How to connect to the Rackspace NextGen cloud via the command line

Posted by & filed under rackspace, tips-and-tricks, wordpress hosting, zippykid.

About a year ago, I wrote a blog post showing you how to connect to the Rackspace Control panel via the command line. Recently, Rackspace announced their NextGen Cloud, something we’ve been privately testing with them for the past 8 months. Now that it’s stable, and has been thoroughly tested, I wanted to share the… Read more »

HostingCon 2012 – CloudFlare Conversation with Vid Luther from ZippyKid

Posted by & filed under business, hosting, rackspace, wordpress.

It’s not often we’re able to get Vid in front of a camera (he looks super natural, doesn’t he?), but he was captured at HostingCon 2012 in Boston. Good stuff covered in this quick hitting interview including 1) ZippyKid is growing like crazy, 2) some killer investors and advisors from Rackspace, Slicehost and 500 Startups… Read more »

Worst Week Ever – Growing pains at ZippyKid

Posted by & filed under business, hosting, Managed Wordpress, php, rackspace, wordpress, wordpress hosting, zippykid.

I’m sorry for the worst week ever, in the history of ZippyKid, and it’s happy customers. We’ve been having slow downs and downtime across the board. We’ve isolated the problem down to a strained and maxed out Firewall, which is operating at 80% CPU capacity, and near full limits of it’s bandwidth capability. We’re working very closely… Read more »

Custom error messages for Rackspace Cloud Load Balancers

Posted by & filed under blog, rackspace, tips-and-tricks, wordpress hosting, zippykid.

If you use Rackspace Cloud Load balancers like we do, sometimes seeing the “Service Unavailable” message is annoying, and somewhat ambiguous to the visitor. In November Rackspace allowed you to upload your own error pages via the API, we’ve started implementing it for some of our Enterprise clients. It’s a relatively simple process, once you… Read more »

How to setup a Rackspace Cloud Load Balancer to serve SSL

Posted by & filed under blog, business, hosting, rackspace, security, wordpress, wordpress hosting, zippykid.

This post should explain how to setup an SSL site that’s load balanced across your web nodes using Cloud Load Balancers, and nginx on your web heads. This assumes you know how to setup the following: Nginx with an SSL vhost Verify that the vhost is working, by using an ssh tunnel Test that your… Read more »

Using the Rackspace Cloud Control Panel via Openstack CLI tools on OS X Lion (and other unixes)

Posted by & filed under blog, business, rackspace, zippykid.

If you’re like us, and use Rackspace Cloud Servers a lot, you eventually get tired of the web based control panel. It’s slow, it’s a pain to switch to a browser and to login, and search for servers.. it’s a pain to deal with over the web based interface. Luckily, the smart folks at Openstack… Read more »

Switching back to Google Apps from Rackspace

Posted by & filed under gmail, google, mail, rackspace.

I’m switching to Google Apps Premier Edition today. Why am I switching to Google Apps? To stay abreast of the competition/services offered for my customers.  My consulting assignments put me in the position of “recommender”, I recommend technology and help shape technology budgets  for companies of all sizes, and in order for me to be… Read more »