Fabio on Reddit

It looks like Fabio is doing an AMA (Ask me Anything) on Reddit, and itis most amusing. I’m not sure if it’s him or the Old Spice PR team, but it’s funny either way. Read it in its full glory.

A word of warning about 1and1.com

After dealing with them while working on a client’s website, I can’t, ingood conscience, ever recommend 1and1.com as a domain registrar or DNS host. Creating, updating, and re-naming CNAMEs and A entries take an extremely long time, with some users complaining of times over 72 hours. This is not taking into account propagation time at all, this is just how long it takes for them to update their own DNS entries on their DNS servers.

We are going on a few hours for my client, but even that is absurd for just updating an entry. Hopefully once we get to the point where DNS propagation is happening, it’ll move quickly.

Furthermore, you’re limited to 5 sub-domains, which is an effort to rope you into one of their more expensive services. You also can’t do wildcard subdomains.

tldr: Do not use 1and1.com if you are impatient or on a tight deadline. CNAME/Host entry updates take anywhere from hours to days, minus propagation time. They also artificially limit you to 5 sub-domains, and no wildcards at all.

Removing some dust

After sufficient embarrassment, I have finally forced myself to updatethe site. In addition to a visual overhaul, I’ve updated the codebase to use Django 1.3, and brought in a lot of the pieces of our stack we use at DUO Interactive.

I’ve also made the updated source for this site available in its entirety on GitHub. As a disclaimer, I don’t have the time or will to support the codebase, and it’s mostly there just so I can get this thing under version control. Perhaps it will be of use to someone as an example, though.

Finally up to Date

I finally bit the bullet and went through the necessary leg work to getthe site upgraded to the latest Django trunk. The fun included adding the new admin stuff and figuring out the newly redesigned comments system.

If you notice anything odd, let me know and I’ll get it straightened out. And now back to our regularly scheduled inactivity.

Adobe Illustrator CS3 Crashing on Saving

After trying to figure out why Illustrator CS3 kept crashing when savingfiles, I finally turned up this bit of information that pointed me in the right direction. It looks like if you have your Print Spooler service on Windows XP disabled when attempting to save, Illustrator dies.

One of the posters on the linked thread mentions setting your default printer to Adobe PDF if you still have problems when your printer is off (but your Spooler Service is on). I am able to save while my printer is off without a problem, but disabling the Spooler service and setting my default printer to Adobe PDF still results in a crash.

Things to glean from this:

• On Windows XP, your Print Spooler service must be active to avoid crashes.
• I don’t think your printer needs to be on (at least this was the case with mine).
• If you do have problems with saving while your printer is in an abnormal state, set your default printer to Adobe PDF.

Hopefully this is useful to someone out there.