Welcome to kmeckstein.com
Comments from the author:
This site is intended to be a forum for my thoughts on simplicity in IT.
After 13 years in corporate IT, I have come to believe that the tail has been wagging the dog for too long. We upgrade our corporate systems because we have budgets we have to use, we upgrade our personal systems because... well, to be frank, we feel left out if we don't. I think the time has come to take a real look at our actual requirements and adjust our IT accordingly.
“In car terms, it's time to get rid of that expensive Jaguar or Mercedes and buy a Mini Metro/2 CV/Honda instead.”
And you know what, if we all do that, I think that we'll find it is cheaper to run, will go wrong less often, be easier to fix when it does go wrong and more fun (and easier) to use, as well.
I am no longer involved in Corporate IT (and much happier for it - for my C.V. look at About Me) but have never forgotten some of the things that I learnt there. I hope that I can share some of my experiences and knowledge with you to help you make your IT experience easier, faster, cheaper and better.
Recent Articles
A Month with Puppy Linux - Part 1 - 7th January 2009
A few days later than I had anticipated, I am starting my Month with Puppy Linux.
The objective here is to be able to do all that I normally do (using Ubuntu) on a machine running Puppy Linux.
The actual machine that will be used will be a bargain basement machine and I shall attempt to prove that you can have a blisteringly fast machine, for a low cost, if you are prepared to put the effort in.
I hope that at the end of this exercise, I shall be able to cut a version of Puppy Linux that suits most people for most, if not all, of their requirements.
I have a few must have applications and my trial with Puppy Linux will stand or fail depending upon the ease of installing these applications (if necessary), their performance or the choice of alternatives to do the same job.
Why you need 3 Email Accounts - 6th January 2009
For many of us, email has become part of our daily lives. No matter what tools we use, though, much of the mail we receive is univited, time-wasting or spam.
With this article, I shall try to explain how to receive trusted email and divert spam to a sacrificial email account. What, I believe, we need is some way of receiving email so that we know it is relevant, trustworthy (where appropriate), and discardable, where not.
Backing up to Gmail - 5th January 2009
Gmail is, by its self, a great free email system but, with a bit of trouble, you can use it for purposes other than what it was originally designed for.
Although I have a Gmail mail account, I also use Gmail as a way of backing up my vital files.
I do back up, on a daily basis, my entire /home/keckstein directory to an external hard drive but some of my files are so important to me that I can't afford to lose them should I get visited by Billy The Burglar or, should the house burn down. These are the files that I back up to a Gmail account and this is how I do it.....
The directory structure on my hard disk is quite simple. I have directories for Music, Videos, Ebooks and Downloads. Pretty much everything else lives separate directory within a /Data directory. This is the stuff that I can't afford to lose.
I'll explain here how I back up my writing directory/folder to Gmail.
Backing up Mozart - 5th January 2009
Mozart has a 160GB hard drive and an external 160GB USB drive.
The first process involved in backing up Mozart is to copy the contents of its hard drive to the external USB (called Storex-1). For this, I use Rsync.
rsync -av /home/keckstein/ /media/Storex-1/keckstein
This is run as part of a script (more of which later), which gets run at 2am every night.
The first time that this runs, it makes a complete copy of my home directory on the external USB drive (Storex-1). Thereafter, it only copies the parts of those files that have changed. Thus, I always have, on the USB drive, an exact copy of my harddrive.
What's Happening? - 4th December 2008
Having just moved from the small bungalow in the country, where I have been living for the last 5 years, to a house in Josselin, that I am sharing with my partner and her son, I am in the process of rebuilding and integrating our collection of computers.
Currently, we have 5 computers in general use - with another 2 due to come on line soon.
What I am attempting to do is to ensure that we get the best IT experience without spending any money on needless upgrades.
Why Backup? - 4th December 2008
I am sometimes suprised that many people do not backup their computers. In fact, I believe that the only time that many of us ever think about backing up is when it is too late and we have lost vital data or are left without a useable system.
With this article I shall explain what I do and why.
So, the first thing that I will do is to ask three questions... • Why backup? • What to backup? • Where to back it up to?
And They Call It Puppy Love - 4th December 2008
A couple of years ago, I was looking for an operating system for Chatwin and, after trying many others, came across Puppy Linux. At first I thought that it was a joke, then I investigated and found that that it's not - far from it.
I'll try to explain. Chatwin is a secondhand HP e-Vectra with a 600MHz processor and 256MB of RAM. She cost me 70 euros. In other words, she's not a powerhouse. I bought her just so that I'd have another machine to do my writing on - a machine that didn't have email and internet on, so I wouldn't be distracted. I realised that with her low spec, she wouldn't be a screamer but I was also aware that there were a number of cutdown versions of Linux that I could try. If all else failed, I have an old copy of Windows 98 which would work (although I really didn't want to have to admit failure and use that).
A Server With X Appeal - 4th December 2008
Jill and I needed a machine that we could store shared files on and also use as a backup server.
We had a Dell that wasn't being used so we put her to use straight away.
We wanted something simple, something that can be upgraded using apt-get.
It needed to be something that could just be hidden away and forgotten about, until required in anger.
Brahms is a Dell in a mini tower case running a 2.66GHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM and an 80GB Hard Drive.
Forthcoming Articles
The following are a list of articles that are planned (or in the pipeline) for publication here.
A month with Puppy.
I intend to spend all of January 2009 using just one computer (a low spec, bargain basement type secondhand machine), which will be running Puppy Linux.
I shall try to do everything I do on my main machine and, where necessary, implement hacks to make it all happen. Basically, I want to be able to show that even though it doesn't have the backing and popularity of larger systems like Suse, Fedora and Ubuntu, Puppy Linux is a fast and powerfull system that is, in many ways, the easist operating system to use.
I envisage that the article will be updated on a daily basis.
A month on the Web.
February 2009 will see me back on my main machine (I think) but, with all applications (where possible), web based. Not too sure how this is going to work out but I do know that it'll be fun trying.
I envisage that the article will be updated on a daily basis.
A month with Mozilla.
March 2009 will see me will see me attempting to do everything that I have to do, on a daily basis, within Firefox.
I have titled this prospective article "A month with Mozilla because, at this point, I'm not sure if I can find any alternative to Thunderbird.
Alternative Ubuntu.
Starting with a base of Ubuntu Hardy Heron Server Edition - I shall be trying different window managers in an attempt to build a system that is lighter in weight than Xubuntu but still remains pefectly useable.
I hope to end up with a series of scripts so that others can implement my results without "having to go round the houses!".