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Friday, December 31, 2010

google-maps-icons - Project Hosting on Google Code

google-maps-icons - Project Hosting on Google Code
Good repository of icons that can be referenced from Google Maps.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Monday, December 27, 2010

Cisco’s Stocking Stuffer for UCS Customers: Firmware Release 1.4(1) | M. Sean McGee

Cisco’s Stocking Stuffer for UCS Customers: Firmware Release 1.4(1) | M. Sean McGee: "Santa came early this year for Cisco UCS customers. Today, Cisco released UCS firmware version 1.4(1). �This release is the single most impressive feature enhancement release I’ve seen in all my 11 years of working on blade servers. �Allow me to walk you through this list of new features and provide a deeper dive into some of the details behind each one."

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Dear StorageMojo: make NFS go fast!

Dear StorageMojo: make NFS go fast!
Lots of good info in the comments about making NFS go fast.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

ZFS gets inline dedupe

ZFS gets inline dedupe

30 Google Chrome tips, tricks and shortcuts | Chrome OS Geek

30 Google Chrome tips, tricks and shortcuts | Chrome OS Geek
Chrome has been my primary browser for the past year. These tips come in handy.

Windows 7 laptop adds number to ssid

Windows 7 laptop adds number to ssid
This annoyance happens from time to time on the kids' laptop (Windows 7 Home 64-bit). Good to keep this link around so that I remember how to fix it.

iMacros for Chrome - Web Macro Recorder for Google Chrome

iMacros for Chrome - Web Macro Recorder for Google Chrome
Support page for iMacros for Chrome. I installed it sometime ago but haven't used it yet. I hope to get around to it soon.

Poodwaddle

Poodwaddle
A repository of interesting and free Flash applets. I really like the world clock.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Monsoon Multimedia Community

Monsoon Multimedia Community

Community site for Monsoon, maker of Vulkano, credible alternatives to Slingboxes, but still less than 100% compelling. A few shortcomings Monsoon need to address to ensure Vulkano success ...
1) Cool to have HDMI output, but lets complete the package by having HDMI output too! I can understanding possible legal challenge, but hey, why not try?
2) Why not make the Vulkano Platnium not only stream but be a "catcher" of the stream (ala Sling Catcher)?

Favorite cheap network tools

Favorite cheap network tools

Warning: You have to sign up for "premium content" in order to view this.

Some usual suspects, but a few that are new to me as well.

Manage, control and secure file transfers with Ipswitch solutions

Manage, control and secure file transfers with Ipswitch solutions
Decent looking commercial-grade product for self-hosted file transfers. Worth the money if S/FTP is not good/easy enough.

ZFS - the future of file systems? - Feature - Techworld.com

ZFS - the future of file systems? - Feature - Techworld.com
An old but still relevant article about the awesome Zettabyte File System.

OCZ Vertex 2 SSD review

OCZ Vertex 2 SSD review
by The Guru of 3D

CACE Technologies - AirPcap

CACE Technologies - AirPcap

Dear Santa, can I have an AirPcap Nx for Christmas? I haven't been bad :)

The Wi-Spy spectrum analyzer is a good stocking-stuffer too!

StorageTopics: Not all MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) is created equal

StorageTopics: Not all MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) is created equal

Good overview of MAID and names a few key players. Btw, COPAN is now owned by SGI. The new COPAN 400 (official SGI product page) looks very interesting at 1.8PB in one cabinet!

Also, here's an old but still good article about MAID.

Tiered storage matches storage performance to media costs

Tiered storage matches storage performance to media costs

Is a thousand year digital data storage possible using Pergamum? � Probaway – Life Hacks

Is a thousand year digital data storage possible using Pergamum? � Probaway – Life Hacks

ProStor Systems - storage designed for terabyte-years

ProStor Systems - storage designed for terabyte-years

Friday, December 10, 2010

OCZ Forum - OCZ Forum Tools

OCZ Forum - OCZ Forum Tools
Some of these tools might come in handy some day.

Thursday, December 09, 2010

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

IP Address Management Software

IP Address Management Software

Daniel Raymer – Monthly Activity Reports� Blog Archive � MAR – Mar 2008

Daniel Raymer – Monthly Activity Reports� Blog Archive � MAR – Mar 2008: "We did perform a very exhausting comparison with Infoblox and VitalQIP.

