SSH Lockdown Posted on Jul 6, 2015
Secure your servers with SSH keys

I spend a lot of time SSHed into remote machines for work. After getting a couple machines hacked because I stupidly used short passwords, I started locking down my machines with the following mechanism and disabling username/password authentication.

Back to blogging Posted on Jun 30, 2015
Technology changes to make blogging fun again

As you can see from the recent inactivity on my blog, I have had a hard time publishing content recently. It has not been for a lack blog worthy content, but how amazingly not fun blogging was on my old platform. I spent a lot of time on my old website, making the theme perfect, adding all the features I thought I needed, etc… I used it quite a bit for a while, but the writing experience always felt strained. It turns out that I hate WYSIWYG editors and would much prefer to just write my content in markdown files. This led me the awesome Hugo software which I am using now. For more info on my current setup, check my Hugo on gh-pages post.

Hugo on gh-pages Posted on Jun 22, 2015
All the power of hugo with the convenience of gh-pages

Traditional web hosting and web application frameworks have become a bit of an annoyance for me. If you use Wordpress or Drupal you likely can sympathize with the never ending stream of updates and such. Many of them actually make your site less stable. Then there is the problem of keeping your site backed up in case your cheap hosting provider accidentally deletes all your work. Well no more…

I am now managing the content of this website in static markdown files compiled with hugo and then hosted for free using gh-pages. This is how I did it…

Git branches to manage third party app customization Posted on Dec 26, 2012
Take control of your customizations with this simple process

Preface:

I have been using this technique to customize different types of third party projects for years. I originally wrote about it back in 2009 in this popular post regarding the management of customizations on top of the ever changing Drupal code base. That post is very long winded and overly technical for most people, this post will serve as an abridged version covering only the branching concept.

Redirect traffic from a Wordpress site Posted on Jul 11, 2012
Redirect traffic from a wordpress site

The Problem:

A Wordpress site has deprecated and you want to redirect all of its traffic to a landing page on a new site. However, you want to explain why the site has been deprecated in the context of the old site.

Deploy node.js on cloudfoundry.com Posted on Dec 14, 2011
Deploy node.js on cloudfoundry.com

Instructions to create a simple node.js app called node_app and then upload and run it on cloudfoundry.com.

In order to use cloudfoundry.com, you need to sign up and have your account approved. Do that now because approval does not happen immediately.

Using a 1and1 git repository Posted on Oct 3, 2011
Using a 1and1 git repository

On the 1and1 business accounts you can now use Git via SSH. Here is how…

Setup your master FTP password (which will be used for SSH).

Secure push and pull with git-http-backend Posted on Sep 26, 2011
Secure push and pull with git-http-backend

I am setting up a new repository machine for my code. I will be setting it up with Active Directory later on, but I figured my basic setup would be a good starting point for most people.

Delete a remote branch in Git Posted on Dec 17, 2010
Delete a remote branch in Git

I run into this all the time. I am typing too fast when I push code to my remote repository and I make a typo that creates a new branch in my remote repository.

Editing your hosts file on a Mac Posted on Aug 12, 2010
Editing your hosts file on a Mac

This is a relatively common thing that I have to explain to clients.

It is often difficult to walk someone through changing their hosts file on a Mac, so I figured I would share the way I do it.