Sat, 30 Apr 2005
2004 - 2005 Pragmatic Investment Plan Closed
Last September I decided to put a basic 2004-2005
Pragmatic Investment Plan together
to give me some goals and tasks to accomplish over the following 12 months.
Eight months in (and after considering
shorter PiPs) I've decided to mark last years as finished. While I've not
completed every item on the list I've made a pretty good showing and I'm
pretty happy that I could have finished on time.
Halfway through the period covered by that PiP I changed job and my interests and areas of responsibility changed significantly; that's why I ended up taking so long to finish some of the easier ones such as the book reviews. I just lost interest in doing them.
I've not thought too much about what the next bunch of goals are but I suspect they'll be quite different. Anyway, heres to change, progress and advancement!
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Posted: 2005/04/30 18:04 | /unixdaemon | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Training and Losing Track
It's been a long while since I've been lucky enough to be sent on a
training course for anything so I'd forgotten how depressing they can be. I
try and get to as many technical conferences as possible for a number of
reasons, the fact that all the people attending want to be there and make a
genuine effort to chat and learn is a major one and it's
one of the few times I get to meet some of the people I speak to online in
the flesh.
A training course is nothing like these and is (to me) a lot less enjoyable. Some of the people sent just want to relax and not work for a couple of days. Most companies send two or three people who don't mingle outside of their little group (it takes a surprising amount of effort to engage a conversation with this kind of attendee) and it turns in to nothing but wake up, course, food, read course materials again, play with laptop, bed.
The other big problem I have is the disconnect, a week in a hotel by an airport with no Internet connection (although for stupidly high money you can have a shared 14.4 modem), lots of news channels in languages I don't speak and only newspapers to read it's hard to avoid getting further and further behind on everything. Still after next week my yearly training budget is exhausted and I'll not have the opportunity to do this again for another eight or so months.
While I don't expect training to be a barrel of laughs it's nice to learn in an environment where people have chosen to attend rather than being sent to learn something they have no interest in.
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Posted: 2005/04/30 15:59 | /nottech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Aardvark FireFox Extension
Despite its odd name the Aardvark FireFox Extension is
actually damn useful. Once installed, turn it on using Tools->Start
Aardvark and move the mouse over the page.
As you hover over different parts of the page a red box will outline the current section, show you what HTML tag created it and show the elements "class" or "id" values. What's less useful but still interesting is that once you've selected the element you're interested in you can do a couple of occasionally useful things to it, remove it, colour the background, remove the element but leave a blank spot etc.
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Posted: 2005/04/30 15:13 | /tools/firefox | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 24 Apr 2005
Linux FireWire Clustering: Brain Dump
I had an interest in shared storage FireWire clustering on Linux for a
while. After spending a couple of evenings learning about it and having a
little play I ended up with a big text file of links and notes. Below is
the slightly more rationalised version of my notes. If I ever need it again
I'll try and write them up properly, in the mean time they might serve as a
useful pointer to some other traveller.
Thanks to a push by Apple FireWire is now reaching commodity status. The hardware itself is getting cheaper and widely available. Software and operating system support is getting better and as these continue to increase more people will hack around with the technology. I've only become interested in FireWire for one main reason; as cheap, shared storage.
It's been possible to share SCSI disks between two or more machines for quite a while. Unfortunately the hardware required has always been expensive, uncommon and (at the lower end) had a lot of problems with one machine rebooting and causing problems for all the others. So why do people use it? Because it's one of the best ways to do multi-node shared storage.
If we look at pure performance then FireWire isn't going to upset the SCSI or fibre channel users too much, while it's quick enough for basic networking (Apples IP over FireWire) it's not really suited for a heavily used production environment; but if you have one of those then you should invest in a SCSI or fibre channel based option instead. So why would you use FireWire for shared storage?
There are two main reasons, firstly (and these articles whetted my interest in shared FireWire) Oracle have documented how to use FireWire Real Application Clusters and even their Director of Linux Engineering, Wim Coekaerts, has written about Setting Up Linux with FireWire-Based Shared Storage for Oracle9i RAC as an economical way to develop and test RAC environments without requiring two hideously expensive storage deployments; one for live and one for dev/QA. It's worth noting that while Oracle do mention this as an option they don't in any way (at the time of writing) support it. It's going to be a long while before you see FireWire shared storage holding Oracle databases in live!
So how do you do it? A number of external FireWire drives (the Oxford 911 chipset seems to work well) allow multiple simultaneous logins to the device. If you have two machines with decent FireWire cards (I don't have a list of which ones do and don't work) and (this is VERY IMPORTANT!) a decent clustered file system (OCFS is known to work and GFS may be usable) then you can configure hosts running Linux to share the storage. For full details have a look at the Oracle articles above.
