tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3377487185343992432024-03-14T05:01:55.314+11:00TobytesMy observations of the world.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.comBlogger142125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-20386037101191634262017-02-25T14:46:00.001+11:002017-02-25T14:46:08.976+11:00Awesome Shopify Cheat SheetMark Dunkley has created a great Shopify Liquid quick reference guide. Check it out <a href="http://cheat.markdunkley.com/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Good LuckToby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-8367132067408284812017-02-24T14:01:00.001+11:002017-02-24T14:01:21.185+11:00Shopify Liquid Tips: The "No Layout" Option to create a customer layout<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">Use <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b>{% layout none %}</b></span> on a template for a page to build a new one from scratch. Useful for creating landing pages with alternative layouts or XML/RSS feeds with customised fields.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">{% layout none %}</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">... content ...</span></div>
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Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-36316998084348748652013-12-19T12:16:00.003+11:002013-12-19T12:16:55.522+11:00Cool WebRTC use case - PeerCDN I hadn't heard of PeerCDN prior to reading about the acquisition on <a href="http://disruptivewireless.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/webrtc-datachannel-yahoo-acquires.html" target="_blank">Disruptive Wireless</a> and the <a href="http://stcblog.com/2013/12/18/peercdn-acquired-by-yahoo/" target="_blank">STC blog</a>, however I have to say I think the use case is pretty cool. Essentially they want to leverage WebRTC to augment existing content delivery methodologies by leveraging peer to peer connections as well as the more traditional star type distribution methods.<div>
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To me that demonstrates the power of WebRTC and the fact that there are so many business models and product ideas out there that no one has even thought of yet.</div>
Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-75813596848264321892013-12-12T14:59:00.002+11:002013-12-12T14:59:23.826+11:00Maybe I'm wrong....<a href="http://telcos%27%20digital%20services/OTT%20businesses%20make%20Net%20Neutrality%20more%20important%20than%20ever" target="_blank">Telcos' digital services/OTT businesses make Net Neutrality more important than ever</a>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-75324832830949827322013-10-25T15:55:00.002+11:002013-10-25T15:55:30.053+11:00VoLTE and Net NeutralityExisting mobile voice technologies on 2G and 3G networks are considered "circuit switched" that is when you make a call a dedicated "circuit" is setup between the two handsets or out of the mobile network. In the new paradigm on 4G or LTE networks all voice calls will instead use "packet switched" technology, that is there will be no dedicated channel established. Instead voice is simply processed as another type of data carried over IP. In order to guarantee the quality of the call, there is a negotiation before the call is established on the network, and the packets are given differential treatment. This in effect emulates the qualities of a "circuit" so that the calling experience is good.<br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality" target="_blank">Net Neutrality</a> is the idea that all traffic should be treated equally by the network with no preferential treatment. Thus under strict interpretation VoLTE calls violate the ideals of net neutrality. This violation is necessary due to real time characteristics of voice traffic. A 500 ms delay when loading a webpage or checking your Facebook or Twitter feeds doesn't really impact the user experience. This is not the same for a voice call, a half second delay seriously impacts the quality and variable delay or jitter has an even more severe impact. VoLTE has not really been discussed deeply in relation to neutrality, most likely this is because of the existing voice status quo on mobile networks.<br />
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Thus there are several implications of the above on mobile networks.<br />
1. Not all data can or should be treated equally by networks.<br />
2. An LTE network needs the facilities to negotiate differential packet treatment on a per session basis. That is a policy enforcement and control infrastructure.<br />
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Therefore in order to maintain a semblance of neutrality in the network carriers should be required to expose network policies controls to third parties and allow them to negotiate differential treatment. Rather than a burden or impediment to the role out of VoLTE this should be seen as an additional monetisation strategy for carriers. In effect exposing these policies allows the carrier to provide a "smart" pipe. A naive view would simply allow third parties to leverage this for differential voice processing, e.g. a FaceTime or Skype call could have the same network transit guarantee as a "traditional" mobile call. Of course you may have to pay for the privileged negating some of the benefits of these over the top services. On the other hand a more enlightened view would be that these policy controls etc. should be extended to other real time session based services such as video and data streaming services. For that matter is there any reason that it couldn't be extended to all data types.<br />
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Furthermore, there is no need that the policies only be applied for service and revenue uplift. Could that not also be used for selective service degradation. Mobile application ready for an update? Why not set it as a low priority background download, pausing for high priority services and being charged at a lower rate. Of course, such an offering would clearly violate net neutrality, but it is a model that people are used to in the form of off peak electricity charges.<br />
