The past few weeks have brought with them plenty of travel, a pair of cool conferences, a great chance to spread the DC/F5 word about application goodness and integration, and much killer content flittering its way across DC's ever present feeds and pages. Now that I'm back in stride and the wake from the recent happenings has cleared I'm here yet again, as you know I would be, to point you towards some of the many cool things happening on DevCentral this week. Here's this week's DC Top5:

Investigating the LTM TCP Profile: Nagle's Algorithm

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=282

Jason Rahm, the newest addition to the DevCentral team (Welcome Jason!), brings us a very cool look at one of the pieces of the TCP profile on LTM. As he starts his series investigating the many different options found in this most important of profiles, Jason first discusses the Nagle's Algorithm. If you've ever wondered about the details of this particular feature, I.E. how it works, what it was intended for, when it may NOT be beneficial, etc., then this is the article for you. Jason dives deep and gives a great look at how to make use of this part of the profile including a look at the logic flow of the algorithm itself. Maybe it's just the dev geek in me, but how can you not love that? Whether you were excited from the time I said the word "algorithm" or you're more concerned with the higher level points of when this can be good vs. bad, I highly recommend stopping here to take a peek.

Multicore: The RogueWave Option

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/11/06/multicore-the-roguewave-option.aspx

Learn about the woes of today's application developer when trying to solve the multicore problem. Follow Don MacVittie as he digs into one of the many solutions out there to address this issue, RogueWave's Hydra. While there are many options to deal with multicore programming, Don points out that Hydra uses an interesting method by parallelizing entire services, rather than working at a more granular level. There are pros and cons, which he details, but the overall feeling seems to be good. See for yourself in what looks like it could be only one of many in Don's Multicore series.

Creating An iControl PowerShell Monitoring Dashboard With Google Charts

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=284

Joe Pruitt, our in house iControl and PowerShell wizard, is at it again in this excellent Tech Tip about dashboards. Joe walks us through how to harness the power of iControl via PowerShell and coerce it into making use of the almost too handy Google Charts utility to produce an end result that not only provides great utility, but a great look and feel as well. Polling stats from your LTM via iControl is something Joe's talked about many a time, but this example really goes the extra mile to show you how to wrap all of that information up into a sleek format that's easy on the eyes. This one's definitely worth a read. Doubly so if you've got some geek in you.

Virtualization: How to Isolate Application Traffic

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/07/virtualization-how-to-isolate-application-traffic.aspx

Virtualization as a topic of discussion is an elephant running rampant across the face of the IT media world. You can't help but notice it, and everyone seems to be getting awfully excited and/or concerned about it, depending on their outlook. According to this recent post by Lori MacVittie one of the newer discussions surrounding virtualization is the idea of "VirtSec", or virtualization security. This discussion has worked itself all the way down to the infrastructure level, where some are suddenly looking for ways to virtualize traffic and keep data flows separate. Lucky for us we've had VLANS as part of our product for…well…ever. I guess that means we're visionary. This is a great read about what's happening in the virtualization realm and Lori's delivery is, as usual, top notch.

Cache in with LTM and iRules

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=283

After many extensive discussions last week at SDBP about how we help application developers and architects deliver their apps, I was inspired to jot down some thoughts and a brief example or two in Tech Tip form. Inside you can learn about how caching might help your application proliferate, why it's becoming more and more important in the realm of today's application and how you can turn to your LTM for some help in getting where you need to go. The already robust caching features on LTM can then be further augmented by the use of iRules as needed to really kick it up a notch, especially in those one off cases where extra flexibility is the order of the day.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode #61 - Taconoisseur

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/11/06/devcentral-weekly-roundup-episode-61---taconoisseur.aspx

Okay, I know this is #6, but I had to include it. Just look at that title. Hawesome. Just….hawesome. This is also the first Roundup with the entire team on board since Jason started. Good times abound.

That's it for this week's DC Top5. Tune in again next week to hear more about things like hydras, elephants and Taconoissuers (yeah, I went there)…and you know, maybe some IT stuff too.

