On August 24th, at approximately 10:15pm, the dontasq.com server experienced power issues, causing an outage of both web and e-mail services. All services were restored a short while ago.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been a very minor issue and the downtime would have been barely noticeable; however, the server is not currently hosted where I have direct access to it. When these circumstances happen, I cannot resolve them myself, but need to contact someone else (who may not necessarily be available). As a result, the outage lasted 18 hours rather than 18 seconds.

The reason for hosting dontasq.com offsite is that my ISP does not yet offer a certain network configuration that is needed to access the server at all. (Techspeak: My school recently started giving private IP’s rather than public ones. I need to apply for a public IP to run a server, but this system apparently isn’t in place yet.) As soon as this is available, the server will be moved back on-site. This will result in another (shorter) downtime, but I will announce this no less than 24 hours in advance.

A major downside to running a revenue-free website is that all costs come out of your own pocket; on a college budget, this means everything has to be cheap. Professional hosting would likely eliminate these downtimes altogether, but I simply cannot afford it at this time. I have the technical ability to host (for free) out of my own apartment, so I’ve chosen that route instead. Of course, I would gladly accept any donations toward an upgrade.

I apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for understanding.

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Those of you who have been following the Resolutions 2007 project know that I made a New Year’s Resolution that, by the end of the year, I would be spending 20 out of 24 hours of every day doing “productive” activities. At the time I made the resolution, I issued a challenge to readers to try it themselves. I don’t think many of you took me up on it. But I’m here to convince you that it’s not only possible, but easier (and more fun) than you may think.
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Last weekend, I brought the project that has consumed my life for the past six weeks to a loose ending by successfully installing KDE on the Linux OS.

English translation: It went from a text interface to a pretty-looking “icon” one.

There is still more work to be done, and there may be for awhile, but probably nothing worth writing about — and more importantly, nothing that will consume massive amounts of my time. The purpose of this project was not to describe the system I was configuring in gory detail, but to create a guide for those who would want to do such a thing themselves. I’ve finally written that guide.

It’s difficult to “dumb down” a highly in-depth technical project like this one, but I’m more than willing to answer any questions you may have.

For more information about my year-long Resolutions project, check out this post and this one.

On a personal level, the month of July was frustrating, to say the least. There’s loads of content I’d like to start adding to this website, but at the same time, I have to keep poring my energy into more “offline” projects (namely the Dream Machine and Polyphasic Sleep), since I anticipate that completing them first will be the most beneficial in the long run.

• 20 Hours (of Productivity): 8
• The Good: July was actually an extremely productive month for me, though you would never know it by skimming the month’s Blurblog posts (all two of them)! I’ve not started tracking hours yet, but I’ve been averaging around five hours of (polyphasic) sleep per day, and have been reasonably good about not wasting the other 19 hours. One unexpected positive side effect of the Dream Machine project is that the polyphasic schedule has come more easily — it’s easier to stay awake when you’ve got a well-defined to-do sitting right in front of you.
• The Bad: Admittedly, Don’tASQ has suffered some neglect. While productivity is great, I’ve got to strive to be more balanced. “But what exactly is ‘productivity?’” Yeah, yeah, I’m getting there…
• Finances: 6
• The Good: I’ve put some serious thought into financial planning, and may consider turning it into a project (maybe even a global one).
• The Bad: I haven’t actually done the planning yet.
• Fitness: 4
• The Good: Bonus points for being very intentional about eating healthy — and succeeding (most of the time).
• The Bad: The Fitness Project is on a hiatus. See this post for more info.
• Social/Relationships: 3
• The Good: I try to see the good in things, even when there isn’t necessarily any to be found.
• The Bad: On this front, not much has changed since… well, since January.