...more recent posts
Sensible business advice from Gus Mueller: How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days. Obvious stuff, I guess, but very well put. I think this would be worth reading for anyone thinking about starting a small business - not just computer programmers.
Business 2.0 looks at YouTube:
Everybody wants to be the Flickr of video. One early contender that is gaining momentum is YouTube. All of the hundreds of thousands of short videos clips on the site are shot and uploaded by users....
YouTube serves up an impressive three million video clips every day, and people are uploading 8,000 clips a day. You can share or blog any video on YouTube. Even some advertisers are getting in on the game. The most viewed video is actually a commercial for Nike that shows a Brazilian soccer star practicing some shots on goal. It's been viewed more than one million times.
Interesting notes from David Weinberger on a talk by del.icio.us creator Joshua Schachter at the Berkman Center.
I've seen the best minds of my generation...
...employed by Google. Python creator Guido van Rossum gets a new job.
Tim Bray points to this interesting language development:
Caucho, the company behind the open source application server Resin and the open Web Services protocols Burlap and Hessian, has recently added PHP to its list of supported features. Apparently, the PHP pages are compiled in the background to byte-code, and the resulting performance is six times that of Apache mod_php!
Damn:
AMCC will showcase HPC storage platforms featuring four 3ware 9550SX 12-port RAID controllers and 48 Hitachi 7K500 500GB SATA II disk drives at the heart of a Pogo Linux StorageWare 548 solution that delivers 24TB of SATA II capacity in a 5U enclosure. The system is powered by Opteron dual core CPUs and will sustain over 1.2GB/s of read bandwidth, demonstrating the industry's most compelling combination of speed, capacity, reliability, and price per gigabyte.Storage capacity is really exploding, at least at the server level. Those 3ware SATA RAID cards are really nice. We're using the last generation 9500 12 port, and the 9550 looks significantly sweeter (although what we have is more than enough for our needs, so this is more like a geek fetish thing I guess.)
I think desktop computers should come with RAID built in. At least RAID 1 so that people's data is a little more protected from drive failure. RAID 1 is probably okay to do in software (where the CPU does the work instead of an external processor on a RAID card like the 3ware.) And anything past the mid range on the desktop should really come with 3 drives in a RAID 5 with a card. But not only is no one doing this, you can't even put 3 drives inside a G5 tower! (Well, not without a 3rd party bracket scheme which is not supported by Apple.) I guess I see what they are doing - "if you need that much storage buy an external Apple RAID" - but I don't agree. Everybody needs RAID (now that drives are so cheap, why not? Is your data not worth anything? $200 extra bucks?) and Apple's external unit, while it is beautiful and also a pretty good deal in terms of $/GB, is just too big and too loud. Not everyone needs 14 drives. But really almost everyone needs 3 drives.
provides transparent synchronization across a set of machines for existing files and directories. A transparent synchronization system makes keeping a set of files consistent across many machines---possibly with differing degrees of connectivity and availability---as simple as possible while requiring minimal effort from the user and maintaining security, robustness to failure, and fast performance....Sourceforge project page.
In the Tsync usage model, the user writes a simple configuration file, similar to /etc/exports, describing which directories should be synchronized, and listing one or more other hosts that are part of the Tsync group (although this list does not have to contain all the hosts in the group). The user runs the Tsync daemon, tsyncd, on each machine in the group. Then when the user creates/modifies/deletes files on one machine, those changes are automatically propagated to all the others. So if the user were to add a bookmark on her machine at the university, it would be reflected on her desktops at home. Even if not all of the computers are connected at the same time (such as if her laptop were powered off), then the next time the disconnected machine regained connectivity, it would automatically learn about the change and update itself.
Michael Robertson, who's last venture MP3.com was sued out of existence, has just launched a new music oriented service called Oboe at MP3tunes.com. I don't have any opinion on how he will execute, but this is an interesting idea. It's pretty close to a number of things I am trying to do (on a much smaller scale) as well.
Here's a Boing Boing post with a long note from Robertson explaining the deal:
You can store all of your own music, making your entire music collection playable from any browser in the world. Plus you can also sync that entire music collection and playlists to multiple computers with a single mouse click. Oboe is the jukebox in the sky that can store all library for safety, playback and move your music to any location for offline playback as well.$39.99 per year. Supposedly unlimited uploads, and 128 Kb/s streaming playback. If he can really pull that off it sounds like a great price to me. I am so curious what someone at that level pays per Mb/sec for bandwidth. Well, okay, I'm not so much curious as jealous.
BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen today announced a deal with the MPAA under which DMCA takedown procedures for infringing content will be "expedited." But don't get too worked up when you read about this. At worst it is meaningless. There is just technically no way for them to stop it - this deal is sort of like securing airlines by prohibiting toe nail clippers. It might make someone somewhere feel a little safer, but it's not actually doing anything to address the underlying issue. I suspect this is another example of the industries (be it Recording or Motion Picture) failing to understand the technology. And perhaps Bram has even pulled off a small coup here, as trading nothing for a little legal cover sounds like a pretty good deal to make.
Tom helped me move the server - ash.datamantic.com - to the data center. I took the old server out, put in the new one, fired it up and everything seemed to be okay. I had put in the new network configuration back at headquarters. But then I tried to SSH into tulip (the current server located in a different data center,) and it wouldn't recognize my password. Weird. ifconfig seemed to indicate that ethernet was up and connected. And getting a response from tulip (even a rejection) further made me believe that things were working. But I couldn't account for the inability to log in.
But luckily (I am learning) I didn't waste tons of time trying to figure out what was wrong. I say luckily because, as I suspected, everything really was fine. I'm back home now I can ssh into ash with no problem. So everything seems to be working. I'll have to try to figure out the weirdness about not being able to get a secure shell going out though, but it's not a big deal at the moment.
So I'm a little behind schedule, but at least it has finally happened.