#Colin

Whew! It's been a whirlwind of a couple weeks.  Between the annual F5 sales conference, where Joe and I presented to a bunch of awesome F5 techies, followed immediately by a very cool trip to present with the famed Lori at the SD Best Practices event in Boston, I've barely had time to do laundry, sleep in my own bed and feed my puppy. It's good to be back, but what cool stuff I got to see/hear/talk about!

The Software Development Best Practices (SDBP) conference was hawesome. It's great to be around so many people that get "it" and share the same geeked out passion for development, computing and cool technology that I do. While there I not only got to have several awesome conversations while hanging out in the F5 booth on site, but also got to give a fun Technical Session with Lori (which she mentioned before we left) which I think went over pretty well. It was F5's first time at this conference but hopefully not our last, as I think the audience is a great one to get in front of when talking about the amazing things that our gear can do to help extend the application. Whether it's via standard LTM features, iControl or iRules, it's almost always a killer story.

One of the many stories we told when talking about things we can do for the application was the Joyent / Bumpersticker application story. For those of you that haven't heard it yet, I highly recommend checking it out. We've got some pretty detailed info in the interview that Joe and I did with Jason, their CTO, which you can check out here. The short version is that Joyent scaled Bumpersticker app from Linkedin to over a billion pageviews a month, running on Ruby on Rails, and they couldn't have done it without F5 and iRules. How cool is that?!?

They did this via a combination of intelligent caching and a smattering of iRules that garnered an 80% reduction in application load (80%!!11), allowing them to get way more bang for their processing buck. This, along with some other cool conversations I had regarding caching and some of the things we can do with it, led me to put together a tech tip that begins to delve into the world of caching and iRules on the LTM. More detail will follow I'm sure, but this starts the journey at least.

That's all for now, more later as always.

Listening to: Alter Bridge - One Day Remains - One Day Remains

#Colin

What could you do with your code in 20 Lines or Less? That's the question I ask every week, and every week I go looking to find cool new examples that show just how flexible and powerful iRules can be without getting in over your head.

Finally back into the swing of the 20LoL, I'm happy to give you the 15th edition of this blog series. Today's offering is brought to you by me, F5, and the power of iRules (tm).  Okay, not really (tm), but it sounded cool.  I still find myself on a journey to seek out the coolest iRule tidbits that I can in hopes of bringing them to you and showing off just how much power you can pack into a minute amount of code in an iRule. This week's examples are nothing less than that, and hopefully you'll find at least one interesting, if not useful.

Advanced URI Rewriting

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&postid=28429&view=topic

In this example of rewriting a URI we go well past a simple directory change or query rewrite. This example goes a little further into the realm of the possible to show you how to rewrite a UID that is a portion of a complex URI. Thanks to hoolio and the other iRulers that contributed.

when RULE_INIT {
   # Set a couple of test query strings
   #set source {a=123&k=456&uid=toto&h=789}
   #set source {uid=toto&a=123&k=456&h=789}
   set source {a=123&k=456&h=789&uid=toto}
   # Split the string into a list on the delimiter &
   log local0. "\[split \$source\ &]: [split $source &]"
   # Create a new query string
   set new_query_string ""
   # Loop through the list and create an array of parameters and values
   foreach param_value_pair [split $source &] {
      log local0. "\$param_value_pair: $param_value_pair"
      # If the current param value pair starts with uid=, then prepend it to the list of query string parameters
      if {$param_value_pair starts_with "uid="}{
         set new_query_string ${param_value_pair}${new_query_string}
      } else {
         set new_query_string ${new_query_string}&${param_value_pair}
      }
      log local0. "\$new_query_string: $new_query_string"
   }
   set new_query_string hxs=1&${new_query_string}
   log local0. "\$new_query_string: $new_query_string"
}

HTTP to HTTPS redirect on 401

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&postid=28235&view=topic

This iRule is built for a very specific deployment scenario which displays some ... interesting behaviors.  The requirement was to redirect back to the proper HTTPS URL for the site if authorization was required. This is done to ensure that things are secure where they need to be before allowing people to enter auth information.  I know it's not the most straight-forward way of doing things, but this particular deployment didn't have another workaround, so iRules came to the rescue.

