VN-Jonathan

For testing speed under load, have a look at Blitz (https://www.blitz.io/). It's VERY useful and provides all kinds of configuration options and metrics for analysis. Just be careful using it, as with the wrong settings you'll essentially DoS attack your own system . Jon

Currently have some very basic thing that came out of an office clearance a few years back - it's past it really, but a vast improvement over the wooden folding chair I used for 2 years prior. Before that I had a really nice ergonomic chair, but that got left behind when I moved back in '06. Probably the only chair I've ever managed to be comfortable on. Really need to get something similar sorted, as like mentioned above your health can be seriously affected by sitting in the wrong way for too long. All that said, a fancy chair is usually not much help when you spend vast amounts of time working on the datacentre floor, at the workshop bench, on trains or over at your co-workers places on the sofa . Jon

Bought the .com many years back (2003 I think?) when Virgo Networks was just the name under which I did freelance work and hosted a few clients and contacts. Then bought the .co.uk a few years later. When we started up properly back in 2010 we'd also bought .net a year prior in preparation, which is used for our internal space and technical resources. Then came the .dk, and various others - some of which are related to our main brand and some which are not (used for other projects or development work). It's always good to have all the extensions you think will be appropriate, however do bear in mind when deciding how to run them that if you need SSL things can get needlessly costly. (Multiple sites vs redirects) I always used to advise clients where possible to also get .com, as if a user can't remember the extension this will always be the first they try. Jon

Yes - that can be a major advantage, as PayPal have in the past been known to shoot first, ask questions later with things such as disputes. And when they fall between the regulatory cracks you're out of luck with any serious kind of independent appeal. The main disadvantage is, as I say, what BitCoin is tied to - nothing stable. With major currencies they are tied to the economies for their parent nations, and certainly did used to be tied to commodities such as gold (although probably not anymore, as it will have all been sold off long ago no doubt!). BitCoin's value is based solely on the supply of tokens against what can be bought with them. As this changes (sites shut down, etc), the currency can spike or plummet overnight. Still a very interesting experiment though - and the stability can only improve, as acceptance becomes more widespread leading to higher usage. Jon

Do you have any specific requirements in terms of location? (i.e. 1 cloud 1 local, etc). What OS is your machine running, as this will also affect the available options. Do you have any requirements in terms of encryption or speed of access? If its just to archive things the likes of Amazon Glacier may be of use. Jon

There are a few hosts that accept it, however I can say we don't have any plans to at present. The main issue is the highly volatile value of the currency, largely caused by the fact that a substantial use of it can be to purchase things that you can't/wouldn't with traditional means and the fact that it's not actually tied or indexed to anything. Jon

Those above have got it bang-on. The only other thing to note is that they will usually set a cookie in the user's browser, which is what can help when determining new vs returning visits and such. The approach you take in writing a custom system all depends on what data you're wanting to capture. A very basic system could be easily embedded into each page with PHP, just to pull the browser versions, IP and such. Throw this data into a MySQL database and then find a way of presenting it, and you're done. It's worth remembering though, that the data any scripts like this can collect are easily falsified by the end user. This once again feeds back into your design, as you need to ensure that data you gather is useful and you understand the context fully. As with all projects - begin by identifying what data you want to collect, how it should be processed, and what the output should be. Jon

IBM Model-M or one of its derivatives (which I believe Sam G posted a picture of above). They are just bog-standard keyboards, but are built VERY heavily and have rather nice tactile feedback. Perfect for anyone who has to type for long periods of time! Now if only there was an Apple version, or better yet an ergornomic/split Apple version. Jon

Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear for me. Some of our team are located in Harrogate, North Yorkshire too. Jon

A course that incorporates the Cisco CCNA, or pure CCNA is a very good start. Don't expect it to teach you everything you need, but it's certainly a good overall starter. Semester 4 (certainly back in my day) is actually quite light, the idea being that you devote a good deal of the time both in and out of the classroom to preparing for your finals. Another thing to look at would be getting an ITIL Foundation Certificate in Service Management. It's not a technical qualification by any means, but many employers will look for someone who has knowledge and appreciation of standardised service management methodologies. Often employers will prefer someone who has ITIL Foundation and basic technical qualification to a candidate that has a large amount of purely theoretical technical credentials – there is always a degree of on the job training from a technical point of view, so a little more tends not to hurt. Having to train someone from scratch about managing incidents and change control is much more problematic. The other thing I'd reccomend is getting comfortable with Linux. Avoid Ubuntu and any GUI tools - get hold of a copy of RedHat Enterprise Linux or CentOS (either is fine), or Debian and learn the hell out of it using the command line. Linux skills are becoming VERY desirable to employers these days, and as many people are either no good at it, or it scares them off, it gives you a competative edge. Lastly - don't underestimate the role self-taught skills play in all this. Get some hardware for a home setup (eBay is a godsend for this) and/or a VPS. Build things, totally screw them up, then fix them. Better yet - if there is someone else you've been studying with, combine resources and have the other person break something and not tell you what they've done. Hope this helps, and best of luck. Jon

A VPS is your best bet here, certainly to start off with. This will provide you with unrestricted SSH access to use GIT (or anything else you may want for that matter), and give you as others have stated the ability to effectively segregate dev and live instances. You will also benefit from being able to directly control the versions of software and packages that are installed, such as the control panel, PHP/MySQL versions and so on. If your reluctance to consider a VPS is related to the management aspect, there are a good number of hosts out there who will offer VPS services on a semi-managed basis. As has been previously stated, looking at the host is more important than the raw specs, as with a VPS you want to ensure that you will be given adiquate support and not placed onto a platform that is already oversold/overworked. Remember that with a VPS you are sharing the physical hardware with other users still, so the last point is extra important. Obviously though a dedicated server removes this consideration as the hardware is then essentially yours as long as the contract remains live. Hope this helps, Jon

Oh, and another thing - may I strongly reccomend the FireFTP plugin for Firefox for FTP tasks? It's free, and works a treat! I use this extensively, and it's just so handy and easy to use. Never had any problems yet, whereas some other clients like CyberDuck and FileZilla can be somewhat tempremental at times. Jon

Generally yes, although as has been said you just need to enter the address, without any prefix or suffix. In the examples above, "ftp." is a subdomain - this shouldn't need to be put into anything other than a browser if you were wanting to try and force a directory listing. This would pretty much never be used with an IP address. "ftp://" is a string to tell the client what protocol we're going to use, much the same as when we use "http://" or "smb://". The vast majority of FTP clients will not require this - they already know you are going to try and connect via FTP. This prefix may be used with both IP addresses and domain names. Domain names do in all cases literally just point to "hosts" on the Internet or another network, and as long as in both cases you are referencing the same resource, you'll be good to go. Jon

Again, it all depends on the client, their business, and the type of content their feed is full of. Our business cards don't have anything more than contact details (phone, e-mail) and our website, but thats because our content as a service provider is fairly static. For clients who are in a fast moving industry such as fashion, however, there could be a great deal of benefit to this. Many potential connections may want to follow the Twitter feed of the organisation, as Twitter is perfect for sharing quick, concise thoughts and messages, and perhaps photos. For many it can almost have a "scrapbook" type function, where in addition to communicating with their audience, content that the account holder has an interest in can be shared very rapidly. Ultimately though, if the client is not happy with the decision, that's that. Hope this is of some help. Jon

As above, although if this is something you are going to be doing regularly, you may wish to consider installing tools like phpMyAdmin to make the job a little easier. There is also the option of Idera ServerBackup (formerly R1Soft CDP). You can use it to do automated backups of both files and databases, although you would require another machine from which to run it. Hope this helps. Jon