As an aside under Linux you can use software called DRDB for sharing storage across two machines. Here's a summary taken from the DRDB site itself "DRBD is a block device which is designed to build high availability clusters. This is done by mirroring a whole block device via (a dedicated) network. You could see it as a network raid-1. DRBD takes over the data, writes it to the local disk and sends it to the other host. On the other host, it takes it to the disk there." While DRDB isn't the ideal solution for everyone (for some discussion on this have a look at the Linux Clustering thread.
Notes:
- VMWare lets you pretend to have shared SCSI disks. Virtual PC server might also let you.
- When ever I found a mention of FireWire Clustering on Windows it got shot down very quickly. I don't see it being a Windows feature for a fair while.
- From IEEE 1394 and RFC 2734; a viable HSI for hypercubes: "Currently, you can get 100Mbps solid using the eth1394 driver and 120Mbps to 130Mbps using ip1394 for certain packet sizes"
- Linux FireWire Support
PS While researching FireWire Clustering I discovered how much I HATE the Google Groups interface.
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Posted: 2005/04/24 21:20 | /geekstuff | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Little Red Book of Selling -- Short Review
I always feel both a little guilty and odd when discussing books about
sales people and selling. While you need money to survive in any
business the IT people are normally quite removed from the processes of
bringing it in (technical pre-sales is one notable exception). Like most
techs I'm not a natural sales person, add to this my intense dislike of
pushy sales reps, both in my personal shopping and professionally (cold
call me on the phone and I'll NEVER buy your product) and I'm probably not
the ideal audience for this kind of book.
The Little Red Book of Selling is part good advice, part common sense and part pure ego. The author comes across as a very dedicated, driven salesman who focuses more on the long term relationship than the short term sale. Large parts of the (pleasantly small) book cover the essentials such as preparation, why selling based on price is a bad move and other little nuggets of what should be common sense.
Although the text also has (what I've always considered) a slightly American slant with more than the occasional paragraph on positive thinking and motivation the author is refreshingly blunt and honest about where the blame sits when you're unable to sell.
Amusingly the most successful bit of selling advice I picked up from this book was principle 3, "Personal Branding." I now fully appreciate how important this is, the entire book is an excellent example of shameless self-promotion that actually does work both in raising your opinion of a man you've probably never met while still being informative enough to warrant finishing. Summary: 6/10.
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Posted: 2005/04/24 16:00 | /books | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
The Tipping Point -- Short Review
I enjoyed the entertaining, if not exactly revolutionary, Blink and went
looking for anything else by the same author. The Tipping Point is very
similar in style and outcome to Blink; it delves in to an interesting
subject in an entertaining way but leaves you feeling a little empty.
The book itself is well written and has a pretty wide appeal, the subjects examined and ideas presented cover such a wide range of examples that there is something in it for almost everyone. The basic premise is that there is a "Tipping Point" where interesting things happen, whether it's moving a product from niche to mainstream using intelligent marketing, treating HIV infection or the prevention of crime in New York certain aspects and people can convert a flash of something in to an epidemic.
The author explains how he sees this happening and shows a number of examples that help reinforce his ideas. While there are a couple of "Yeah, and?" moments there are also some "So that's how it..." which makes it a decent enough read for the price of the paperback. What made it an interesting read for me is that with a greater understanding of some of the principles presented some of the online projects and communities I'm involved in should be able to kick start some more growth, and anything that helps us do that is worth some investigation. Summary: 6/10.
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Posted: 2005/04/24 14:41 | /books | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Mobile Computing
I've been out of touch with most of the world (and reality) for most of the last
seven days due to personal and professional demands on my (ever so badly
managed time). The one thing I've concluded is that I need a new, light,
laptop and a source code control system that has a sensible off-line mode.
The ability to use SSH and the web over my Treo would be a bonus. I've been
looking at some older Sony Vaios (very small) and the quite new and shiny
Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebooks and I'll do some digging over the next couple of
months to work out which looks most promising (and in my budget!); but it
won't be a mac. I don't like them that much.
Update: A quote from my review of Painless Project Management with FogBugz has been used on the Apress Project Management with FogBugz page!
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Posted: 2005/04/24 12:19 | /meta | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Thu, 21 Apr 2005
Mycroft Searches: Google Maps UK Semi and Ireland Phone Numbers
I've added two more semi searches to my Mozilla/FireFox
search page. First up we have a simple Google
Maps (UK) search, I like Google maps and this puts it closer to my
reach. Next up we have another phone number lookup from Dave Cantrell, this
time for
Ireland
Phone Info.
Note: both of these use existing images as I'm not really the arty type.
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Posted: 2005/04/21 22:31 | /unixdaemon | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sun, 17 Apr 2005
MegaTokyo Books: 3vil L33T!
