Category Archives: sysadmin notes

If you have ever linked to my blog, you might have noticed that my URL’s are absolutely monstrous in size. Not only is my long domain name rather long, but I also happen to use the “pretty” style of permalinks … Continue reading →

Back in 2012 I wrote about how I set up a $30 linux server by installing Debian Squeze on a PogoPlug. I have been using the device for close to two years, but it died. I grabbed an identical replacement … Continue reading →

My PC has died once again. This has happened before but it turned out to be a video card failure. I was able to identify the problem by listening to the beep-codes, ordered a new card and I was back … Continue reading →

Roughly a month or so ago, something weird happened to this website. It was one of those weird and a bit scary glitches that make you question your own sanity because they come out of nowhere and they have seemingly … Continue reading →

It has been almost a year since I posted anything even remotely related to my php series. I guess I should have suspected that SITS would be the death-kneel for the project. It seemed like a good, small sized project … Continue reading →

As you may have heard already, my desktop is back to working condition. I decided to turn my hardware failure into a positive thing and take the time to upgrade my desktop. Not only did it get a new and … Continue reading →

Quick question: is your data backed up? If I walked into your house right now with a garden hose, grabbed your computer and hurled it out the window, how much data would you lose? If it would be any more … Continue reading →

If you follow me on Twitter you probably already know about my hardware failure. If you don’t… Well. why you should! Seriously, sign up for that thing and click on the bird to become my follower. The number of followers … Continue reading →

My windows setup is weird. Well, to be honest windows itself is a weird OS, but I make it even weirder by using Cygwin as my primary shell over there. This is not a perfect solution. In fact it is … Continue reading →

I have been working in IT for way to many years to be still considered a sane and well adjusted individual. After you spend a few years in this industry you realize that some questions asked by users keep recurring … Continue reading →

What is the most useless key on your keyboard? It would probably be grammatically correct to say “least useful” rather than most useless, but I actually want to talk about keyboard keys that excel at uselessness. Keys you would actually … Continue reading →

Here is something that I usually like to do when I set up new servers: create informative Message of the Day that will remind me what this server is all about and where do things live on it and maybe … Continue reading →

I don’t know if any of you guys use WordPress on a regular basis. Probably not, because true geeks use Jekyll to blog these days. I don’t blame you. I love it too but a site of this size and … Continue reading →

It was always my opinion that the “installer wizard” is a suboptimal method of delivering and deploying applications on client machines. Compared to the default (preferred) ways of installing applications on other platforms, the process of downloading and clicking through … Continue reading →

I spend a great deal of time on the command line. That’s how I usually manipulate files, do little maintenance tasks, run tests from and etc. Because of this I like to make that environment nice to look at. I … Continue reading →

We haven’t done one of these threads in a while have we? Let’s share our favorite shell tips and tricks. I’ll talk about Bash because that’s what I use in my day-to-day work. If you happen to be Zsh user, … Continue reading →

This fine morning KDE greeted me with a particularly nasty warning: Seems like it is time for some spring cleanup… And by spring, I of course mean winter. But where to start? Well, the best place is usually to nuke … Continue reading →

Here is something I always tell to fledgling programmers, interns and the like: if you have made something, and it would take you more than 5 minutes to recreate it from scratch, it needs to be under version control. Why? … Continue reading →

Every IT department has “regulars” – users who submit tickets so frequently they ought to be issued customer loyalty cards. Users whose computers spend more time on the help desk bench than on their desks. Users who use the Ash … Continue reading →

As you may or may not know, I am a big fan of Vim, Tmux and the Solarized theme. Unfortunately, these three components don’t always go together very well. As a rule, I tend to use the dark Solarized theme … Continue reading →

Let’s say you set up a brand spanking new Unix/Linux box somewhere, or gain access to a bran new shell account on which you expect to be doing some work. What are the top three things you install first? I’m … Continue reading →

One of the great things about Vim is how nicely it integrates with the Unix shell. I love the fact that all the cool unix commands are only a few keystrokes away. For example, when writing README or HOWTO files … Continue reading →