IT Articles
Linode
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As you can see in my note on Amazon Web Services I was very impressed by their offerings but the free instance really is very slow and memory constrained so I had a good look for alternatives.
The result is that I moved to Linode who havce a deceptively simple offering which includes everytning I have needed. During the past ten months there has been one 10 minute outage and they fixed it.
Add a commentGmail
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I've had a few unhappy days with the new Gmail Compose feature that has just been rolled out to all Gmail users.
I have been a great fan of the Gmail Cloud as one of the best email services available with a simple, functional interface. Sadly this has changed with the new compose feature which I have found frustrating beyond words. Search for "Post Feedback Here on the New Compose Options".
Fortunately there is a way to revert to the old compose by kidding Google that you are using IE8.
Add a commentAmazon Web Services
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With the closure of Primary Focus the server that hosts this blog and a couple of other sites has to be closed or moved. I covered a lot of options, mostly web hosting or virtual servers, but nothing really seemed to get great reviews or be really cost effective and flexible. Hosting at home seemed an option but failures can be difficult to deal with remotely and performance is an issue
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Lion Server on a Mac Mini
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This is by no means intended as a detailed review but more to record my overall impressions of Lion Server pre installed on a Mac Mini.
At first glance Lion Server would appear to do all the things that a SMB or home office user might want. Mail, Web, DNS, mailing lists, wiki and so forth. Unfortunately it doesn't do these things as well as the available alternatives. Add a comment
Rural Broadband
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Annoyingly our Government have decided to give a bag of money to our two largest telecommunications companies, Telecom & Vodafone to build a rural wireless network. The Government have further specified that end of life 3G technology should be used rather than the latest generation 4G LTE currently being deployed overseas (NZ Herald) and (Rural Connect)
Sadly, once again, and with the best possible intentions, the minister looks to have set back telecommunications in this country by years. Giving dollops of cash to the major telco's to extend their services (using old techniology) will exclude and probably decimate the many niche providers that have set up to exploit weaknesses in the big boys coverage.
Add a commentThe Dancing Pigs
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I expect you get them too. The dreadful hoaxes which say if you open an email with the subject line "Merry Christmas" the ice caps will immediately melt, your PC will attach itself to your tongue and drag you beneath the rising waters, or some such.
Stupid as these warnings are it does pay to remember that the bad guys really are out to get you. Or at least your computer.
Born Again Mac bigot
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Brothers and Sisters, I have seen the light
Yes the mac book I bought last year proved to be the thin end of rather thick wedge and a long overdue, wholesale replacement of the chez nous computers is underway.
It would be a too much of a stretch to say the Mac is perfect, but it does seem more reliable and easier to use that its' Windows cousins.