About

Introduction

My Name is Sam Kear, I’m a techie working and living in the Silicon Prairie. I started this web site so I could share solutions to technical problems I that I encounter in my daily life. Most of the posts you’ll find on my blog focus on open source software, network troubleshooting, and hardware.

What I Do

I currently work full time as a Network Analyst for an algorithmic trading firm in Kansas City. My job entails troubleshooting a wide variety of problems, testing new hardware, and configuring systems for extreme low latency.

In addition to solving problems I’m often installing new network gear and setting up WAN connectivity to datacenters across the country.

My job occasionally provides me the opportunity to travel to remote locations. I’ve visited many of the major financial datacenters in North America to install new equipment and solve problems that remote hands was unable to.

Other Sites You’ll Find Me On

Besides this blog I also write how-to articles on HubPages. I’m often posting on the pfSense and FreeNAS forums to share info and get answers to problems. I’m also an avid Redditor, some of the subreddits I hangout in are /r/24hoursupport, /r/computertechs, and /r/networking.

Hobbies

In my free time I spend quite a bit of time playing computer games online, and sometimes at lan parties too.

Recently I became a fitness and nutrition geek on a quest to improve my health. I try to work out at least 3 days a week doing a combination of weight lifting and cardio. After completing a round of P90x I’m currently in the best shape I’ve ever been in before and I’m working on taking it to the next level.

I also spend time riding my motorcycle to get some fresh air. I currently ride a 2007 Kawasaki Ninja 650r sport bike.

The Technology Behind This Site

This blog is running on WordPress with the Mystique theme (Atom-powered). I utilize several WordPress plugins to improve the performance and functionality of the site.

The web server I use is Nginx with the PHP-FPM (FastCGI Process Manager) for maximum speed and performance. Unlike Apache Nginx uses an event-driven architecture that has a very small memory footprint.

The server is currently running on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the Linux 3.4 kernel. On the back end the site runs on the Linode cloud, specifically a Linode 512 VPS instance in the Dallas, TX cloud. Linode has been an excellent host and is the reason this site loads quickly.

Most Popular Articles

Below is a list of the top 5 most popular articles on my blog since I started it in 2010.

How to Contact Me

Feel free to get in touch with me directly through my contact page. You can also follow me on twitter to see what I’m working on.