For pure DNS functionality, I cannot say anything bad about Infoblox. They do the job incredibly well and I love the HA capabilities of their appliances. Unfortunately, we needed a robust IPAM/DHCP solution as well. It was obvious through the testing that Infoblox was a DNS company first with IPAM tacked on for good measure. Then again, you can say that it is also obvious that BT INS is IPAM first with DNS tacked on…

Bluecat never really entered into the picture and VitalQIP did their best to price themselves out of the picture as quickly as they could.

On a pure DNS functionality, I cannot say that BT INS is better or worse than Infoblox. They both perform the job very well. Each has their pro’s and con’s and it all comes down to what you want to/need/to/can live with."

Comparison of DNS server software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comparison of DNS server software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Doesn't seem all that comprehensive. Where are Infoblox and Lucent?

Organizing Your DNS? - Slashdot

Organizing Your DNS? - Slashdot
Looking for info on Infoblox vs ...

Citrix Forums : Xenclient VS NX-top ...

Citrix Forums : Xenclient VS NX-top ...

Monday, December 06, 2010

Browser history sniffing with Dojo | Mike's Blabberings

Browser history sniffing with Dojo | Mike's Blabberings
Sample browser history sniffing code. It doesn't seem to work with Chrome.

Force Linux servers to automatically try to get an IP address if they lose it - Server Fault

Force Linux servers to automatically try to get an IP address if they lose it - Server Fault

Starting a collection of links for my research into best practices for dynamically provisioned (production) server environment, leveraging DHCP.

No Jitter | blog | The Brewing Battle for Contact Center Market Leadership

No Jitter | blog | The Brewing Battle for Contact Center Market Leadership
Also see parts 2 and 3.

So Avaya (including the Nortel acquisition) has about 50% of the inbound contact centre seats. Cisco probably has a little more than 10%. That's quite a way to go for Cisco to dethrone #1, but not impossible for Cisco given their track record. They are demonstrating quite a bit of technical leadership by aggressively integrating social media into their contact centre product offerings, as a way for customers to offer innovative and differentiated services to gain the appeal of more demanding (and tech-savvy) consumers.

Also read this blog from Cisco.

Friday, December 03, 2010

NetApp whips out a blade • The Register

Netapp ONTAP-V on Fujitsu blades!
Netapp is a software company :) Hopefully this is the beginning of ONTAP (and the much loved WAFL) world-domination on other partners' hardware platforms. I think this is the right direction for Netapp.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

AirPlay, Eat Your Heart Out, Meet Bigstream - iSmashPhone iPhone Blog

AirPlay, Eat Your Heart Out, Meet Bigstream - iSmashPhone iPhone Blog
Good to see competition to AirPlay. Good effort, Bigstream. But you'll need to try much harder to gain a compelling advantage over AirPlay.

Netlinx, Inc. - Leading provider of IPAM, DNS, and DHCP solutions

Netlinx, Inc. - Leading provider of IPAM, DNS, and DHCP solutions

A shop that specializes in all things DNS-DHCP-IPAM. Now, that's hardcore.

Enhancing Cisco Meet-Me Conferencing (Part 2) - Can you hear me now? Tales from a Cisco voice instructor

Enhancing Cisco Meet-Me Conferencing (Part 2) - Can you hear me now? Tales from a Cisco voice instructor
This looks like an effective (and free) way to lockdown the Meet-Me.

Avast vs. Microsoft Security Essentials

Avast vs. Microsoft Security Essentials
Good comparison. Quick read and very informative.

Free vs. Fee: Free and Paid Antivirus Programs Compared - Page 1 - Security Products, Practices and Infrastructure - Security

Free vs. Fee: Free and Paid Antivirus Programs Compared - Page 1 - Security Products, Practices and Infrastructure - Security
It looks like *free* might just be good enough. Well done, Avast!

Choosing an Online Video Platform - StreamingMedia.com

Choosing an Online Video Platform - StreamingMedia.com
A must read before deciding on a video platform strategy.

Online Video Platform Summit: Online Video Platform Showcase, Day 1 - Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, Delve Networks Video

Online Video Platform Summit: Online Video Platform Showcase, Day 1 - Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, Delve Networks Video: "As part of the Online Video Platform Summit, eight of the leading online video platform providers showcased the features and capabilities in two sponsored sessions over the two-day event. This session from day one features Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, and Delve Networks."

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

High Performance Computing Virtualization | Virtual SMP | ScaleMP

High Performance Computing Virtualization | Virtual SMP | ScaleMP: "The innovative Versatile SMP™ (vSMP) architecture aggregates multiple x86 systems into a single virtual x86 system, delivering an industry-standard, high-end symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) computer. Using software to replace custom hardware and components, ScaleMP offers a new, revolutionary computing paradigm."

