This page 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) 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.
The content on this page was, until recently, available on a number of other blogs, scattered about the internet, that I maintained.
However, I felt that it would be more appropriate to consolidate them all in one place and this is the result.
The Perfect PC
January 21, 2011
Building the perfect PC
A couple of weeks ago I rebuilt my writing PC using Debian Squeeze and lxde. I …
Speeding up the internet with pdnsd and squid
January 21, 2011
Living, as I do, in rural France, I suffer from rather slow internet connectivity.
My normal line speed is only …
Read More aboutWordPress SEO Optimisation
January 20, 2011
I’ve recently being looking at the Google Page Rank of one of my sites.
A Taste of Garlic is a …
Read More aboutA useful tip – speeding up your web browser!
January 16, 2011
I came across this little tip on Cods Place and thought I’d try it out.
The Codfather (how cool a …
Read More aboutThe Writer's PC
January 14, 2011
One of my many New Year’s Resolutions has been to rebuild my writing PC and get down to some serious …
A cautionary tale….
January 13, 2011
Earlier this week I was busy rebuilding an old machine to use as a dedicated writing machine.
I going to …
Read More aboutSix ways to speed up WordPress
September 9, 2010
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IntroductionRecently I have noticed that one of my sites, A Taste of Garlic seemed to be loading slower than |
10 reasons to love Puppy Linux
July 15, 2010
Following on from last week’s look at Puppy Linux, I thought that I’d go into a little more depth about …
Creative Virtualisation and KVM
July 9, 2010
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I seem to have started off here, at The Friday Blog, nattering on about minimalistic word processors and how the |
And they call it Puppy Love…
July 8, 2010
In the beginning. Part 1…
A couple of years ago, I was looking for an operating system for Chatwin and, …
Read More aboutMy Personal Gnome
July 2, 2010
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When I started The Friday Blog I wanted to have an outlet for my varied ponderings that didn’t seem to |
Is Chrome the new Firefox?
July 1, 2010
A History Trip….Can you remember way back in the depths of time when Firefox was version 1.5 and was |
The non-operating system operating system
June 25, 2010
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I touched briefly upon OS independence when I wrote a little bit about the Q10 minimalistic word processor a few |
Backup or Die!
June 24, 2010
Back up or die!
If your business relies on your access to email and the internet, think how devastated you’d …
Read More aboutPyroom – another minimalistic word processor
June 18, 2010
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Wow, first I find one good writer’s editor and then I trip over another. Last week I wrote a little |
A Server With X Appeal!
June 17, 2010
When building a server, my preference is to install Debian Stable and leave it at that.
However, for contingency’s sake, …
Read More aboutLightweight Debian Linux
June 17, 2010
Although I use Mint (an Ubuntu derivative) for my main machine, for some purposes I like to roll my own …
Why you need 3 email accounts
June 11, 2010
For many of us, email has become part of our daily lives.
No matter what tools we use, though, much …
Read More aboutBacking up to Gmail
June 11, 2010
Gmail is, by its self, a great free email system but, with a bit of trouble, you can use it …
Q10 – a minimalistic word processor
June 11, 2010
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Over the last 10 years, I must have googled linux console wordprocessor at least a dozen times. You’d think there |