How to secure SMTP, POP and IMAP connections in Plesk
You’ve installed an SSL Certificate to secure your Plesk Panel, you’ve tested it with an SSL checker and sure enough: the ugly warning window doesn’t bother you or your customers anymore. But your email client still says that the server doesn’t have a valid certificate. What gives? The secret is this: SMTP, IMAP and POP3 use their own certificates which are not related to the ones you setup in Plesk to secure https connections. By default the mail services use auto-generated self-signed certificates. Sadly as of Plesk...
read moreHow to force Safari to never open ZIP files again
I love Safari – but it has an ultra annoying habit on new installations: it’s trying to be helpful by automatically unzipping ZIP files. It’s the most unuseful feature ever for a techie ever. Thankfully we can switch it off – something you only need to do once every 5 years, and hence it’s easily forgotten where and how. Open Safari and head over to Safari – Preferences. Under the General Tab, at the very bottom, there’s a tick box. That’s the culprit. Untick it and Safari will never unzip those...
read moreHow to start CentOS in Recovery Mode from Parallels Desktop
To start your Linux distribution into EFI Recovery Mode you need an installation disk. Even the smallest “minimal” image will do. Shutdown the VM if it’s running. Then mount the ISO image onto your VM (under Configuration – Hardware – CD/DVD1). Make sure the “Connected” box is ticked. Next you need to tell Parallels Desktop that you want to boot into recovery mode. Head over to Configuration – Hardware – Boot Order and tick the box Use EFI Boot. The boot order does not matter, just make...
read moreHow to start CentOS in Recovery Mode from Parallels Desktop
To start your Linux distribution into EFI Recovery Mode you need an installation disk. Even the smallest “minimal” image will do. Shutdown the VM if it’s running. Then mount the ISO image onto your VM (under Configuration – Hardware – CD/DVD1). Make sure the “Connected” box is ticked. Next you need to tell Parallels Desktop that you want to boot into recovery mode. Head over to Configuration – Hardware – Boot Order and tick the box Use EFI Boot. The boot order does not matter, just make...
read moreHow to launch Mac Apps on your External Display by default
Even on the best computers there are some things you only do every once in a blue moon – at which point you’ve forgotten what you did last time to make it work. Setting up a second display with your MacBook is such a case. Here’s what worked for me when I installed my Thunderbolt Display last year. We’ve just added another one in our office – here’s to doing it again in the future. When you plug that beautiful 27″ puppy into your MacBook Pro or Air it works without any trouble: the dock is at the...
read moreHow to launch Mac Apps on your External Display by default
Even on the best computers there are some things you only do every once in a blue moon – at which point you’ve forgotten what you did last time to make it work. Setting up a second display with your MacBook is such a case. Here’s what worked for me when I installed my Thunderbolt Display last year. We’ve just added another one in our office – here’s to doing it again in the future. When you plug that beautiful 27″ puppy into your MacBook Pro or Air it works without any trouble: the dock is at the...
read moreHow to restart Windows via RDP
When you’re connected via RDP to a remote Windows machine, the Restart and Shutdown options are not there. Instead they’ve been replaced with only a lonely disconnect option to end your session. To restart or shutdown your remote machine we’ll have to use the command line’s shutdown command. Here’s how. At the Command Prompt (searching usually brings it right up) type shutdown /r /t 0 This will restart Windows. /r means “restart”, and /t specifies the time in seconds (zero in our case). If...
read moreHow to install Plesk on CentOS 7
Installing Plesk on CentOS 7 hasn’t changed drastically from earlier versions, however CentOS is different than its predecessors. I’ve written an article about how to install Plesk on CentOS 6, but that was 3 years ago and thought it’s time for an updated version. Well here it is: Plesk 12, meet CentOS 7. Plesk Documentation Much of what I’m telling you and more is documented on the Parallels Plesk website: http://sp.parallels.com/products/plesk/ On the left hand side you’ll find a link to the current...
read moreRehearse your Yosemite Upgrade before you go live
Updating to the latest version of OS X is tempting – but there’s always a risk that some of your older apps may stop working. If only there was a way to “rehearse” the update process on a dummy system. I’m happy to tell you that there is, and it’s neither as expensive as a brand new computer, nor as time consuming as recreating your entire system from a time machine backup. In this article I’ll show you how. Here are the ingredients you’ll need: 1x external USB drive, bootable (Seagate Backup...
read moreHow to create Scheduled Tasks in Plesk
In this video I’ll show you how to create Scheulded Tasks in Plesk. I’ll explain where to find them (for admins and customers), how to execute them and what all those cryptic fields mean. I’ll also show you how to mute the output of the commands you execute so you won’t be bothered with emails you didn’t ask for. Scheduled Task is another name for Cron Job, and it’s something you want to run on a regular basis, like a script file. Plesk itself does not execute your task. Instead it will give you a nice...
read more