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April 26, 2011

Misleading 3PAR

Filed under: Storage — Tags: , — Nate @ 8:43 am

Hello to my two readers out there!

You know I like 3PAR, have been using them for years, and know their stuff inside and out.

I was on a Computerworld article a few moments ago and saw an advertisement for 3PAR by HP and it made me cringe

While it is true that 3PAR has Intel Xeon processors, it’s really the custom built ASIC that does all the heavy lifting. General purpose CPUs don’t have a prayer in being able to keep up, much like general purpose CPUs don’t have a prayer in keeping up with high performance network switching fabrics.

I think the advertisement is bad, and misleading (by misleading I mean removing perceived value of the 3PAR platform by implying that Intel processors are the workhorse on the system). I’m sure that 3PAR would of never had made this mistake on their own. Someone at HP needs to be educated on the platform.

So I have to knock HP on that one.

April 25, 2011

Netflix: more users than Comcast ?

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Nate @ 9:48 pm

Netflix seems to be unstoppable for the moment, with their stock continuing to go through the roof and their subscriber numbers climbing all the time.

Just saw this on slashdot

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Netflix knocked over a new milestone Monday: It now has more subscribers than the largest cable TV operator in the U.S.

[..]

Revenue rose 46% to $719 million.

Sooner or later I think investors, and customers will realize that the streaming model Netflix has doesn’t scale, the unicast nature of the platform just won’t scale. Doesn’t matter if your on every CDN on the planet. Maybe with IPv6 multicast (assuming it works as advertised as far as I know nobody has ever deployed multicast on anything remotely approaching the size of a cable network over the internet).

Myself I already do have trouble streaming from Netflix on occasion (and I rarely stream from them, because I rarely find anything I am interested in watching). I can’t remember the last time I was able to actually stream HD. (I’m on Comcast and have what is advertised as a 16Mbps connection, which speedtest.net claims at this point in time – 9:48PM on a Monday, I get 22Mbps download and 5Mbps upload)

Here’s hoping Tivo can survive. My 70 season passes give me a whole hellva lot more entertainment than Netflix can hope to provide me.

That being said I am still a Netflix customer, but I tend to watch maybe 2-4 DVDs a month (average), and stream, at this point 1-2 hours/month (there was some points where I came across a series or something that I liked a lot and watched the whole thing but it’s been a while since that happened).

April 23, 2011

Palm Pixis as PDA/Media player

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Nate @ 1:43 pm

So my pair of Palm Pixi Pluses arrived yesterday. I’m by no means a hardware hacker, have never really had a whole lot of interest in “breaking in” to my systems unless I really needed to (e.g. replace Tivo hard drive that is out of warranty).

Palm Pixi Plus for Verizon

I have read a lot over the years how friendly the WebOS platform is to “hacking”. For one you don’t have to root the device, there is an official method to enable developer mode at which point you can install whatever you want.

First thing I wanted to do was upgrade the OS software to the latest revision, the units shipped with 1.4.0, latest is 1.4.5. Given Palm is working on WebOS 2 and WebOS 3, I’m not really expecting any more major updates to WebOS 1. Upgrading was very painless, just download WebOS Doctor for your version/phone/carrier and run it, it re-flashes the phone with the full operating system, then reboots it.

One of the things I didn’t really think of when I ordered my Pixis were the fact that they would require activation in order to use (on initial boot it prompts to call Verizon to register, and of course I am not a Verizon customer and have no intention of using these as Phones).

Fear not though, after a few minutes of research turns up an official tool to bypass this registration process, and is really easy to use:

nate@nate-laptop:~/Downloads$ java -jar devicetool.jar
Found device: pixie-bootie
Copying ram disk................
Rebooting device...
Configuring device...
File descriptor 3 (socket:[1587]) leaked on lvm.static invocation. Parent PID 947: novacomd
 Reading all physical volumes.  This may take a while...
 Found volume group "store" using metadata type lvm2
File descriptor 3 (socket:[1587]) leaked on lvm.static invocation. Parent PID 947: novacomd
 6 logical volume(s) in volume group "store" now active
File descriptor 3 (socket:[1587]) leaked on lvm.static invocation. Parent PID 947: novacomd
 0 logical volume(s) in volume group "store" now active
Rebooting device...
Device is ready.