when HTTP_REQUEST {
   set host [HTTP::host]
   set uri [HTTP::uri]
}
when HTTP_RESPONSE {
   if {[HTTP::status] == 401]}{
      HTTP::redirect "https://$host/$uri"
   }
}

Multi-Host HTTP Redirection with Switch

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&forumid=5&postid=28200&view=topic

This example is a slightly trimmed version of the one provided (by hoolio, yet again) in the forum post. It shows some great ways to use a single switch to match many different domains or partial domains when doing a redirect based on a host. The individual pieces are all pretty straight-forward, but it's a great example of how to build a single, elegant logic flow rather than a bulkier if/else chain.

when HTTP_REQUEST {
   log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port]: New HTTP request to [HTTP::host][HTTP::uri]"
   switch -glob [string tolower [HTTP::host]] {
      "*newlifepubs.com" {
         log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port]: Matched 1"
         HTTP::redirect "http://www.example.com/nlp"
      }
      "*mpd.example.org" {
         log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port]: Matched 2"
         HTTP::redirect "http://staffweb.example.org/mpd/index.aspx"
      }
      "staff.example.org" {
         HTTP::redirect "http://staffweb.example.org/"
      }
      "*movementseverywhere.example.com" {
         HTTP::redirect "http://www.example.org/"
      }
      default {
         log local0. "[IP::client_addr]:[TCP::client_port]: No match"
         discard
      }
   }
}

There's another 20LoL for your coding pleasure. Hopefully I've been able to fuel your desire to run out and whip up some awesome iRules yourself. Check back next week for more cool code!

#Colin

Google, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, iTunes - They've all been changing the way that the average person goes about their day for a long time now. The thing that sets these monolithic figures in technological history apart from others is that they are not only changing the game for those of us that have long been denizens of the web. Indeed they are making the web and the delicious, bountiful fruits therein accessible to the masses. This is what is allowing them to change the face of the world as we know it.

A prime and quite pointed example of exactly how these giants of the technological industry are helping to shape the course of history is the data that Google released yesterday. In their blog Google gives us information the likes of which wouldn't have been more than a plot point in some science fiction novel not 15 years ago. Google showed us by the minute stats of the most popular search terms that people were using during the VP debates. Being able to present this kind of information in such a granular format over such a broad spectrum of the populous is absolutely astounding.

This shows not only the immense power of Google searches, and their obviously immense ability to track inconceivable amounts of statistical information, but something most assuredly more surprising and impressive. This is an amazing display of just how prevalent and mainstream Google searches have become. The fact that the average American viewing the debates knows how to use Google to search for things is fantastic. What's shocking is that an apparently large portion of that group knows how to use the protocol appropriately, performing what could be characterized as more skilled searches, such as "define:maverick". 

Think about how this has changed things. 15 years ago,  if you weren't informed by the time of the debates, it was too late.  If you hadn't done your duty as a citizen and read, listened and researched to get aware of what was going on and the issues at hand, there was no way to catch up this late in the game, and certainly not real-time while watching the debates occur.

If that's not enough for you, there's another really cool example of technology, in this case Twitter and Current.tv, giving us yet another way to watch the debates while sharing information and opinions. RWW has a great article about the video streaming collaboration that includes a twitter overlay of comments happening real-time during the debate. The example video on the above linked page is pretty cool, and worth a quick view.

What does all of this mean? It means that advanced technology and the world wide web isn't just for us geeks anymore. It means that there are some pretty major forces at play here and that technology is very mainstream, very powerful, and is definitely having an affect on the way people go about their business, especially when it comes to finding/using/gathering/distributing information. I guess that shouldn't come as a surprise. It sounds awfully "Yeah, duh!" when I say it like that, but these examples seemed awfully compelling to me, and I thought I'd share.

#Colin

Listening to: Apocalyptica - Apocalyptica - Betrayal/Forgiveness

Amongst the myriad of tasty bits floating across DevCentral this week brings us a cool iControl Tech Tip from one of our usually prolific bloggers. That doesn't mean she stopped blogging, of course. Much to the contrary, her contributions were welcome as always and added to the array of info at your fingertips. Here to guide you through to some of the meatier morsels I act, as always, as your faithful guide to DevCentral goodness. Here's your Top5 for this week:

WebAccelerator Beta and Toys

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/10/03/webaccelerator-beta-and-toys.aspx

The Concise Guide to Proxies

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/10/02/the-concise-guide-to-proxies.aspx

Lori's at it again with yet another fantastic, informative, organized, well written blog post. I'd say it's annoying how good she is if she weren't contributing so much darn cool stuff to DC for everyone's benefit. This week I couldn't pass up showing off her guide to proxies. Inside she walks through different proxy architectures, describes each, the differences, some common uses and more. She even gives diagrams of each to make sure things don't get too confusing. If you've ever had any confusion around which does what or why you'd use it, or if you're just up for an excellent read, take a look inside.

Automatically adding and removing Java EE applications to pools with iControl

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=274

Lori's contributions to the DC community and knowledge base don't stop with blogs alone. This week she's contributed a cool Tech Tip of the iControl variety. As the title suggests, this article is all about how to automatically deal with your Java EE applications on your BIG-IP. Inside you'll get code that shows the solution at work, as well as a step by step walk-through of what you'll need to do to get things running. She even gives you a link to another article that can show you how to add more flexibility to this introductory automation solution. For those of you looking for cool iControl use cases or interesting things to show off about your BIG-IP, here's a great candidate.

Microsoft Wants to Pay You 25 cents An Hour For Searching With SearchPerks

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/10/01/microsoft-wants-to-pay-you-25-cents-an-hour-for.aspx

Motorola builds an army of Android devs with plans to take over the mobile world

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/09/29/motorola-builds-an-army-of-android-devs-with-plans-to.aspx

There it is, another Top5 for this decidedly fall-esque October Friday. As always I hope it serves you well, and if you've got comments, questions or feedback, please send it my way.

Android, Google's hot new mobile device platform, is the buzz around the mobile world, especially amongst the giants like Motorola and Nokia. They've been looking for a way to crack the iPhone market for a while now, and Android seems to be the pony they're betting on.

TechCrunch has the whole article detailing how Motorola is expanding their current, 50 person Android development team up to a whopping 350 members. This makes sense given the reception that Android as a whole and the new G1 phone as an example of its use have gotten. There may be some things lacking and a little polish to be added, but there's no debating that it's got some serious potential to compete against the current 800-lb gorilla of the mobile PC market - the iPhone.

As much exuberance as I've emitted regarding the G1, I have to say this is even more exciting for me. I've been a long-time Motorola fan. They just seem to "get it" when it comes to mobile phones. They work well, they have the features I want, implemented well, they're reliable, and even good looking most times. The G1 was exciting to me from a raw technologic standpoint. This is that AND a "day-to-day use" excitement. Woohoo!

I guess this means I'll have to look out for info on the new Motorola offerings and see if they are coming out with anything sometime in the near future. If so, I might just have to put off my G1 plans on wait for that. That all depends on ship-dates though, I suppose. Regardless of my personal situation, it sure is cool to see the Android platform taking off so quickly and catching so much well deserved interest from the major players in the market.

A flexible, powerful, well-built mobile platform that's also open and offers a cool, powerful new platform for development can only be a good thing, if you ask me.

#Colin

In this special Monday edition of the DC Top5 I'll recap last week's must see DevCentral hits. Along with the standard fare of cool tech info and insight, we've got another new series to introduce from a new member of the DC blogging family. I also get to share some news that got me pretty excited to hear on a somewhat personal level, though it definitely relates to our industry even if in a somewhat tangential manner. All that and more in this (last?) week's DC Top5:

Protocol of the Week

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/kris/archive/2008/09/26/protocol-of-the-week.aspx

Kris Plunkett is a Software Engineering intern here at F5. He did a good introduction here, in his blog. He came to the DevCentral team asking if he could possibly become part of the blogging family to chronicle his experiences here as well as use it as a platform to speak about the things he's learning. We of course jumped at the chance as he's bright, eager, and has a very unique perspective on things happening here at F5. It's also a fantastic opportunity to get a view into the process of learning and growing the knowledge needed to keep up with our Rockstar Dev team.  Take a read as Kris launches what promises to be a hit series in his blog titled "Protocol of the Week".

Jack Thompson finally disbarred for failing at gaming the gamers

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/09/26/jack-thompson-finally-disbarred-for-failing-at-gaming-the-gamers.aspx

I try not to use the Top5 as a place to spout off about things that interest me personally but aren't relevant to the readers, but this one is close enough that I'm going to call it "tangentially related" to the industry and go with it. Jack Thompson, who I'm sure at least a large chunk of you know of, has been nothing but a nightmare in the form of a bafoon in an incompetent, egotistical lawyer's clothes for as long as I can remember. He's been attacking one group after another, most recently sinking his teeth into the gaming community and industry. You might remember him from his ranting about GTA that got him more press than he deserves. The list of things he's done that are silly, despicable or just plain wrong runs long, but there's a link to the Wikipedia article detailing many of them in the blog post. All of that makes his disbarment the best news I had all last week.

Multi-Core III - a panacea of options

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/09/22/3638.aspx

Don continues on his path to finding the ultimate answer to the multi-core question.  With so many different offerings, each with ways of doing things whose differences range from slight to trans-Atlantic proportions, it's quite a journey to embark on. If anyone's capable, though, it's Don, so I'm glad to see he's still looking at offerings, weighing the differences and providing us with some awesome info about each of them.  Which one is the best will certainly depend on your needs, but this series is a fantastic, condensed source of information whether you're just learning about the multi-core world or looking for your new solution.

iControl Apps - #11 - Global GTM Statistics

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=273

Trading my overzealous verbosity for powerful code nuggets, Joe's iControl Apps series continues to grow and expand as he adds yet another tasty tip to the mix.  Global GTM Statistics will show you how to get inside the head of your GTM to pull out the valuable stats that so many managers and analysts crave. As always Joe includes some handy code (this time in PowerShell, his latest love it would seem) that will get you there from here, or at least most of the way. He even notes some of the handy Utility Functions that are included for conversions.

HttpFox: The FireFox add-on you can't live without

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/26/httpfox-the-firefox-add-on-you-cant-live-without.aspx

The seemingly always active, never sleeping Lori is bringing us a never-ending stream of tips and info about the IT and ADN world. This week I have to point out the handy new tool she introduced to the community, and to me. HttpFox is a great little add-on for FireFox that I saw her chatting about on twitter before it hit the blogs on DC. I grabbed it and in my test-drive found myself quite happy to have given it a shot, and thankful for Lori's tip on giving this one a whirl. If you're looking for a way to grab HTTP info and you're a FF fan, then I highly recommend checking it out. Thanks Lori!

That wraps up five more from the top of my list for last week. Sorry for the delay on getting this out but a sudden family event got sprung on me before I could wrap this one up. Don't worry, I'll be back on Friday with more for you. Never fear, the Top5 will be here. As always, feedback and suggestions are quite welcome.

Thanks,

#Colin

Game over man, game over. Jack Thompson has been a pox upon the gaming community for far too long. From ridiculous allegations to even more absurd trials and suits, he's done nothing but lie and cheat his way into the news with his mindless lashing out towards video games. Finally disbarred, this pup is now officially all bark with no bite, thank goodness.

Being an avid WWdN reader, I had to laugh when I saw this wildly appropriate pic. Jack Thompson, for those of you that don't know, has been going around for years now lashing out against video games, gamers, and the gaming community at large.  He's been saying that we're anti-social, that we're outcasts and misfits, that we're violent and spreading violence and dishonesty and lawlessness via violent video games that teach us to be immoral. He's gotten into tousles with the good folks over at Penny Arcade, tried to decry great events such as their yearly gaming-fest - PAX, and basically been a thorn in the side of the gaming community under the pretense that we're somehow "bad" or "hurtful". He is, of course, wrong.

What's worse than him being wrong is that he's full of nothing but lies. Anyone that's followed him long enough to get any kind of reading on him knows that he's either completely insane, or lying through his teeth to try and make a fanatical point that will

Thank you, America. Thank you for allowing justice to be served, for once. It's good to know that not everyone is out to get us.

What's that noise, you ask? That's 30 million gamers cheering in unison. It's our world, just not everyone realizes it, yet. ;)

#Colin

With all of the buzz about the G1 from Google / T-Mobile in the past 24 hours there have been some great comments and reviews. There have been insightful discussions and interesting banter weighing the pros and cons, the reasoning for the way they've done certain things, features it may lack or contain, etc.  Those are all interesting and useful commentary. This is none of those things.

I promise to do more of that in the future, as I did yesterday, but this was too good to pass up. So, this one's from pretty far in left field, in a sense. I guess in another sense it's exactly germane. After all, you have to admit that a huge amount of network traffic is..well..here, just check out the image. It's almost like a Mac vs. PC add, but oh so much funnier.

Yeah, pretty silly, and perhaps a bit childish, but damn if I didn't laugh out loud when I saw it. This is courtesy of digg, of course. Porn does seem to be one of the major driving forces behind the Internet, though not necessarily of cool new technologies, just making sure that things are always bigger, better and faster.  Sure, we don't talk about it all the time, but it's there and we all know it.

Do I really believe the iPhone is toast? No, of course not. Do I believe that the most interesting thing about the G1 is the possibility for mobile porn? Lawl, no, not at all. But c'mon, that's funny. I just couldn't resist sharing this one. I do think, however, the open marketplace that Android is going to offer will be pretty darn interesting. Apple had a great idea with their marketplace, but keeping it under wraps and not allowing it to be truly open is going to stifle creativity in the long run. That's definitely something we've learned here on DC. Open and honest wins in the end. ;)

So there you go, a silly little funny for your Wednesday.

#Colin

One of the many feeds pouring into my trusty reader is Read Write Web. They're a trusty source of geek and "norm" information alike, floating out on the web and, more importantly, right here on my Ubuntu machine (I know you can't see it, but I'm pointing) where I can read it at my leisure. This kind of news blog isn't new. I read several of them on a daily basis just to try and keep up with what's going on in the world of the web. RWW just happens to be one of my current favorites.

What is new, however, is that RWW has recently announced that the New York times (yes, THAT New York Times) is going to start syndicating some RWW content on the NYT site as part of a big redesign of the tech section.

Wowawoowie! How cool is that, huh? It almost feels like local boys made it big, even though I realize they're not local nor small, but still. It definitely feels like some recognition from the "real" world and a bit of a "Hat Tip", as Joe would put it, to the Tech Community and the geeks out there.

Gotta love that! Extra Extra, read all about it!

#Colin

Well I knew it couldn't be all sunshine and roses. I started poking around looking at more info on the new phone from T-Mobile and Google, the G1, that I was just talking excitedly about an hour or so ago. So far first impressions have been resoundingly positive which is awesome, to say the least. There's always a catch though, isn't there?

Cynical geeks across the globe were heard howling in distaste the second they discovered that the new G1 has opted to not include a standard headphone jack in favor of the proprietary connector they favor. What's that? A media phone with MP3 storage/downloading that you have to buy new headphones or at least an adapter for? Ick.

Check it out over on engadget.

Honestly that's not a showstopper for me, but seems kind of silly. Maybe there's a good reason. You know, aside from increasing profit.

#Colin

Google and T-Mobile have announced the release of the G1, the new smart phone that looks to  be a serious competitor for the iPhone. RWW has a great article that lists some features and links to videos/images of the phone.

This touch screen, full QWERTY phone comes with Gmail, Google's Android OS, a lightweight browser, a full application market available, downloadable songs  from Amazon with a single touch, and more.  It's a pretty impressive offering, if you ask me, and just what I've been waiting for.

I've been looking to replace my Razr for a while now, but the iPhone never really caught my eye. This was largely due to the fact that it is 100% touchscreen, and it only runs on a network I'm not part of. The G1, however, solves both of those problems.

I'll see if I can get on the pre-order list and give you a full review as soon as I get my grubby little paws on it. It looks pretty impressive with fully functional browsing, smooth application flows from one to the next, and an actual keyboard that works for me. Pretty exciting stuff, if you're into the mobile computing thing.

