VPS Cost & Benefits with an Example using Magento
About a year ago, I gave a presentation on the cost and benefits of using virtual (private) servers (VPSs) (the topic of my choice) to a small group of my university colleagues as a requirement for my degree. In it, I gave a brief overview of how a VPS differs from a regular server, the different steps involved, and then I went through the cost and benefits. Finally, I talked about a small case study (a previous co-op employer of mine). You can go through the whole presentation after the break.
In addition to talking about VPSs, my last work term report was on the load analysis of Magento on a VPS. It talks about ways of optimizing Magento to run on a limited amount of resources and gives the pros and cons of doing so. You can also go through the report after the break.
Setting Up a SMTP Server with Postfix
A few months ago, my university (University of Waterloo) blocked the ability for students to send e-mail from their university-issued accounts from within Gmail. Essentially, what they did was block Gmail from connecting to the university's SMTP servers to send e-mail through them (not to them - there's a difference). Students could still send e-mail from within Gmail with their university-issued accounts as long as they opted to use Gmail's own SMTP servers, but this would usually append their personal Gmail addresses to all e-mails sent out and make them appear as being "On Behalf Of x@gmail.com".
For privacy and other reasons, university staff usually ignore all e-mails sent form personal e-mail accounts or those appearing "On Behalf Of" someone's personal e-mail address. Because I use Gmail as my e-mail "hub" or client, since I can access it pretty much anywhere, I needed to find a workaround. After some thorough research, I chose to setup my own SMTP server on a VPS I have using Postfix in combination with SASL and SSL/TLS.