Colin Walker

DevCentral Top5 10/3/08

Colin Walker — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:10:19 GMT

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

Don jumps into the fray talking about the brand new news in DCLand - WebAccelerator! We've signed up for the WA beta and will be going through that process and sharing it with the community from beginning to end. There should be some very cool content so keep an eye out. In addition to just talking about the beta Don goes into some more detail about some very, very cool new WA features such as signed and encrypted WA policies. That's something that's been talked about off and on for a while and is just too darn cool not to talk about (for Don) or highlight (for me). Take a look and get the scoop yourself. And make sure you keep coming back to DC over the coming months as there will surely be lots more WA talk…and more.

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

Getting paid to perform web searches sounds like a pretty easy gig, if you ask me. That, however, doesn't mean that I want to sell my time for 25 cents an hour, just because it's easy. Take a look to get Joe's comments and perspective on Microsoft's SearchPerks program which is an attempt to get people to use their search engine over….others. Sure, it may be an interesting ploy to gobble up some market share, assuming you can convince people that the long-term commitment to the new search engine is worth it, but Joe breaks down some of the numbers into raw, mathematical terms and, well, it just doesn't pay off in my book. See for yourself inside, as well as taking a look at some of the things MS is offering as rewards.

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

An army of Androids bent on taking over the world?!? Oh no! Before you run for the hills you should really take a look at this blog post in which I talk about the real army that Motorola is putting together. They're upping their development team from around 50, to over 350 members specializing in the newly released Google Mobile platform, Android. Nokia is making a similar investment in warm bodies to produce hot code. This can only mean good things for mobile computing users as the market heats up, making Apple think about how to improve and enhance the iPhone so it doesn't get passed up with this new, open platform. I'm excited to see what these giants can produce with the flexible new OS at their fingertips. I'll keep following Android as new info and products are released, so check back often if you're curious to see what's new.

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.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,Java,WebAccelerator,Android,Proxies,Microsoft,SearchPerks,Colin Walker

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Categories: DC Top5

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

Colin Walker — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:10:34 GMT

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.

Technorati Tags: Android,Motorolla,Nokia,iPhone,Mobile Devices,Colin Walker

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Categories: Development / General IT Goodness , Ramblings

DevCentral Top5 9/29/2008

Colin Walker — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:13:26 GMT

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.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,HttpFox,iControl,Multi-Core,Jack Thompson Disbarred,Protocol of the Week,Colin Walker

Thanks,

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Categories: DC Top5

Jack Thompson finally disbarred for failing at gaming the gamers

Colin Walker — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 16:24:56 GMT

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.

Some days you just start your day off right. Double latte, tasty breakfast sandwich, and the felling of one of the greatest representations of evil and injustice that has ever reared its vile head towards the gaming community. It's going to be a good Friday, methinks. When things start out with this kind of good news, I have hope that they'll just keep getting better and better.

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

get him some publicity and more money. Either way, disbarring him is the best thing that could have been done, and I applaud those in charge.

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. ;)

Technorati Tags: Gaming,Jack Thompson,Jack Thompson Disbarred,Penny Arcade,PAX,Wil Wheaton,WWdN,Colin Walker

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Categories: Ramblings

What did the Google phone say to the iPhone?

Colin Walker — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:59:35 GMT

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.

Technorati Tags: Google,iPhone,G1,T-Mobile,Colin Walker

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Categories: Ramblings

Syndication: Does the New York Times syndicating newsblog sites make blogging mainstream?

Colin Walker — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:49:33 GMT

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!

Technorati Tags: ReadWriteWeb,New York Times,Syndication,HatTip,Colin Walker

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Categories: Ramblings

Google's new media-equipped phone doesn't support headphones. Wait...what?

Colin Walker — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:47:22 GMT

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.

Technorati Tags: Google,T-Mobile,G1,Colin Walker

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Categories: Development / General IT Goodness , Ramblings

Look out iPhone, Google and T-Mobile are the new kids on the block

Colin Walker — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:14:55 GMT

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. ;)

Technorati Tags: Google,T-Mobile,G1,iPhone,Colin Walker

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Categories: Development / General IT Goodness , Ramblings

DevCentral Top5 9/19/2008

Colin Walker — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:21:56 GMT

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.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,TechEd,Virtualized Storage,iControl,Colin Walker

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Categories: DC Top5

DevCentral Top5 9/12/2008

Colin Walker — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:14:18 GMT

This week Don and Joe traveled to Boston while Jeff and I held things down here at DC Headquarters. Those guys were even contributing while on the road…hawesome as they are. There was plenty going on this week on DevCentral including a great announcement, so be sure to check out this week's Top5. Speaking of which, here it is:

Support, Social Technology, and Trust

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/JeffB/archive/2008/09/11/3607.aspx

Probably the most exciting news from the world of DevCentral this week is that we've entered into Forrester's Groundswell competition for social networking sites. Jeff's blog post discussing what that is, why we entered and the road we've traveled getting to a point where this is even possible is a great look at some of the things you might not know about DC. It's also a great form of kudos to the fantastic community members that make DevCentral what it is. Thanks to everyone that's contributed to make this possible, and be sure to take a look on DC to see where you can go to vote for DevCentral! Okay, it's really a "review", but who's counting?

DevCentral Groundswell Success Story

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=268

Don MacVittie helped the team by spearheading the Groundswell effort. As such, he put together a couple of great documents for use in our submission and for giving the community some info about the contest and what it means to be a part of it. This is one of those docs that will talk a little more about what the contest is, in depth, the category we chose to enter in and why. Don does a great job at pointing out some of the things that make DevCentral truly unique, and some of the ways you might not realize you can get more out of the site, both of which are worthy reasons to dive in and give this doc a read.

The impact of the network on … everything

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/11/3606.aspx

Lori's at it again, writing those insightful, interesting posts to her blog that we're glad to have on DevCentral. In this particular post she discusses the days of yesteryear when she was actually allowed near a programming terminal. In the interesting pontification she brings up some very interesting and salient points about current performance concerns, the network affecting applications and why it's critically important to have a firm understanding of what the applications are going to need and be doing before assuming the network is going to be able to properly serve them.

Class ordering in an iRule

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=270

My tech tip offering this week delves into a discussion whose impetus stems from an email thread wherein one of the many bright Development types here at F5 discussed some interesting points about Classes as they're implemented in iRules. It was a reminder to me that not everyone knows this, and it might be quite valuable or at least offer some insight into the nuts and bolts behind the iRules foo we all know and love. I figured it was my duty to get this out to the community at large so…here you go. I hope it does the original discussion justice, and is interesting all at the same time.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode 54 - Stream Scrubbing

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/09/11/3608.aspx

This week we have the whole team on the line for the podcast, albeit from opposite sides of the country this time. The discussion ranged from the relevant to the wacky and back, as it always does when we get to chatting. I think there were some pretty decent comments and insights along the way, though. At the very least there's a summary of what we've been up to, what's been going on behind the scenes in the land of DevCentral, and some great discussion about the Groundswell submission I've already mentioned a couple times above. Check it out, listen up, and let us know what you thought.

Thanks for coming along for this week's Top5 from DevCentral. As always, comments and suggestions are quite welcome, so send in that feedback.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral Top5,Groundswell,iRules,Colin Walker

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Categories: DC Top5

A Groundswell of support...

Colin Walker — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 17:47:37 GMT

If you've listened to the podcast this week, or seen the blogs, or haven't been hiding under a rock, then you've heard that we here at DevCentral have entered our community into Forrester's Groundswell awards. We're very excited to be able to add our hat to the ring, as it were, and it's really thanks to all of you out there in DCLand.

We've entered in the "Supporting" category, and that's really all about how much the awesome community we get to be a part of is out there helping each other every day. The direct quote is "SUPPORTING. Help customers support each other to solve each other's problems." If that isn't DC to a T, then I don't know what is.

I'm blown away every single day as we get more and more new users, more posts to the forums, more wiki updates, and more questions being asked just about everywhere...and yet the community keeps stepping up to the plate, and helping out where needed. There's no way we could do what we do without as much involvement, commitment and as many contributions as you all provide, and that's just hawesome. So from me, and all of us, a great big "Thanks, Dudes!".

To submit for the contest we had to come up with a submission page that showed a lot of what's going on in the community. I have to say I was honestly shocked when we got most of it on one page. Holy cow is there a bunch of stuff happening, all the time! You can check it out here. As you'll see on that page, we could really use your votes to make sure everyone knows what's going on here with DC, and how amazing it is. So...vote now! We really appreciate it.

I don't really know what else to say, to be honest. You guys rock. You let us do what we're doing, and you're excited about it the entire time. Thank you for being such rockstars and making DC what it is. It's pretty amazing when I stop and think about the last few years, and what's happened. Let's keep the train rolling, and turn the people that never thought this "community" thing made sense, especially for F5, on their ears.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,Forrester,Groundswell,Colin Walker

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Categories: DevCentral , Ramblings

DevCentral Top5 9/5/08

Colin Walker — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:58:48 GMT

It's almost the end of summer. Kids are back in school, vacations are wrapping up, and everyone's hunkering down for the fall months. DevCentral is as active as ever, and it's only going to amplify as the team keeps on kicking out the jams. I'm hoping this means the Top5 is even more useful as I walk you through what's been going on this week in DCLand and show you some of the things I think are a "must-see". That said, here's your Top5:

The First VIPRION Review

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/09/03/the-first-viprion-review.aspx

Faster than a speeding bullet and able to handle more traffic than I-5, VIPRION has finally been reviewed, officially. Joe brings us his blog summary of the review as well as the link to the ITPro article where you can read all about it. It's great to see that not only was the review positive, but it included some great sentiment about the future of the ADC and how we're leading the way. Take a look at the full review (link included in Joe's blog post) as it's definitely worth a read.

Google Chrome - Review

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/09/02/google-chrome---review.aspx

Joe's second review of the week is a big one. The much anticipated Google Chrome has had quite a buzz in the IT community this week, and Joe's review has been right there at the top of the Google results garnering over 100 comments from visitors that want to share their feelings about the shiny, new, sleek browser. I'm not a user yet, personally, but Joe has taken it for a spin and shares his thoughts. Probably even more interesting (sorry Joe) is browsing through the slough of comments and seeing the reactions of the masses. It's fantastic to see this kind of turn-out on DC and I had to share. Not to mention a new browser could quite possibly affect the way people use and view web applications.

If Kernighan were a network architect he would say…

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/09/03/3585.aspx

Lori pontificates about network architectures and troubleshooting them, comparing and contrasting those thoughts to software development and the troubleshooting involved with that. This is a good illustration of some of the challenges our customers go through when dealing with their deployments, and is something to keep in mind when trying to think of ways that we can help them get where they're trying to go. It all got started by a great quote from Brian Kernighan - "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." I love it.

Agility or just Change?

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dmacvittie/archive/2008/09/02/3582.aspx

The other half of the Dynamic MacVittie Duo was hardly resting on his laurels this week. My offering to you, from Don, is his awesome look at IT agility or the lack thereof. As he mentions, we've been at it for over 20 years (IT agility, not F5 in particular) and it's interesting to pause and think about how far we've gotten, where we are, and where we're trying to go. Have we progressed? Has it been enough to warrant the time invested? Get Don's take in his Persistently Different blog. I did, and I don't regret it.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode 53 - No Mercy

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/09/04/3591.aspx

Finally, this week, we had the entire team back on the Podcast. I can't recall how long that's been, but it's certainly been too long. For the fifty third episode of the weekly roundup the entire team discusses many things, including our distinct lack of mercy when it comes to dealing with each other. Listen in, as I recommend almost every week, to get a good recap of what's been going on, who's working on what, what to expect in coming weeks, the weather….wait…strike that last one. This week we also announce DevCentral's entry into Forrester's "Groundswell" competition. Listen in and follow the links to learn more about what that is and how you can help us take home the gold!

Thanks for tuning in. If you have any feedback or suggestions I'd love to hear them, as always.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,DevCentral Top5,Google Chrome,Kernighan,Groundswell,Colin Walker

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Categories: DC Top5

Google Chrome reports first major security flaw

Colin Walker — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 20:55:52 GMT

It's Beta software, it was inevitably going to have some bugs. This bug, however, is a little bit embarrassing for the good folks over at Google. RWW has an article that describes a potentially nasty security hole made possible by Chrome, a known Java bug, and an un-patched WebKit.

You can read the whole article here, but the gist of it is that users can be duped with relative ease into executing just about any Java program that an attacker wants. That's bad. Very, very bad, in case you weren't already sure.

"It's Beta software!" you say, "There's no embarrassment there!". I'd generally agree, but RWW goes on to mention the part where this is a known bug with an old version of Apple's WebKit, and could have been avoided had Google used a more recent version as a basis for Chrome.

Yes, it's Beta software, yes, it requires user interaction to execute, but this is still a pretty nasty bug, stemming from an easily avoided, well-known issue. That's bad, last I checked.

This isn't a horrendous issue as I'm sure Google will just update the version they're using before general release, but for the thousands (millions?) of people that are already using Chrome, you might want to be careful what you click on.

Technorati Tags: Google,Google Chrome,Java,WebKit,Colin Walker

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Categories: Ramblings

Caught in the pouring rain

Colin Walker — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:09:03 GMT

I'm pretty sure everyone's heard the old adage, "When it rains, it pours". It's the same pretty much everywhere, it seems. Whether it's your personal life or in the business world, there isn't much of a difference as far as I can tell. This is likely because most things are somehow coupled together to form a chain of events that, given proper analysis from an informed yet detached point of view, would become clear. I.E. The DB's index got corrupted because the third spindle has acted up because the AC is on the fritz and overheating things and even though you've been trying to get that addressed it's not done yet because the maintenance guy's truck overheated on the way to the appointment yesterday thanks to the same heat-wave that's causing your problems...etc.

That doesn't mean it's any easier to deal with any one of these events, let alone the whole lot at once. At the time it seems like there are gremlins everywhere, plotting your slow and torturous demise, or maybe a broken mirror somewhere that you didn't realize you were responsible for. I've had some experience with this many times over, I'm sorry to say. These things all seem to be happening at once and it can get pretty overwhelming. The thing to do, as far as I can tell, is to take things one at a time and prioritize them the best you can. It's important to keep in mind that the universe is not conspiring against you and there is no evil death ray pointed at you from a far off space vessel, bent on the slow yet inevitable destruction of your frail human consciousness by way of aggravation overload. That's just silly...I hope.

Another way to help, as with all things, is to be prepared. This could easily translate to backup hard disks or maybe even entire servers, depending on your scale. This could also equate to putting mechanisms in place that allow you to more easily deal with such situations. I'm not sure I can draw any great examples in a personal setting, but things like a high-availability infrastructure, easily configurable application switching, global disaster recovery strategies, etc. could definitely help prevent some of the stress headaches in the IT world.

Now, if someone would just show me how to implement these same ideals in my personal life, I'd be much appreciative. What, no ADC for the home? But my deck is failing and I want to fail over to the backup! I want to run the laundry machines in active-active so things will stop piling up and I can make some headway, then go back to active-standby with no extra cost. I want to have an ever updating security model that is aware of the attacks going on elsewhere in my area and protects me against them before they can get to me. I want to write some custom code that changes the way my house interfaces with the world so that I don't have to mow the lawn or clean the windows anymore. No? Well, nice to dream, anyway.

Technorati Tags: ADC,Pouring Rain,Death Ray,Colin Walker

#Colin

Categories: Ramblings

DevCentral Top5 8/29/08

Colin Walker — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:43:33 GMT

Goodness it's been a while since we've had a Top5, hasn't it? The past couple months have been insane for vacations/medical leave/paternity leave, etc on the DC team. Hopefully things are settling down now, and we can get back to our normal routine. Regardless, here I am, your faithful guide through the oceans of content on DevCentral, committed to bringing you a weekly sampling of the Top5 coolest new things that showed up on DevCentral. Even with parts of the team out, there's been lots of content, so buckle up, here's your Top5:

Dear Data Center Guy

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/08/29/3572.aspx

Sometimes the things I pick for the Top5 are the most informative pieces I can find. Other times they're the most exciting and interesting because of some new announcement or content. This one is, well, just plain hawesome. Go check out Lori waxing away from the perspective of a lonely, forlorn BIG-IP. Follow this plea to the "Data Center Guy" and find out why it is that there's more than meets the eye to the BIG-IP, and why it's worth investing some more time getting to know yours.

Crack open the books, it's iRule time

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/Joe/archive/2008/08/29/crack-open-the-books-its-irule-time.aspx

Exciting news from the training group! F5's stellar training team now officially offers and is booking iRules training! This is fantastic news. Up until now the aspiring iRuler had to rely only on their wits, their browser, and the ever-faithful DevCentral. Now there's an organized, formal way to get some hands-on, classroom instruction to get your iRuling experience jump started. This is something that's been a long-time request of the DC members, and I'm very, very pleased to be able to share this great news. Make sure you take a look and read the course description for more info.

iControl Apps - #08 - System IP Statistics

http://devcentral.f5.com/Default.aspx?tabid=63&articleType=ArticleView&articleId=264

Check out Joe flexing those iControl muscles yet again in this continuation of the iControl Apps series. In this edition Joe will walk you through how to query yet more fun statistics type stuff (very technical term) from the BIG-IP via iControl. If you ever wondered how to get access to aggregate, IP based statistics in a programmatic fashion, well, then this is the one you've been waiting for. Even if that hasn't been your dream since high school, this post is definitely worth checking out for more firepower to add to your iControl arsenal.

20 Lines or Less #14

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/cwalker/archive/2008/08/29/20-lines-or-less--14.aspx

In our second week back on track with the 20LoL I manage to find still more cool examples of iRules fu that are byte sized at most. In less than 21 lines you can learn how to distribute email to the appropriate pools based on IP address. If that's not enough, we're doing HTTP inspection without HTTP profiles, too. Confusing? It won't be if you click through and take a gander. Good ole' TCP commands to the rescue. Take a peek, send some comments, add a suggestion.

DevCentral Weekly Roundup Episode 52 - The Road to 100

http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/dcpodcast/archive/2008/08/29/3575.aspx

Last, but never least, is this week's DevCentral Roundup. This is a special edition of the podcast this week, because this week we wrapped up our 52^nd chat about DCLand, IT in general, and all sorts of other wacky stuff. With a year's worth of podcasts behind us, it's time to set our sights on 100 and keep on trucking, because there's plenty to talk about every week, that's for sure. This week listen to Don and Joe talk about all sorts of cool iControl applications and twitter and the like, and Colin try to keep up and explain that he's almost caught up from being out for 3+ weeks….honest. The Roundup is always a great way to get a dose of what we've been up to in a short amount of time, without even having to do any of that reading stuff. Have a listen and let us know what you think.

There you have it, your Top5 for this week from DevCentral. It's good to be back, and hopefully you faithful readers out there have been eager for this to get fired back up. If you've got questions or comments please feel free to drop me a line, as always. See you next week.

Technorati Tags: DevCentral,Top5,Colin Walkerer

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Categories: DC Top5 , DevCentral