Blog

CloudFlare – A Review

This review reflects my experience with CloudFlare‘s free services applied to this website which was powered by WordPress 3.2.1 running on a shared webhost. It looks at the performance for the month of December 2011. The Problem I was Looking to Fix As this site has grown in popularity, it uses more bandwidth. In October […]

Web Tools

How to Measure Your Website's Performance

A fast loading website gives users of your site a better experience and leaves them with a better impression of your content than a site that is slow and sluggish to load. Nobody wants to wait 30 seconds for a page to load. The problem is how to measure it. Factors affecting page load time […]

WordPress

Error 404 When Trying to Login – Take 1

This post was my original attempt at solving the Error 404: Not Found error when trying to login to my website. It happened again and after waiting 48 hours for the problem to clear – it didn’t – I started searching for another solution. My second solution (which was reproducible) can be found here I […]

Blog

Bing Maps' Stupid Interface Design

I needed to get some directions so I decided to try out Bing Maps instead of Google Maps this time around. I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Bing Maps couldn’t even locate the general area (country) I was looking for directions in. It turns out this is because of a seriously stupid UI […]

Blog

Why aren't there Linux Upgrades?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been playing with various Linux distros – focussing on Ubuntu based distros. After a while, you start to see how similar they all are. In fact, they are just custom tailored versions of Ubuntu (which itself is a custom version of Debian). They come with a customized GUI, have […]

Writing

How to Write a To-Do List

While this article is specifically for making a “writing to-do” list, the same techniques apply to any other type of to-do list. 1) Write it Down Write it down on a piece of paper and put it somewhere you can see it. If the list is in your head, it is not a to-do list […]

Blog

WordPress – Jetpack 1.2 Broken on IE 8 and IE 9

I just updated to Jetpack 1.2 on my site and find that the Site Stats module is broken for Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9. It works fine with FireFox 7.0.1. Here’s Site Stats as seen in IE 8 (click for larger image): Problems are: it looks ugly, nice tables and formatting are all […]

Ubuntu

Ubuntu 11.10 – How to get a Command Line, Shell, or Terminal

This article was updated for Ubuntu 12.04. The new article can be found here. These instructions are for Ubuntu 11.10 using the Unity interface. Linux (of which Ubuntu is a flavour) and it’s inspiration Unix, have a strong emphasis and tradition of doing everything via typed commands. Often, when searching the Internet for a solution […]

Blog

Wubi – First Impression – Fail

A visitor (who was kind enough to leave a comment) brought Wubi to my attention. Wubi allows you to dual-boot your system between Windows and Ubuntu without having to repartition your hard disk. It does this by creating a large file on your Windows system that it uses as if it was its own personal […]

Ubuntu

Ubuntu 11.10 – How to Completely Remove a Package

This tutorial shows how to completely remove or uninstall a package in Ubuntu 11.10. These instructions should work for other versions of Ubuntu, it’s derivatives (Edubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu) and other Debian based Linux distributions – but no guarantee is made. This tutorial assumes you are comfortable with lower level operations in Ubuntu and know […]

Ubuntu

Ubuntu 11.10 – Understanding sudo apt-get install …

This tutorial is for Ubuntu 11.10, however, it should be the same for other versions of Ubuntu (and derivatives, like edubuntu, kubuntu, lubuntu, and xubuntu) and other Linux distributions based on Debian. However, no guarantee is made. What makes Ubuntu very easy to use is the Ubuntu Software Center which allows users an easy way […]

Blog

Ubuntu 11.10 – Replacing the Unity Interface

This article was updated for Ubuntu 12.04. It can be found here. A basic Unity tutorial can be found here. NOTE: Unity in Ubuntu 12.04 is more complete and useful than Unity in Ubuntu 11.10 – the main advantage being the HUD interface. This tutorial shows how to install an alternative desktop environment in place […]