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Which TurnKey app should I use? Seven common jobs
The app library has nearly 90 current appliances. That is useful when you know the software name. It is less useful when all you know is the job that needs doing. Here are seven …
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Three OpenVPN setups, and which one you need
The TurnKey OpenVPN appliance supports three modes because “I need a VPN” hides three different jobs. Pick the job first. The routing makes more sense after that. 1. Reach your …
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What Observium tells you before the network gets blamed
“The network is slow” is not much of a bug report. It could mean a saturated uplink, a dying access point, a backup job, packet loss, a full disk or one laptop doing something …
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A private file server from hardware you already have
An old desktop with a quiet fan and a pair of decent disks can still do useful work. The TurnKey File Server turns it into shared storage for Windows, macOS and Linux machines …
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LAMP or WordPress? Start with the smaller answer
People often compare LAMP and WordPress as if they were two editions of the same server. They are not. One is a foundation. The other is a finished application built on roughly …
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13 simple writing tips
I love reading, I love books, and my friends say I have an overactive imagination. So it may not be terribly surprising that back in my teens one of my dreams was to one day …
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CDPATH
I used bash for a decade or so before I discovered this little highly useful gem a few years back. Nowadays I can't remember what I used to do without it. From the bash manual …
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Trouble writing? You probably aren't scaffolding enough
Having trouble writing? It may be just that you are having trouble doing two things at the same time: decide what the prose should say (substance) write the prose (form) They are …
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Git tip: how to merge multiple projects into one big repository
A while back I decided it would be a good idea to combine a loose collection of related Git repositories into one big Git repository. The rational for this was that I noticed that …
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How to upgrade a Debian package to a newer upstream version
Duplicity issued a new stable version with a few bugfixes. I didn't want to wait for the Debian sid package to update so I updated it myself. This was very simple as the Debian …
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Invalidating the disk cache on Linux
Here's a super easy way to invalidate the disk cache, which is useful for testing IO performance in the real world, where you can't rely on all of your reads being served up from …
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Drupal Rules in a nutshell
In a nutshell, Rules is a visual programming tool. Instead of writing code as a block of text, you configure the desired behavior via a GUI that guides you through the setup of …
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Negotiating payment as a contractor (issues, tips)
Last week I shared the advice I gave to a friend who was quitting his day job and wanted to do more freelance/contract work. This week I'll share a bit of practical wisdom on …
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Advice on breaking into freelance consulting, contract work, standard rates, wages and billing practices
Not too long ago, a friend told me he was quiting his day job to try going out on his own as a freelance consultant/contractor and asked for some friendly advice regarding wages …
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Three strikes - time to automate!
I caught myself today repeating a few basic operations by hand what seemed like a zillion times. Over and over again. I didn't really notice it at the time but it was really …
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How to debug a broken cron job
I just fixed a broken cron job. It turned out it was a PATH issue. By default cron doesn't have /usr/local stuff in the PATH. Tips on how to debug cron: change the schedule for …
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Python optimization principles and methodology
Methodology The basic methodology for optimization: Discover where you program is spending its time (hotspots vs coolspots) A good way to get an overview is to use the Python …
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4 simple software optimization tips
1) Always be experimenting! Trying to squeeze out more performance out of your program? Don't be afraid to experiment! In practice what that means is you setup small, simple …
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Tips for the Object Oriented Programming novice
The following is written for programmers who don't really understand object oriented programming yet. They probably understand the language semantics, but don't really understand …
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configuring libresolv to timeout DNS queries to unreachable nameservers more quickly when offline
When I go offline I pull my network cable. This causes DNS queries to take forever to resolve. Actually 40 seconds but it feels like forever. I ran across this most recently when …
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Smart cache expiration with Drupal Rules
I've been exploring Drupal Rules some more since last week. We were already using it before to automate the various repetitive tasks involved in creating a new appliance (e.g., …
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tmux is a superior alternative to screen
Today was the first day I stopped using screen and started using tmux, which is a superior alternative which supports a more complex range of splits and has a nicer interface. …
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Configuring the timezone on TurnKey Linux
For some TurnKey appliances, it's important to set the date and time of the server before starting to use the application. Examples: We're installing a blog or forum application, …