Fred's Random Thoughts Frederic Jean's Weblog

A Good Thing Gets Better

I upgraded my Linksys routers to the latest Sveasoft Alchemy pre5.3 firmware. WDS works great, WEP is now configured correctly, and QoS is doing a great job.

The only glitch was a problem with my Motorola ATA (used to connect to Vonage). The Vonage technical support people simply upgraded the firmware on the ATA, and it simply started to work.

Thank you very much Sveasoft developers for all the work you are doing!

-- Fred

Coralizing Content

I'm a geek. I admit it freely and proudly. I even used to have all the t-shirts.

I also run my own e-mail and web server at home? Why? Mostly because I want to be able to control my mail, filter it as I want it. I also want the ability to serve my own content from home.

The problem here is that I only have a tiny upstream pipe. As a result, it's easy to go ahead and clog it with people looking at my picture gallery. I would rather be able to use it to be able to send e-mails out or to work from home.

A way to reduce the amount of information going through my small upload pipe would be to cache it. Well, I don't have infrastructure on the other side of the pipe, and there's no way that I can afford to pay Akamai to act as my cache.

Well, there's an open and free Content Distribution Network (CDN) out there called Coral. This is essentially a vastly distributed cache system that doesn't require the installation of any software or configuration of any proxy servers to be used. I gave it a try by "coralizing" my picture gallery. What a difference it makes! Pictures show up so much faster!

Maybe I'll be able to reclaim my broaband connection now.

-- Fred

PS: Yes, I know that there are hundreds of options for picture galleries, web based emails and other services out there. I wanted to do it myself though and get just a bit of experience in the process. What can I say. I'm a geek!

New Project

It's been a rough few months. My organization has been in the throes of a re-org for the better part of it, projects have been ranked, and people are being moved around.

As a result of this activity, I am being transferred to a new (to me) project. I'll start to work on the system that it used by the Sun engineers to submit knowledge articles and other items that eventually will make their way to Sunsolve. I am in the process of getting started with the new project. It's quite something as I get signed on different aliases, rework my calendar to fit new meetings, meet other engineers and look at technology that I haven't had the chance to work on yet. It is quite an exciting thing. I'll have to familiarize myself with new methodologies, different way of working.

It doesn't mean that my previous project is going away though. There's some work left on my part to help migrate it out of my organization and into either IT or Sun Services (or both). Some documentation, TOIs, a few more CR entries to work on. That project is still moving forward and making its way through SQA right now. It is a good thing. It would have been quite a shame to see years of effort just go down the drain.

So stay tuned. That could give me quite a few articles to post on.

-- Fred

Pragmatic Programmer Bookshelf

I have started to read these books already. They are excellent! I have already finished reading the Pragmatic Version Control with CVS, and I have started the Pragmatic Unit Testing with JUnit book. I am looking forward to read the last one, which is Pragmatic Project Automation. The books are down to earth and very practical. They walk the developer from the basics of each subject to more complex subjects. I have used CVS for a couple years now, and I still managed to learn some more through this book. Have a look at http://pragmaticprogrammer.com/bookshelf/index.html for more information on the series. I strongly recommend these books. -- Fred