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.
(more…)Category: Tech
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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
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
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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)
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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…)