So now I have the latest OS, and I have bypassed registration (which also includes turning on developer mode by default). I do lose some functionality in this mode such as:

  • No access to online software updates (don’t care)
  • No access to Palm App Catalog (not the end of the world)

I had installed OpenSSH on my Pre in the past (though never tested it), this time around I was looking how to get a shell on the Pixi, and looked high and low on how to get SSH on it, to no avail (the documentation is gone, and I can’t find any ssh packages for some reason). Anyways in the end it didn’t really matter because I could just use novaterm, another official Palm tool to get root access, I mean it doesn’t get much simpler than this:

nate@nate-laptop:~$ novaterm
root@palm-webos-device:/# df -h
Filesystem                Size      Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                  441.7M    394.8M     46.9M  89% /
/dev/root                31.0M     11.3M     19.7M  37% /boot
/dev/mapper/store-root
 441.7M    394.8M     46.9M  89% /
/dev/mapper/store-root
 441.7M    394.8M     46.9M  89% /dev/.static/dev
tmpfs                     2.0M    152.0k      1.9M   7% /dev
/dev/mapper/store-var
 248.0M     22.7M    225.3M   9% /var
/dev/mapper/store-log
 38.7M      4.6M     34.1M  12% /var/log
tmpfs                    64.0M    160.0k     63.8M   0% /tmp
tmpfs                    16.0M     28.0k     16.0M   0% /var/run
tmpfs                    97.9M         0     97.9M   0% /media/ram
cryptofs                  6.4G    549.6M      5.8G   8% /media/cryptofs
/dev/mapper/store-media
 6.4G    549.6M      5.8G   8% /media/internal

I don’t think I will need to access the shell beyond this initial configuration so I am not going to bother with SSH going forward.

I have a bunch of Apps and games on my Palm Pre and wanted to try to transfer them to my Pixis. I was hoping for an ipkg variation of dpkg-repack but was unable to find such a thing, so I had to resort to good ‘ol tar/gzip. All of the apps (as far as I can tell) are stored in /media/cryptofs/apps. So I tarred up that directory on my Pre and transferred it to my first Pixi and overwrote the apps directory on it, then rebooted to see what happened.

It worked, really much better than I had expected. Several of the games (especially the more fancy ones) did not work, I suspect because of the different screen size, a couple of the other fancy games started up, but the edges of the screen were clipped. There are probably Pixi versions for many of them, but that wasn’t a big deal, all of the apps worked.

I put the phone in Airplane mode to disable the 3G radio, installed a few patches (which modify system behavior) , and a few more free apps/games via WebOS Quick Install. Copied over some music to test it out, works awesome. The speakers on the Pixi sound really good in my opinion.

After the apps are installed there is roughly 6.3-6.5 GB of available storage for media.

Only thing missing? Touchstone charging, the custom case to support that looks like it starts at $20, I already have 3 touchstone docks, if I did not, that runs $50.

The UI in WebOS is really great, with full multi tasking, a great notification system, and has everything integrated really well.

Having all of these apps, some games, full wifi (which I can use on 3G/4G with the Sprint Mifi that I have), media playback abilities, a keyboard, nice resolution screen, camera with flash, GPS, user replaceable battery, no carrier contracts, all for $40 ?! I really wish I did buy more than two.

Really looking forward to the Pre 3 and the Touchpad.

April 14, 2011

Palm Pixi Plus $40 w/no contract today only

Filed under: Events — Nate @ 11:25 am

Just came across this on PreCentral, seems like a good deal to me, I ordered two. I don’t know if I will ever really use them, I think I could give one as a gift or something and keep the other for..I don’t know. I’m a big fan of WebOS though, and these phones are wifi equipped. I suppose they could be fancy MP3 players if nothing else they have 7GB usable storage, and I don’t believe they have any expansion storage.

Here are the specs for the Palm Pixi Plus.

Offer is good for today only. I have not heard of The daily steals web site until today so I can’t vouch for them(yet). As usual I used a temporary credit card to make the purchase.

I retired my Palm Pre 1 while I wait for a Pre 3, and I must say since I’ve had the Pre in airport mode the battery lasts forever, wow. I was really truely shocked. It could go all day and maybe drop 2-3% at the most. Battery life was at the lowest level when I had my Pre integrated with Exchange I’d have to charge it a couple times a day. Thankfully the touchstone made that easy.

April 7, 2011

AT&T+T-Mobile – Spectrum

Filed under: Random Thought — Tags: — Nate @ 5:45 am

One of the bigger things announced recently was that AT&T and T-Mobile are going to try to merge.

I’m watching an interview on CNBC with some bigwig from some company called Evercore Partners, whom is apparently an advisor in this merger.

Anyways one of the main arguments the guy tried to make (along with AT&T) is spectrum. That there isn’t enough spectrum for all of the wireless data that is out there and this merger will some how make more spectrum magically appear.

First off I have for a long time said that the edge data technology (wired or wireless) just doesn’t scale, period (and when I say scale I mean cost effectively scale you can make it go faster in many cases but then it becomes too expensive for almost everyone out there limiting the market opportunities, of course there are those out there that expect and demand gigabit speeds to their home for $20/mo).

