Everybody is going down!

Well not everybody in general but probably every site hosted on my new VPS.
Near the end of January I upgraded my previous shared hosting account to a VPS server. Although I’m pleased to tell you that VPS hosting at Vexxhost is very affordable and pretty straight forward, I have to say that I’m running into a pretty annoying problem right now.

In short:
I’m having trouble keeping my server up as it randomly starts spawning tons of PHP processes for no reason whatsoever. There’s a screenshot of this a bit down. The result is in fact simple: The server dies and needs a reboot. The issue is still ongoing and I’m still trying to fix it. So if you end up seeing my site (or any site hosted on this VPS for that matter) go 404, feel free to ping me, so I can reboot the box

In long:
I have been looking into the issue together with friends and even my hosting provider, but nobody was able to figure out was going on. I keep monitoring the server as long as possible but at some point the server just goes berserk and starts spawning PHP processes which consume all of my memory. The next thing is the OOM-killer killing every other process in the server to free up memory, which results in an unresponsive server… The last thing my Terminal window can show me is the insanity going on before the SSH daemon is sacrificed in order to free up some more memory (to no avail I might add).

If you have any clue how I can find out what is causing this: Feel free to mail (i-at-noCreativity.com) me, Twitter @reply / DM me, call me on my cellphone (if you’ve got my number), or even break in into my home and leave me a note with the solution on the table, because this has been going on for almost a week now and I’m desperate for a solution!

I have been Googling along all week. There are a few people out there having the same issues, but nobody seems to be able to actually solve it.
Having said that: Sorry for the inconvenience (if any) and I hope to fix this soon (because I want to share more cool shit with you guys & gals!)

Actionscript is cool for developers. Not for me.

I love the creative process, I love experimenting, I love discovering new things and doing all kinds of stuff with it. I like to create toys that tell me something about myself. Having said that: I am a passionate Interactive Experience Designer. It’s a title I like because it tells you everything about me in 3 words.

• Interactive: I want the user to be able to control what is happening. The user should always be part of the application. The user should actively be engaging with the application. Whatever happens should happen either because of the user or for the user to get an even better experience.
• Experience: I don’t want them to just click a few buttons. I want my users to like the application. I want them to like it so much, that they start missing it once they’ve closed the browser window.
• Designer: Although most of you know me as a developer, I want to make a point here: I don’t develop. I create.
  I write code in order to create a visual masterpiece, either in interaction or experience; not in code; not in application architecture; none of those non-Ronny words.

That last point is really the reason of why I’m writing this. Having said the above, it should be clear Actionscript has enabled me to create cool stuff. Actionscript has enabled me to create whatever I could think off. But now at this point, I’m eager to go beyond my current limits, and I want to go there fast! Read the rest of this entry »

Beautiful blogger award

Yesterday Lyntje, a good friend of mine, was given the Beautiful Blogger Award which she obviously deserves. Lyntje writes about her laughs and joys in life in Dutch, so if you understand a bit of Dutch, make sure you check her blog.

Now what is this Beautiful blogger award?
It’s something that’s been around for about the same amount of time as sunlight, so I can’t really tell who was the first to give it away, but he/she was the one to make the rules, so here goes:

• Thank the person that nominated you
• Put the award up on your blog
• Post a link to the person that nominated you
• Share 7 interesting facts about yourself
• Finally, nominate 7 other people you think deserve the award

Lyntje, being a good girl, did all of this… And that last bullet point is why I’m writing this blogpost: She nominated me, using the following words:

Ronny, because he’s very talented and should just realize that once time! (Yes, it’s true!) Absolutely one of my best friends!

Now, there’s no disagreeing that Lyntje is a close friend of mine, but I still think she’s exaggerating when it gets to the ‘talented’ part of the mention. But it pleases me to hear that anyway, so thank you for that

So: This is where I tell you 7 interesting things about myself…

1. I love challenges. In fact, I love challenges so much it kind of is one of my big weaknesses. If somebody tells me I won’t be able (or dare) to do something, I’ll make it my mission to prove him/her/them wrong! Even if it’s not that important. Even if it doesn’t change anything. Even if it is super time consuming. I believe in the fact that if I can think it, I can make it. And as far as I can remember it has always applied.
2. I’ve had a pretty rough youth. Lots of things went wrong and I did quite some stupid things. I thought they would make me happier… If I think back about it now, I can’t stop wondering what I was thinking… However, being here, right at this point in my life and having learned my lessons, I think that whatever happened back then made me a better person. I appreciate life more than ever. If at my age (23) there’s anything that I could teach you about life, it would be that you should never make compromises with yourself. You only live once: Make it count.
3. For more than 3 years now, I have been in love with my amazing girlfriend, Dorien. She’s really amazing and let me tell you why. First off: She’s beautiful, she’s funny, she likes lingerie (and so do I ), but most importantly: She’s so supportive! If you happen to be the boyfriend/girlfriend of an artist, you probably know what kind of insanity she’s facing every day. And at good last: She makes me feel like I could do anything. I love her. Read the rest of this entry »

Come look at our latest creation: The iJoke!

I have been a Mac user for over 2 years and all of my close friends will somehow agree that turning Mac totally changed my computer experience. I haven’t run into that same kind of problems as I was when using Windows. I’m not complaining anymore about a very sluggish system etc (but I am complaining sometimes! We really need to get those SSD drives into those iMacs!). That means I really like what Apple creates, and I like how their products work for me.

The iPad. Doesn't it look like it were a stretched version of the iPhone?(Picture taken from Engadget.com )

So: to the point. If you haven’t heard about Apple’s last new big thing, you probably lived on another planet for the past couple of weeks. Yes, I’m talking about the amazing iPad! I could start by talking about what a great piece of engineering this probably is (that thing is pretty thin, and it has a pretty big display so my guess is that this wasn’t easy) but that just wouldn’t do justice at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Why Apple is doing a good job not allowing the Flash Player to be on the iPhone

I’m going to get shot down for this. I can already feel the finger on the trigger of the sniper on the roof across the street, aiming at my head… I love Flash, I have been playing and creating with Flash ever since I was 17 years old. But…

In the past 2 years there have been numerous times when people expected (and were insanely excited about) a full in-browser Flash Player on the iPhone and while I was one of the people hoping it would happen only a few months ago, I’m not so certain anymore.

Everybody is saying that once Flash Player 10.1 will run in the browser on the iPhone, you will be enabled to have a ‘full web browsing’ experience. But how do you expect the ‘full experience’ on a mobile device (in this case the iPhone)? Read the rest of this entry »