So it's been a year since I switched my hosting server to Slicehost. I originally started with a 256MB Slice, but recently upgraded to a 512MB Slice. 256MB of memory is, unfortunately, not quite enough to run a lamp server without turning off all unused or unnecessary services (which you should do anyway) and reconfiguring Apache, PHP and MySQL to run with less than optimal resources. I logged into my slicehost account manager today and noticed that the monthly bandwidth quota for my slice had gone up from 200GB to 300GB since the last time I'd logged in. I decided to look into it and quickly discovered that they had changed their hosting plans and added two new options, a 384MB slice and a 768MB slice. The 384MB slice was exactly what I had been hoping for when I upgraded to my 512MB slice a few months earlier. If you are just running a LAMP stack with sites that get light to medium traffic then 384MB of memory is just the right amount. So basically I've enjoyed stellar service and almost 100% uptime from Slicehost over the last year and now they offer hosting plans that are more targeted to users like me and my company. I'm happy to report that after over a year of hosting I'd still recommend Slicehost to anyone looking for a hosting service that focuses on the developer and not on all the unnecessary web control panels and setup tools.

Information security is becoming increasingly important, but why pay extra for a flash drive with built-in encryption when you can quickly and easily do it yourself using free, open source tools.

This tutorial will show you how to use Ubuntu 9.10 and some of the utilities it ships with to create a bootable USB flash drive with an encrypted partition. The encrypted partition will be directly accessible through any Linux machine with dmcrypt installed or through it's own bootable copy of Ubuntu Linux so if there isn't a Linux machine available you can just boot from the drive an access your data securly.

Before you begin you will need:

• A flash drive with a capacity of at least 2GB (this tutorial uses an 8GB drive. Adjust accordingly for your drive size)
• A computer running Ubuntu 9.10
• A copy of the Ubuntu 9.10 32-bit desktop edition iso file
• GParted installed on your Ubuntu machine

Step 1: Delete all data from the flash drive

This may seem a bit paranoid, but you want to make sure all data that has been stored on the drive is wiped clean. This command will overwrite the entire drive with zeros. Replace /dev/sdx with the actual location of your flash drive. BE VERY CAREFUL using this command. If you point it at the wrong drive (like say, the drive with your /boot partition or /home partition) it will irreversibly destroy all data on the drive starting with the MBR.

Let it run until it's complete (this will take a while on larger drives)

Step 2: Partition the drive with GParted

Create a 4GB partition formatted vfat at the beginning of the drive and click Apply Changes

Step 3: Create an encrypted partition using Disk Utility (System->Administration->Disk Utility)

Select the free space on your flash drive
Set a label (optional but recommended)
Select ext4 as the filesystem
Check the encrypt underlying device box
Click create
Set your passphrase
Click create

Step 4: Install Ubuntu on the flashdrive

Open the USB Startup Disk Creator (System->Administration->USB Startup Disk Creator)
Select your iso file under source disk image
Select the fat partition you created in Step 2
Set Stored in reserved extra space to the maximum allowed
Click Make startup disk (again, this will take a while on larger drives)

Step 5: Boot from the flash drive and finalize your install

Mount the encrypted drive by clicking Places->4.1GB Media
Enter your password to unlock the drive. Make sure to never select Remember Forever . We installed a persistent filesystem on the flash drive so it will save files, settings and passwords to the drive and remember them between boots.

The first time you mount it the system may refuse to open the drive. If this is the case open a terminal and enter the command:

sudo chown ubuntu:ubuntu /media/data

Where data is the label you used for your encrypted partition in step 3
Reboot the system

Now you can carry sensitive data around with you and relax knowing it is easily accessible and totally secure. (you did use a strong password, right?)

With a little over a month to go before the final release of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) some of the much anticipated new artwork has landed. The new start up splash screen powered by xsplash looks exactly like the mock-ups and is a welcome change from the old usplash theme that was growing stagnant.

The default desktop now uses the Humanity icon theme instead of Human which gives everything a refreshingly new feel and in a page taken directly from OS X and Windows 7 the notification area icons are now all uniform in color and theme which gives it a much more professional feel.

There are also a multitude of new desktop wallpapers that just showed up with today's updates.

All in all, it looks like when the Karmic Koala ships on October 29th it will be another great release from the team at Canonical and the Ubuntu community and this time some of the long overdue artwork should actually ship with the final.