My (zen) experience with Digital Ocean

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Thanks to the tracking stuff that Google do, I was one looking for cheap VPS to host a service that I use now in my family business, and thanks to that search a lot of Digital Ocean Ads displayed on the sites I visited, and I mean a lot, do you remember it? it was a video about a guy deploying the code he just wrote…

Well, I wasn’t really convinced about it, I already was using a server that I had for a couple of years, it was cheap because it was not a monster of server but it accomplish with the task. I was looking for an alternative because I started to see complains of other people about this company (starts with “server” and ends with “pronto”) and I had a couple of issues with terrible support. So, I decided to go for another server.

Why I choose Digital Ocean

At the end I didn’t used a complete server but decided to try Digital Ocean because of the SSD and the VPS was in less than a minute up and running, I just installed my service dependencies and there it is. The best part, since I don’t need a big amount of space the cheapest VPS was really an option, it was the one with 20GB of storage, 1 core, 512GB of RAM for just $5 a month.

Yes, $5 a month, I spend more in the store when I go for a redbull and chips. And I was so happy that I moved all my other stuff (this blog included) to another VPS, this time with a bit more space since I host some pictures here. I couldn’t be more happy, it works super fast since the I/O is in a SSD, but the price is super lower compared to other full servers, even those leased servers.

Why I am still with Digital Ocean?

This post was created several years ago, and I was using Digital Ocean long before I wrote this post, and I’m happy to say that I still use a VPS in DO. Why?.

Well, just about the price and the performance, I have almost no complaints about their platform, but they have improved they way we can make new VPS, se can create database VPS, we have real time monitoring to the server and everything in their control panel is pretty easy to use.

So, if you are in the need to try something live, in a full Linux server you should try Digital Ocean, is cheap, works like hell and it have an API so you can automate the process of creating/removing Virtual machines.

This is not a paid post…

Now, all this looks like a commercial, and not, this is not a paid post from Digital Ocean, or almost no, D.O. hasn’t payed to me for this post, but if I convinced you to use Digital Ocean create an account with this referral link and you’ll get $10 to create your VPS (that’s two months of the $5 plan), I’ll get some too, that’s the good part, and of course, you can get in the referral program too.

Create a Digital Ocean Account and get $10 in advance

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Press this, or the way WordPress do a reblog.

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Screen Shot 2015-04-27 at 8.07.59 PM

 

 

If you have been using WordPress for a long time this may sound dumb since you may had this option for a long time, I just discovered.

Tumblr is the biggest competition to wordpress, one of its key feature is the “reblog” where you can just reblog a post and have it in your blog. So, we can see blogs that are entirely reblogs, from multiple sites and sometimes it is easier to just follow that blog because they have information from multiple sources you don’t have to be looking for.

tumblr_inline_mj12i5qOW61qz4rgpTo me this is a good thing, not to “steal” content from other blogs, but I see that some sites like Twitter and Facebook, they live because of the content we display on them, its like a deal, you let me use your service for free, you put ads in the timeline and live with the content I’m creating. I’ve been trying to keep my stuff with me and by myself, aside from flickr, my blog, my email and other stuff is with me, I’m not a purist, I use Gmail and some other services, but what belongs to me and I do care about it is in my server and with my services.

So, if I post to twitter, to me is good to share via my blog, so you can visit my blog too.

“Press this” is not just a “reblog” system, I can add text so I can add a comment to that post, so I share that post, and since I add my point of view and more importantly I’m adding a link to the source I’m not stealing any content.

 

 

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Videollamadas en Messenger ya son posibles | La-uno.com

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https://vimeo.com/125994315


Algo que todos estaban esperando llega hoy, Stan Chudnovsky, Jefe de producto de Messenger, y Pram Reddy, Gerente de Ingeniería, han anunciado en el blog de Facebook que las videollamadas ahora son posibles a travez de su app de mensajeria Messenger. Se podrán realizar sin importar que no cuenten con el mismo sistema operativo, pues está disponible en Android, iOS y Windows Phone, esto si es novedad para está app de Facebook, pues aunque antes ya se

Source: Videollamadas en Messenger ya son posibles | La-uno.com

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Is internet.org good for all of us?

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mark_zuckerberg_internet_org_reuters

Mark Zuckerberg has been traveling to South American countries to promote internet.org, a platform that pretends to give “free” internet to places where there is no internet or people just can’t afford it. What a generous guy? isn’t he?. The problem is that internet.org is not what they say, it is not a free internet service where you can consume that internet in whatever you want, I mean, it is not neutral.

