The Business of Software – Don’t ever use Google Apps for anything important:

I’ve posted before on why I don’t think you should use Google Apps for your business. Here’s another reason. Should it go wrong, you can expect no help from Google whatsoever.

Who in their right mind could sensibly recommend businesses use this? Let alone the pain and complication suffered when, for whatever reason, it stops working, there are corporate legal issues here. Putting all your data where someone else determines whether you can get to it or not is so far away from corporate responsibility it’s unreal.

(Via Joel on Software.)

Posted: January 29th, 2009 under Comment, Links.
Comments: 1

I run OSX Server on a Mac mini here. It runs this blog, a few other websites and accepts mail for my family. I think it’s a great solution – easy to set up and configure and requires almost no attention. Just the sort of thing you could use at the end of your broadband connection (assuming your terms and conditions allow it).

A few days ago, however, I added another blog to the server (It’s my personal blog). Almost as soon as I did this, I started to notice things slowing down and timing out. As if my server was overloaded. Which it definitely wasn’t – load averages were trivial, there was nothing in the logs, no stray processes. Yet I’d keep getting DNS failures and various timeouts.

Suspecting something else, I took a look at my router’s logs. There was one message in particular that drew my attention. It was repeated time and time again:

10.123.4.1 exceeds the max. number of session per host!

A little bit of searching found the answer. The new blog had pushed my server beyond the default number of open NAT connections my router allowed. Setting this higher has fixed all the intermittent connection problems.

Details for Zyxel routers below the cut.
Read more »

Posted: January 27th, 2009 under Tips.
Comments: none

Apple MacBook Pro replacement policy for video malfunctions:

While Apple and nVidia have previously denied that any MacBook Pros containing the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT processor were affected, Apple now has a programme for the replacement of affected models – and a refund programme for people who have previously paid for repairs.

The affected machines were manufactured between May 2008 and September 2008 and include the following models:

• MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz)
• MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz)
• MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

Details are at this Apple Knowledgebase article.

(Via Macfixit.)

Posted: January 27th, 2009 under News.
Comments: none