish for their further success as Sift continues to grow. While leaving was certainly not a decision I came to lightly, I'm quite happy that I was able to leave my second startup on my own terms after being able to accomplish so much for them. My first startup, Trax in Space, ended in financial disaster, and I wasn't ready to step away when it all fell apart. This time, I look back fondly on the experience, knowing that I was a major contributor, and that the company is still growing upon the foundation that I helped to build. So what's next for me? Well, back to the Monday through Friday, 8-hour a day grind, resharpening and honing my .NET skills while bringing my schedule back to a sense of normalcy that I have found was very much missed. What else? Music. I'm slowly getting back into my music, and as always have several songs floating around. I want to get myself a new electric guitar next, as my last one bit the dust some years ago. In the meantime, I post things I'm working on to my creative blog as I work on them. Coding. I'm in the process of upgrading all of my .NET projects to 2013, will be updating LibWowAPI, and plan on slowly transitioning my websites over to Windows Azure. I plan on learning Rendr and incorporating it into my personal website, roncli.com, as a way of learning and showing off my node.js skill. And I am wanting to figure out Xamarain so that I may be able to write mobile games. Gaming. And of course, I spent a ton of time between jobs gaming. I'm big time into Diablo 3 these days, have gotten into streaming my gaming experiences, and am a regular host on the Six Gaming Podcast where we talk all about gaming. Seems like I'm getting back to my roots these days. That could be a sign of some wonderful times to come. Labels: Azure, Coding, Diablo III, Editorials, Gaming, LibWowAPI, Life, Node, Rendr, roncli.com, Sift, Six Gaming Podcast, Stress, Tumblr, Twitch, Xamarian |
| Tuesday, July 02, 2013 |
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On the move Posted: 7:13:00 PM 0 comments |
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I know it's been a while since I've last posted something, and I apologize for that. My job leaves very little time for stuff like this, but I've been fairly motivated by recent events - namely my 12-year Internet service provider starting to really suck - to take inventory of the websites I run, and what I need to do with them. So I came across this tweet today: Folks with MSDN? Activate your free Azure credits (*no CC required*) and win an Aston Martin: http://t.co/iEtEsPXk25 While the concept of winning an Aston Martin is appealing in its own right, what interested the geek in me was the fact that MSDN subscribers actually have free Windows Azure credits. Azure is basically a hosting service with a lot of bells and whistles. I checked and saw I get $100 per month credit, and started poking around to see what I can do. I've got a VM with Windows Server and SQL Server up, and am starting to look into experimenting with getting my pet project that has long since been ignored, Cheevos FTW!, up and running on Azure to see how much it'll cost, and how well it performs. Well, then I got into the small problem that the database for Cheevos is pushing 200 GB. Yikes. I figure that since I have over 6 million characters logged with their achievements, I can afford to cut back some, but that'll still make for a fairly large database. So the plan is to split the database into two pieces. One piece would have the summary data - which runs under 1 MB - and would reside on Azure while the big piece would still be stored here. I'll periodically update the summary data on the server using some kind of API call that will update the database. Meanwhile, when a player enters their character name on Azure, it'll use the API to retrieve their data and compare it to the summary data and store who it loaded. Then I'll download that data back to the big database and crunch the summary numbers periodically. In theory, it sounds kind of smooth. In practice, there's a lot I need to change about Cheevos to speed it up some, and hopefully this pass over it will give me the opportunity to get that site speedy again. The next site to go over would most certainly be roncli.com, but that still has a LOT of work left on it before it's even ready for prime time. I've been flopping over whether to launch with just pages and the blog, or if I should wait until I have the music and gaming sections going as well. With the time I've been having lately, though, it's looking less likely that it'll be launched in a reasonable time frame, and by then I'll probably need to reboot the website all over again for a third time. Perhaps I need to just find a way to make time to work on all of this, but I don't see that happening in the near future. Labels: Azure, roncli.com, Servers |