Control an Amazon EC2 server from an Apple iPad using SSH and VNC

I recently configured an Amazon EC2 instance so that I could run the XFCE desktop environment on it and control it from my local laptop computer using SSH and VNC. But what if I want to use my iPad to do control the remote Amazon EC2 server?

I want to experiment with complex network simulations running on open-source networking software when I happen have the time, from any location with a WiFi connection. I do not always have my laptop with me, but I usually have either my iPad or iPhone.

In this blog post, I will show how to configure and use an iPad (and iPhone) VNC viewer app to view and control the desktop environment running on my Amazon EC2 server.

iPad software

To connect to a remote server from an iPad, we need a VNC viewer app. The VNC viewer app I use is Screens.

I use the Edovia Screens iPad app, which displays the full-screen desktop environment running on the remote server. There are other VNC viewer apps in the App Store but Screens seems to have a lot of functionality and I was confident it would support SSH tunneling. Screens is also a universal iOS Continue reading

A quick hands-on with Cherry Trail: screaming graphics for tablets

Intel’s Cherry Trail Atom chips are almost here, and if you’re in the market for an Intel-based tablet the future looks bright.We briefly got our hands on what could be the first Cherry Trail tablet shown publicly—an 8-inch prototype from Intel running Android with a variety of apps and games installed. The graphics in particular stood out.The game “Real Racing 3” took some time to load, but when it started the display kept pace easily with the fast-moving visuals. A previous Bay Trail chip in an Asus Transformer Book T100 struggled with demanding games, showing how far the Atom X5 and X7 chips, as they’re known, have come.The tablet wasn’t connected to the Internet, so we didn’t get a taste of the Wi-Fi speed or how fast cloud applications will load. But other local apps fired up quickly. The tablet had USB 3.0 and HDMI ports and a audio jack.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

D-Link patches router, says more fixes are on the way

D-Link issued fixes on Monday for flaws that could allow remote access to one of its routers, and will patch several other models in the coming week.The vulnerabilities were found by Peter Adkins, a systems engineer in Canada who said he alerted the company to the issues in early January and decided to publicize them last week after falling out of contact with D-Link.D-Link acknowledges Adkins’ findings in its advisory, which included three new firmware versions for its DIR-820L router. The company expects to release firmware updates in the next week for the DIR-626L, DIR-636L, DIR-808L, DIR-810L, DIR-826L, DIR-830L and DIR-836L.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft ‘excited’ about Windows Phones announced at Mobile World Congress

Bless Microsoft’s heart; it’s still betting on Windows Phones. In fact, Microsoft is “excited” about the “impressive growth of the Windows Phone ecosystem.” The company is so excited that it released the infographic (posted above), bragging about that growth.Have you looked at the smartphones Microsoft has introduced so far at World Mobile Congress? I hadn’t heard of most of the brands, but any growth is better than none. We aren't going to look too hard at any specs, since none of them are high-end, but you can see some pictures of them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spec showdown: HTC One M9 vs. Samsung Galaxy S6

If you’re on the lookout for a new Android high-end smartphone, the One M9 from HTC and Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S6 are two hot possibilities.The products were announced on Sunday in Barcelona. They are both good-looking devices with the latest components integrated, but there are also differences that might sway you one way or the other. Here’s a spec comparison between the phones:ProcessorAs anticipated, Samsung chose its own Exynos processor to power the S6. The version used by the smartphone has four cores running at 2.1GHz and another four cores running at a slower 1.5GHz. HTC decided to stick with Qualcomm, and the One M9 is powered by a Snapdragon 810, which has four cores running at 2.0GHz plus another four cores running at a slower 1.5GHz.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

3 Useful Juniper Commands

wildcard delete
Deletes all configuration associated with a level.

show system commit
Shows any annotations performed during the previous commit. Requires that the previous commit used a “commit comment” when committing the configuration.

clear system commit
Removes any pending commits.

Millicom deal with Vodacom on mobile money in Tanzania a sign of the times

Millicom’s agreement with Vodacom to allow users of their respective mobile money services in Tanzania transmit funds to each other is part of an ongoing trend to allow interoperability among services from different networks.The agreement, announced last week, means that four million Tigo Pesa users will for the first time be able to exchange money with Vodacom’s six million M-Pesa users in Tanzania. Tigo is Millicom’s subsidiary.Last year, the company brokered a deal with India’s Bharti Airtel and Tanzania’s Zantel, a subsidiary of Etisalat, that allowed customers of the three operators to conduct mobile money transfers across their networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best new Android & Windows smartphones at MWC 2015

Best at MWC 2015Samsung, HTC, Sony, Microsoft and others are using the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona to debut their latest smartphones and other gear. Here’s a look at the new Android and Windows devices.ALSO: Read all the stories out of MWC 2015To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Indeni, Smart Advisors and Crowd-Sourcing

Monitoring needs to move on from traditional fault and performance polling. It should include identifying common misconfigurations and known faults. We’re all using the same technologies, so we’ve all got the same problems. I like the look of Indeni, a new approach to this problem. It uses a form of crowd-sourcing to act as a smart advisor.

Precious Snowflakes?

We all think we’re precious snowflakes. But we’re not. We use the same technologies, glued together in the same ways. That means we all have the same problems, and make the same misconfigurations.

Vendors frequently publish new bug fixes, KB articles, EOS notices, etc. Some of these apply to products/versions/features we’re using. We struggle to keep up with the volume, and we miss these – so maybe our network is running with a known issue. Striking an unknown bug is bad. Getting caught out by a published issue is worse. Having an outage because we didn’t make sure the routing tables were in sync on our firewall cluster is unforgivable.