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This then means that the mobile carrier is no longer providing a dump bit pipe and a voice channel, but rather they are providing a smarter pipe. Thus the carriers have the potential to generate additional revenues, while also delivering a better end user experience. A large part of the infrastructure required to deliver such services is already being put in place to support the roll out of VoLTE, however additional thought needs to be paid to real time network policy control, billing and user notification and control. Obviously, there would also need to be an investment in user education.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-34339061238357500442013-10-21T16:40:00.000+11:002013-10-21T16:40:02.007+11:00WebRTC Codecs and TranscodingIt now seems that Opus and VP8/9 have been chosen as the codecs of choice for WebRTC. Inevitably when there is a debate about voice or video codecs there is also a debate about trans-coding and support for the chosen codecs. My basic view on this is if there is a need to trans-code then, then there is a fundamental flaw in the system design. Unfortunately, it is not practical or easy to eliminate trans-coding and it is an evil that will remain in our lives. However the need for it can be greatly reduced. In particular if the codecs are good (i.e. wideband for audio with good performance under adverse network conditions) then endpoint vendors will start to support them. This is why we have seen vendors implement support for Microsoft's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTAudio" target="_blank">Real Time Audio</a> (RTA) codec.<br />
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This is why I was happy to read the latest post from <a href="http://bloggeek.me/audiocodes-opus-transcoding/" target="_blank">Bloggeek on the Opus trans-coding challenge</a> talking about how Audiocodes is adding Opus support. I expect that we will also see similar announcements from Polycom and other endpoint vendors over the short term. The sooner the eco-system gets updated to support Opus end to end the better off we will be.<br />
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Of course, it would be nice to see alignment between VoLTE codecs and WebRTC however I don't think that will happen any time soon meaning that we will need AMR to Opus trans-coding resources.<br />
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P.S. I know I haven't posted in a long time, I am planning to get more regular posts happening, however I make no promises.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-80243376353514480902012-08-11T13:36:00.002+10:002012-08-11T13:37:40.270+10:00Virgin and Children travelling alone: Not bad policy, bad implementationSo if you're an Australian reader you would have heard the controversy recently when a male passenger was asked to move so that he wasn't sitting next to a pair unaccompanied minors. There are heaps of <a href="http://news.google.com.au/news/story?q=virgin+australia&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsu&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&biw=1370&bih=928&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dApMV4Fj0mbPWNMsiLt2o-C6WY5HM&sa=X&ei=dNAlULivH7HimAWlo4CwDQ&ved=0CC4QqgIwAA" target="_blank">stories floating around in the media about it at the moment</a> and it's even made <a href="http://news.google.com.au/news/story?q=virgin+australia&hl=en&safe=off&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvnsu&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&biw=1370&bih=928&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dApMV4Fj0mbPWNMsiLt2o-C6WY5HM&sa=X&ei=dNAlULivH7HimAWlo4CwDQ&ved=0CC4QqgIwAA" target="_blank">headlines in the US.</a> So basically they have a policy that unaccompanied minors shouldn't be seated next to males, with preferences given to having an empty seat next to them, then to have a woman. Now, for sure it is stereotyping males, but as with many such rules like this it is based on statistics. This is the same reason the Red Cross asks so many questions and eliminates people that have travelled to the UK etc. You'll probably find that the reason Qantas won't comment is that they also have the same policy.<br />
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Now, whether you disagree with the policy or not we can (probably) all agree that it was handled a little badly. This policy should be one of those silently enacted policies. That way minors are protected and no one becomes offended. By this I mean that better management of the seating arrangements tied into the booking system would mean that the policy could be enforced but it not be obvious to any passengers. I believe that the system already records when you make a booking that it will be an unaccompanied minor, so that part is covered. The next part is the seating arrangements. If it hasn't been arranged prior to boarding then simply issue them a new ticket. As every frequent flyer will tell you getting a last minute seating change is not uncommon. In this case, a last minute change for "operational reasons" to the gentleman's seating probably wouldn't have raised an objection. If you need move them to an exit row or something so it seems like an "upgrade". Ideally this would of course occur much earlier, say before the person even tried to select a seat, by marking the seats as unavailable on the booking system.</div>
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So my view is, good policy, bad implementation.</div>
Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-73957912805194487562012-08-10T10:46:00.000+10:002012-08-10T10:46:29.160+10:00iOS 6 Wifi Plus CellularSo apparently Apple as introduced a <a href="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/08/09/apples_wi_fi_plus_cellular_option_in_ios_6_to_keep_apps_syncing_when_wifi_networks_choke.html" target="_blank">"Wifi plus Cellular"</a> option for data in iOS 6. The idea is that data can be sourced primarily via Wifi but if Wifi is spotty it can be backed up by using the cellular connection as well. While this idea sounds great I am not sure how well it will work in practice. Firstly, how many applications are designed to take advantage of such redundant connections resolving to different IP addresses and the like. Unless the switch over is transparent and instantaneous, more time may be lost with flipping and application recovery than is gained by the dual channel feature. Ideally I'd like to see the feature go further and say bind specific applications to either Cellular only, Wifi only or both. Consider the situation where you are using your phone for work, you'd like your work emails to come through immediately but you're probably not too concerned if Facebook updates slowly in the background. Secondly it will be interesting to see how the carriers respond to this, there are lots of efforts underway to push users off the RAN and onto Wifi, this setting will ensure that a user on Wifi still consumes cellular resources beyond those required for voice termination. This is particularly a factor in networks where voice is still circuit switched but data is packet switched.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-87536879681228621482012-05-22T12:31:00.002+10:002012-05-22T12:31:58.392+10:00Syncing any existing folder to Dropbox/Google Drive/Sky DriveI am a big fan of cloud storage. I've used <a href="http://db.tt/eDiV5kf4" target="_blank">Dropbox</a> for documents and <a href="http://www.sugarsync.com/" target="_blank">Sugasync</a> for work for quite a while. They are both great but with the recent addition to the family I decided it was about time to start backing up my photos in the cloud as well. I've currently got somewhere between 25 and 30 Gb of photos on my computers and this exceeds the free storage limit for <a href="http://db.tt/eDiV5kf4" target="_blank">Dropbox</a>, even if I do maximise my referrals (<a href="http://db.tt/eDiV5kf4" target="_blank">click here</a> to sign up and earn me more space please :) ). Thankfully I managed to dredge up my (poorly named) Hotmail address from the dark ages (I think I signed up in '97!) and score a 25 Gb <a href="https://skydrive.live.com/" target="_blank">Skydrive</a> account I am not sure if the <a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?q=25+Gb+skydrive" target="_blank">offer still exists</a> but you get 7 Gb just for <a href="https://skydrive.live.com/" target="_blank">signing up</a>). Unfortunately this still wasn't quite enough space for all my photos so I had to sign up for Google Drive as well to get enough storage overall.<br />
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The downside of these tools (except I might add SugaSync) is that they create a folder on the drive and everything in there is synchronised into the cloud. This is great as it is quite simple, but it is a pain if you want to maintain an existing folder structure, such as the storage hierarchy for all my photos. On *nix you'd simply create a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link" target="_blank">symlink</a> or two in the newly created folder pointing to the existing folders you want to mirror and be done with it. Unfortunately it is not that simple in Windows world, NTFS (the file system used by newer versions of Windows) does support the idea of Symbolic links through something they call junctions, but it is not available by default. Fortunately, there a a few programs out there that can be used. After a bit of poking around I found a few different programs and ways to go about it. Starting from this <a href="http://janhannemann.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/sync-any-folder-to-skydrive/" target="_blank">blog post</a> which has a good description of the nitty gritty, I also found this <a href="http://superuser.com/questions/117127/using-symbolic-link-in-windows-xp" target="_blank">question on SuperUser</a> to be helpful. In the end I installed <a href="http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html" target="_blank">Link Shell Extension</a> which adds handy options in the contextual menu and works in both XP (where I tested it) and Windows 7 environments.<br />
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Once it is installed you need to pick your source folder right click on it and select "Pick Link Source" then you navigate to your SkyDrive/Google Drive/Dropbox folder and select "Drop As.." then "Hardlink clone" if you are dropping a single file then "Junction" should work. "Hardlink Clone" ensures that all the underlying folders and files are linked as well.<br />
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Now I am slowly uploading the files to their various destinations and maintaining my file structure at the same time!Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-77020556121312216402012-04-26T18:00:00.000+10:002012-04-27T07:51:12.643+10:00Telco's starting to charge extra for VoIP traffic<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeliaSonera" target="_blank">TeliaSonera</a> has declared that it will start charging users higher rates for VoIP traffic <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2012/04/23/teliasonera-to-charge-for-skype-and-other-voip-services/" target="_blank">according to the WSJ</a>. AFAIK this makes them the first ISP to do this. Now, <a href="http://www.tobytes.com/2012/02/priority-data-access-one-smart-pipe.html" target="_blank">I've said it before</a> that I would really like to see ISPs start to introduce quality of service management for different traffic classes on their network. This will be an integral part of the NBN, but it is not seen in many residential offerings and I have yet to see it anywhere in mobile networks. Now, if TeliaSonera started to differentiate the voice traffic AND used packet marking and adjusted queues on routers etc. to optimise the call flows then they could possibly justify charging extra. However, it is hard to justify charging extra without some sort of service differentiation. In order for people to accept the charges you need to give them a carrot, otherwise you're just beating them with a stick and pissing them off in the process.