In the previous article, I showed how to improve the performance of an existing file server by tweaking ext3 and mount settings. We can also take advantage of the availability of the now stable ext4 file system to further improve our file server performance. Some distribution, in particular RedHat/CentOS 5, do not allow us to... » read more
Using a Linux for an office file server is a no-brainer: it’s cheap, you don’t have to worry about unmanageable license costs and it just works. Default settings of most Linux distributions are however not optimal: they are meant to be as standard compliant and as general as possible so that everything works well enough... » read more
Recently I found myself constrained by the puny 200GB of my Mac Book Pro and I bought a [500GB Seagate drive][3] to replace it (a fast 7200 rpm one). The Macbook Pro has no easy access for the drive so you have to resort to dismantling the case to access it. This put me off... » read more
I’ve just lost 2 days going completely bananas over a performance issue that I could not explain. I’ve got this [Dell R300][1] rack server that runs Windows Server 2008 that I dedicate to running IIS and SQL Server 2008, mostly for development purposes. ![Dell PowerEdge R300 Rack servers][dellr300] In my [previous blog entry][2], I was... » read more
After suffering broadband trouble for the past 9 months, including interruptions that lasted a few days, I decided to get an additional line installed by a different ISP. I could have bought one of these multi-WAN devices but decided against it for a couple of reasons: I like a challenge and I wanted to achieve... » read more
Over the years I’ve struggled to keep my folder data synchronised between my various desktop and laptops. Here I present the tools I’ve tried and what I’ve finally settled on as possibly the ultimate answer to the problem of synchronising files and folders across multiple computers: * [rsync](#rsync) * [unison](#unison) * [WinSCP](#winscp) * [General Backup... » read more
I made a mistake the other day: I wanted to delete the partition on an external drive and in my haste ended up deleting the partition of a local hard drive instead… The good thing is when you delete a partition using the Windows Disk Management console it doesn’t actually delete your files, only the... » read more
There are times when the coexistence of 64 and 32 bit code on the same machine can cause all sorts of seemingly strange issues. One of them just occurred to me while trying to run the [ASPx demos][dxdemo] from [Developer Express][dx], my main provider of .Net components (the best supplier I’ve ever been able to... » read more
I’ve been using the MacBook Pro I introduced in my [previous blog entry][0] for a few weeks now. Between love and frustration I hang… Here is a review of our relationship so far. ##The Great## ###Hardware delight### Whether running OS/X or Windows 2008 I’ve got no major complaint about the performance of the machine. It’s... » read more
My trusty old gigantic [Sony Vaio][vaio] is about 4 years old. It served me well and still works but it’s about to become my main development machine for the next couple of months and I can’t afford to have it die on me during that time. It was time to get something as gigantic and... » read more