I'm a fan of MegaTokyo, it has an
interesting (but deathly slow) story, great art, a lot of oddities and
some really neat jokes for gamers. In the interest of giving some support
back I decided to spend a couple of days roaming through the comic shops of
London looking for the three published volumes of strips; it was such a
chore :)
While I've actually read my way from start to current using the online archives the quality of the art is even more visible in the books, while the quality has risen over the years (from a pretty high starting position to be honest) some the drawings are just staggeringly good. At around £7 a book it's well worth picking a volume or two (or three) up and having a read. You won't regret it!
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Posted: 2005/04/17 17:52 | /geekstuff | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Google Search Phrase Highlighting
I've added another blosxom plugin to
the site, this one is called google_highlight
and does what you'd expect. It highlights any Google search terms that lead
you here. I've had a play and it seems to work fine so I've added it to the
live site. If you have any problems with it please let me know.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 14:40 | /unixdaemon | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Code Brew: The Second Attempt
Back in November I read a post by describing the idea of Code Brews. After writing up my own Initial
thoughts on Code Brews I got distracted and forgot all about it.
Christmas has that effect on me...
After spending some time clearing out some old half-written documents I stumbled on the blog entry and decided to try and kick it off again. I've sent an email to six London based techs asking if they are interested in doing a sort of show-and-tell and I'm waiting for responses.
I'm eager to kick-start one of these meets and see what goes wrong and what can be done better. I'm not sure how focused the topics should be, should they all present on one language? How about a security night? Should developers and sysadmins have their own nights etc? By holding the first one with a group of people I'm pretty comfortable with it should make getting some feedback a lot easier. It'll be interesting to try and gauge how many people make a good group. I assume it's going to be like D&D and be four-eight. Assuming it happens I'll post some notes up afterwards.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 14:36 | /events | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Seven-Second Marketing -- Short Review.
Ivan Misner has a remarkable reputation in business referral circles as a
master networker and a talented author. Unfortunately Seven-Second
Marketing: How to Use Memory Hooks to Make You Instantly Stand Out in a
Crowd doesn't seem to reflect this.
This slender volume explains the value of a memory hook (or tag-line as some of us know them) before delving in to the different types, such as playing on your name, the nature of your work or using humour and rhyme. Unfortunately after the very brief intro as to the why the bulk of the already small book is spent showing examples and little personal anecdotes from the people that created them.
If you have NO imagination then the samples provided here maybe enough to kick-start your own ideas but they give nothing a couple of hours searching on the web won't match. All in all a great disappointment. 2/10.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 14:10 | /books | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Short Film Reviews: April 2005
I've spent the last couple of days catching up on some reading and
nothing helps the concentration more than having some large CGI
explosions in the background :) Over the last couple of days I've read
three books (short reviews coming soon) and watched a small pile of
films.
First up is The Chronicles of Riddick, a very dull Sci-Fi film that has a couple of neat Matrix- esque fight scenes, a rubbish plot that you really have to dig to find and seriously under uses both Thandie Newton and Alexa Davalos (Gwen from Angel). 5/10 for the fight scenes.
Next we have Cube, a much more interesting film. "7 complete strangers of widely varying personality characteristics are involuntarily placed in an endless kafkaesque maze containing deadly traps." Featuring a young Nicole de Boer (Deep Space Nine and The Dead Zone) and the almost always (I've seen Darklight) excellent David Hewlett this film has a lot of interesting ideas and a very strange (yet engaging plot). Not for everyone but 8/10 for fans of less obvious films.
Enemy at the Gates is billed as two snipers hunting each other among the ruins of the Battle of Stalingrad. While the idea itself isn't great (don't watch films about snipers with people that play Counterstrike :)) the execution is actually a lot better than I was expecting. The characters have a bit of depth and the sheer pointlessness comes across quite well. 7/10
Lastly in this batch we have Lashou shentan, or Hard-Boiled as it was called in Western markets. This film is pure John Woo. Very basic story, unimpressive plot and excellent action. If you want to turn your brain off (don't even bother counting how many shots they get out of hand guns) and watch some heavy firepower action then this is a top choice. If not go get Cube. 8/10.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 13:00 | /nottech | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
jMemorize Doesn't Store Cards as Binary Data.
Back at the end of March I made a comment about jMemorize
Cards being stored as binary. Well I was completely wrong and it's time
to retract my statement.
Riad Djemili, the author of jMemorize, was kind enough to send me an email pointing out that I was completely wrong (and he was very polite about it!) and that the cards are actually just gzipped XML. Which addresses pretty much the only problem I had with this otherwise very nice piece of software. Since being told this I've had another play with jMemorize and it should be perfect for the simple card decks I need to create.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 12:20 | /tools/gui | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Startup.com: The Movie
I worked at three very different startups (two of which are still doing
well) and I have a lot of fond memories of the challenges, environments and
people I was fortunate to work with. While I was in the trenches it was
very hard to not know about, and to a limited degree get involved in, the
other aspects of the business. From gearing up for a week of
presentations (in a different time-zone) in an attempt to get more
funding that would be hitting the system quite hard to the moments of
desperation when almost a dozen people were laid off simultaneously (a
sysadmins life is not always a pleasant one).
