27 Aug 2006
What happened here…
I’d just left for work in the morning. As the construction on the bypass came up the cell phone buzzed. Common sense said let it buzz until the new traffic patterns were behind, after all it has voice mail.
Sure enough, when the phone was checked the voice mail label was flashing. The handy voice mail shortcut dialed to connect. But the voice that answered wasn’t someone I knew or expected. The voice was the carefully modulated marketing type. And unlike regular voice mail, the shortcuts to cut it short and delete the message didn’t work. After that message played there was another…and another. In frustration I powered the phone off because that appeared to be the only way to terminate the unsolicited message. When the phone powered back on the voice mail label was gone.
Later in the morning I checked the voice mail again to see if the junk was still there. The spam messages were gone but there was a voice message from a coworker who had called with a real problem. The voice message spam is worse than spam in email.
- The spam message was from Cingular and not some asshole selling penis enlargement pills. That made it worse.
- Talking with others the spam messages appear without buzzing the phone.
As cell phone plans go Cingular was and is the least costly for what we use. But when the contract runs out this time Cingular is history. I do not care if it costs more to go with another!
14 Aug 2006
Blogging services and software provide ways to add, edit and manage weblog posts using web browsers. Some folks are just more comfortable using Windows software for editing. The web browser is not quite there yet.
Both of these tools allow editing even to my weblog. The netsNbytes weblog is special case because it uses a self-signed SSL certificate. The Internet provider blocks the standard web server port 80. Many client side tools can’t handle self-signed certificates. Those tools only work with SSL certificates obtained from Verisign, Thawte or other certificate authorities. I cannot justify the cost of a certificate from those companies.
These editors may make it easier for blogs to be used by businesses.
24 Jul 2006
I have to be careful here, the whole virtualizing thing is getting to be like a hammer turning everything into nails…
But virtualized storage has been mainstream for longer than virtual machines (ie VMware, Virtual Server). It answers the question, “what do you do when the harddrive in your server fills up?”
You can only add so many drives to that server.
It gets pretty complicated to find stuff after awhile.
The simpler solution is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) which is a lightweight server with lots of disk space connected directly to the network. They come mainly comes as rack mount appliances that you plug in, configure and more or less forget. It shows up as a mappable network drive or share. Many vendors sell these appliances (HP, Dell, IBM, EMC).
There is also software so you can roll your own NAS. FreeNAS is an example of the software NAS solutions. Robin Harris is a Storage Guru with many years experience supporting storage needs. He has an interesting article on FreeNAS where he published test that he ran using the software. His findings will probably make vendors selling more expensive solutions very nervous. His article on White Box Arrays will really make them worry!
The bigger, more complicated solution is a SAN (Storage Area Network). A SAN using involves some very expensive hardware and the need for experts to setup and manage. For the price you get better performance and more seamless integration. While a NAS appears as a shared network resource, a SAN appears as an actual harddrive.
There are software solutions so you can roll your own SAN as well. iSCSI Enterprise Target is an example.
By moving your storage out of the server you can grow it more easily when needed. There are other advantages but that’s the big one.
The two Open Source solutions mentioned here can provide a decent introduction into the technology and keep to a budget.
24 Jul 2006
Email inherits the role of virtual filesystem when folks run into the boundaries of the company’s internal network. The question is how to share files with:
- Customers
- Vendors
- Road warriors
- Folks at home
As ugly as it looks from the system administrator’s perspective, the alternatives are equally unappealling to the folks trying to get work done.
37Signals, LLC, a web application company, has created a newer generation of web based tools for sharing information and files using the web. These guys are not alone. The market is very crowded trying to fill that need. The guys at 37Signals have put more effort in reaching out to regular folks though! There are free versions of their tools and the paid services are pretty reasonable as well.
activeCollab – open source project management and collaboration tool.
ActiveCollab is a new OpenSource project that is part of the new breed of web based tools. My main interest in ActiveCollab is that I have more control of the application. I am still a little nervous about handling over information to a hosted service like those provided by 37Signals and many others. Not that this is a reflection on their integrity but with the growing number of high profile security breaches by the government, banking industry and others, I’d just as soon handle it myself, thank you.
Below is a link to ActiveCollab hosted from my network.
–removed–
Similiar software from 37Signals, LLC
21 Jul 2006
Joel on Software
What geek wouldn’t want to work for Joel!
Such a tempting mix of technology it would never be boring–Windows, Linux, BSD, Apple, Nagios, VMware…
I could almost be willing to put up with Dell servers…almost. As long as we had fire extinguishers handy 🙂