First of all, internet.org IS NOT UNILIMITED AND FREE INTERNET access, and it is not charity. is just one mobile application that includes shortcuts to around 15 sites where obviously you’ll find Facebook, then Wikipedia, AccuWeather and some other local services depending on the country, but it is not a free internet service. This affects because it gives nototious preference to some sites, avoiding competition, but, okay, let’s call this an association and minimize the fact that they are putting themselves in a place where there is no competition, okay.. just, an association.

Also, internet.org does not come with all the infraestructure, it needs to use the one that an ISP already have in the given country, Claro, Telmex, Digicel etc.., where the service is “free” but only for internet.org and this “free” service is only available on such ISP, Iusacell, Movistar, Unefon, etc.. are excluded, they still need to pay for such service. This affects free competition again, because it turns the possible customers to only company that provide access to internet.org sites for “free”. But, again… just, an association.

Now, everyone else would say, well, at least it is “free” but no, it is not. Here in Mexico some Mobile internet providers offer what they call “social networks” for free, to start, Facebook and Twitter are definitively not the only couple of social networks, and WhatsApp is not the only one messaging platform, but okay, it doesn’t cost to you if you have to use them. In the case of internet.org the end user will not have to pay directly, yes you read well, directly, for the use of internet.org, Mark made some agreements with the government so the gov. have to pay to the ISP the expenses of such service. Now you know who will pay that service, You and Me that pay taxes. But also the user that can’t afford it, their taxes will raise or some other service will suffer a cut in the budget but in the end they will have to pay it.

Internet.org is sold as free internet access to people that need it and that part is plausible, but when it creates a monopoly for some sites, when it creates a monopoly for ISPs, and when people have to pay for something “free” wihtout even knowing then there is nothing to be grateful for.

For those that don’t care if someone else will have to pay for this, you will also have to pay, this is just a hook so you have to consume internet in your mobile devices (you’ll probably have to buy a new device from that carrier, so that’s one part of the business) with some other apps that are not part of internet.org and you’ll have to pay for that internet too.

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You know what would be great for the Mission Control?

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mixedLet you delete one finder instance from one of your screens, with this you may dedicate one screen to full screen apps only and the other for the rests. It’s pretty annoying to have finder selected in the secondary screen but since it is an “extension” of your primary desktop you see no icons, so, Finder can use both screens but it won’t change to the whole desktop when you select finder.

This is in first place inconsistent, and may be useless when you want to select some file from the desktop and the finder “part” that is visible is in the secondary screen. Putting the same desktop icons in both screens would definitively help, having only one desktop would be great!.

 

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What if we are all GoogleBots?

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unnamedSomebody please tell me if I’m totally wrong or I realize that google is even more evil.

Me, probably you, and many other million people use Google products, many of them are free to use but do we know why?. Media consumption you may say, Google needs to keep internet alive. Push the new technologies in order to have Youtube running and getting clicks in AdSense, and that sounds pretty… real.

Conspiranoic Alert. But, do you know how many machines does Google uses as google bot (internet crawler)?. I don’t, but I think we are all Google Bots, we use Chrome and its mobile operating system but basically Chrome, Chrome parses the web page in order to render it, then, it knows what we see. and send some meta data to Google servers, or in the best, just ping the crawlers to let them know about an interesting page.

It takes just a little of our cpu time but would save tons of money to Google (getting new hardware, power, internet, maintenance). So. are we Google Bots?

 

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Destiny

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I’ve got Destiny around January, I bought a new PS3 because the old one died and this came with Destiny for about $271, since I’m an occasional player (not too often) now and the PS3 is also for my wife who likes to watch Netflix, getting this PS3 was a good idea to me.

wtf

WTF!

Well, I’ve got it, it came with Destiny, and I haven’t played more than three missions, the reason?, the fucking game needs internet for you to play. So, instead I bought GTA V and played it. I’ve done the story mode and not really that much of the multiplayer since everyone plays on its own, but at least the story mode is done, EVERYTHING in the store mode.  Something that I just can’t do in Destiny.

I shouldn’t care about this, but the crappy internet connection that Telmex provides to me just don’t help me, sometimes it is okay, sometimes it is not, is not a reliable connection to get a connection 100% online, more if you use UDP instead o TCP (ssh connections and videos play nice..).

