Category: Best Practices

  • Pre-format checklist!

      Formatting your system to reinstall or upgrade your OS, or to try a new one? Here’s a few things worth checking before you do…   Export browser bookmarks Deactivate programs (e.g. Adobe CS*) Download updated drivers Check your Downloads folder for anything you might want to save Check your Documents folder for the same…

  • Ubuntu: Securing your remote SSH logins with Denyhosts

    Ubuntu: Securing your remote SSH logins with Denyhosts

    Being able to log in to your server remotely via SSH is an incredibly powerful way of remotely managing your system. With so many devices now able to support consoles (just about any current smartphone or current OS, really) you can check on things, update or make changes from just about anywhere.   One of…

  • Get yourself a UPS…

    We had a lightning storm rcently; this was the view from our perspective:     We also got a call about a customer’s computer that was no longer working, along with most of the connected peripherals. This wasn’t a coincidence…   An uninterruptible power supply is a device which stores electricity in batteries and, when…

  • Reminder: Check your backups!

    Just a quick reminder today – remember to check that your backups still work, particularly those that are full and likely haven’t been added to for some time. It wouldn’t be a lot of fun having your main drive die and only then finding out that your backup drive kicked the bucket 6 months previous…

  • Can you mix processor models in Intel’s Socket 2011 dual-CPU motherboards?

      Intel recommend using two identical CPUs in their socket-2011 dual-socket motherboards; it is theoretically possible to use non-identical CPUs, though, and Intel’s rules for that are that they must be:   Of the same processor family Have the same number of cores Have the same cache size at each level of cache Able to…

  • Array Best Practices & backing up

    Something to think about – we had a couple of models from the same batch die within a day of each other recently, and while that may be coincidence there may also have been something about that batch that made them die under certain usage conditions or at a certain age. Now, if they had…