DTrace, MySQL, Ganglia, and Digging for Solutions
I solved a problem today that I think others might find interesting and helpful, both in process and solution. I've posted it in the Joyent company blog: Joyeur: DTrace, MySQL, Ganglia, and Digging for Solutions. Check it out.
MySQL & DTrace: MySQL Users Conf Session
I presented my "MySQL & DTrace" talk at the MySQL Users Conf this morning. The presentation is more terse than I wanted because of the 45 minute per session slots. The presentation is focused on a quick primer on DTrace, followed by examples of tracing MySQL using the PID provider rather than waiting for static probes, as well as some notes about static probes and the current status on integration. Download the PDF slides here. Keep ...
Starbucks New Logo.. only Temporary
If you go get a cup of coffee at Starbucks you'll get it in this cup: Its actually worse than the NetApp logo! Just horrible. But fear not, its only promotional. Apparently the idea is to go with something different for a short time to grab attention from people who are so used to the Starbucks logo that they mentally ignore it. Whats with the continued rash of horrible logos?
Feedback Request: Expereiences with Hg
In general I like the idea of distributed SCMs... but I've found that actually most of the time I use an SCM as much to distribute and archive as I do to actually do revision control. Over the last year or so I've really tried to become a big Hg fan, and honestly, its just one disappointment after another. For small local things its great, diffs are easy to create, etc. But pushing or pulling repositories takes an eternity, which is ...
DTrace & the PID Provider: Feel the power
Every time a new application integrates static DTrace probes there is much rejoicing... and I'm glad for that, but I'm afraid a lot of people think that DTrace isn't useful in userland without probes being baked into the code. This couldn't be further from the truth, in fact, putting static probes in your code is, 90% of the time, just a convenience. If you don't believe me, try this script on any application you like: #!/usr/sb...
Solaris Evangelists: LUGRadio SF This Weekend
This is a call for all Solaris Evangelists in the SF Bay Area... LUGradio SF is happening this weekend at the Metreon. Sun/OpenSolaris will have a booth there, put together by the amazing Jesse Silver. I had planned to help man the booth on Saturday but other plans came up and I am forced to withdraw. If your an evangelist who wants to meet kool people and share the news about OpenSolaris I'd encourage you to go to the OpenSolaris Advocacy ...
Songbird on Solaris!
Who's the man? Alfred Peng's the man. He has released a Solaris/X86 binary build of Songbird 0.5! I downloaded it to my snv_85 box (BFU'ed from snv_75 install), untar'ed and started up absolutely fine and is very quick. I'm currently listening to my NIN Ghosts I-IV FLAC's. I'll be honest with you.. I installed Songbird on my Mac simply for listening to FLAC's... but its really really hard to compete with iTunes, not just because ...
Learning about Solaris FMAC (That NSA Thingie)
You probly heard a couple weeks ago that Sun has initiated a new OpenSolaris Project to integrate Flexible Mandatory Access Control (FMAC) into *Solaris which is being jointly developed by the NSA. John Weeks from Sun gave a talk last month at the Silicon Valley OpenSolaris Users Group and video is now available on the SVOSUG Home Page. If your thinking RBAC, don't... think Trusted Solaris instead and your on a closer track. This will ...
Being Evil with DTrace
You gotta see the video in this article: RE:trace framework aids in OS X, Unix flaw discovery. My favorite line is "I like to think of it as a friendly programmable rootkit". Its hilarious because we commonly think of DTrace as a force for good, even if it means looking at things you maybe shouldn't.... in this video the exact opposite is true, its just hilarious. I'm sure Bryan, Mike, Adam and the boys got a good chuckle out of it. :)
April Fools ’08 Flops
Every morning I start the day by sitting down at my laptop with a cup of coffee and going through the normal news feeds, among them slashdot. There are far too many mornings when I have to quickly check the date because of some news story beyond belief, either our of stupidity or excess... but surprisingly, April 1st 2008 was not one of those days. All the stories around yesterday were either boring or non-obvious. A good April Fools joke ...