This guy seems to forget that there are tens of millions of people using this spectrum already, giving it, and the customers to AT&T really isn’t going to have much of an impact from a spectrum standpoint. They may be able to drive higher capacity utilization so maybe they get an extra 10-20-25% out of it by segmenting their network better in some way, but the bandwidth available to that spectrum is going to be eaten up so fast customers won’t even notice it was there to begin with.

Both AT&T and T-Mobile have very large footprints in the Seattle area, and with all of the job cuts expected during the merger I suspect it will have a harmful impact on the local economy here.

The only good thing about this merger is at least AT&T picked a compatible technology to merge with (that is GSM to GSM), unlike the Sprint Nextel merger which was of course about as polar opposite technologies as you can get.

I like many believe the merger will hurt competition, specifically because T-Mobile has a someone unique position in the market from a pricing standpoint, and being a national carrier they have a lot of coverage. AT&T tries to bring up all these small regional companies as evidence of competition, but in the grand scheme of things they are just the scraps on the plate. I can’t help but assume the merger will result in T-mobile plans turning into AT&T plans at some point.

What we need is something like sub space communications from Star Trek, where data rates are a billion times faster than they are today that will give us enough buffer to grow in to.

My solution to the bandwidth crunch on mobile? Broadcast TV. Want streaming video on your phone? Stream it from the local TV stations in your area via digital antenna (e.g. don’t use the phone network, don’t use wifi). I’m not aware of phones that have this ability at this point though. Don’t have the content your looking for?  Oh well.

March 25, 2011

RIP: F-22 Raptor

Filed under: General — Tags: — Nate @ 10:55 am

This isn’t really directly related to the IT field but is related to technology so is relevant to the tag line of the site.

First off let me disclose I am not a pilot, and do not closely follow military stuff so I quite likely  have some things wrong, this is more of a comment(like most things) than me trying to report on something.

The F-22 Raptor, what seemed to be the most technologically advanced aircraft ever developed seems to be close to retirement before it ever saw action.

The F-22 Raptor

Like most people with the No Fly Zone over Libya I expected Hey, this is a great opportunity for the Raptor. After all with it’s next generation stealth technologies in theory the Raptor could enforce the no fly zone without even attacking the anti aircraft systems since they wouldn’t see it anyways(short of getting lucky with some flak or something).

I’ve looked at the Raptor in awe for what seems like almost 20 years now, I remember back in high school I was a pretty avid reader of Aviation Week and Space Technology (think I will subscribe to it now that I am thinking about it). I haven’t really read it since high school but I have to say the Raptor sounded so cool at the time, I still remember even today I had a laminated artist conception of the Raptor for years, it was beautiful.

As time went on I got bits of pieces of information here and there from various sources. More recently was a documentary called Dogfights of the future (one cool segment is available here) which renewed my enthusiasm for the fighter. I remember being quite disappointed when the Commanche was canned, but there was still hope with the Raptor!

But it seems the Raptor has too many issues, or is too expensive, or deemed not to be needed in the world today since we have such dominance in the sky, although with China working hard on building a stealth fighter and the general rise of China as a world power it wouldn’t surprise me if we have conflicts with them in the future if over nothing else over natural resources.

The one incident I do remember with the Raptor was several years ago when a bunch of them were flying to Asia, and when they crossed the international date line their computers all crashed.

Maj. Gen. Don Sheppard (ret.): ”…At the international date line, whoops, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were—they could have been in real trouble. They were with their tankers. The tankers – they tried to reset their systems, couldn’t get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii.

It seems that support for the F-22 Raptor is all but gone at this point, another reason for my interest in the Raptor recently was that report from CNBC I saw it yesterday. I don’t see lack of communications with other aircraft as being a reason not to use the jet in Libya, after all it’s stealth, you don’t know it’s there. They can see you, you can’t see or shoot it, well unless you get in close with a heat seeker or get lucky with guns (assuming the stealth works as well as it is hyped anyways). It’s clear that almost 14 years after it’s first flight, the powers that be have lost patience and confidence in the program.

The next solution seems to be (I think?) the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which obviously doesn’t have nearly the amount of bling that makes the Raptor so bad ass(like Supercruise). I don’t know if it is still an issue but at one point some of the partners of the F-35 were threatening to stop support because they weren’t allowed access to the source code of the software that powers it. Not to mention the fact that the F-35 has it’s own delays associated with it and budget overruns.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

In a world where we can’t seem to kill a program because the people who make it have political vested interests in their districts, despite the fact the military says they have too many and don’t want any more, it makes me sad that something like the F-22 and the Commanche for that matter goes away.

The Air Force hasn’t asked for more money to buy C-17s since 2007. That year the Air Force wanted 12, and Congress bought it 22. In 2008, the Air Force wanted none, but Congress bought 15. In 2009, the request was also zero, and Congress bought eight. In 2010, the Air Force once again asked for no C-17s, and lawmakers bought 10.