Another way to scale-out server virtually: Build a big "logical" x86 server out of multiple relatively inexpensive x86 servers, instead of getting big Sun (ahem ... Oracle) or IBM SMP servers. Servers are connected via Infiniband. Unlike Vmware/Xen hypervisors, this method allows a workload to transparently span the resources of multiple physical servers. But even with Infiniband, the memory latency can still be very significant. I remember experiencing very poor scale-out performance on DB2 with the IBM x3950 multi-chassis setup.

Some good articles that describes virtual SMP solutions:


I would love to see some real world benchmarks of these virtual SMP solutions vs hardware optimized SMP servers.

Write a Chrome extension in 15 minutes | Analysis | Features | PC Pro

Write a Chrome extension in 15 minutes | Analysis | Features | PC Pro

Sniff Your iPhone's Network Traffic - Jerod Santo

Sniff Your iPhone's Network Traffic - Jerod Santo
This should come in handy for troubleshooting.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Fon - A world of free WiFi

Fon - A world of free WiFi

Fon - Freedom to WiFi

Fon - Freedom to WiFi: "Fon is the world's first global WiFi network built by people like you. We think of it as crowdsourced WiFi. As a member of the Fon community, you agree to share a little bit of your WiFi at home, and get free roaming at Fon Spots worldwide in return. Sharing WiFi with Fon is safe and secure , and you wont even notice when others are connected because Fon only uses a tiny portion of your bandwidth. Fon has over two million Fon Spots across the globe. Imagine enjoying videos, movies and games at WiFi speeds while you're away from home - for free! Anyone with a broadband connection can join Fon. Just buy a Fonera and connect it to your ADSL/broadband, or activate Fon through one of our partners. Once your Fon Spot has been connected and registered, you're ready to enjoy all the benefits Fon has to offer!"

▷▷Best▷▷pocket : All Computers

An extensive list of pocket routers
The Asus WL300-gE is still the best :)

Asus WL-330gE Portable 4-In-One Wireless Router Overview | Wireless Drivers

Asus WL-330gE Portable 4-In-One Wireless Router Overview | Wireless Drivers
Awesome little travel router. Best feature is the "hotspot" mode which allows you to share a wifi connection. It replaced the Apple Airport Express in my travel kit about a year ago and I haven't looked back since.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Extensible NetApp: Thinking outside of the box

Extensible NetApp: Thinking outside of the box: "Kostadis Roussos"

Although Kostadis doesn't work at Netapp any more, I (and many other Netapp fans and storage geeks) still visit the archived blog (thanks, Netapp) from time-to-time to refresh our understanding of Netapp's many innovations. Kostadis' opinion pieces are both entertaining and educational too :)

DB2 pureScale

DB2 pureScale
purScale scales out easier than Oracle RAC

While we are on the subject of DB2, here's a Netapp technical report on DB2+Netapp best practices.

Cisco eats own cloud food • The Register

Cisco eats own cloud food • The Register: "Cisco has deployed its own 'California' Unified Computing System blade and rack servers in its data centres and has standardised its application platforms and procedures for configuring and managing its software stack. This means that only 40 per cent of the IT budget is going towards acquiring and maintaining the IT platforms. The remaining 60 per cent is going to new application development. The company has 65 per cent of its servers virtualised and it takes 15 minutes or less to put a new virtual box out there for developers to put apps upon."

The Ultimate Wallboard - What's on your wallboard?

The Ultimate Wallboard - What's on your wallboard?

The official contest site. While you are thinking about wallboard and media displays, also check out my favourite digital signage cloud service http://www.digitalsignage.com/

Beyond the wallboard - information radiators for extreme feedback - Atlassian News

Beyond the wallboard - information radiators for extreme feedback - Atlassian News

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Performance Analysis of Commodity and EnterpriseClass Flash Devices

Performance Analysis of Commodity and EnterpriseClass Flash Devices

Fusion-IO ioDrive Review | Brent Ozar - Too Much Information

Fusion-IO ioDrive Review | Brent Ozar - Too Much Information

Beyond the wallboard - information radiators for extreme feedback - Atlassian News

Beyond the wallboard - information radiators for extreme feedback - Atlassian News

Blades Made Simple™ � Blog Archive � What is the Truth About Cisco’s Blade Server Market Share?

Blades Made Simple™ � Blog Archive � What is the Truth About Cisco’s Blade Server Market Share?

