I’ve associated a domain name to my rackspace cloud server and I’ve recently set up a standard Google apps account for it. The Google walk-through is pretty intuitive but the screen you’re shown during the process does not perfectly match with what you see in rackspace.

As you can see if you log into your rackspace panel, they differ a bit from this screenshot.
And here you can find your DNS settings (just log into your control panel).

(click to expand)
After just a couple of months of hosting with MediaTemple Grid Service (gs), I’ve decided to switch to their Dedicated Virtual (dv). Mainly because there’s Plesk; my clients need to have their control panel and I can be in control of every detail about the hosting.
It’s a whole new experience and I have to say that I got used to the (gs) control panel. In a way, I miss it. But Plesk, even if it’s not the latest version (8.6 vs 9.3) is powerful. Anyway I got SSH access too, just in case (you can get it in grid service too).
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) certifies Linux System Administrators. Even if you’re not interested in the certification itself, you may still be interested in learning Linux in general and the following tutorials, from IBM’s DeveloperWorks, will help you.
These tutorials serve as a comprehensive self-study guide so you can take the exams with confidence.
IBM DeveloperWorks – Linux LPI Tutorials. Here’s an example of what you may find.
LPI exam 101 prep: Hardware and architecture
- Topic 101. Learn to configure your system hardware with Linux. By the end of this tutorial, you will know how Linux configures the hardware found on a modern PC and where to look if you have problems.
I’m using Ubuntu Linux 9.10 (Karmic Koala) with Virtualbox 3.1.4 and I’ve noticed a huge slow down in how my Windows XP guest system run.
Slow Windows XP guest under Linux Host
I remember being able to obtain a “close to real” performance using two cores and an old version of Virtualbox on my Ubuntu host (it was like a year and a half ago so I’m not sure about the version numbers). Anyway this situation quickly changed: newer versions came out and my new virtual machines became way too slow. Blame it on the kernel, blame it on newer virtualbox, whatever! It just wasn’t flying anymore.
I use the Bitnami LAPPstack on my Linux system to develop my apps. It’s fast, lightweight, and doesn’t get in the way messing up with my system. I start it, restart it, stop it… whenever I want.
One thing it doesn’t have, apart the XDebug extension (I wrote an article on how to get it working: Configure XDebug with Bitnami PHP Stacks on Linux Ubuntu ), is the PL/pgSQL language configured inside the postgresql DBMS. Meaning that if you try to create a stored procedure and a trigger using that language, you’re going to get an error similar to this:
Fact is that if you want to develop something more than a dynamic menu in php, you’re going to need a debugger. You’re going to need it badly and you don’t even know it (shame on you!).
So let’s start from the beginning. You got bitnami lapp (or lamp) stack because it’s cool and doesn’t need so much configuration (if any at all). So you’re basically ready to start coding.
You realize you need a debugger. You search for it and you find out about xdebug. Cool. Then you approach the Xdebug download page and you see only sources and many windows binaries. Not cool.
I’ve made the switch. Actually double.
Italian vs English
The first thing you’re going to notice (or maybe not) is that from now on I’ll be writing my posts in English. This is purely because of the audience. Antonio Lupetti pointed out in an interview, asking if he “[...] thinks that English language has really made the difference?” the following: