Linux sound devices are a mess
It started with a pretty simple requirement: I just want to know which sound card is which.
Background about the setup
I sometimes play around with amateur radios. Very often I connect them to computers to play around. E.g. JS8Call, FT8, SSTV, AX.25, and some other things.
This normally works very well. I just connect radio control over a serial port, and the audio using a cheap USB audio dongle. Sometimes the radio has USB support and delivers both a serial control port and an audio interface over the same cable.
The problem
So what if I connect two radios at the same time? How do I know which sound card, and which serial port, is which?
Both serial ports (/dev/ttyUSB<n>) and audio device numbers and
names depend on the order that the devices were detected, or plugged
in, which is not stable.
The fix for serial ports
Serial ports are relatively easy. You just tell udev to create some consistent symlinks based on the serial number of the USB device.
For example here’s the setup for a raspberry pi that sees various radios at various times (with some serial numbers obscured) Continue reading
Drawing a Concise Road Map for Enterprise Edge Computing Deployments
Edge computing is quickly transitioning from a theoretical concept to a realistic deployment option in the enterprise. What’s been missing, however, is a detailed technical framework that IT architects can use as a guide.Supporting Remix with full stack Cloudflare Pages
We announced the open beta of full stack Cloudflare Pages in November and have since seen widespread uptake from developers looking to add dynamic functionality to their applications. Today, we're excited to announce Pages' support for Remix applications, powered by our full stack platform.
The new kid on the block: Remix
Remix is a new framework that is focused on fully utilizing the power of the web. Like Cloudflare Workers, it uses modern JavaScript APIs, and it places emphasis on web fundamentals such as meaningful HTTP status codes, caching and optimizing for both usability and performance. One of the biggest features of Remix is its transportability: Remix provides a platform-agnostic interface and adapters allowing it to be deployed to a growing number of providers. Cloudflare Workers was available at Remix's launch, but what makes Workers different in this case, is the native compatibility that Workers can offer.
One of the main inspirations for Remix was the way Cloudflare Workers uses native web APIs for handling HTTP requests and responses. It's a brilliant decision because developers are able to reuse knowledge on the server that they gained building apps in the browser! Remix runs natively on Cloudflare Workers, and the results Continue reading
A Recipe for Presentation Success
When I was a kid, I loved to help my mother bake. My absolute favorite thing to make was a pecan pie. I made sure I was always the one that got to do the work to fix it during the holidays. When I was first starting out I made sure I followed the recipe to the letter. I mixed everything in the order that it was listed. One of the first times I made the pie I melted the butter and poured it into the mixture which also had an egg. To my horror I saw the egg starting to cook and scramble in the bowl due to the hot butter. When I asked my mom she chuckled and said, “Now you get to learn about why the recipe isn’t always right.”
Throughout my career in IT and in presentations, I’ve also had to learn about why even if the recipe for success is written down properly there are other things you need to take into account before you put everything together. Just like tempering a mixture or properly creaming butter and sugar together, you may find that you need to do some things in a different order Continue reading
When Supply-Chain Attacks Meet CI/CD Infrastructures
Supply-chain attacks can be so destructive that they are often considered black-swan events. Often, the most upsetting aspect of the attack is that it manages to compromise what is normally deemed to be safe by definition — whether that’s a software component or an MSP (managed service provider). The result is that our understanding of perimeters, security boundaries, and/or best practices is often flipped upside down.
Consider, for example, the SolarWinds attack back in December 2020: disguised as a normal software update, attackers managed to implant a pre-crafted backdoor on thousands of customers, which led many frantic security teams to discover that their network perimeter had already been breached several months before. Another (and even more destructive) attack took place in July 2021: by exploiting a vulnerability in Kaseya VSA servers, attackers managed to infect hundreds of MSPs, which in turn deployed the REvil ransomware to thousands of customers, breaking the assumption of a safe boundary between different IT infrastructures.