A real deal breaker when playing #Destiny... Why the hell internet is REQUIRED to play?? #ps3 #fail

A real deal breaker when playing #Destiny… Why the hell internet is REQUIRED to play?? #ps3 #fail

I understand that getting online could improve the experience, while playing you find some other players that are in the same mission that you, then you make team with them and that sounds fantastically, but it does not when by a fraction of a second you loss connection with the server and just about to finish the level you are dropped and return back to the mission select screen. That is not okay, if you loss connection is okay, keep playing the freaking mission alone until you finish it.

I’ve loved the way Watchdogs make it possible to be playing the standalone then someone starts “hacking” you, then you have to find him and stop the hack. But there is no problem if you just don’t have internet!

Also, from the small part I’ve played, Destiny story is not that good and the gameplay is… pretty boring. Still, i’d like to be able to play this thing, so. if bungie could please stop requiring internet to play the story mode, that would be great!

 

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Smartphones are becoming featurephones

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smartphones_rect

A bit more than seven years ago, most people used feature phones, a few used some other not so smart thing called handhelds, the most popular: Palm, HP IPaq, and of course, blackberry they were expensive, the mobile internet was bad at that time and of course, you can’t install apps on those things.

Then the smartphones era became true, although there may be a few attempts before, the true star and the one that deserves the credit here is the iPhone, a mobile device that sucks too, you couldn’t install apps and the original intention was to use web apps, but it make using email, browsing, using a contact list, taking pictures and listening to music in a mobile device a charm. (Sorry Nokia, your NXXX weren’t that good).

So, phones became “smart” and by smart I meant they let you do more things with the software.

Now you can install a ton of apps, you can have thousands of songs, pictures or videos, the apps let you edit pictures, watch entire movies, draw/paint and browse internet in a way seven years ago was impossible, and still, smartphones are getting back to be feature phones.

Why feature phones, because if you remember, seven years ago, when you were at the phone house buying a cell phone, you were buying it because of how it looks like, how big the screen it was, how good the camera was, did it included a pair of headphones?, what made you buy a phone was the hardware, not the software. The same thing is happening,

You get a Samsung, Motorola, Nokia, Apple phone, all of them let you do the same thing, so, you buy one or the other because this looks prettier than those, this have a bigger screen, this one is pink and I like pink. A smartphone is no longer identified by its software capabilities.

So, in my opinion what can make a smartphone again a smartphone?, It’s hard to tell, I could say that not the hardware but the software, that the software needs to do something more than what we are used to. Siri, Cortana and Google now are good examples of what makes “smart” a smartphone, but they are available on almost all phones, and the vast majority just ignore them.

Smartphones are doomed, they are not smart, they are just another (bad,reduced) computer, they are just a feature phone.

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2014

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So, this is my review of the 2014.

The good things:

  • New year new baby, I started this year with a newborn, although she was born in Dec 17 2013, she was only 14 days when 2014 started.
  • I released a lot of stress caused by a debt with the bank.
  • We move the family business to another place where we are exposed to more people, all of them potential customers ;-).
  • Sofia and Diego are more and more independent. Sofia is 5 years old but she is pretty smart, she questions everything, “Why this..? why that..?”, sometimes too many questions may be irritating but I prefer that, she needs to keep asking, being curious. Diego just plays a lot.
  • Ana started to walk, she is still learning.
  • I’ve got a new cellphone (twice) and finally got a tablet.
  • I moved from the old blog to this, made in WordPress.
  • Made 4 years working with SpamExperts.

The Bad Things:

  • I’ve been robbed, and my brother too.
  • The social/economical situation of the country is every day worse, 2014 is clearly not a good year for Mexico.
  • My PS3 died.
  • We couldn’t make it to visit my parents in law in Chiapas this year. I hope we can do it in the first months of 2015.
  • I couldn’t make it to have a healthier way of life.
  • I have to work a lot, I spend most of my day working.

What I hope for the next year:

  • Be healthier.
  • Visit my parents in law.
  • Increase my business opportunities with friends that I know my knowledge could help them.
  • Move away from where I’m currently living. Me and my wife have been thinking in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, but we are also thinking in other places, including another country.
  • Reduce my working hours. I need to have more time for my kids, for my wife and me.
  • Maintain my Android apps and create a couple of apps that I have in mind.
  • Renew my laptop.

