Wedding Supplier Review: Cardprints

I’ll say it right away: if you’re looking for a wedding invitation supplier, DO NOT get Cardprints! They absolutely suck. Sure they have a nice display and, at the time we were looking for invitation suppliers, they were offering a seemingly generous anniversary promo.

But after you pay your deposit, you get to a frustrating situation where you can only get to talk to the sales representative at their booth. You can’t talk to their designer(s). But they were so inept that even if you could, it would still be frustrating. They kept doing everything wrong. You correct something, they take their time fixing it, and when they get done, another error pops up. You correct that and the previous error pops back in. It was so frustrating.

We eventually ran out of time and had to go to print with a less-than-satisfactory proof. And we even had to pay a rush fee just so we can make up for the lost time. You have been warned.

Cost: P9,600 plus P1,920 rush fee
Rating: 0/5

Wedding Supplier Review: Suarez

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

Wedding Supplier Review: Matus

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

Set Up HTTPS In Apache

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!

Set Up Name-Based Virtual Hosts In Apache

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!