I don’t know the inside story of course, maybe the systems really are plagued and it’s not realistic to fund them further, whatever the real reason is, it is too bad.

March 21, 2011

Please do not extend Data center tax breaks

Filed under: Datacenter,News — Tags: , — Nate @ 9:20 am

This is just disgusting to me. It pissed me off when it passed the first time and it is even more stupid and crazy if it happens to pass again.

Just read on DataCenterKnowledge that Washington state (where I am) has someone(s) proposing a bill that would extend data center tax breaks for another 10+ years.

This, in a time where the state forecast just last week an even larger state budget deficit.

Key lawmakers now turn their full attention to writing budgets for the 2011-2013 cycle. Revenue is expected to be down for that budget by an additional $700 million, Thursday’s forecast said. Now, the deficit is estimated to be about $5.1 billion, but that includes voter-approved mandates that lawmakers don’t plan to fund.

The big issue I have with this data center tax break is these data centers really don’t contribute much. They have a short term gain in construction jobs but operationally they employ hardly anyone and they consume an enormous amount of energy and water requirements for cooling.

Take a look at this $1 billion Apple data center for example –

Tax breaks could total $300 million for 50-employee server farm in North Carolina

If your going to give tax breaks, give them to businesses that actually generate jobs. There should be some sort of rule, # of jobs per square foot, or # of jobs per $ in tax break or something. Data centers are a waste for tax breaks, let them go somewhere else.

The original tax break to data centers was approved right after the state announced a $1 billion tax increase on the rest of the state.

March 14, 2011

Right vs Privilege for Broadband

Filed under: Networking,Random Thought — Tags: — Nate @ 8:38 am

I wrote about this a while back, at the time the topic was AT&T imposing caps on mobile data plans, so won’t go into all the same arguments again.

But this time it is AT&T imposing caps on their various broadband plans. I don’t know whether to laugh at or feel sorry for some of these people (see the comments on the site) that believe they have a right to maximum performance, unlimited bandwidth for a few bucks a month.

**** YOU and your troll crap. DONT BE MAD BECAUSE IM TELLING THE TRUTH YOU AT&T DRONE. YOU WEEP FOR THE COMPANY WHO HAS MORE MONEY THAN THE U.S TREASURY. GET YOUR HEAD EXAMINED.

IF YOUR CRAPPY DSL IS SLOW IT’S BECAUSE YOUR ISP IS TOO CHEAP TO UPGRADE TO THE NEEDS OF THE WORLD IN 2011!!!!

This post really is funny

If only two percent of people are affected, why do you feel the need to screw the rest of the 98%?!

As a Comcast broadband customer I have a 250GB cap a month. I have no doubt though that I fall far short of the cap, I’d be surprised if I do more than 20GB a month (that is with occasional netflix streaming though these days I can’t find anything I want to stream on Netflix, I’ve watched one or two things in the past month) UPDATE – I forgot Comcast does have a bandwidth meter you can check, so I got my account info and checked it out. I wonder where I stand as far as a percentile of their customers – low usage on average? medium?

I do run a server as well in the Terremark cloud, so I checked out the bandwidth on it as well (which hosts this blog along with my email services, other web sites etc)

  • February – 6GB data transfer (I assume they charge on inbound and outbound transfers?)
  • January – 2GB data transfer
  • December – 2GB data transfer

The world is built in over subscription, that’s a big driver to keeping costs low. Whether it’s bandwidth, or phone/mobile call capacity, or even your local grocery store.

I for one think AT&T’s plan is very reasonable, they will charge you $10 per 50GB over their limits, $100 for 500GB of data transferred. They will also provide notifications when you hit certain levels of that cap.

The big mistake all of these providers made was of course to offer unlimited plans in the first place.

March 9, 2011

Next Gen COPAN

Filed under: Storage — Tags: , — Nate @ 9:41 am

About a year or so ago SGI bought COPAN for what seemed like fractional pennies on the dollar, well they recently came out with the next generation of COPAN and I’m still amazed at how much storage they can fit in a rack.

ArcFiniti comes in 5 factory-configured models to suit any archive environment. Lower-capacity models can be upgraded to higher capacity, maxing out at just over 1.4PB of usable archive in a single rack.

Full specifications don’t seem to be disclosed at the moment, the original COPAN systems topped out at a hefty 3,000 pounds per rack, the only storage system that I had heard of that weighed in more than 3PAR (about 2,000 pounds max per rack).

The original systems kept roughly 75% of the drives spun down at any given point.

 

March 3, 2011

No.

Filed under: Random Thought — Tags: — Nate @ 2:01 pm

Here’s some more color to my blog.

 

I saw this on LinkedIn a few minutes ago and couldn’t help but laugh.


 

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