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Filesystem Monitoring: You're Doing It Wrong
May 02 2008
This doesn't look good, right? Most open source monitoring tools do filesystem health checking by comparing the current percentage of used space against a set value. If it's is 90% full, send out a warning page; if it's 89%, send... read moreVirtualization: Kicking and screaming....
April 03 2008
I'm working with a product that includes this disclaimer in their support documentation: "Virtual environments, such as VMWare (and others) are not recommended, and thus not supported." I can almost see their point. It'd be pretty daunting to gauge a... read moreIs Hardware Still Commoditized?
March 21 2008
Last week I attended a virtualization seminar. I did not expect a lot from the event at first, but I was surprised by the qualities of the guest speakers. Both had strong backgrounds with VM environments, and they did a... read moreMarch 03 2008
I just bought a new MacBook. A co-worker of mine just bought a new MacBook Pro. To put it another way, we both bought new Apple Laptops....one week before the new models came out. After Tuesday's announcement I looked... read moreFebruary 08 2008
A podcasting friend of mine ran into the problem of always having to send the new episodes to his co-hosts for review. Once everyone agreed that it was okay, the show was put live on the RSS feed. Their method... read moreJanuary 29 2008
Sam wrote a blog post about the cost of SMS messages. I admire the effort, but I'm not in 100% agreement with his conclusion. I think the goal the author was trying to make is that SMS messages are overpriced,... read moreProblematic perl prerequisites
January 15 2008
I just installed XMLRPC::Lite on a Linux host. You may not have seen this module used too often, but it actually comes bundled in the SOAP::Lite distribution. Installation time of one perl module in a 5.8.8 environment? One hour. Was... read moreBackup Tapes? In My House? It's More Likely Than You Think
December 31 2007
Every once in awhile you’ll read another story about stolen backup tapes–with millions of confidental records–that are lost forever. Will someone steal your identity? Is the security of our nation compromised? We never know what happens to those tapes unless they’re miraculously recovered. I’d like to imagine that the unwitting… read moreA Lackluster Linux Endorsement
December 21 2007
There’s a Computerworld article out in the wild about the New York Stock Exchange (Euronet) building out 200 new Linux servers. Articles like this are usually puff-pieces, so technology people are always wondering about the real details behind decisions. I had a few questions about 2 interesting quotes made by… read moreDecember 14 2007
Let’s say you have evidence of network errors. Here’s the symptoms that you see: 1. A lot of TCP retransmits (layer4) 2. No Ethernet frame errors, dropped packets, or CRC errors (layer 2) 3. No ICMP errors, or IP level errors. Pings report no lag or dropped packets. (layer 3) 4. Failures are only… read moreGift Suggestions For The Forensic Investigator In Your Life
December 10 2007
If you happen to be one of those lucky individuals dating somebody working in the computer forensics department of a law enforcement crime lab, there’s only one gift you need to give. It’s inexpensive, thoughtful, and it really comes in handy. That one gift is the plastic, waterproof, roll-up keyboard.… read moreDecember 04 2007
Brendan Gregg wrote up a performance comparison between the utilities Top and Prstat. And just for good measure, he throws in a lot of Dtrace example code to show how he came to his conclusions. If you run either command, first run a ls of your /proc filesystem. This will tell… read moreIs the AAC format gaining popularity?
November 16 2007
While it could vaguely be considered system/application news, Nintendo announced a new version of “Photo Channel”, will be released in December. For those that own a Wii, Photo Channel is that icon that is mostly ignored, right next to “Wii Shop Channel”. The update includes the comment that they’ll be dropping… read moreTracking Spam: One Man's Adventure
October 29 2007
Mark Wade wrote a firsthand account on tracking a purchase that was originally solicited from a SPAM email. There are a couple of points where the article is vague on technical details, but I’m probably not the intended audience. I found the article to be informative, but it also left me… read moreOctober 24 2007
The legal maneuvering between two of my more favored tech companies just kicked it up a notch. Johnathan Schwartz looks like he’s not going to take NetApp’s lawsuit lying down. I’m not even going to pretend I’m a lawyer, but a counter-suit is probably a suitable response to the original NetApp… read more
