Most of you know i have had some trouble with Windows 7 Home Premium, the same machine running my webserver suffered a minor set back that took nearly 2 1/2 days to fix. Most of that time was spent trying to track down blank DVD-RW’s to back up all of my files, i never found those so i was stuck using a 16 GB thumbdrive to slowly transfer files from the hard drive to another computer for temporary storage.
The computer i was running the webserver and Blue Bucket Radio on has a 1 TB hard drive, thankfully i had not used the whole hard drive and my other computer with a 320 GB hard drive had plenty of room to store those files.
I was not able to save Windows 7 and would end up re-formatting the 1 TB hard drive and re-installing an operating system,
i did all this using a live bootable thumbdrive with Ubuntu 13.04 installed on it. It’s pretty easy, go into BIOS settings and change the boot order from hard drive to usb thumbdrive, save changes in BIOS and restart the machine.
When it boots up Linux Ubuntu loads as if the thumbdrive is a hardrive and from there i was able to access all the important files in the broken windows system for transfer to another storage media, in this case the 16 GB thumbdrive.
After all of that transferrerering i decided to try to fix Windows once more but alas it was not meant to be and i fell back on my favorite Linux operating system. As my wife said, she would never go back to Windows unless she really had to.
Her Toshiba laptop runs Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and has been doing so for a couple years now faithfully, it sports quad core processors where as my HP Pavilion runs Dual Processors, both are amazingly fast and reliable.
The webserver is back up and running under Apache2 and Webmin, the url is the same as before and is in my signature below all my post’s. I have included screenshots below for this post showing the server GUI Webmin, the Icecast2 server, the desktop and the About This Computer page showing basic specs on this pc.
If you all don’t mind, could you visit the improved website and let me know if you can access the website, how quick it is to load and if you think it needs improvements share your thoughts as well? I really would appreciate the feedback.
Barry of Blue Bucket Radio 1620
http://thefreeproject.no-ip.org or http://www.bluebucketradio.com
Bam!
It is wonderful that the Home Web Server Tests are resuming.
I clicked on the link to thefreeproject.no-ip(dot)org and BAM! I was immediately there.
The Kentucky background and artsy fonts make for a good look.
I used the Contact Button and sent you an e-mail.
Now I’m going back to click on your other links.
Bam!
Thanks Carl,
Considering i am on one of the worst ISP on the planet , that is a compliment.
There is more to come, more webpages, photos and hopefully our over the air signal streaming to the world.
Back in Action
I let my home web site get left behind when I had some other technical problems but it needs to come back online because it’s scheduled to TAKE OVER as a main website when my commercial hosting contract runs out.
I may give a little speech right now to honor the occasion…
Friends…………………….. uh,……………………..good morning, and………………….it gives me great pride and pleasure to……………………er,…………….upon this occasion…………….here in the sweltering Midwaste………besieged as we are on all sides……………….to throw this switch and in so doing…………….. connect the many coasts together for the umpteenth time……………….remembering that first railroad track so many years ago. Thank you for coming!
Me Be Back On Line
Barry has gotten the ball rolling on Home Website testing….
KDX Worldround Radio At Home
Boom!
” Barry has gotten the ball rolling on Home Website testing….
KDX Worldround Radio At Home “
Carls website loads fast as well, great work and that abyss software seems to work rather well from the looks of it.
MRAM Yours loads fast too, so it looks as though home webhosting isn’t a dead art after all.
Barry of the world service of BBR
Timeline Growing Shorter
Yes, it’s a wistful dinner song… “Our timeLine is growing shorter, someday we’ll leave earth in the dust…”
Meanwhile I am hammering and sawing to get the Home Website fully operational by the start of 2017 when KDX ends its relationship with a costly business website hosting service.
Right now I have a question about “files for download by visitors” which is a large part of our operation.
Already in experiments conducted by Barry, MRAM, JohnyC and others at an ALPB meeting, we have shown that downloads can be succesful from a home web hosting service.
But here’s what I want and any input is not only welcome but I’m begging…
1.) When someone downloads an audiofile I want a Pop-Up that says something like “Download In Progress from IP 123.123.123.123;
and
2.) I want a continuing Summary Report telling IP Address, when it was downloaded, what was downloaded.
But how? How? I need help. Never mind what you were doing. Help me solve this problem.
