Category: Computers

Discussion about computers.

VPS Comparison: Run away from Dreamhost and to Linode

UPDATE: Use nginx for memory efficiency.

I’ve just mercilessly murdered a Dreamhost “VPS” for good and I’m a happy man. In this article I will elaborate on why they’re terrible and at best, a fair pile of literary deception.

Unfortunately for most, the term VPS (Virtual Private Server) is somewhat ambiguous. This allows many companies to take liberty in their interpretation of the phrase and liberty in how much they actually give you. There are several classes of VPS, of which I’ll list a spectrum from complete virtualization down to a shared system: Continue reading VPS Comparison: Run away from Dreamhost and to Linode

Bypassing T-Mobile User Agent Tether Filtering

I showed up at my university to discover, to my dismay, that the building I’m in this year doesn’t have a university LAN connection yet and the unionized university employees had left for the long weekend.

Thankfully, I have a T-Mobile sim with 5 Gigabytes of 4G data! But wait, after a few hours of use I was redirected:

The T-Mobile "buy this package to use the data we already sold you" screen
The T-Mobile “buy this package to use the data we already sold you” screen

So naturally, I said WTF and proceeded to my friendly neighborhood forum and confirmed that T-Mobile filters on User Agent Strings. Continue reading Bypassing T-Mobile User Agent Tether Filtering

Best Way to secure WordPress Installation

UPDATE: See bottom of post for a Apache 2.4 upgrade.

As I’ve said before, the key to good security is to be unique and not special. Here’s one particular way to be unique with your wordpress installation.

The management UI
The management UI, thanks to the beauty of php.

Try it out!

If you try to log in to my login page (visit wp-login.php), you’ll be met with a very unhappy looking “Access Denied” message. Basically, my web server is configured to only allow certain IP addresses to connect (and no I won’t tell you what those are…). Continue reading Best Way to secure WordPress Installation

iPhone vs Android: What is the best phone/carrier for you?

I’ve now had my iPhone 5 for several months after a two year stint with Android (first with 2.3 and later 4.1-4.3). I have reached several basic conclusions about the benefits and drawbacks of each from a purely “user experience perspective.”–I define this as a broad category relevant to the average consumer and tech geeks alike.

The two phones, side by side. Notice the Nexus 4 charging on the Qi inductive charging mat.
The two phones, side by side. Notice the Nexus 4 charging on the Qi inductive charging mat.

In this article I’ll be comparing the iPhone 5 (Verizon CDMA/LTE/GSM, iOS 6) with the Nexus 4 (GSM/HSPA+42, Android 4.3). For all intents and purposes, these phones are approximately equivalent within their own ecosystems. Continue reading iPhone vs Android: What is the best phone/carrier for you?

Getting DD-WRT to Dynamic DNS properly to DNS Made Easy

UPDATE: See the comment at the bottom for something easier to try.

For those that have read my article on DNS Made Easy, you know that I love it. One fee, and DNS that isn’t terrible!

Previously I had used no-ip.com to get Dynamic DNS. But that was annoying because left and right they tried to hook you with some “monthly package deal” and demanded you log in regularly if you didn’t pay. If you didn’t log in every 30 days, they would cancel your DNS records.

DNS Made Easy, on the other hand, is a FULL dns service which ALSO has Dynamic DNS. The only problem is that it’s not on the “standard” list of Dynamic DNS providers. Continue reading Getting DD-WRT to Dynamic DNS properly to DNS Made Easy

WordPress Thievery: Someone stole an article off my website

Received a comment today (which Akismet handily tagged as spam) asking me to “read more.” It linked to another WordPress site–but I noticed the title was EXACTLY the same as mine.

This is slightly unusual. My titles (in case you haven’t noticed) are characteristically laden with my unique sass and incorrectly appended phrases with the incorrect grammatical use of a colon.

The stolen content
The stolen content

Continue reading WordPress Thievery: Someone stole an article off my website

NickFiber: Bringing 100GBPS internet to Maine

For those who know me, I’ve described to you my intricate plan. Described by some as “The worst idea I’ve ever heard,” this idea centers around my curiosity about internet infrastructure and my hatred of Comcast, Inc. Basically, I will become my own ISP, to myself and others.

Docsis CMTS
DOCSIS 3.0 CMTS (Retail $40K on eBay)

Continue reading NickFiber: Bringing 100GBPS internet to Maine

VoIP HOWTO: Asterisk, SIP, FreePBX, and geekery

This HOWTO’s complexity level is Moderate. You’ll need some experience dealing with networks, a basic grasp of network technology, and the desire to muck around a little bit with configuration.

asterisk-by-digium-300x245

A year ago, I decided that I wanted to learn VoIP. I’d seen some very interesting examples online and I wanted to try it myself. Those who have tried to do VoIP before have probably noticed the one minor hiccup that comes in tow: nobody wants to teach you how to do it. All people want to do is charge you money to do it for you and provide “support.” This is a pretty good business model, but not very helpful to people like me: the “do-it-yourselfers.”

So as to spare you, the reader, the pain which I experienced gleaning the information from this tutorial from various online forum posts and poorly written outdated howtos, I am going to change that and actually write a post that will get you up and running with a simple VoIP system for your house or small business (or large business, if you’re intrepid).
Continue reading VoIP HOWTO: Asterisk, SIP, FreePBX, and geekery

FlowRoute Wholesale VoIP Review

My VoIP trunk of choice (after admittedly trying few others) is FlowRoute. They have a number of advantages over pretty much everything else:

  1. Cost of minutes: Basically $0.01/minute in or out within the US. A little more to accept Toll-free calls.
  2. Cost of DIDs: Basically $1.25/month + activation.
  3. Ability to purchase DID blocks (a range of numbers) for cheap (even though those blocks might put your business somewhere north of eastern Sasquatch-uan).
  4. Ability to tell you EXACTLY how much money you have left…down to the 1/1,000,000th of a cent. As of this writing I have $25.92119295 of credit.
  5. Pay as you go, with automatic top-off available.
  6. E911
  7. Caller ID CNAM pushing (after approval of CNAM)

I have heard their support is not stellar, but they don’t do that much to warrant you wanting support.

They provide very straight-forward instructions for configuring sip trunks within FreePBX or Asterisk. Overall, not much to dislike about this company or the service they provide.

You can also read my full VoIP tutorial.