Hehe .. Cisco's is mindf***ing the competitors and a few bloggers :)

NetApp - The Virtual Storage Guy: EMC Benchmarking Shenanigans

NetApp - The Virtual Storage Guy: EMC Benchmarking Shenanigans

The lesson: read the details behind the benchmark before you drink the kool-aid :)

Microsoft and Intel Push One Million iSCSI IOPS – Gestalt IT

Microsoft and Intel Push One Million iSCSI IOPS – Gestalt IT: "Microsoft and Intel Push One Million iSCSI IOPS"

More info on how M$ and Intel did it. Btw, they used StarWind Software's iSCSI SAN.

Intel and Microsoft test iSCSI

Intel and Microsoft test iSCSI: "Microsoft and Intel perform a test and get 1 Million IOPS with iSCSI"

Calling for an End to Invalid SSD vs HDD IOPs Comparisons - article on STORAGEsearch.com

Calling for an End to Invalid SSD vs HDD IOPs Comparisons - article on STORAGEsearch.com

Official Google Voice iPhone App Released | iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Official Google Voice iPhone App Released | iPhone in Canada Blog - Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

Load Impact - Free web site load test

Load Impact - Free web site load test

15 Free Functionality And Load Testing Tools For Web Applications

15 Free Functionality And Load Testing Tools For Web Applications

Saturday, November 13, 2010

coconut-flavour.com - [coconutIdentityCard 2.4]

coconut-flavour.com - [coconutIdentityCard 2.4]: "Tells you where and when your Mac, iPod or any other Apple-Product was born"

Also checks the serial number against Internet databases of stolen Apple products. Currently checks against www.powermax.com. Not sure how accurate/useful this actually is.

HAProxy - The Reliable, High Performance TCP/HTTP Load Balancer

HAProxy - The Reliable, High Performance TCP/HTTP Load Balancer

USB Geek, Your USB Solution!!

USB Geek, Your USB Solution!!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Flume User Guide

Flume User Guide
It appears to be more scalable than syslog for aggregating logs from many systems/sources.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

DNS Advisor Pro - Infoblox.com

DNS Advisor Pro - Infoblox.com
A totally rocking DNS checking tool. I expected no less from Cricket Liu ;)

A frog around the world - Mass DNS Test

A frog around the world - Mass DNS Test

Installing WP Super Cache with lighttpd | Yak Shaving

Installing WP Super Cache with lighttpd | Yak Shaving

DNSdoctor

DNSdoctor

Spot Check URL by Alertra

Spot Check URL by Alertra

Ted's Homemade Web Tools

Ted's Homemade Web Tools
Useful Internet test tools. Especially testing DNS from multiple locations.

ScrubIT

ScrubIT: "ScrubIT is a FREE recursive DNS server that regulates what comes into your home or business. ScrubIT “scrubs” the internet so you don’t have to be concerned about what your family members or employees will be confronted with."

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Friday, September 10, 2010

#!/bin/the hacker's choice - THC

#!/bin/the hacker's choice - THC

Top 100 Network Security Tools

Top 100 Network Security Tools

My Maps

My Maps: "Google Maps on the iPhone is a brilliant piece of software, but it isn't without shortcomings. One of them is its inhability to tap into a user's saved maps 'My Maps', which are available on the web version on google maps.

To access to your personal google maps, simply visit http://my-maps.appspot.com/maps on your iPhone."

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Monday, August 30, 2010

Friday, August 20, 2010

Apple - Support - Discussions - TCP/UDP ports on a Time Capsule ...

Apple - Support - Discussions - TCP/UDP ports on a Time Capsule ...: "The tcp port used to communicate between Time Machine and Time Capule is TCP 548. AFP over TCP."

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Digital Radio Central

Digital Radio Central

Sirius Satellite Radio

Sirius Satellite Radio: "Sirius-XM Satellite Radio (info for techies)"

View from Satellite

View from Satellite: "To view the Earth as currently seen from a satellite in Earth orbit, choose the satellite from the list below and press the 'View Earth from Satellite' button."

Friday, August 06, 2010

Unlock iOS 4.0 / iOS 4.0.1 - Page 2 - Hackint0sh

Unlock iOS 4.0 / iOS 4.0.1 - Page 2 - Hackint0sh: "Important Trouble Shooting. Update 06-08-2010

Fix the 'THE SIM CARD INSERTED IN THIS IPHONE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE SUPPORTED' problem

itunes have made some changes to block unlocking of iphones on 06th august 2010, and will lockdown the iphone to use only original sim even if jailbroken and unlocked via jailbreakme and ultrasn0w.

