Jay Lagare

General

Wedding Supplier Review: Suarez

By on Monday, October 26, 2009

The first shop I visited, when I started looking for an engagement ring was Suarez. I was impressed and they even come highly recommended by Edong. Somehow I ended up not doing business with them. But after a bit of a disappointment with the engagement ring, Michell and I thought we’d play it safe and go to Suarez for the wedding rings.

Almost the whole transaction was done online. I made an inquiry, showed them photos, discussed a bit via email and phone, and made my deposit at a bank.

After a month, the rings were ready for pick up at their branch of our choosing. And we were not disappointed. Heck, we were happy! The rings were just as I envisioned them to be: A band with channel-set 12-diamond accent for Michelle and a simple band for me. And both were excellently made and polished. Even the engraving was detailed and neat.

If we were to choose wedding rings all over again, we’d choose them. In fact, we’re planning to have them remount the engagement ring one of these days. Now that’s saying something.

Cost: Varies greatly with design so this won’t be helpful even if posted
Rating: 4/5

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General

Wedding Supplier Review: Matus

By on Monday, October 26, 2009

We first encountered Matus at a Wedding Fair at Mega Mall(?) while Michelle and I were shopping for an engagement ring (yes, it was a couple thing :P). They were nice and helpful, their products on display were good, they have good rep, and they had this small but very nice loose, i.e. unmounted, stone.

After checking out other suppliers and comparing with the other ones we’ve found, we decided on getting the engagement ring from them. So on the next wedding fair, we gave them a visit. We wanted the classic Tiffany solitaire setting but it’s not one of their standard designs. However, the assure us that can custom-make it for us.

And I guess that’s the problem. After several visits and discussions aided by sketches and photos, they still couldn’t get it right. You would expect jewelsmiths to at least know how to do the Tiffany solitaire setting no matter how cliché it is, right?

But no. Somehow, they just kept doing it wrong. Maybe it was a case of getting assigned to a novice jewelsmith. Whatever it was, we had to rework and even the final product still had shoddy workmanship.

Perhaps, I’m a tough customer, but I’m paying good money so I expect what I get to be good. What I got isn’t bad. But it isn’t that good either.

Cost: Varies greatly with design so this won’t be helpful even if posted
Rating: 2/5

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General

Set Up HTTPS In Apache

By on Monday, October 12, 2009

Setting up HTTPS,  is also easy. As usual, open up httpd.conf found in the conf directory of your Apache installation directory.

First, you need to enable the SSL module. Make sure to uncomment the line that loads mod_ssl.so:

LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so

To support HTTPS, you normally would listen to port 443. You need to register it as a port that Apache listens on. After the line that says “Listen 80” add:

Listen 443

If your server has multiple IP addresses,  you can also listen to specific address and port combinations:

Listen 10.0.0.1:443
Listen 10.0.0.2:443

You will then need to define a virtual host for your secure server:

<VirtualHost *:443>
   ServerAdmin [email protected]
   DocumentRoot /www/docs/www.example.com
   ServerName www.example.com
   ErrorLog logs/www.example.com-error_log
   CustomLog logs/www.example.com-access_log common
   SLEngine On
   SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/cert.pem
   SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/key.pem
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443> means this virtual host will handle HTTPS requests on any IP.

You will need a server certificate and key. Let’s say you have them as cert.pem and key.pem. Copy these to the conf/ssl.crt and conf/ssl.key directories  of your Apache installation directory.

Save and restart Apache.

That’s it!

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General

Set Up Name-Based Virtual Hosts In Apache

By on Monday, October 12, 2009

If your server has only one IP  (or even if you have many) and you want to host different websites you can use Apache’s name-based virtual hosts feature.

Setting up name-based virtual hosts is easy. First, open up httpd.conf found in the conf directory of your Apache installation directory.

First, you need to enable name-based virtual hosting. Make sure to uncomment the line that does this:

NameVirtualHost *:80

If your server has multiple IPs you can choose which IP will host name-based virtual hosts

NameVirtualHost 10.0.0.1:80

Now you can define different sites for every DNS name your server has. Just add the following for every name:

<VirtualHost 10.0.0.1:80>
   ServerAdmin [email protected]
   DocumentRoot /www/docs/www.example.com
   ServerName www.example.com
   ServerAlias www2.example.com www3.example.com
   ErrorLog logs/www.example.com-error_log
   CustomLog logs/www.example.com-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

ServerName is the required for the first DNS name. For additional DNS names corresponding to the same virtual host, you can use ServerAlias and add as many DNS names you want separated by spaces.

Don’t forget you can mix and match IPs and ports as in IP-based virtual hosts.

Save and restart Apache.

That’s it!

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General

Set Up IP-Based Virtual Hosts In Apache

By on Monday, October 12, 2009

If your server has multiple IPs  and you want to host different website for each IP you can use Apache’s IP-based virtual hosts feature.

Setting up IP-based virtual hosts is easy. First, open up httpd.conf found in the conf directory of your Apache installation directory.

You need to register the IPs that you want Apache to listen on. After the line that says “Listen 80” add:

Listen 10.0.0.1:80
Listen 10.0.0.2:80

If you wish to host websites on ports other than port 80, let’s say 8080, you also need to register it as a port that Apache listens on.

Listen 8080

You can also listen to specific address and port combinations:

Listen 10.0.0.1:8081
Listen 10.0.0.2:8082

Normally, Apache will respond to requests with the default site as defined in httpd.conf. However, you can define different sites for every address and port combination defined in your listen directive. Just add the following for every combination:

<VirtualHost ip-address:port-number>
   ServerAdmin [email protected]
   DocumentRoot /www/docs/www.example.com
   ServerName www.example.com
   ErrorLog logs/www.example.com-error_log
   CustomLog logs/www.example.com-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80> means this virtual host will handle HTTP requests for any IP on port 80. This virtual host corresponds to “Listen 80”.

<VirtualHost 10.0.0.1:80> means this virtual host will handle HTTP requests for 10.0.0.1  on port 80. This virtual host corresponds to “Listen 10.0.0.1:80”.

<VirtualHost 10.0.0.2:80> means this virtual host will handle HTTP requests for 10.0.0.2  on port 80. This virtual host corresponds to “Listen 10.0.0.2:80”.

<VirtualHost 10.0.0.1:8081> means that this virtual host will handle HTTP requests for the IP address 10.0.0.1 on port 8081. This virtual host corresponds to “Listen 10.0.0.1:8081”.

<VirtualHost 10.0.0.2:8082> means that this virtual host will handle HTTP requests for the IP address 10.0.0.2 on port 8082. This virtual host corresponds to  “Listen 10.0.0.2:8082”.

Save and restart Apache.

That’s it!

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