IDG Contributor Network: The Emergency Alert System test: Lesson learned, catastrophe averted

If you were watching TV at 2:20 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, Sept. 28, you would have heard and seen a test of the Emergency Alert System. You might not have thought much about it, as similar tests have been done in the past.What made this test different was that it was a retest of a failed EAS test conducted five years ago. A live code was used to activate a national Emergency Action Notification (EAN) message that was broadcast. Five years ago, the test failed—some heard audio but saw no text, while some saw text but heard no audio. On Wednesday, the test was a success—the audio and text were successfully transmitted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Distributed On-Demand Network Testing (ToDD) with Matt Oswalt

In March 2016 my friend Matt Oswalt announced a distributed network testing framework that he used for validation in his network automation / continuous integration projects. Initial tests included ping and DNS probes, and he added HTTP testing in May 2016.

The project continues to grow (and already got its own Github and documentation page) and Matt was kind enough to share the news and future plans in Episode 63 of Software Gone Wild.

To ask questions about the project, join the Todd channel on networktocode Slack team (self-registration at slack.networktocode.com)

Listen to the podcast

Introducing Dedicated SSL Certificates

When we launched Universal SSL in September 2014 we eliminated the costly and confusing process of securing a website or application with SSL, and replaced it with one free step: sign up for Cloudflare.

CC BY 2.0 image by JD Hancock

When you complete the sign-up process, we batch your domain together with a few dozen other recently signed-up domains, and fire off a request to one of our Certificate Authority (CA) partners. The CA then sends us back a shared certificate covering the root (e.g. example.com) and top-level wildcard (e.g. *.example.com) of your domain, along with the hostnames of the other customers in the request. We then package this shared certificate with its encrypted private key and distribute it to our datacenters around the world, ensuring that your visitors’ HTTPS sessions are speedy no matter where they originate.

Since that process was created, we have used it to secure millions of domains with free Universal SSL certificates and helped make the Internet a faster and more secure place.

More control and personalization

But along the way we heard from customers who wanted more control over the certificates used for their domains. They want Continue reading

LXLE: A Linux distro to give new life to old hardware

I’ll bet that somewhere, perhaps at home and most likely at work, you’ve got some old hardware lying around. What to do with it? It still works but what’s it running? Windows XP? Vista? Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic?Yep, you’re stuck on some old version of Windows but moving that machine up to a newer version of Windows could be tricky ‘cause one or more of those old graphics cards and printer drivers have probably have fallen out of the update cycle. Even if those subsystems are still available, you’ll still have a problem as the newer OSs' are pretty much guaranteed to suck the life out of old processors with the result that performance and therefore usability will be marginal at best. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 to feature glass casing and stainless steel frame

Aside from a completely new form factor, Apple’s 2017 iPhone -- a device that will reportedly be called the iPhone 8 – will also employ some interesting new materials. According to a new research report from reputed analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is planning to use a glass casing on its next-gen iPhone model.Kuo’s report, per MacRumors, adds that the iPhone 8’s glass casing will be strengthened by a stainless steel frame, at least on the higher-end models. Metal frame can be stainless steel or aluminum, with former more likely for high-end models. As all-glass casing is not possible at present given technological bottlenecks, a metal frame surrounding the edge is necessary for reinforced structure design. As stainless steel has a better look than aluminum and costs more, we expect only high-end new iPhone models to come with a stainless steel frame next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

ToDD Has Moved!

ToDD has been out in the wild for 6 months, and in that time I’ve been really pleased with it’s growth and adoption. Considering this was just a personal side-project, I’ve been blown away by what it’s doing for my own learning experiences as well as for the network automation pipelines of the various folks that pop onto the slack channel asking questions. For the last 6 months I’ve hosted ToDD on my personal Github profile.

ToDD Has Moved!

ToDD has been out in the wild for 6 months, and in that time I’ve been really pleased with it’s growth and adoption. Considering this was just a personal side-project, I’ve been blown away by what it’s doing for my own learning experiences as well as for the network automation pipelines of the various folks that pop onto the slack channel asking questions. For the last 6 months I’ve hosted ToDD on my personal Github profile.

ToDD Has Moved!

ToDD has been out in the wild for 6 months, and in that time I’ve been really pleased with it’s growth and adoption. Considering this was just a personal side-project, I’ve been blown away by what it’s doing for my own learning experiences as well as for the network automation pipelines of the various folks that pop onto the slack channel asking questions.

For the last 6 months I’ve hosted ToDD on my personal Github profile. It was a good initial location, becuase there really was no need at the time to do anything further.

However, as of tonight, ToDD’s new permanent location is https://github.com/toddproject/todd. Read on for some reasons for this.

Native Testlets

One of the biggest reasons for creating the “toddproject” organization came about when I started rewriting some of the testlets in Go. These are called native testlets and the intention is that they are packaged alongside ToDD because they’re useful to a very wide percentage of ToDD’s userbase (in the same way the legacy bash testlets were).

For this reason, I created the “toddproject” organization, and once that was done, it made a lot of sense to move ToDD there as well.