Vendors Need Help Too

Information flow is a two-way problem. The vendors can’t always see how customers deploy their products in the real world. They think they know. They write manuals, they write Continue reading

Tinder grants do-overs, transatlantic swiping with paid version

Tinder, the popular dating app, wants to offer a second chance at love for users who may passed on a potential mate.For a price, users can now undo their most recent left-swipe on someone’s profile, which signals disinterest. Another new feature, called Passport, lets users search for people in other locations beyond their pre-selected geographic radius.Tinder said these are its two most requested features. They’re available in a new paid version of the app called Tinder Plus.Pricing details were not disclosed at the time of launch on Monday, though the cost of upgrading in San Francisco is US$19.99 per month. A report in TechCrunch cited a monthly fee of US$9.99, but it appears the price might vary from market to market. Tinder, based in Los Angeles, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware takes on mobile networks with vCloud for NFV

VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors.The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks.NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware takes on mobile networks with vCloud for NFV

VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors.The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks.NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware takes on mobile networks with vCloud for NFV

VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors. The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks. NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware takes on mobile networks with vCloud for NFV

VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors. The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks. NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware takes on mobile networks with vCloud for NFV

VMware has jumped into the hot NFV market with a platform that lets service providers run their network functions as virtualized applications from different vendors. The company launched VMware vCloud for NFV on Monday at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where telecommunications and IT vendors and their carrier customers are all promoting NFV (network functions virtualization) as the future of mobile networks. NFV takes back-end functions involved in managing services and subscribers out of dedicated appliances and turns them into virtualized applications that can run on generic hardware. This makes carriers faster and leaner, allowing them to roll out new services more quickly and be more flexible in how they run their networks. It’s also designed to help support the new demands that come with the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocade acquires mobile SDN company

Brocade has announced plans to acquire Connectem, a privately-held company whose virtualization software maps mobile workloads to clouds.Terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD:Why SDN All-Stars are heading to Brocade+Connectem’s LTE virtual evolved packet core (vEPC) software for x86 servers is intended to eliminate the constraints of physical equipment while working with traditional node-based EPC architectures, Brocade says.Combined with Brocade’s other software-defined networking (SDN) and virtualized network functions (NFV) offerings – many from the acquisitions of Vyatta, Vistapointe, and the SteelApp virtual ADC product line from Riverbed -- Connectem’s software enables service providers and enterprises to connect mobile and IoT devices, data centers, and public and private clouds, Brocade says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocade acquires mobile SDN company

Brocade has announced plans to acquire Connectem, a privately-held company whose virtualization software maps mobile workloads to clouds.Terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD:Why SDN All-Stars are heading to Brocade+Connectem’s LTE virtual evolved packet core (vEPC) software for x86 servers is intended to eliminate the constraints of physical equipment while working with traditional node-based EPC architectures, Brocade says.Combined with Brocade’s other software-defined networking (SDN) and virtualized network functions (NFV) offerings – many from the acquisitions of Vyatta, Vistapointe, and the SteelApp virtual ADC product line from Riverbed -- Connectem’s software enables service providers and enterprises to connect mobile and IoT devices, data centers, and public and private clouds, Brocade says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocade acquires mobile SDN company

Brocade has announced plans to acquire Connectem, a privately-held company whose virtualization software maps mobile workloads to clouds.Terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD:Why SDN All-Stars are heading to Brocade+Connectem’s LTE virtual evolved packet core (vEPC) software for x86 servers is intended to eliminate the constraints of physical equipment while working with traditional node-based EPC architectures, Brocade says.Combined with Brocade’s other software-defined networking (SDN) and virtualized network functions (NFV) offerings – many from the acquisitions of Vyatta, Vistapointe, and the SteelApp virtual ADC product line from Riverbed -- Connectem’s software enables service providers and enterprises to connect mobile and IoT devices, data centers, and public and private clouds, Brocade says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung Pay could overtake Apple Pay in mobile payments

Apple may have lost its lead in contactless payments yesterday when Samsung introduced its universally accepted Samsung Pay at Mobile World Congress. This may be somewhat surprising considering just last September Apple convinced the mobile industry that it had revolutionized credit and debit card payments with Apple Pay.The combination of Apple Pay's strong security, brand name, and broad support from top banks and merchants impressed Apple fanboys and critics alike. People who never would have trusted contactless smartphone payments were suddenly interested.Samsung also has strong security, brand awareness, and the gravitas to win the support of top banks like Citi and top credit cards like Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. Unlike Apple, it doesn't need the cooperation of merchants because of the Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) technology Samsung got when it acquired Looppay. MST generates a magnetic field that emulates the swipe of a credit card when the Galaxy S6 is positioned within close proximity of a magstripe card reader at an ordinary credit and debit card payment terminal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM rolls out 3 new iOS apps for enterprises

IBM has unveiled a fresh crop of enterprise apps resulting from the partnership it forged with Apple last year.Announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the three new mobile apps for iOS target the banking, retail and airline industries and join the 10 industry-specific IBM MobileFirst apps that arrived in December.Advisor Alerts, for example, is designed for enterprises in banking and financial services and aims to help financial professionals prioritize client-related tasks while away from the office. Powered by customized analytics, the app includes a personalized dashboard that displays recommended next steps and alerts about portfolio-affecting events; it also provides a platform for communication with colleagues back at the office.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here