If you dont have one already get an activation sim from iPhone Activation Sim Card

remember, the activation sim is only to activate and get you past the 'slide for emergency' and give 'slide to unlock'

we have uploaded a full guide to our servers, you will find it at http://www.fonefunshop.co.uk/simhelp.zip

this help file will show you how to activate it, jailbreak and unlock, it pays special attention to the problem created by itunes update today that is blocking access to the phone even when unlocked."

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Boeing Or Airbus...Pilot's Point Of View - Page 3 - PPRuNe Forums

Boeing Or Airbus...Pilot's Point Of View - Page 3 - PPRuNe Forums: "Boeing: Built by Idiots flown by Experts.
Airbus: Built by Experts flown by Idiots." Classic! Maybe the IT analogue would be ...
Windoze: Built by Idiots for IT Experts
Macs: Built by IT Experts for Idiots
:)

Boxee - Movies, TV Shows and Video from the Internet on your TV.

Boxee - Movies, TV Shows and Video from the Internet on your TV.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Cell Phones on Airplanes

Cell Phones on Airplanes: "Cell phones are perfectly safe on airplanes. So why can't we use them?"

Sunday, June 06, 2010

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Desktop virtualization vendors to keep an eye on

Virtual Computer NxTop client hypervisor
Kaviza VDI-in-a-box, no need for expensive shared storage


Monday, May 17, 2010

An interesting blurb on latency (in trading systems)


Discussion: Trading Technology | LinkedIn:

Three types of latency
• Transmission Latency- Convert data to bits
• Propogation Latency- Movement of bits across a network [Greatest delay due to distance (ref: InfiniBand)]
• Processing Latency- The application of data through middleware (feed handlers) to trading systems (algorithmic engines) [Second greatest delay due to infrastructure (ref: Exegy) and the largest unsettled issue]

Moving an order encapsulated in a FIX message from Point A to Point B faster than your competition creates an opportunity to maximize profit or minimize loss. Colocation is the result of a quest for zero latency which has moved execution management servers from the customers physical location to the closest possible physical proximity of an execution venues servers. The shorter the wire, the shorter the amount of time it takes to move a message from Point A to Point B.

These are no ordinary orders and they require no human intervention other than the initial instruction set. These are orders generated by machines that have complex event processors analyzing massive amounts of current and historical market data. Algorithms are formulas designed to recognize correlations or disparities in prices, volume or other statistics and the financial instruments involved. PhD's have programmed the machines to take resulting data, formulate that data into orders and send the orders in barely noticeable quantities for execution. No trail of information leakage to give away a pattern.
Most customers and their traders are not all that concerned with latency as timing is not essential. Best execution is their concern. However, there are a class of traders that use short term alpha. The kind of alpha that lasts for nano to milliseconds for which the slightest delay is often the difference between profit and loss. Direct Market Access traders in high-frequency programs has the greatest demand and an estimated 60%+ share of the overall market volume.

Definitions
• Zero latency is the speed of light = 186,000 miles per second
• Nanoseconds = 1 billionth of a second
• Microseconds = 1 millionth of a second
• Milliseconds = 1 thousandth of a second
• One foot of cable = 1 nanosecond latency

Statistics
NYSE Technologies Universal Trading Platform
• 5 milliseconds, 3 milliseconds for data, 1 millisecond TSE colocated
• 2 milliseconds for order and cancel acknowledgements
• 650 microseconds roundtrip executions for Nasdaq-listed issues
• 950 microseconds roundtrip executions for NYSE/ Arca-listed issues

Others
• LSE: 10 microseconds
• BATS: 400 microseconds
• OptionsIT Transatlantic: 34 milliseconds
• Chi-X: 175 milliseconds, marketable IOC 350 microseconds
• Nasdaq: 250 milliseconds
• DirectEdge/29West: Persistent messaging 300-500 microseconds

Colocation
Colocation is the result of a quest for zero latency which has moved execution management servers from the customers physical location to a physical position within feet of the execution venue servers. The shorter the wire the shorter the amount of time it takes to move that message from Point A to Point B. Colocation is an answer for high use exchanges versus general purpose which may be better served by the use of a cloud or high speed T1. NYSE Euronext is building the largest co-location facility. NYSE will use 20% for their own purposes with the rest being used by co-located customers.


Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Microsoft Excel Tutorial

Microsoft Excel Tutorial
Looks like a decent tutorial of basic Excel features.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Friday, March 12, 2010

Monday, March 08, 2010

HealthITGuy's Blog

HealthITGuy's Blog
This guys likes his UCS!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Newest Devices

Newest Devices
plus market share info