Another Virtualization Option: No, not VMware, or Xen, or Virtual Server…

May 11 2008

Okay, actually, there are a number of virtualization options not listed in the title, but the one nobody seems to be talking much about Sun’s xVM VirtualBox. But, wait! you say, Sun begs to differ: “Sun xVM VirtualBox software is the world's... read more

Microsoft Windows now supports.. PAM!

May 08 2008

If you are at all familiar with the UNIX or Linux world, you will know about the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) functionality. Essentially, PAM is a highly extensible login framework for authenticating and authorizing a user for access to a server. Prior... read more

MS-SQL Injection Attack.. Here we go again.

May 01 2008

I was just reading Michael Mimoso’s account of a new MS-SQL injection attack that is making the rounds. Sigh. The funny thing is that I was just talking to one of our consultants here at Puryear IT about.. SQL injection attacks. He... read more

The MySQL Appliance

April 29 2008

Well, this is nifty. A start-up named Kickfire has released a MySQL appliance. There is nothing “nifty” about a network appliance of course; that is, unless the appliance has specialized hardware and software to outperform a similarly configured in-house configured server. And... read more

Hyper-V: Integrated and Ready to Roll.. Over Windows

April 25 2008

So, Hyper-V is ready to be released with Windows 2008. More or less. Hyper-V is the “next generation” of virtualization for Microsoft and the Windows platform (at least as far as Microsoft sees it), and includes some enhancements of Virtual Server. Technically,... read more

Microsoft Access.. for the Web

April 24 2008

Okay, I’m confused. I just read a blog about using Microsoft Access as the database back-end for a website. I think. Well, heck, I’m not sure. Is she saying you should convert to a true client/server database model or you should use... read more

MySQL and LAMP Consulting

April 22 2008

I was recently doing a somewhat random Google and found a note from someone about whether there is a “market for LAMP consulting”. Ha. Perhaps. The whole Linux thing may just be ready to get off the ground. ;) Seriously though, I... read more

NFS vs. CIFS for VMware

April 21 2008

Recently, we were working to bring up a VMware installation for a client of Puryear IT and we hit a snag. To provide some background first though: We had decided to go with a GigE NAS based environment rather than a more... read more

memcached - Simple Works Best, Take Note Microsoft

April 15 2008

I was reading a quick run-through of memcached and it occurred to me how absolutely simple and SIMPLISTIC memcached is. Really, it’s absolutely.. basic. Oh, but wait, what is memcached? memcached is really nothing more than a cache service for accessing data.... read more

Apple Goes on the Offensive?

April 11 2008

Not exactly “new” news but there is a reasonable article by Gary Morgenthaler at Business Week about Apple and Microsoft. Definitely well worth the read. Gary discusses how Apple is developing a multi-pronged strategy to battle Microsoft. In all honesty, the strategy... read more

Microsoft, Open Source, Academia, and That Magic Touch

April 08 2008

Has anyone read Putting Our Own House In Order? I thought this little quip was funny: "Tony's background is in academia, a place where Microsoft has had some challenges." (Queue the old graphic of a million students sitting in class with Macs.)... read more

Are You Lost?

April 08 2008

So, I've been MIA for almost two weeks now. I'm sure you were pretty worried and possibly even losing sleep. But, it's okay. I'm fine and back. For now. But what happened? Well, the whole "SSO" happened. O'Reilly uses Single Sign-On (SSO)... read more

Compare Windows to Red Hat

March 20 2008

I was reading through some new postings on a local LUG mailing list here in Louisiana, and saw a note from Chris J. about Microsoft’s Windows vs. Red Hat page. Chris brought up some good points, and I wanted to respond to... read more

Linux ext2 recovery, NTFS, and Ghost..

March 19 2008

Ooh. Okay, so this is news to me. There is a freeware tool to recover ext2/ext3 filesystems from Windows. Wow, that’s a change. Is it just me or do most of the free and open source recovery tools seem to run under... read more

Comics coming your way... fine-print included

March 14 2008

Okay, this is funny. I just read a little blog by Jamie about ComicCon and saw a link to this site. Um. Okay. So I see a preview comic strip and then click it, as told (I’m quite the sheep), and then... read more