Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category

Skype-o-Something…

So it’s been a while since I’ve written here and let’s just say that I’ve been busy. We started a show, Sudo Make Me A Sandwich, a couple months back and I’ve been trying to figure a way to get the quality up without breaking the bank. There are some small things you can do, like invest in a quality microphone or headset. It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy, I just bought a decent looking Logitech headset from BestBuy and it already sounds much better.

We were also having the problem of incorporating guests into the show. I bring my cohost in via Skype and we wanted a way to  be able to also bring in a couple more panelists if needed. Right away I thought of Leo Laporte’s Skypesaurus — maybe I even got the idea to do the show this way from him. He’s got a quite expensive setup though. Not only did he build four custom machines that are dedicated to Skype, but he’s also got the TriCaster, the IP audio mixer, and lots of bandwidth.

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Published: June 27th, 2010 in Nifty, Tech | Tags: , ,

@pathartl’s screenie script reworked

I reworked @pathartl‘s screenie script so that it also uploads to yFrog. I’m just putting it here because I know I’ll lose it if i don’t.

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Published: March 30th, 2010 in Tech, Workflow | Tags: , ,

Dell Mini 10v unboxing

So the Dell Mini 10v that I’ve been waiting for since Christmas came in yesterday. What a great little machine. Right now I’m calling it the Macbook Mini since I installed OSX shortly after taking it out of the box.

Unfortunately the first thing I had to do was downgrade the BIOS, which was a little stressful, but after that it was smooth sailing. Here are some photos of the unboxing:

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Published: December 30th, 2009 in Tech | Tags: , ,

Getting two domains on one IP

I recently had a request from someone on how to setup multiple domains on a single IP address. This is something that I’ve thought about doing before, but haven’t taken the time to stop and set it up. After getting sub-domains working, this was a breeze, as it’s the same process. I’m working on an Ubuntu server, so this may be a little different for you.

DNS

First setup the DNS, since it will probably take about an hour for that to update anyway, depending on the TTY that you use. If you’re setting this up and you want to make sure it works, you can edit your /etc/hosts file on a mac or linux machine. I think there’s a way to do this in windows as well, but I’m not sure of what file you’d be looking for. Just remember to delete that entry after you know it works.

To setup the DNS you first need to find the DNS control for the domain registrar that you use. In GoDaddy the option would be called Total DNS. Change the A record to the IP address you want to use as a server and you’re done.

Configuration

Now you need to create a new file in /etc/apache2/sites-available/. Call it whatever you want. I will call it NEWSITE.TLD. In this file you will create a new file that looks similar to this, only substituting information specific to your server:


NameVirtualHost *:80


	ServerAdmin you@your-domain.tld
	ServerName your-domain.tld

	DocumentRoot /var/www/your-root/

	
		Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
		AllowOverride None
		Order allow,deny
		allow from all
	

	ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log
	LogLevel warn
	CustomLog /var/log/apache/access.log combined
	ServerSignature On

Now we enable the site with:


sudo a2ensite /etc/apache2/sites-available/NEWSITE.TLD

Reload the apache configuration and you should be good to go.

Published: August 25th, 2009 in Tech, Web | Tags: , , , ,

From GoDaddy to iPower: Switching Webhosts

I decided this week to switch over my web hosting from Godaddy to iPower. I was a little worried about the process at first, but it was pretty simple and now that it’s all over I’m definitely glad I did it.

I had been thinking about it for over 3 weeks, ever since I got the recommendation. Then a couple weeks ago my blog started being super slow. At first I was worried that it was my design, but even the back-end was going slow. After a little research I came to the conclusion that the GoDaddy MySQL database wasn’t really setup very good for WordPress. I was a little worried because I had just signed up for a two year hosting plan and I didn’t want to be stuck with that service for two more years.

Finally, one day I was just fed up with it and I called tech support to figure out how much money I could get back, if any. The guy I talked to told me that I would be refunded for any unused time, but that they had to manually refund my money. He asked some questions about why I wanted to switch, but I only talked to him for a few minutes.

I backed up my site, setup my my iPower account, and then, after iPower was all setup, I changed the DNS in my GoDaddy account to point to iPower. Then the next day I called GoDaddy and cancelled my hosting account and got 23 months refunded. It was really great. I wish I didn’t have to switch off of GoDaddy, since their customer service was so great, but everything about the experience was slow. Even navigating through their menus was slow with too many steps. When I login to iPower I’m already set to manage my hosting account, but with GoDaddy there were three or four mouse clicks just to get to that point. And with iPower all the options are right there, on one page, whereas with GoDaddy it just feels like everything is more complicated than it needs to be, with too many menus.

One last note: When I first setup my iPower account and I was trying to setup my new blog, it wasn’t working. I didn’t know why at first, but it turns out that CGI scripting wasn’t turned on, so PHP wasn’t working. I went to the support section to submit a ticket for support and within a half hour I had an email explaining what had happened and that the issue had been taken care of. So far the iPower support has also been very good.

Published: August 10th, 2009 in Tech, Web | Tags: , ,