Anywho, thought I'd share so you could take a look for yourself. Look. Discuss. And watch for updates as I'll track this thing to release and beyond. ;)

#Colin

It's been a long month this week. Things have been blurring as they go whizzing by and I'm just trying to keep up. If I'm feeling like there's a lot going on, then that must mean that there's even more than normal going on with DevCentral. Hopefully that's an indication that there's more reason than ever to keep putting out the Top5. I'll doll out my picks from the week that I think are "must see" items amongst the torrential cascade of content that is DevCentral as I always do, and hope that you all agree. That said, here's this week's Top5:

4 things you can do in your code now to make it more scalable later

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/19/3631.aspx

The ever insightful Lori MacVittie takes us through four different things that application architects and developers can do to future-proof the performance and scalability of their applications. These aren't just basic programming tricks, either. These are programming concepts that are custom tailored to make your application run at top performance in a high-availability environment with an intelligent Application Delivery Controller. Take a look as Lori lays these tips out in detail covering not just how, but why each of these will keep your app scaling for many moons. This one's definitely worth a read for anyone looking to get that last bit of performance out of their deployment, or anyone that's about to delve into the world of application design/management in an ADC enabled environment. It's a brave new world, baby.

iControl Apps - #10 - Bigpipe List

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=272

Joe just keeps kicking out the jams. It's hit after hit after hit for this architecting mad scientist. In this week's iControl Apps project, Joe goes into detail discussing the BIG-IP configuration. More specifically he walks through how to get a human readable version of the LTM config via the magic of the iControl API. Using nothing but some PowerShell code, iControl, and the sheer power of his mind, Joe weaves together a nifty little app that will get you just that. It's effectively the equivalent of the "bigpipe list" command, or so he claims. Take a look and judge for yourself.

Virtualized Storage - Cleaning up invisibly

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/09/15/3617.aspx

Read more about Don's impressions from his recent trip with cohort Joe back to Lowell to learn about our Data Solutions offerings. Don seems to think that ARX is filled with win, which is a good thing to you non-geeks out there. Whether it's more because it lets admins live in a stubless world, or because it allows for zero downtime filer maintenance we may never know. What I do know is that both of those are part of the reason, along with more straight-forward things like storage tiering that have got the propeller on Don's beanie spinning. It's great to watch a fellow geek get geeked out over some awesome technology. Get Don's impressions and examples here.

User Roles and Partitions, a tool for administration agility - A View from SAP TechED 2008

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/nojan/archive/2008/09/15/user-roles-and-partitions-a-tool-for-administration-agility.aspx

A relatively new member of the DC blogging family, Nojan Moshiri, delivers a power-packed post about User Partitioning and Roles. This post was sparked by some experiences he had with people asking questions about these topics at this year's TechEd. He discusses at length management and administration of permissions and access as well as discussing F5's take on some of these things. He then goes on to walk through some example steps to setting up partitions and accounts with proper access for multiple user roles. All in all a strong offering and an interesting read.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode #55 - Ear Rest

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/09/18/3629.aspx

I know, I know…I put the Weekly roundup in the Top5 almost every week. Well that's only because it's usually chalk full of really cool stuff! Not to mention the interesting and usually entertaining conversations that go on while we're talking about the varied topics. This week's is especially interesting because it covers two things that are pretty big news in the DC world. One is the Groundswell competition that we're in and, as far as I can tell, currently the Supporting entry to beat. This just tells me that the world is not completely insane, and some things are as they should be. The other is the Data Center migration that DC went through this week. Thanks to a large helping of assistance from our IT crew here in Seattle, we've migrated our site to some shiny new servers in a bigger, better, faster F5 DataCenter. This is part of our plan for WORLD DOMINATION! Err…I mean…for showcasing F5 technology and delivering DC to our users in a continuingly improving fashion. Cool things ahead all, stay tuned!

There's your Top5 for this week. Next week promises to be just as jam-packed, so make sure you're looking for Friday's transmission to recap the good, the better and the great to keep you pointed in the right direction. As always, feedback is more than welcomed.

#Colin