Rewriting the legacy Continue reading

Ga-ga for goggles: Augmented & virtual reality bring the masses to Harvard

Wednesday was a big day for goggles in my life: I spent the afternoon at Harvard University's Innovation Labs, where hundreds of people tried on the latest virtual and augmented reality headsets, then I watched the Boston Red Sox on TV that night as they donned ski goggles meant to keep champagne from spraying into their eyes as they awkwardly celebrated winning the American League East title despite blowing a game to the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th inning.Coincidentally, the Red Sox baseball team was among the exhibitors showing off their virtual reality application, which enables fans to step into the batting cage to get a feel for what it's like to be up close to David Ortiz while he's hitting or David Price while he's pitching.  The Sox offer their Samsung Gear VR experience both at Fenway Park and at community events, such as this Hubweek event that took place at Harvard Innovation Lab.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What is reliability in networking ?

What is reliability in networking ? Why reliability is an important design tool ? I will provide the answers of these questions with the examples in this post. Reliability is within the reasonable amount of time, which depends on the application type and architecture, delivering the legitimate packets from source to destination. This time is […]

The post What is reliability in networking ? appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Spanning Tree Best Practices

Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a control plane mechanism for Ethernet. It is used to create a Layer 2 topology (a tree) by placing the root switch on top of the tree. Since classical Ethernet works based on data plane learning and Ethernet frames don’t have TTL for loop prevention, loops are prevented by the […]

The post Spanning Tree Best Practices appeared first on Cisco Network Design and Architecture | CCDE Bootcamp | orhanergun.net.

Keystone Keynotes

keystonekeynotepatrol

My distaste for keynotes is well known. With the possible exception of Justin Warren (@JPWarren) there may not be a person that dislikes them more than I do. I’ve outlined my reasons for it before, so I won’t go into much depth about it here. But I do want to highlight a few recent developments that are doing a great job of helping me find new things to dislike.

Drop The “Interviews”

When you walk into a keynote ballroom or arena and see two comfy chairs on stage, you know what’s coming. As someone told me recently, “This is when I know the next hour is going to suck.” The mock interview style of keynote speech is not good. It’s a thinly-veiled attempt to push an agenda. Perhaps it’s about innovation. Or transformation. Or some theme of the conference. Realistically, it’s mostly a chance for a keynote host (some form of VP) to provide forced banter with a celebrity that’s being paid to be there.

These “interviews” are rarely memorable. They seem self serving and very plastic. The only ones that even stand out to me in recent memory are the ones that went off the Continue reading

Google rebrands Apps for Work as G Suite, adds intelligent features

Google rebranded and enhanced its productivity suite Thursday with new intelligent capabilities that help it better compete with Microsoft Office 365.G Suite is the new name for the group of applications that include Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. It's a group of apps that the company is trying to push on organizations looking to make their employees more productive, with an emphasis on collaboration capabilities.Docs, Sheets, and Slides are each getting new features aimed at making it easier to create files quickly with the help of Google intelligence. In addition, Google Calendar is getting an update to make it easier to schedule meetings, and Drive has a new feature making it easier for teams to use.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bounty for iOS jailbreak exploit jumps to $1.5 million

The value for zero-day exploits targeting Apple's iOS software is jumping. On Thursday, a company called Zerodium began offering as much as US $1.5 million for them.Zerodium is the same company that offered $1 million last year for an exclusive iOS zero-day exploit that can remotely jailbreak a device. However, that bounty was only temporary, and it was eventually awarded last November.Zerodium's new $1.5 million bounty is asking for a remote jailbreak exploit targeting iOS 10. The bounty will be offered all year long, Chaouki Bekrar, the company's CEO, said in an email. The company's original offer was a maximum of $500,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bounty for iOS jailbreak exploit jumps to $1.5 million

The value for zero-day exploits targeting Apple's iOS software is jumping. On Thursday, a company called Zerodium began offering as much as US $1.5 million for them.Zerodium is the same company that offered $1 million last year for an exclusive iOS zero-day exploit that can remotely jailbreak a device. However, that bounty was only temporary, and it was eventually awarded last November.Zerodium's new $1.5 million bounty is asking for a remote jailbreak exploit targeting iOS 10. The bounty will be offered all year long, Chaouki Bekrar, the company's CEO, said in an email. The company's original offer was a maximum of $500,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft is leaving the consumer mobile market

The weak effort from Microsoft surrounding the Windows Mobile line has made it pretty clear that the handset business isn't a priority. Now we have a clear statement from a Microsoft executive that the company is indeed giving up on mobile, at least for a time. The new president of Microsoft France gave an interview with a French publication where he said the company was indeed giving up on mobile. Vahé Torossian was introduced recently as the new president of the company's French subsidiary. He was previously corporate vice president of the Worldwide Small, Mid-market Solutions & Partners Group.And in an interview with Le Point, Torossian reiterated the current strategy Microsoft is pursuing: To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‘Cloud washing’ gives way to true cloud services

When CompTIA technology analyst Seth Robinson was researching his new report on the state of cloud computing in July some of the results were puzzling. The 500 business and IT executives who participated reported that their use of SaaS applications had declined since the last time CompTIA completed the survey in 2014. The data ran contrary to claims from every consultant, research firm and tech pundit.The head-scratching stat: 45 percent of CompTIA respondents said they used cloud productivity software, down from 63 percent in 2014; 51 percent consumed cloud email, compared to 51 percent in 2014; and only 35 percent consumed cloud analytics/business intelligence software, a decline from 53 percent two years ago. In all, 12 of the 14 applications CompTIA listed posted declines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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