14 Linux apps that will change how you work

Linux productivity toolsThe sheer number of Linux apps available today is mind boggling and one category in particular has exploded over the last few years: productivity tools. While there are a few well-known apps such as LibreOffice and NeoOffice (both forks of OpenOffice), there are many more tools that can make your work easier. Here are a variety of killer Linux office productivity apps you may not know about. (Note: many of them are also available for macOS and Windows, so if you have to hop between operating systems, you can keep at least a semblance of consistency.)To read this article in full, please click here

Living In A Multi-Cloud World

A few months ago at Cloudflare’s Internet Summit, we hosted a discussion on A Cloud Without Handcuffs with Joe Beda, one of the creators of Kubernetes, and Brandon Phillips, the co-founder of CoreOS. The conversation touched on multiple areas, but it’s clear that more and more companies are recognizing the need to have some strategy around hosting their applications on multiple cloud providers.

Earlier this year, Mary Meeker published her annual Internet Trends report which revealed that 22% of respondents viewed Cloud Vendor Lock-In as a top 3 concern, up from just 7% in 2012. This is in contrast to previous top concerns, Data Security and Cost & Savings, both of which dropped amongst those surveyed.

At Cloudflare, our mission is to help build a better internet. To fulfill this mission, our customers need to have consistent access to the best technology and services, over time. This is especially the case with respect to storage and compute providers. This means not becoming locked-in to any single provider and taking advantage of multiple cloud computing vendors (such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform) for the same end user services.

The Benefits of Having Multiple Cloud Vendors

There are Continue reading

Worth Reading: AI defeats CAPTCHA

San Francisco startup Vicarious has developed an AI that’s capable of reliably solving CAPTCHA, those automated security verification puzzles with squiggly or distorted lettering that you have to solve before being able to post a comment on a website, for instance. — Kimberly Mok @ The New Stack

How to build command groups with sudo

When managing your /etc/sudoers files, it’s a good idea to organize user privileges in ways that make them easier to manage over the long haul and to assign permissions based on the roles that users play in your organization.One very useful way to do that is to group related commands together — such as all commands related to running backups or managing web sites — and assign them to the individuals or groups that require these privileges.Setting up command groups in /etc/sudoers To create a command group, you use what is called a Cmnd_Alias in your /etc/sudoers file and give the new command group a meaningful name. Here are some examples. Note that full pathnames should be specified for all of the commands included in a group. Otherwise, you are likely to see an error like this when you try to exit visudo. And remember to only edit /etc/sudoers with the visudo command to allow it to warn you in ways like this and prevent errors.To read this article in full, please click here

Building command groups with sudo

When managing your /etc/sudoers files, it’s a good idea to organize user privileges in ways that make them easier to manage over the long haul and to assign permissions based on the roles that users play in your organization. One very useful way is to group related commands together – such as all commands related to running backups or managing web sites – and assign them to the individuals or groups that require these privileges.Setting up command groups To create a command group, you would use what is called a Cmnd_Alias in your /etc/sudoers file and give the new command group a meaningful name. Here are some examples. Note that full pathnames should be specified for all of the commands included in a group. Otherwise, you are likely to see an error like this when you try to exit visudo. And remember to only edit /etc/sudoers with the visudo command to allow it to warn you in ways like this and prevent errors.To read this article in full, please click here

Starboard Value discloses 10.7% stake in Mellanox

HPE pushes for the autonomous data center with InfoSight AI recommendation engine

HPE is adding an AI-based recommendation engine to the InfoSight predictive analytics platform for flash storage, taking another step toward what it calls the autonomous data center, where systems modify themselves to run more efficiently.The ultimate goal is to simplify and automate infrastructure management in order to cut operation expenses.[ Check out our What is hyperconvergence? and learn whether your network and team are up to hyperconverged storage. ] HPE acquired InfoSight as part of its $1 billion deal earlier this year for Nimble Software, a maker of all-flash and hybrid flash storage products. Along with the announcement of the new recommendation engine, HPE Tuesday also said it is extending InfoSight to work with 3Par high-end storage technology it acquired in 2010.To read this article in full, please click here

HPE pushes for the autonomous data center with InfoSight AI recommendation engine

HPE is adding an AI-based recommendation engine to the InfoSight predictive analytics platform for flash storage, taking another step toward what it calls the autonomous data center, where systems modify themselves to run more efficiently.The ultimate goal is to simplify and automate infrastructure management in order to cut operation expenses.[ Check out our What is hyperconvergence? and learn whether your network and team are up to hyperconverged storage. ] HPE acquired InfoSight as part of its $1 billion deal earlier this year for Nimble Software, a maker of all-flash and hybrid flash storage products. Along with the announcement of the new recommendation engine, HPE Tuesday also said it is extending InfoSight to work with 3Par high-end storage technology it acquired in 2010.To read this article in full, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Could the smart city mean the death of privacy?

As the Internet of Things grows and society becomes more interconnected, millions of citizens are beginning to experience a new kind of lifestyle in smart cities. These futuristic, digitally-dependent cities aren’t entirely without their downsides, however; human rights activist, futurist, and private citizens are increasingly concerned that the advent of smart cities could mean the death of privacy itself.So, what’s the truth behind smart cities and privacy, and is all the craze generated over tomorrow’s urban centers anything more than wild speculation? A quick review of smart cities as they’re developing now shows that, managed properly, they can be a huge boon to the populace – but privacy advocates will have to stay on their toes.To read this article in full, please click here

What happens when an IoT implementation goes bad?

