Couple Big var_dumps() Coming

Ive been super busy and just want to write down what I would like to write about in the next couple of posts which will be more tutorial style:

• Accessing NASA's HORIZON datasets with telnet and ASP.NET MVC to create an API.
• Setting up an Amazon EC2 instance with Windows 2008 R2 Server, FTP & SVN access, and Node.JS. 
• Creating your first private Appharbor-esque server using the above configuration + some post-commit hooks to streamline the process. 

This has been what I have been exploring in the last several months to enable my own projects\clients to bypass services like AppHarbor who recently have changed their beta access to a full on paid service. Now dont get me wrong, these services are great, and enable people to get going with their projects. Unfortunatly I believe that their are better ways to get started with your own infrastructure and hopefully cost less. I also hope to explore the costs/benefits in greater detail after these tutorials to really examine the pro's and con's of each.