Fast forward to October 2021. An innocent bug report alerted the entire NPM developer community that a core open-source library had been hacked. Fortunately, the community quickly handled and fixed the issue. But, had it not been detected, the potential Continue reading
Heavy Networking 611: Data Center Networking And Observability In 2022 (Sponsored)
As we approach the end of 2021, it's informative to look back at how much change has gone on in the industry. One of the biggest transitions we've seen in enterprise networking has taken place in the data center. Software-defined approaches that emerged over the past decade have matured and are being deployed in production. On today's Heavy Networking, we talk with Juniper Networks in a sponsored episode about its Apstra Intent-Based Networking (IBN) platform and how Apstra is transforming the enterprise data center.Heavy Networking 611: Data Center Networking And Observability In 2022 (Sponsored)
As we approach the end of 2021, it's informative to look back at how much change has gone on in the industry. One of the biggest transitions we've seen in enterprise networking has taken place in the data center. Software-defined approaches that emerged over the past decade have matured and are being deployed in production. On today's Heavy Networking, we talk with Juniper Networks in a sponsored episode about its Apstra Intent-Based Networking (IBN) platform and how Apstra is transforming the enterprise data center.
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Silicon Valley Scandals
The Theranos scandal has rocked Silicon Valley. Once considered a visionary billionaire, Elizabeth Holmes is now facing up to 20 years in prison for numerous charges of fraud and false representation. This may be the final nail in the coffin that changes how startups are funded and what type of entrepreneur Silicon Valley will back moving forward.
Who Is Elizabeth Holmes?
Elizabeth Holmes is one of the most famous names in the Silicon Valley. She attended the University of Stanford and dropped out at a young age to launch her company Theranos. The goal was simple: create a technology that would make blood testing much more efficient for doctors and patients alike. In 2003 she registered as a medical device manufacturer and by 2004 raised $25 million from venture capitalists. By 2014 their valuation reached $50 billion dollars making Elizabeth Holmes youngest self-made billionaire ever on paper before it all came crashing down in 2018.
How Did It All Fall Apart?
The hype around Theranos began building back in 2013 when a journalist at the Wall Street Journal was contacted by an anonymous source who claimed Theranos’ testing machines were faulty and inaccurate. The company had been receiving FDA Continue reading
Experiment with Calico BGP in the Comfort of Your Own Laptop!
Yes, you read that right – in the comfort of your own laptop, as in, the entire environment running inside your laptop! Why? Well, read on. It’s a bit of a long one, but there is a lot of my learning that I would like to share.
I often find that Calico Open Source users ask me about BGP, and whether they need to use it, with a little trepidation. BGP carries an air of mystique for many IT engineers, for two reasons. Firstly, before its renaissance as a data center protocol, BGP was seen to be the domain of ISPs and service provider networks. Secondly, many high-profile and high-impact Internet outages have been due to BGP misuse or misconfiguration.
The short answer to the question is that in public cloud Kubernetes deployments, it is almost never necessary to configure or use BGP to make best use of Calico Open Source. Even in on-premise Kubernetes deployments, it is only needed in certain scenarios; you shouldn’t configure BGP unless you know why you need it. It is even less common to require complex BGP setups involving route reflectors and the like.
If you’re unsure what you need, the best plan is Continue reading
That’s It for 2021
It’s hard to believe, but another year has swooshed by, and it’s time to shut down my virtual office and disappear until mid-January. Of course I’ll be around in case of urgent support problems – I will read my email, but won’t reply to 90% of the stuff coming in.
I hope you’ll be able to find a few days to disconnect from the crazy pace of networking world and focus on your loved ones. I would also like to wish you all the best in 2022!
Hedge 112: The TME with Pete Lumbis
The Technical Marketing role is often misunderstood—or simply forgotten—in the vendor world. What does the TME do, and why? What value does the TME bring to the development and release of new products? Pete Lumbis joins Tom Ammon and Russ White to discuss the importance and value of the TME.