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We are starting to upgrade lots of machines now that support for Windows XP has ended. Naturally, we are installing Ubuntu on as many machines as possible… but sometimes there are software restrictions and we have to make a purchasing decision between Apple and Windows.

Apple hardware is cheaper longterm
What is really interesting it that we are finding it is cheaper to replace Windows machines with Apple Macs. Surely this isn’t possible!? Well actually it is. Here is how I see it. There are obviously two components that make up a computer:

Hardware
Generic super crap Windows hardware is cheaper than Apple hardware. However, if you get something good quality, there isn’t much in it. For example:

• Windows Machine – a Fujitsu Esprimo E410 E85+ SFF Desktop with Intel Core i5-3340 3GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD and a confusing mixture of Windows 7 + 8 Pro 64bit – £449.00 from Ebuyer.
• Apple Machine – Apple Mac mini 2.5GHz Dual Core Intel Core i5 4GB 500GB – £479.00 from Dabs.

The processor is better on the Fujitsu but not by much and even though Fujistu make great gear there is no denying that the quality of the Mac Mini is the best. Note – you can’t upgrade either without voiding their warranties.

Software
Short term, we don’t need to purchase anti-virus, firewalls and generally remove the bundled crap that always comes with a Windows machine. In fact, everything just works better on a Mac out the box.

Longterm, you always need to reinstall and upgrade an operating system in the future. The key here is that Apple makes it free to upgrade or reinstall. Windows charge around £100 for a license. Therefore, over the life of the machine it will cheaper to own an Apple product.

I’ve been a member of the Naked Wines – however I come to conclusion that it isn’t very good value for money and the range of wines isn’t very good. However, it isn’t clear how to cancel your naked wines account and Google doesn’t have this as a good page range. This post isn’t purely to help that!

Here is a link to cancel your Naked Wine subscription:

Cancel your Naked wine subscription

Ubuntu 14.04 has just been released. I have installed it on all my computer and most of our servers. Everything seems to be working really well. So well done Ubuntu and Canonical.

I just needed to add additional ip addresses onto a network interface and wanted to do this without rebooting the server. I found the best way was just to bring the interface up and down:

sudo ifdown -a

Then bring the interface backup.

sudo ifup -a

If you read the heartbleed.com website – it suggested the Ubuntu is not secure because there are still using openssl 1.0.1f. If your Ubuntu computer is up to date then it is secure. Ubuntu have back ported the changes from openssl 1.0.1g to 1.0.1.f.

i.e. just: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

If you are running an Ubuntu Server and would like to upgrade to the Ubuntu 14.04 from the command line here are the commands all changed together for easy cut and paste.

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core && sudo do-release-upgrade -d

I just upgraded Ubuntu and unfortunately the MediaWiki installation broke. There was no debugging output on the screen (for obvious security reasons). So, I just had a blank page on the screen.

The first thing that I did was show the debugging output but editing the LocalSetting.php to enabling

$wgShowExceptionDetails = true;

After refreshing the page, the error appeared as

/var/www/includes/db/Database.php: DatabaseBase::factory no viable database extension found for type 'mysql'

It turns out the problem was php not connecting to MySQL properly.

sudo php5enmod mysql
sudo service apache2 restart

I have started to remove the Ubuntu / Cannonical Landscape Client from all my Ubuntu servers because otherwise it is just another service:

1. Running in the background using power
2. Potiential security hole with root permission
3. I don’t actually use it

It is quite simple:

sudo apt-get remove landscape-client landscape-client-ui landscape-client-ui-install landscape-common

If Cannonical open sourced the service for Landscape then I would actually start using it but in the meantime…

I have just been looking at the processes on my laptop and noticed a python process running as a user called ‘conveyor’. I can’t remember adding a user or installing a program called conveyer. It turns out that it was a Makerbot process. So, a quick…

apt-get remove makerbot* 

…helped sort that out. Why Makerbot doesn’t make a user called Makerbot, I have no idea.

I forgot the password to my Macbook Pro and it turns out that there aren’t very many short guides on this. However, it turns out that it is very easy to reset the password on a Macbook.

Step 1 – Boot to the Recovery HD:
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the COMMAND and R keys until the menu screen appears Alternatively, restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears. Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.

Step 2 – When the menu bar appears select Terminal from the Utilities menu. Enter reset password at the prompt and press RETURN. Follow instructions in the dialog window that will appear.