Technology moves fast, and keeping track of the best tools, resources, and shortcuts is a job in itself. The Useful category is a collection of high-value “finds” – from software recommendations and productivity hacks to specific hardware reviews (like YubiKey setups) that make a tangible difference in a technologist’s daily life.
This is where you’ll find the answers to the “how do I do this quickly?” questions. It’s a mix of general IT knowledge, security tips, and digital life-improvements that don’t always fit into a strict server category but are indispensable for anyone working in the DevOps or IT space.
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Never forget an OpenSSL command again. This comprehensive cheat sheet covers certificate conversion (PFX, PEM, DER), CSR generation, and remote SSL / TLS verification for Windows and Linux admins.
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Learn how to calculate and create file checksums with PowerShell’s Get-FileHash and certutil.exe. Use this to validate file integrity in Windows (Windows Server).
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Learn how to programmatically convert legacy Microsoft Access 2003 (.mdb) databases to the modern .accdb format using Classic ASP and the ACE engine. This guide provides essential scripts for performing online conversions and database maintenance directly on your IIS web server. It is an ideal solution for sysadmins managing legacy environments who need to upgrade data storage without local access to Microsoft Office.
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Blacklist check script written in PowerShell, to easily lookup an IP address status in various blacklists (DNSBLs, RBLs)
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OpenSSL comes in handy when you need to generate passwords or random strings. For example for system accounts and services. In this short post I’ll give you a quick example on how to generate random passwords with OpenSSL in Linux (Bash), Windows and PHP.
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Relive the golden age of PC gaming. Learn how to configure DOSBox on Windows 11 to run classic MS-DOS titles, optimize CPU cycles for period-accurate speed, and set up a custom autoexec.bat menu for easy launching.
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A useful PHP script to check if your website is up and online available. It uses PHP and cURL. This script comes in handy because website uptime and availability is important, and you want your website to be always online available.
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MySQL’s mysqlcheck is a command line table maintenance program: it checks, repairs, optimizes, or analyzes tables. Very handy for automated performance optimizations of MySQL databases and tables.
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Learn how to fix your PHP config instead of turning off CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER in php.ini and overcome certificate validation errors with cURL and PHP.
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In this post I provide you various HTTP to HTTPS redirection methods, for Windows Server IIS and Linux Apache. Use these examples to your advantage to secure the traffic between your visitors and your website.