When talking about the Internet of Things, it’s important to remember that the “internet” part is just as critical as the “things.” That my sound cryptic, but it can have dramatic real-world implications, as demonstrated by the failure last week of one-time Kickstarter darling Emberlight.INSIDER: 5 ways to prepare for Internet of Things security threats The company had raised $300,000 back in 2014 to fund development of its smart light socket designed to work with ordinary bulbs. But on November 16, Emberlight notified customers it was going out of business due to competition from larger competitors and imitators selling similar devices for a quarter of the price.To read this article in full, please click here

Today, 75% off Lumina 5200 mAh Portable Power Bank Charger – Deal Alert

This powerful full-speed 5200mAh charger from Lumina features huge 2.4A output to keep your devices powered up while you're out, or in an emergency. The charger currently averages 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 380 reviewers (read recent reviews here). This item has been included as one of Amazon's "Prime Week" deals of the day, so right now its typical list price of $49.99 has been cut 75% down to just $12.74. See this deal now on Amazon.To read this article in full, please click here

InfoSight Moves HPE Closer to Autonomous Data Center

HPE acquired the technology from Nimble Storage, which it bought for $1 billion earlier this year.

Facing the Hybrid Cloud Reality

REVIEW: FlexPod, Oracle Exalogic converged-infrastructure gear

Two top makers of converged infrastructure devices – FlexPod and Oracle Exalogic – rank well among their users, but they have important differences, according to customers who have used the products.To read this article in full, please click here(Insider Story)

Feedback: Ansible for Networking Engineers

Got this feedback on my Ansible for Networking Engineers webinar:

This webinar is very comprehensive compared to any other Ansible webinars available out there. Ivan does great job of mapping and using real life example which is directly related to daily tasks.

The Ansible online course is even better: it includes support, additional hands-on exercises, sample playbooks, case studies, and lab instructions.

However, Ansible is just a tool that shouldn’t be missing from your toolbox. If you need a bigger picture, consider the Building Network Automation Solutions online course (and register ASAP to save $700 with the Enthusiast ticket).

Route Filtering Techniques : Access-lists, Route-map and Distribution-lists

Unifi US-8 PoE Passthrough With The Cisco 3560CX

As part of my “everything should be on a UPS” strategy, I recently replaced a regular 8-port gigabit switch with a Ubiquiti Unifi US-8 Ethernet switch because the US-8 can be powered using POE (Power Over Ethernet) provided by a UPS-protected switch in my basement, so it should stay up in the event of a power outage. This also allowed me to indirectly provide UPS protection for the Ubiquiti wireless AP in that location because the US-8 has a PoE passthrough port with which I could power the AP. Clever, right?

POE Passthrough

To clarify (because a picture is worth many thousands of my words), here’s how things were:

And here’s how things are after installing the Ubiquiti Unifi US-8:

The new setup worked well, but I noticed after a few days that the uptime for the Unifi US-8 kept on resetting; that is, it appeared to be rebooting. The Cisco 3560CX switch which is providing the POE can supply 30W per port, which is plenty enough for the US-8 and the wireless AP to be daisy-chained like this, yet when I looked at the logs on the 3560CX, I found an error:

Oct 23 18:23:12.124 UTC: %ILPOWER-3-CONTROLLER_PORT_ERR:  Continue reading

HPE broadens its processor offerings with AMD, Cavium systems

It’s been said that the industry dislikes too many choices, but HPE is offering more choices for server products with new ARM- and AMD Epyc-based servers. And in both cases, HPE is touting price-performance efficiency.The company today announced new ProLiant DL385 Gen10 servers running AMD’s Epyc processor, the server version of its Zen-based core that has shot the company back into serious competitiveness with Intel.Also on Network World: REVIEW: How rack servers from HPE, Dell and IBM stack up HPE claims that with the Epyc chips, customers can have more virtual machines per server and the ability to process more data in parallel, thanks to the 32 cores with two threads per core in the Epyc processor. The result, it says, is up to 50 percent lower cost per virtual machine than “traditional” servers.To read this article in full, please click here

HPE broadens its processor offerings with AMD, Cavium systems

It’s been said that the industry dislikes too many choices, but HPE is offering more choices for server products with new ARM- and AMD Epyc-based servers. And in both cases, HPE is touting price-performance efficiency.The company today announced new ProLiant DL385 Gen10 servers running AMD’s Epyc processor, the server version of its Zen-based core that has shot the company back into serious competitiveness with Intel.Also on Network World: REVIEW: How rack servers from HPE, Dell and IBM stack up HPE claims that with the Epyc chips, customers can have more virtual machines per server and the ability to process more data in parallel, thanks to the 32 cores with two threads per core in the Epyc processor. The result, it says, is up to 50 percent lower cost per virtual machine than “traditional” servers.To read this article in full, please click here

Certifications: Why I Like Them, How I Use Them and My Plan for Security Learning

The other day Daniel Dib (http://lostintransit.se) asked me an interview question.  The question was about certifications.  What do I think about them…. and are they losing their “value”.

Poor certifications.  People question their value.  Of course “value” typically means for many what can the cert “do” for you once you have it.  People also get so judgemental of others for “collecting” them.  And yes… when I was younger I was, admittedly, one of those people who looked down on people I viewed as “cert collectors”.  Poor poor certifications.  In every area certifications exist they can get a bad rep.  IT industry, Scuba Diving, .. heck even in girl scouts when there was always that one girl who wanted to try to get every possible girl scout badge. 

Why I Like Them and How I Use Them

In 2012 my view on certs changed.  I realized I could use them to my advantage to help me organize my learning by making goals and signing up for certs.   You see, back in 2010 I had bought a few books about Wireshark by Laura Chappel and told myself I would make Continue reading