Sky's Blog

This is a way geeky night for us engineers, and somewhat akin to the 1969 moon landing in many ways. I’m watching the Mars rover Curiosity landing right now (14 minutes delayed, of course, due to the speed of light). “Parachute deploy!” they say just now. And a minute or two later I’m watching as the JPL engineers report “Touchdown confirmed, we are safe on Mars … and … Now to see where Curiosity will take us.” The largest rover and science experiment to date has landed on Mars (afternoon Mars time, actually). By the time the radio signals reached us, the rover had been there for 14 minutes. (The photo is of a wheel cover, which I guess a mechanic is going to remove tomorrow.) Follow developments online at nasa.gov/msl

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The predominant “web server software” used for WordPress sites are Apache and nginx. ¹ Generally on smaller servers nginx will be more efficient because it doesn’t gobble memory like Apache does. The question of which web server software to use hinges primarily on the CPU power and memory resources that are required on the server side to make your site run properly. (continue reading…)

I work on a Macbook Pro with a 15-inch screen most of the time (when I’m not on an iPad and mobile). Carting around this portable window on the online world has been easy and nice over the years, but it doesn’t give me enough space to “spread out” my working materials as I would on a desk or table.

My (2008 aluminum) Macbook Pro directly supports (only) one external “DVI” monitor, which extends my workspace by adding a single 24-inch window that I can drag documents onto. But frequently I need more. (continue reading…)