I've given this hint of my background to explain why I'm not the most impartial of people when it comes to films like Startup.com. Startup.com follows the rise and fall of govworks.com, a startup that aims to make dealing with municipal governments a lot easier. The film itself covers a lot of the things most startups had in common, strong founders that were never fully aware of how big were going to get, the ever present threat of losing mind-share and the constant need to get bigger and more expensive.
Now as most people who survived the bout of insanity that was the dotcom bubble can tell you, a lot of common-sense was ignored by people that should have known better and this film shows some of it in action. The destruction of personal relationships, both friends and partners. The staggering growth in such a short time and the constant land grabbing attempts are all represented here and bring back a number of fond, and not so fond, memories. As for the film itself if you've never worked at a startup it'll give you a glimpse of what most of them seemed to be like. If you are one of the survivors then it'll be a reminder of what the bad times involved as nostalgia kicks in and you forget exactly why you wanted out. 6/10.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 12:05 | /geekstuff | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Saving Mail in Mutt -- Readline Rocks!
I get a lot of email, personal, mailing-lists and other, odder, sources
(CVS commits for example) and the only mail client I've ever felt
productive in is mutt. It's a very simple, easy to use, client that hides a
staggering amount of power behind a few key-presses; the fact it lets me use
vim as my editor is also a killer feature.
What makes mutt a joy to use is that every now and then I'll stumble on to something new that I've never noticed before; today that was tab-completion when saving mail. I have my mutt configured to save emails to the local disk using mbox format. Once you've pressed 's' to save you get prompted like this: "Save to mailbox ('?' for list): =savedestination" but rather than typing the destination in by hand you can just remove the bit you don't need and press tab twice to see all the places you've already saved mail.
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Posted: 2005/04/17 11:35 | /tools/commandline | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Sat, 02 Apr 2005
Whois.sc and Koders Mycroft Searches
I've added a whois.sc
search to the Mozilla Searches
page. It works fine in FireFox or Mozilla but doesn't work in the sidebar
as it will typically return a single result.
I've also added some Koder.com searches. The Koders.com website crawls and indexes source code from a number of different sites and projects. It then lets you run queries based upon keywords, specific languages and/or licenses, returning the code that matches.
The koders searches are unofficial, work in the Mozilla sidebar or with plain FireFox and have two small quirks, firstly they all use the same logo as I'm rubbish at design. Secondly (in the Mozilla sidebar) they will show the link to the second page of results in the returned results. I did this so the results include the "Project Matches" results at the cost of one link that just says "2".
If you want a specific language search that I've not created, download either the Perl or Ruby examples and do a find and replace all occurrences of perl or ruby with your language of choice. Assuming you get the correct language from the www.koders.com site it shouldn't take more than thirty seconds. The searches I've created search through all licenses, it's pretty easy to limit by license but I didn't need that.
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Posted: 2005/04/02 11:50 | /unixdaemon | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Fri, 01 Apr 2005
GMail ups Storage
I've been loath to type about the GMail changes made today just in case
they were another April Fools-day 'joke' (I hate April 1st!) but it does
seem they are serious in both raising the storage per person to 2GB per
person. This morning, UK time, I was discussing the gradual rise in
available storage with a friend and neither of us knew what was going on.
The counter on my logged in gmail session just keep increasing for no
apparent reason, you have to admit that turning a very basic upgrade in
to a puzzling conversation topic is a neat way to get some free PR; oh
look, it worked! :)
What I'm less keen on is the addition of the HTML email options. Still I can't have everything my way (apparently).
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Posted: 2005/04/01 21:46 | /tools/online | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
whois.sc -- IE Addressbar Search
While it's often handy to be able to look up the ownership details of a
domain name a lot of the online services have implemented little graphical
images which you need to read and then type into a text box before you can
actually get the results back. I recently found a new one, Whois Source that allows you to specify the
domain in the URL. This
makes the service both simple to use from the browser and easy to integrate
in to third party programs.
Below is a registry entry that will add the whois keyword to the IE address bar. You can either select the text below, save it locally with a '.reg' extension and then double click or just save the whois_sc.reg file. Once you've got the extension installed, type 'whois www.google.com' in the address bar and you'll be whisked off to the whois.sc information for that site.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\whois] @="http://www.whois.sc/%s"
Warning: This changes your registry which is never fully safe. You use this at your own risk.
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Posted: 2005/04/01 11:50 | /tools/gui | Permanent link to this entry | This entry + same date
Copyright © 2000-2005 Dean Wilson