Making a Problem
For those of us who are running servers from home I have thought of a new problem that might not exist…
Consider all these known facts, then we’ll reach the point where I can describe the problem I’m talking about…
1.) Very many of us have been streaming radio from home servers direct from our computer.
2.) Now some of us have also been running Home Website Hosting Servers.
Two different servers from a home computer.
Now the “problem”.
Should the radio servers be INSIDE the website servers?
I think it is true that the contents WITHIN the Home Website Server software are isolated and separate from the rest of the computer. ALL files relevant to the Home Website Server are contained within the website software.
On the other hand, the Radio Server, although it exists in its own confined area, is pulling audio files from elsewhere on the computer and perhaps saving log files to far-flung locations…
Would it… for some reason… be better to place the entire Radio Server and its audiofiles and logs WITHIN the Home Website Server? What reasons might there be? Perhaps security would be better and maybe it would run faster (more efficiently).
Input is welcome on the intellectual exploration. All discoveries will be shared.
Off for Maintenance
KDX Worldround Radio shut down all streams and transmitters for Sunday afternoon.
The time was spent installing and formatting a new 2 TB hard-drive in preparation for serious web hosting and radio activity in the year ahead.
KDX streams to over 400 countries in the world.
Gotta Keep ’em Seperated
Carl,
You asked if the radio servers should reside inside the webhosting servers and yes they can but there is a catch.
Hosting the radio servers inside the webserver is very do-able with a few tricks and since you run Aprelium Abyss server software it should be a fairly easy task though I would have to install it on my machine to find out the exact steps to take to make this happen.
I will tell you what I know and we can take it from there.
First off , both Abyss and Apache2 are one in the same, they are both open source software based on Unix/Apache systems that lead the way in webhosting from free webservers like Lycos, Wix,50webs and the big expensive hosts like Godaddy, Aplus.net and scores of others.
I bet even part15.us runs from a Unix based system the fact that some servers are using Linux or Windows as their main operating systems shows the flexibility of the webserver software. Thought both operating systems have sliglty different languages they both do the same thing, the steps are no different.
Apache2 is the Linux answer to the WAMP software which is free as well but is geared towards Windows OS.
All of these webhosting softwares have one common feature, Virtual Servers.
The vitrual servers or virtual host allow us to install applications such as a Minecraft server where everyone in the world can join you hunting down monsters and building whatever, or in you case shoutcast or icecast servers can be isntalled in the virtual enviroment. You have your main website served up in the var/www/html directory while on a virtual host you installed let’s say, a shoutcast server. Even though they are in seperate enviroments in the webserver they also share the same directory tree, dns and depending on how you set up a shoutcast server, sometimes the same port number.
Bus since you run several different streams carrying the same programming, then different ports are probably your best bet. So in short, yes, installing radio servers inside the hosting software can be done.
Just follow the Abyss documentation for creating virtual hosts, I suggest making two seperate virtual hosts and try running Icecast on one and Shoutcast on the other. The tricky part will be starting them all up at the same time, not only will you be starting up a webserver, but each virtual host as well which contain radio servers, each have their own way of starting up when the computer reboots.
I think you can make a batch file for each server to start up when the webserver or computer starts up, that way all you will have to do is visit localhost or 127.0.0.1:8000 and if your radio servers status page shows up then you’re good to go.
The batch file would tell the radio server to wake up instead of having to open a terminal and typing something like ./start.sh (in linux) or pressing an icon to start the server. The batch file will have the start up command and will load with all the other commands that make the servers do what you asked them to.
I will try to compile the steps it takes to do all this if you run into any problems Carl, but it can be done and if you run into a problem and i don’t answer , there are plenty of help forums on the subject.
Usually though, Windows has it easier, usually you just have to use a Terminal, locate the .exe file move it into the virtul host and run a short command line to start installing shoutcast or icecast into the virtual host, but it does have to be install under a virtual host, your main website should be dedicated to serving up .html, .php, .zip,.exe and .mp3. etc.
There is just a lot of steps to take but it’s fairly straight forward.
Here is something to consider
Here is something to consider when running a radio streaming server at your house such as shoutcast or icecast I’ve been streaming my internet station for several years and I’ve had lots of growing pains with dealing with bandwidth issues. I can tell you that it’s much better to rent a shoutcast or icecast server elsewhere then trying to run one in your home especially if you have people streaming Netflix or watching a lot of YouTube.
