Category: Tech

  • Website (and host) migration time

    Website (and host) migration time

    I have many (5) sites running on a smallish Digital Ocean droplet, using Serverpilot to manage the instances. I originally set this up over 4 years ago. At the time, ubuntu 14.04 lts was the bomb.

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  • Fucking hell – Redirects

    Fucking hell – Redirects

    Following on from the website migration, there is another tale to tell.

    A tale shrouded in the mythos of the early internet. It was the late 1990’s and I had an ISP that provided me my ISDN service, as part of their monthly charge for this “business” class service (at the time it was truly stupendous speed and bandwidth) was a free domain and email hosting.

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  • Time for new Tech

    Time for new Tech

    My last “fresh” computer I bought was a 2015 vintage MacBook Pro, 13″ with retina display. I bought it refurbished in 2016, and it has served me well, but it was getting tired.

    All the while i had a 2014 vintage Mac Mini that started life as a editing computer for my wife’s video production consulting. It was decent for the time, a dual core intel i7, with 8G ram, and a terabyte “hybrid” disk. But it has been feeling its age, and with the payment of my salary from the trust/estate, I vowed to upgrade my tech.

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  • Review: The Apple iPhone Xs

    Review: The Apple iPhone Xs

    As my iPhone 6s was nearing its third anniversary, I began to get the bug for a new phone. The battery is still fine on my 6s (reports at 87% capacity, not bad for 3 years old) and the latest version of iOS had improved its snappiness, but, it is still an older phone, and, it was time to jump to the latest and greatest. (more…)

  • Instagram

    With the arrival of Cerbie, brother and fellow Kauai rescue hound from Copper’s Dream Rescue, I have been blogging, and decided to create an instagram account for sharing pics and updates about him.

    I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram. I suspect that I am not their demographic, but there are a lot of dog picture sharing, so I am wading into the pool again.

    However, that said, I have to grumble (damn, I am getting to be an old man, grumbling about new fangled whizz-bang things).

    • There is no good way to access it from my computer. It is app and smartphone centric, I get that, but I have most of my images on my computer. I do take snaps with my phone, but that is a small fraction of what I have. I have to move pictures to my phone to post. Lame.
    • There are no good apps I have found for my Mac to post images to IG. There used to be a couple that I bought a couple years ago, but they are no longer working. Seems like IG keeps their API locked down to force use only with the smartphone. Sure, I can log in with my browser, and see the images, but that sucks. Sure on my Mac, I can force the client string in Safari to pretend it is an IOS browser. Still sucks donkey balls.
    • Even simple things like updating or editing my profile on the web from my computer is horribly borked. Seriously, even after disabling blockers and ghostery, I got errors in editing my profile fields. Lame. It is almost as if they don’t want you to use their web service.

    Still, I will use it, as I now have a following. Check out Cerberus47 for fun pictures.

  • Apple Music – A Fresh Look

    With the shifting allegiances in streaming music, I found myself re-enabling my Apple Music subscription. There are some benefits, and some less desirable aspects.

    This is relevant as I again ponder the mix of music that I have in my collection, as well as the convenience of streaming. In the following post, I lay out the pro’s and con’s of Apple’s Music subscription plan. $9.99 a month, it is in the ballpark of the offers, between Amazon and Spotify. All three of them also offer family plans for the same price (alas, my Wife isn’t interested in sharing a plan.) (more…)

  • Music, part 5,231

    Music, part 5,231

    If you dig through the archives, you will read my travails around a permanent solution to my streaming/collection.

    The last “winner” was Amazon Music, hands down the best app experience, a decent library (not as big a selection as Apple, but enough) and the instant “AutoRIP” feature of what I bought from them were clinchers. The real win for Amazon is that whatever magic they do, even when I hit deadspots in my commute (via VTA Lightrail in San Jose), it just kept chugging. (more…)

  • Fucking Referrer Spam

    Fucking Referrer Spam

    Sorry for the language. However, I run a handful of small, fairly low traffic sites. This one, my product management site, one for my dog(s) and their exploits, and my Wife’s professional site.

    All of these use WordPress, and I have Google analytics set up to track and monitor them. (more…)

  • Xfinity gyrations

    Xfinity gyrations

    On Tuesday, out of the blue, I got an email from Comcast that they identified a “problem” with my CPE1 and that because they are so awesome, they were going to just send me a new modem/router. Whoop-de-doo. (more…)

  • Serverpilot Changes

    Serverpilot Changes

    A service that I absolutely love is changing their business model. Serverpilot, an automation, and management front end for simple VPS1 deployments, that takes a minimalist droplet from Digital Ocean and abstracts the drudgery and risk of managing that installation from the user. (more…)