how-to

Let’s Encrypt With Let’s Encrypt

/ Leave a Comment
Let's Encrypt Logo

But Why? A few years back, there was a big push for HTTPS Everywhere, big enough for Google to modify their page ranking for it. over the past few months we’ve been running tests taking into account whether sites use secure, encrypted connections as a signal in our search ranking algorithms. We've seen positive results, so we're starting to use HTTPS as a ranking signal. Considering that a big reason for me to have this blog is so I can own my search results, I decided to take some time to get that sweet green lock everyone seemed to like so much. Not only would I LOCK in my Google search superiority over the other Rami Massouds, but I would also not have to worry as much about logging into a WordPress admin over plain text!! Locking It [Read more...]

Make Emacs & $PATH Play Nice In OS X

/ Leave a Comment

After setting up signing my Git commits with GPG, I realized I accidentally broke Magit!. Which is one of my favorite Emacs packages, and the best way to interact with Git. The break was caused by a seemingly common issue for Emacs users in OS X: the PATH variable as Emacs understood it was not the PATH that terminal used. Now that my Git config was telling Git to call out to the GNUPG binary to sign the commit, and it couldn’t find it. This is not exactly a new issue for me. When I started writing Ruby professionally, getting Emacs to play nicely with the right binaries in OS X, so I could use Rspec within a buffer was a challenge. A challenge that always seemed to be for another day, until I broke Magit!. Funny how killing your [Read more...]

Keybase, GitHub, & Being You

/ Leave a Comment
GitHub Verified Badge

A few months ago, GitHub announced they would start displaying a cool "Verified" badge when you sign your commits and tags are signed with GPG. Git itself has supported signing your work for a while, but I think this new visibility into being a good "Git Citizen" will encourage more people to start using that feature. But Like...Why? According to the Git docs Git is cryptographically secure, but it’s not foolproof. If you’re taking work from others on the internet and want to verify that commits are actually from a trusted source, Git has a few ways to sign and verify work using GPG. Signing my work hasn't really come up, I haven't had to make sure I was actually the one who committed to my own lame side project. If you're even [Read more...]

How To Destroy Your Web Server and Ruin Your Night

/ 3 Comments

You could say I have a fairly healthy interest for the systems admin side of tech. I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I think I could get by as an entry to mid level admin. Though that certainly doesn't stop me from doing some colossally stupid things with my personal server(s). As of right now, I have two hosted VPSs, including the one that this blog runs on. This server is supposed to be my "production" server, so it's as locked down as I can make it, with only the necessary services running. Beyond that, the next cardinal rule of managing a production environment is testing software updates somewhere else before you run them on the production machine(s). Even though I'm fully aware of this rule, and of the possible ramifications of not [Read more...]

Debugging Nginx Configurations

/ Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a tweet that peaked my interest. https://twitter.com/statamic/status/273549456237002752 Statamic is a slick flat-file PHP CMS written by a couple of very smart friends: Jack McDade and Mubashar Iqbal (a.k.a. Mubs). I messed with Statamic a bit during the beta period, though not as much as I would have liked, as I was typically otherwise occupied. Even though I've only briefly used Statamic, I like to keep up with the goings on with their venture, and help out or provide support whenever I can. So when I saw the tweet about someone having an issue using Statamic on a Nginx setup, I thought from my escapades configuring Nginx, I might be able to help out. Pretty Straightforward Foolishly I though that I knew [Read more...]