HD TV
I was excited to hear that Warner Brothers is dropping support for HD-DVD. That seems like whats needed to break the stalemate between the BluRay/HD-DVD cold-war. To date I've not gotten involved, frankly. I watch High Def movies, but thanks to Comcast I can watch HD "OnDemand". Tim Bray was recently asking around about HD setups... I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the matter in a general way because I have unique concerns....
Moving Pictures: Flicks to See
The blogs getting a bit heavy... time to tone down a couple notches. Films are always a good topic... Blade Runner is my all time favorite film. I first saw it when I was like 13 and doing a baby sitting job. (Yes, I did a lot of baby sitting as a kid, I earned enough one summer to pay for SCUBA lessons, gear, the works... sucked living in a family of non-divers, but was fun to get it.) I put the kid down to sleep and had like 2-3 ...
2008: THE FUTURE!
Less than 1 hour to go here in California and 2007 will be done... just enough time to slip in a final blog entry for the year. I'll downshift into light contemplation... Does anyone else feel wierd about it already being 2008? The turn of the centry is a big event and takes a while to get over, I guess, but what really makes things strange is that "2000", even now, is synonymous with "the future". Lots of sci-fi looks to 2000, 2001, ...
The Great Contradiction: Sun, OpenSolaris, and Independance
I thought I'd devote a little time to hashing out some thoughts regarding what I call "the great contradiction", or, more generically put, OpenSolaris independence, in particular, from Sun. The problem is that of co-dependence, real or perceived depending on your point of view. We want to say that OpenSolaris is independent and not "controlled" by Sun. And yet, the vast bulk (we're talking like 99.999%) of all contribution is from within ...
IMHO: Sun & OpenSolaris… 2007 and 2008
Its the end of the year and I feel like some comments about where we are, meaning OpenSolaris, and where we're headed are in order. I'll wrap this post more tightly than I have in the past with the "IMHO" disclaimer given that my opinions are not always reflective of others. So please, interpret the following in that light. 2007 was, for Solaris and to some extent Sun, a year of transition. Looking back, the both Solaris and Sun ...
The Joy of IPMI
Chances are you've heard of the Intelligent Platform Management Interface, or IPMI. And chances are very good that you view it as little more than a way to remotely reboot servers. But IPMI is oh so much more than that... wonders await you, should you just take the time to explore a little. So lets start with the basics and work outwards. Almost any modern server is going to have a Baseboard Management Controller, or BMC for short, on ...
Merry Christmas
Luke Chapter 2 (New King James Translation): 1And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city. 4Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he ...
Make Some Money over the Holiday Break? Sun Prize Money
By now you've probly heard that Sun is giving away US$1,000,000 for open source contributions, being called a contest or awards program. Of that stash, $175,000 is ear marked for OpenSolaris. But whats the skinney? Dig OpenSolaris, want to contribute, and maybe a shot at some of that cash to boot? Check out this video: You can find more details on the Genunix Wiki "OpenSolaris Community Innovation Awards" page. There are plenty ...
Monitoring with Zabbix
With a new site comes new opportunity. When Joyent recently added a new facility I decided to look at new monitoring solutions. We previous were standardized on Sun X4100, Sun T1000's, and Sun X4500's with a network using Force10 and F5. This new site would replace the X4100's with Sun X4150's and Dell 2950's. Having largely avoided Dell in the past I took my time to get to know the system well and knowing that IPMI is far more utilized in ...
Digging Deeper: Systems Management
I've recently been delving deeper into the area of systems management. At Joyent we have a variety of unique problems that I've not faced in the past. For instance, I have a largely non-heterogeneous environment, we have strict controls on what we use and always strive to be as consistent as possible. We also have more machines than I've ever managed before, while I've worked in many very large environments I typically worked on big iron ...