When I lived in Elizabeth City North Carolina this was a major problem so much that it almost killed my radio station. I had family members that could not understand that during prime time this is where you get your listeners and keep in mind I have a sponsor who has put lots of money into my radio station to keep it running since both me and my wife are on disability. Losing listeners meant losing donations and losing donations means losing the ability to keep the radio station on the air.
lots of fights broke out between me and my step-son because he just did not get it that he could not be on YouTube or playing games online while I was on the air especially during prime time. With that being said I want to warn you that trying to run a radio server and a web server plus if you have other activities going on with your internet at the same time you are starting a recipe for a major failure. I strongly suggest that for your radio streaming server you consider renting one elsewhere and you can even get one that has Auto DJ capabilities. I actually rented a live web DJ service which was actually http://livewebdj.com and when I was not able to broadcast and when I was not able to broadcast live it would automatically switch over to the live web DJ service and continue broadcasting. This way my listeners weren’t constantly being cut off the air. Later on my sponsor setup a remote Windows Server where I actually ran another copy of my radio station software uploaded my music and had playlist set up similar to what I have at home. So when I’m not able to broadcast live here because of bandwidth issues I just start the remote server and the station continues to broadcast no problems.
If you get enough activity you might be able to rent a virtual server elsewhere and run your web site hosting software and you’re shoutcast or icecast radio server from the remote server that you’re renting. This will assure that you can use your home internet without interfering with your website or your radio broadcasting over the internet. Again I can tell you from 8 years plus of experiments that trying to do too much from your residential bandwidth just is a recipe for failure. my station is doing so much better now that I have taken the necessary steps and I wish that I had done that from the start but you gotta crawl before you can run.
Glad that you’re pluggin’
Glad that you’re pluggin’ away at the old site there, and Linux home hosting, good your drive problem is fixed.
I see it’s a different page compared to the last template one I saw, and I like the idea of ‘home grown’ sites that look unique, compared to templates, just a personal feeling on it, home radio station – home grown site feels right.
The single column probably looks good on a tablet or phone’s browser too, though I didn’t check it yet.
I like the big browser-filling background graphic, though it took at least 8 seconds to load and render on my system. The darker blue background color didn’t let the text be read easily during that time.
I’d suggest to lighten the background color and push it to more of a green, then when the background graphic pops in it won’t be as much of a surprise. If the background graphic doesn’t load, then visitors can still read and use the site.
On my browser, the list of shows is over the grass and it’s hard to read unless I scroll up to put the text into the sky. (Browser is full width on 1920 monitor). You could try to put the paragraph in a table with a solid background color, or a ‘div’ with the same.
The custom buttons are cool to my eyes, but I think the background graphic is one of the big things you could tackle to improve the site. It’s 3 megapixels and 1.5 megabytes, and you should be able to get the file size smaller to speed the loading.
You’ll need a graphics program, from Irfanview, something from Adobe, The Gimp or others. You could open that picture and resave as jpg and between 50 and 75% Quality. I just saved it to 75% and it went to 418k, less than 1/3 size of the original. You could probably get a bit smaller at 50%.
Adding a little blur to the picture can also help, like the Average setting, or use Focus and unfocus slightly, something that won’t bother you when you see it.
You could even go more extreme on file size with other techniques, like adding a ‘mask’ over the picture, a solid color that’s opaque that most of the picture shows through.
Since the greenery is likely taking the most bits to reproduce, you could select it with a lasso, then use a paint setting to render it as Watercolor or other paint style and see if you like it. You could selectively blur it that way too.
The object of all this would be to take the complication out of the picture so the file size saves smaller, but the image still has the impact you want. It’s a compromise, but your site could be more zippy.
Rock On!
Some Background on the Background
Nate,
I had completely forgotten that when i was working on that website that i was running a Sanyo HD TV with a resolution of
1360 x 768 16:9 and images on the screen tend to get stretched out wider than what they really are.
Also the image I used was taken with my wifes Olympus digital camera set at a high resolution since we take storm photos and scenery pictures while we are out running around town or storm spotting. We chose the higher setting just to make the photos pop and often times we forget to resize them for use online.
I changed the background to clouds with a gaussian blur effect and it seems much easier to read the print now.
Also decreased the file size and fine tuning to 60% +/-.
Thank you for the heads up.