Ideas….

I decided that I wanted to create an EBS backed AMI on Amazon’s Cloud Computing platform.  I thought this would be REALLY hard.  I was completely wrong.

The first thing I did was start with an already existing EBS AMI. Right now there aren’t too many available but they are growing.  I chose an Ubuntu 9.04 image since I’m going to install a stack on it, and I’ve already done *most* of it before on Ubuntu.

A quick note: it is possible to create an EBS AMI from an S3 AMI, but I wasn’t able to figure that out (quickly).  Although I did find a script that will do this for you: http://gist.github.com/249915.

Next, I wanted to get the Ubuntu server prepared.  I needed to:

• install mysql — http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/install-mysql-server-5-on-ubuntu/
• install ruby on rails — http://www.hackido.com/2009/04/install-ruby-rails-on-ubuntu-904-jaunty.html (up to and including step 6)
• install zlib — http://www.techsww.com/tutorials/libraries/zlib/installation/installing_zlib_on_ubuntu_linux.php
• install blacklight — http://projectblacklight.org (includes solr and a number of gem dependencies)

I did all of this.  One thing I noticed, Blacklight requires me to use non-standard ports (ie not 22 and 80).  While the server was running, I went into the AWS console and opened ports for its associated security group.  The changes took effect immediately.  I definitely liked that.

Finally, I went in to the AWS Management Console and chose “Create Image (EBS AMI)”.

Then I filled in the information including a description of my image:

and voila! EBS backed AMI.  the one caveat is:

DON’T TERMINATE THE INSTANCE UNTIL THE NEW AMI HAS FINISHED BEING CREATED

because then you’ll loose all the work that you have just done.  doh!

Dear Google Reader,

I really like you a lot. You’re like my own personal New York Times. Every day I come into work and I open you up and skim through your “pages”. I like that I can share with my friends and what not (although I’m not going to lie…I think they get sick of me sharing about the cloud). But you know, sometimes I want to share things I’ve read not in Google Reader. Like today I saw this in a tweet:

http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0525951113/

It looks like a pretty cool book. I thought some of my followers on Google Reader might like to know about it. So I went and asked The Google to see if there was a way for me to tweet things to Google Reader. Alas there was not.

Google Reader this made me sad. I mean there is twittercal which is super awesome because I can tweet things to my Google Calendar. So why can’t there be twittergooglereader (or something with a better name). I mean don’t you know that the more social media like you become the more I want your functionality to expand and interact with other social media outlets?

Sigh. I still love you though.

Rosalyn

Today Verizon Fios updated my cable box again.  Apparently they added new widgets; one allows me to see what friends are posting on Facebook and another allows me to see what’s popular right now on Twitter.  So I tried it out.  Its pretty awesome.

Right now I can only update my Facebook Status with what I’m watching (if you’re reading this within the day or two I’m posting this you can check out my status at: http://www.facebook.com/rosy1280…you will have to become my friend of course).  Eventually they have plans to update it so you can do more.

Verizon Fios Facebook Interface

The Twitter interface isn’t as exciting.  I can see trending topics, tweets on the show I’m watching, and I can search tweets.  It would be awesome if I could log in to Twitter and see what people are doing like I can with Facebook, but hopefully that’s coming.

Verizon Fios Twitter Interface

So yes.  My cable company rocks.  And anyone who says differently is just jealous :P