How to write an LSB-compliant init script on Ubuntu, with the required header, start and stop actions, and install steps to run at boot.
2 min read
How to make WordPress updates run over SSH2 instead of FTP on Ubuntu, with a dedicated user, SSH key pair, and the php libssh2 extension.
2 min read
How to set up iCloud on iOS 5 when your iTunes and MobileMe Apple IDs differ. Sign in with MobileMe, keep the shared iTunes ID for purchases.
3 min read
My tribute to Steve Jobs, written the morning he died. A life traced through Apple machines, from the 1984 Macintosh 128K onward.
15 min read
How to harden a WordPress install with tested backup plugins like BackupBuddy, strong admin passwords, and basic security steps.
4 min read
How to turn the $250 Barnes & Noble NOOK Color into a full Android tablet running Gingerbread or Honeycomb, with real hardware specs.
8 min read
My son Trip was born in March 2011 with Down syndrome. What the pediatrician told me that day, and where I write about our journey.
1 min read
VaultPress backed up my WordPress blog 743 times, then failed me at recovery. Why automated backups mean nothing until you test a restore.
5 min read
How to earn Hurricane Electric IPv6 Sage certification by running an IPv6-only Postfix mail server on OS X Snow Leopard, step by step.
7 min read
How to start Hurricane Electric's free IPv6 certification, why IPv4 exhaustion matters after IANA's last blocks, and the first badge levels.
1 min read
Time Machine was backing up 920MB I didn't need. How the timedog Perl script shows what changed and which files to exclude from backups.
5 min read
Why I dumped Quicken Essentials 2010 for iBank 4 after Intuit locked in my data, and the parsing work it took to free my transactions.
15 min read
How to run MySQL master-slave replication through an SSH tunnel, covering key setup, my.cnf settings, and the replication user grants.
1 min read
Quicken Essentials 2010 for Mac has no usable export. Its CSV is a report dump, not data. How Intuit traps your transaction history.
3 min read