Recently I took a peak at a default mysql installation and found one interesting, to not say scary, thing. SQL_MODE comes set to empty string and if you dig into the documentation you find that... you find nothing! Yes you heard me, whatever a blank SQL_MODE means is not known yet is what most of the people run with because this little fact is advertised nowhere, especially not in the post installation guidelines. more »

If there are a couple things that a few years of system administration should have taught you, the importance of backups and logs is one. more »

To be compatible across different backends the best option is to store ips and netmasks as longint and manage the transformations in code, otherwise, if compatibility is not a concern or writing that code is a problem, both mysql and postresql offer their own built-in functions to aid with the job. more »

A while ago I set on the search for a cheap domain and ssl certs reseller and settled for namecheap.com. Here I'm documenting my, overall positive, experience with them. more »

I never cared too much about my web presence and spikelab.org is the only domain I ever owned, so back then doing extensive researches to save a couple bucks didn't make much sense. Someone recommended Gandi to me and there I bought it. As for ssl certificates, CACert is what we all should use and push for, but right now we're far from a large adoption, and considering the associated fees (read bribes) required to be accepted in largely used browsers like IE it won't probably ever happen. more »