Here is a quick guide on how to install GUI on your new Ubuntu LAMP server. This guide runs through how to install the desktop environment.
Enable Universe and multiverse repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list file
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
This installs GNOME desktop
If you wan to install a graphical desktop manager without some of the desktop addons like Evolution and OpenOffice, but continue to use the server flavor kernel use the following command
sudo apt-get install –no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop
If you want to install light weight desktop install xfce using the following command
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
If you want to install KDE desktop use the following command
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
StarWind iSCSI software represents one of the simplest tools available in the market to facilitate the use of high availability –clustering- for your servers and services, like a web server hosting your site, without the need of acquiring expensive and complex hardware to do it.
Achieving high availability for services in organizations it is not an easy task, decisions makers in several companies do not consider this solution as viable considering the costs we have to assume in storage and the new layer of complexity added to our platform. StarWind iSCSI software appears to solve both of these problems.
StarWind provides the possibility to use a simple server with normal hard drives to act as an iSCSI (open Internet protocol) portal which is charge of offering remote storage to machines and easily transform those in high availability clusters for your services. Also, using Windows Server 2008 R2 we will see that the procedure to create a cluster if we are using StarWind iSCSI is really simple.
To create a Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster using StarWind iSCSI software can be done within 5 steps (the complete guide available here):
- Review requirements for the environment: Having one machine acting as an iSCSI server using StarWind software and at least to machines, same hardware baseline, to conform the cluster.
- Install StarWind iSCSI SAN software: Easy step, just follow the wizard.
- Configure and create storage within StarWind iSCSI: This application has a very intuitive console to administer the resources, so you won’t find much problem completing this.
- Install Failover Cluster feature in machines and run validation wizard: The validation wizard will execute several tests to the servers in order to assure us that the cluster will be stable.
- Create Windows Server 2008 R2 Cluster: A three-step wizard that, if we executed the validation without any problem, this wizard should complete in the same way.
You can download a free trial for StarWind iSCSI software from this link.
Also there are more resources to take a look:
Five Easy Steps to Configure Windows Server 2008 R2 Failover Cluster using StarWind iSCSI SAN
StarWind iSCSI SAN: Quick Start Guide
iSCSI SAN Storage Videos and Webcasts
iSCSI Cluster Support: Frequently Asked Questions
W3Who is a web service which facilitates information from websites, even when the “whois” feature is private. Typing one site, w3who will return all the sites registered from the same owner.
W3who maintains an indexed and large database of adsense and google analytics publisher, making really easy to identify website networks. So, for example if you are working on a startup, using w3who can make an interesting research about the competition.
Even more, you will also receive some other information about the site: server IP address, server location, websites hosted on the same IP and similarly targeted sites by keywords.
This is definitely one of my favourite products of 2010 and the year has just begun. It’s a wireless device which allows you to insert an SD card and read it on your PC or mobile phone as thou it were connected via a USB cord. This would be excellent for photographers who need to easily transfer files from their SD cards and indeed those who transport SD cards around with them containing important files frequently.
It’s called the Airstash and is targeted at iPhone users because of it’s portability. However it uses WiFi and as such it can be used in conjunction with any other WiFi enabled device or laptop. It is small, weighs very little and supports cards up to 32Gb.It also acts as a WiFi access point. Unfortunately, the fact that it must be accessed via a browser means that you loose your Internet connection when using it. It can also be used as a USB device. However, in my book, so long as it’s not ridiculously over priced (we’re expecting an RRP to be released in a couple of months) then I think I’ll be buying one!
I recently developed my own blog and it went live the other day following some trouble with the host. Following said trouble I decided to run a speed test for my site to make sure everything was performing as they promised it would. So after a little digging around I discovered webpagetest.org. This website gives you the chance to test you website for performance by entering the few details as seen below in the screenshot.
After hitting the submit button it takes a minute or two to finish testing your website. After this you get some great results such as showing you which type of content is causing delays (ie. Images, Java) so you can remove or compress them. And things like SEO and server response time.
This is a great websites for webmasters to make sure things are running as they should. Check it out at www.webpagetest.org .
