Category: CoolTools

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Install and Manage WordPress-Nginx Websites from the Command Line with EasyEngine

EasyEngine (ee) is a Linux shell-script to install and manage wordpress-nginx websites in one go. Using EasyEngine, you can install Nginx, PHP, MySQL, Postfix, phpMyAdmin and their dependencies in one shot easily without the help of a System administrator. It makes very easy to install and manage wordpress-nginx websites, and you don’t have to manually install each packages and memorize all commands. Everything will be done automatically on the background. EasyEngine will work on Ubuntu LTS versions such as Ubuntu 12.04/14.04, and Debian 6/7 version.

via EasyEngine – An Auto Installer Script For Managing WordPress-Nginx Websites On Ubuntu, Debian | Unixmen.

Looks like it would take some of the tedium out of deploying WP sites. This blog runs WP on Nginx and getting it set up was not super easy, lots of config file fiddling was called for. EasyEngine is open source and on Github at https://github.com/rtCamp/easyengine.

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Replacing Native Apps With Ten CSS One-Liners Using CSS Multi-column Layout and CSS Figures

Tablets and mobile devices require us to rethink web design. Moused scrollbars will be replaced by paged gestures, and figures will float in multi-column layouts. Can this be expressed in CSS?
Paged designs, floating figures, and multi-column layout are widely used on mobile devices today. For some examples, see Flipboard, the Our Choice ebook, or Facebook Paper. These are all native apps. If we want the web to win on these devices (we do), it’s vital that designers can build these kinds of presentations using web standards. If web standards cannot express this, authors will be justified in making native apps.
Over the past years, I’ve been editing two specifications that, when combined, provide this kind of functionality: CSS Multi-column Layout and CSS Figures. I believe they are important to make sure the web remains a compelling environment for content providers.

via Ten CSS One-Liners to Replace Native Apps ∙ An A List Apart Blog Post.

These are relatively new standards and current browser implementation is still rolling. With any luck we’ll see wide adoption of the standards and a another way to build exciting websites.

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Installing GlusterFS with a replicated volume on Ubuntu 14.04

GlusterFS is an open source distributed file system which provides easy replication over multiple storage nodes. Gluster File System is a distributed filesystem allowing you to create a single volume of storage which spans multiple disks, multiple machines and even multiple data centres.

via How to install GlusterFS with a replicated volume over 2 nodes on Ubuntu 14.04 | HowtoForge – Linux Howtos and Tutorials.

This seems like a good replacement for NFS, which has some issues.

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Store and Monitor OS & Application Log Files with Amazon CloudWatch

Today we are introducing a powerful new log storage and monitoring feature for Amazon CloudWatch. You can now route your operating system, application, and custom log files to CloudWatch, where they will be stored in durable fashion for as long as you’d like. You can also configure CloudWatch to monitor the incoming log entries for any desired symbols or messages and to surface the results as CloudWatch metrics. You could, for example, monitor your web server’s log files for 404 errors to detect bad inbound links or 503 errors to detect a possible overload condition. You could monitor your Linux server log files to detect resource depletion issues such as a lack of swap space or file descriptors. You can even use the metrics to raise alarms or to initiate Auto Scaling activities.

via Store and Monitor OS & Application Log Files with Amazon CloudWatch.

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Speedier Competition Is Arriving For The Raspberry Pi

The Banana Pi has an Allwinner A20 ARM Cortex-A7 dual-core processor, a Mali 400 graphics core, 1GB of DDR3 RAM, an SD card slot, two USB 2.0 slots and Ethernet. Other features include a SATA slot (for up to 2TB of storage), an infrared receiver, red and green LEDs, and 3.5-millimeter audio out ports. It also has UART, GPIO and I2C bus connectors. The board is powered through a micro-USB slot. It supports the Ubuntu Linux and Debian Linux OSes, and also Android 4.4, code-named KitKat.

The HummingBoard has an even faster processor — the Freescale quad-core i.MX6 Cortex-A9 — as well as a high-definition graphics core, HDMI output, Ethernet and two USB 2.0 ports. Other components include a mini PCI-Express and mSATA connector. In also includes a MIPI CSI connector and 26-pin connector.

Raspberry Pi alternatives arrive and fill a need for speed – Computerworld.

In a sign that the RPi is on to something we’re starting to see a lot of competition in the inexpensive card sized computer space.  Both boards should be available shortly in the sub-$100 range.