Practical Technology

for practical people.

March 10, 2017
by sjvn01
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Why the Bitly link-shortening service went down for some users

We use URL shortening services so often these days we’re seldom even aware of them. Until, that is, one of them fails. Today, one of the most popular of these, Bitly, stopped working for some users.

You may think of URL shorteners as something individuals use for shortening long web URLs. This is true, but companies also use them to promote their webpages on social networks. In addition, Bitly enables business marketing offices to track who’s clicking through on their links. While a Bitly outage is an annoyance for someone sharing LOL cats pics, it’s a major problem for businesses.

Why the Bitly link-shortening service went down for some users. More>

March 10, 2017
by sjvn01
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New and improved Samba file server released

Do you have a network-attached storage (NAS) device holding your accounts payable, document archives, or just your baby photos? If so, you’re running Samba, the open-source file and print server.

Now, with the Samba 4.6 release, the program has been given a significant upgrade.

New and improved Samba file server released. More>

March 10, 2017
by sjvn01
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Deftly Pulling Your Servers’ Strings with Puppet

If all you’re doing is running a single server instance, you don’t need DevOps tools such as Puppet. But, if you’re setting up and managing multiple servers, you need Puppet.

Oh, you could run dozens of servers using shell scripts. Lord knows I used to do it that way. Although once I got past sysadmining, say, 30 servers, problems arose. But, why should you bother with a shell script mess like that?

With tools like Puppet, you can automate configuration management. This will not only save you and your crew hours (maybe days?) of time, but it will also let you run hundreds, even thousands of servers, per sysa

Deftly Pulling Your Servers’ Strings with Puppet. More>

March 8, 2017
by sjvn01
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How to keep your smart TV from spying on you

What do you know. The tin-foil hat brigade was right. Your smart TV may very well have been spying on you for the CIA and MI5. I can’t say I’m surprised.

Smart TVs are dumb. They have little security, their interfaces tend to be crap, and, oh yes, many smart TV models were already spying on you for their vendors.

How to keep your smart TV from spying on you. More>

March 7, 2017
by sjvn01
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Dell doubles down on high-end Ubuntu Linux laptops

CEO and founder of Dell, Michael Dell, has long been a Linux supporter. By 2007, under his guidance, Dell became the first major OEM to offer a laptop with pre-installed Linux. His Linux of choice? Ubuntu Linux. Ten years later, Dell is still selling Ubuntu Linux-powered laptops.

Dell doubles down on high-end Ubuntu Linux laptops. More>

March 6, 2017
by sjvn01
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Amazon shows why you shouldn’t put all your tech eggs in one cloud basket

When Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service at Amazon’s US-EAST-1 data centers went down, things went bad. Very, very bad.

How bad? Popular sites such as Quora, Business Insider, Netflix, Reddit and Slack either crashed entirely or were broken. By SimilarTech’s count, over 124,000 sites were affected. A college student told me, “It’s knocked out my school’s technology back end. Students are freaking out because they can’t access assignments.” A cloud consultant told me his phone was ringing off the hook by Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers who wanted to switch to Azure.

You get the idea. It was Bad with a capital B.

And, what caused this multimillion-dollar fiasco? A typo.

Amazon shows why you shouldn’t put all your tech eggs in one cloud basket. More>