Category Archives: Library

Sending mail via telnet

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Sending mail via telnet through your SMTP server

There have been many times over the course of my time working with computers that I have had to manually test email functionality. Email is one of those things that everyone has to have for various reasons. It’s great for getting status info and results from scripts for example. However, it’s also one of those ornery things that is affected by everything from network settings and firewall rules to spam filters and DNS problems.

The point is that sometimes you need to be on the machine that is sending the message, and verify that it can in fact send a message. This article will help you not only test connectivity, but walk you through sending an email message via a telnet connection, going through the SMTP commands much like your mail client uses.

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Labeling disks in Linux

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There’s a new article up that discusses Linux, and how it uses labels to mount disks in many cases, instead of the device paths of yesteryear. In the article I explain what this is and why we do it, as well as how to manage the labels of your disks. This is one of the things that when I first saw it, blew me away. I didn’t realize what it was, and once I learned more about it, I was blown away again by just how cool this is. All in all, I think the idea of mounting disks via a label so that it just doesn’t matter what the device name or path is, is an awesome idea. I hope I put together an article that is helpful, and can shed some light on it for you.

New Article On Data Protection

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I have posted before about Backups and their importance in the world.  The subject has inspired me to write a whole article on the subject of Backups, Disaster Recovery and Mitigating Downtime in the hopes that I can explain a few things, share some ideas and observations, and maybe help you understand the different aspects of data protection that go into the subject of backups.  I hope it will prove helpful!

Computer Buying 101

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I have posted a new article where I talk about some basics of computers, buying computers, what all the acronyms and abbreviations mean and what they mean to you.  Also, I talk about some observations and trends that I see, and in general try to give those not familiar with computers, especially hardware, some ammunition for talking to that sales person somewhere.  It’s a long article, so it will take a few minutes to read, but it took several hours to write so maybe it’s a good trade.  As I think of more things to add, I’ll update it, just like any other article on this site.  Technology keeps changing, and so does information, so I am not afraid to update the information I am collecting here as I see fit.  Feel free to check it out, and let me know what you think.  It’s in the Library section, along with our other articles.