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Lollipop

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As you may know, I have Android 5.0 Lollipop installed in my Moto G, I did this 13 days ago and so far thing are going well, the system is responsive and even whit all those animations it is fluid, although there are some parts that I don’t really like.

Lets start with the things that I like.

First, everything is fluid, all animations runs smooth even whit this phone that is not the beast as the flagship models. The material design language adds a lots of animations and those in Kit-Kat were a bit choppy, but with Lollipop they run perfectly at least at 30 fps if not 60.

The new notification bar is indeed an evolution of that it was, its more functional now that the quick settings area is just a pull down ahead and include more options than with Kit-Kat, still, custom ROMs like Paranoid Android are beyond this, letting you customize this area (in Kit-Kat).

The “meh..”

The recents panel is not limited to a small number of apps, it seems to remember all the apps you have open since the phone booted up, this have its downside since there may be a lot of apps in the recents, it doesn’t mean they are all open but there are traces of it in the recents panel, it may be just easier to open the app from the homescreen or app drawer instead of looking for it in recents. Also, I don’t like that Chrome splits all its tabs in the recents, at some point you don’t know how many “tabs” you have open.

The “buu!”

Although there may be tons of new API functions/methods in the OS to support Android Wear and other fancy things, to be honest and aside from the material design, Lollipop doesn’t offer something new to the table, it is prettier? yes, as it should be, but I don’t see a key feature that it wasn’t in 4.4.

ART to a simple mortal user means nothing, is like if you changed the sparking plug of your car, it may improve something but the normal user won’t really notice something.

So..

So far so good, Android 5.0 Lollipop feels like a more mature OS, but if you have KK there should be no rush to upgrade since there is possibly nothing new for you.

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Lollipop at the Moto G

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As you may know, I have a Moto G, a great device at a really low price, it has a 720p display that gives you 320dpi, 16GB of storage which to me is more than enough, 1GB of RAM, again, enough; and the latest version of Android. Well, you may have Android 4.4.4 but you can install Android 5.0 by now.

The Brazilian version of the Moto G, the XT1033 (dual SIM) have now the upgrade if you enrolled to the Motorola feedback program, then getting the OTA was just a matter of time.

In order to upgrade to Lollipop you must flash your device with the Brazilian firmware, you need then an unlocked bootloader, but if you are interested (or desperate) enough to install it I guess you already have it unlocked.

What you will need to have:

  • Unlocked bootloader
  • fastboot
  • adb
  • a custom recovery (eg. TWRP)
  • Brazilian firmware from here.
  • OTA Update from here.

What you will need have to do.

  1. Restore the stock Brazilian firmware 
    fastboot flash motoboot motoboot.img
fastboot flash logo logo.bin
fastboot flash boot boot.img
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img
fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.0
fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.1
fastboot flash system system.img_sparsechunk.2
fastboot flash modem NON-HLOS.bin
fastboot erase modemst1
fastboot erase modemst2
fastboot flash fsg fsg.mbn
fastboot erase cache
  2. Boot the phone and let it build the basic structure of the system.
  3. Reboot into the bootloader.
    1. Press the Power Button and the “Vol Down” button for around 5 seconds, then release them, you should see the bootloader menu.
  4. Flash the custom recovery 
    fastboot flash recovery custom_recovery.img
  5. Copy the OTA update to the SDCard. 
    adb push Blur_Version.210.12.40.falcon_umtsds.Brasil.en.BR.zip /sdcard/
  6. Flash the stock recovery (from the  stock firmware) 
    fastbook flash recovery recovery.img
  7. Then reboot into the stock recovery.
    1. Turn off the phone,
    2. Press the Power Button and the “Vol Down” button for around 5 seconds, then release them, you should see the bootloader menu.
    3. Press one time Vol Down to select “recovery” then hit “Vol Up” to select it.
      1. You should see the Android robot with the belly opened and an alert triangle with it. Don’t worry, you haven’t bricked your phone (yet).
    4. While in this screen, hit Power Button and “Vol Up” for around 3 seconds, the recovery menu should appear.
  8. Select Install update from ZIP
  9. Select the ZIP you put in /sdcard/
  10. Wait for around 15 minutes, until it says that the upgrade is done. The “Patching system files” process is the one that takes that long.
  11. reboot.

Emmmm.... Android developers... Aquí cómo??Habemus lollipop

 

Did you upgraded to Lollipop? Post your screenshots in the comments 😉

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