Category Archives: Linux

Zend Server is awesome

By Jacob Allred | Published: February 8, 2012

As a Zend Certified Engineer, I get a free Zend Server license. This is a $1,695 value, so definitely worth the effort of getting certified. It has been a few years since I last tried Zend Server, and it didn’t go well. It was buggy, awkward to use, and difficult to install. Since I just [...]

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My latest server rebuild

By Jacob Allred | Published: February 2, 2012

Every year or two I like to order a new dedicated server and migrate all my stuff to it. This gets me newer hardware and software, lets me customize the hardware to my current needs, and gives me a chance to fix any mistakes I made with the configuration of the previous server. Plus I [...]

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Spinning down external USB drives with TomatoUSB

By Jacob Allred | Published: January 13, 2012

My most recent power bill was 30% higher than usual. Yikes! So how to save some money? If you are using TomatoUSB and have a USB hard drive connected to it, then you can save some money — and extend the life of the drive — by having it spin down when idle. For some [...]

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Android Notifier

By Jacob Allred | Published: September 17, 2011

A few days ago I stumbled upon the coolest app I’ve ever put on my phone: Android Notifier. This app takes all the notifications from your phone like incoming calls, SMS/MMS messages, battery status, etc, and displays them on your desktop. Automagically. You just install the app on your phone, install the app on your [...]

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Image optimizing WordPress plugin

By Jacob Allred | Published: July 27, 2011

I recently stumbled on the WP Smush.it plugin. It is a neat plugin that takes your images and automatically uploads them to the Smush.it web service so that your images are always nice and optimized. The problems with it are: A) it uploads all your images to a third party, which is slow and clumsy, [...]

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