Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category

PHP script to send test emails on a schedule to make sure you are able to receive email

Monday, November 1st, 2010

Ever wondered if your email was actually working? I've had numerous people over the past few years wonder the same thing. Ideally you would use a consistent, dependable email service provider (think Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc.). But sometimes that isn't an option. If you think you might be receiving email ...

Create Multiple Windows in Excel

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Part of my job entails working with multiple Excel spreadsheets simultaneously. You would think with four monitors I would have no trouble. For whatever reason, Microsoft decided that Excel will open all spreadsheets in the same instance of Excel, causing it to be nearly impossible to quickly glance back and ...

How to backup your website

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

Everyone knows (or should by now) that cheap web hosts (Bluehost, Dreamhost, MediaTemple, etc.) don't backup your data for you. So you'd better do it yourself. If you're on any respectable host, you should have ssh access to the box. Connect to your box via ssh and run the following commands ...

Speed Up That Cheap Website with Cheap Amazon S3

Monday, March 16th, 2009

Do you have an economy-grade website host? Me too. BlueHost is great for only $6.95 per month but its response times and transfer rates are terrible. Fear not — Amazon S3 to the rescue. For pennies a day you can supplement your cheap website host using ...

Install SSH Server on Ubuntu

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

It really couldn't be any easier than this: sudo apt-get install openssh-server You're done. Now you can use ssh to remotely connect to your Ubuntu box. No related posts.

LogMeIn: Control Your PC From Your PC

Saturday, October 18th, 2008

As I was piddling around on LogMeIn today, I noticed that the PC I was currently using was on the list of online computers. I tried to remote control it and received a warning message, but beneath it was a button that allowed me to control it anyway. This was ...

Dream Gaming Computer – 2008

Saturday, October 11th, 2008

Every year my desktop gets older, our mortgage gets smaller, the games get better, and I crave new hardware. The 1st step is to admit you're addicted, right? Without further adieu, I present you with my pick for the best gaming desktop of 2008. My picks were ...

DD-WRT’s Quality of Service Works Really Well

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

The advent of YouTube, Hulu, Netflix's watch instantly feature, torrents, and offsite/online backup has made good bandwidth crucial to an enjoyable experience. The first time my wife got me killed by hogging the bandwidth while I was playing World of Warcraft I immediately cranked up the DD-WRT control panel ...

Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 FTW!

Tuesday, July 15th, 2008

I upgraded my laptop hard drive from 160GB to 200GB. In the process I was left with a chunk of 40GB of unallocated space. For the past 4 months I've ignored this space because Windows Vista's built-in partition manager couldn't do anything with it due to Dell's crazy ...

SarcasticPenguin.com

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

So I had a strange urge the other day to buy a domain and came up with SarcasticPenguin.com. Now I'm asking you to tell me what I should put on the site in the comments. The poster of the best suggestion (selected June 30, 2008) will receive a ...