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-85287279326477627052012-04-24T08:00:00.000+10:002012-04-24T10:28:26.174+10:00What Telstra should do with its NBN cash stash!Telstra is expected to have around $9 billion in 'spare' cash over the next 3 years thanks to the NBN and its retirement of the copper infrastructure. This amount of money provides an unprecedented opportunity for an Australian company to invest in research and development for new products and services. <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/telstra-makes-plans-for-spare-nbn-cash-20120422-1xew7.html" target="_blank">An article</a> in <a href="http://theage.com.au/" target="_blank">the Age</a> today mentions that they have nominated cloud computing, media asset management and expansion into Asia as potential growth areas.<br />
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Isn't this kind of boring? I mean they are already focussed on cloud computing and they have been trying to expand into Asia for quite a while, so neither of these is exciting. Media asset management has the potential for some excitement, but it is so vague it is hard to say exactly what they are referring to. I think that they are referring to managing their pay TV services and perhaps provided a better offering via the <a href="http://www.telstra.com.au/tv/tbox/" target="_blank">T-Box</a>. None of these are particularly new or exciting developments, just incremental additions or logical extensions of work they are already doing.<br />
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Now, given the large some of cash that they have there is a potential for Telstra to take some risks and perhaps introduce some innovative products. I've got a few ideas, but to be honest I think that these may not be out of the box enough.<br />
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<li>Multiple number services on one mobile handset. There are lots of business people out there forced to carry two handsets regularly, one for personal use and one for business. This just seems silly to me. Now, technically this shouldn't be too hard to implement, however to make the service really compelling the user interaction probably needs some interaction. Think about this, you have a personal and business number, when you add contacts you can select which number they ring on the phone and which number rings them when you ring out. Different ring tones and profiles are assigned to the numbers and can be changed individually. Schedules could be added so that say work calls automatically only use silent alerting outside of business hours. They could be tied to your Out of Office settings so that if out of office is set then business calls go straight to voice mail. I've raised this before and the main objection was that the carrier would lose business on this model. To me however this is probably not the case. Firstly you can charge for this service. Secondly most people with two phones have the secondary phone on a low cost carrier and not Telstra. Thirdly reducing the number of handsets reduces network and radio congestion. Finally, you can win customers over from the other networks based on the extra service.</li>
<li>Video enable the entire Telstra network. Add a camera to the T-box and Foxtel offerings and allow people to call from their mobiles to home TVs. This would be great for business travellers that wants to call home and see their family. These people probably currently use Skype, but a clean user experience and not thinking that you can charge an arm and a leg for it, will get people using it. Also, all the Telstra connected businesses should be able to call each other via video. Also, don't forget that with the NBN coming every home phone could now easily be a video phone.</li>
<li>Add service mapping to the smart phone apps. This is a simple addition and mainly to do with improving both customer feedback. Essentially what I am talking about is something as simple as a button on their application to allow instant reporting of service problems, such as the recently reported <a href="http://delimiter.com.au/2012/03/15/telstras-3g-network-is-dying-in-cbds/" target="_blank">CBD 3G congestion issues</a>. <i>Of course such an app would require that Telstra <a href="http://delimiter.com.au/2012/03/22/telstra-downplays-3g-cbd-issue/" target="_blank">actually admits</a> that there is an issue. </i>As an extra which gives the user improved feedback is that after a submission is made the user could get feedback on planned network upgrades in the area.</li>
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I am sure if I brainstorm long enough I can come up with plenty more ideas and perhaps Telstra is quietly working on these in the background, however I am not so sure. Lack of updates around network upgrades and the like just shows that they are still too arrogant for their own good.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-73001235816406137962012-03-28T18:00:00.000+11:002012-03-28T18:00:00.663+11:00Performing NAPTR queries on WindowsWhile testing out my PowerDNS setup, which I <a href="http://www.tobytes.com/2012/03/setting-up-powerdns-for-enum.html" target="_blank">blogged about yesterday</a> I discovered that nslookup can not perform NAPTR queries.I poked around for a while to see what I was doing wrong, however it seems that even though Windows Server supports supplying NAPTR responses to DNS nslookup can not perform this query. (Yeah this seems odd to me as well.)<br />
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Thankfully I found <a href="http://members.shaw.ca/nicholas.fong/dig/" target="_blank">this</a> easy to use port of <a href="http://members.shaw.ca/nicholas.fong/dig/dig-man.html" target="_blank">dig</a> for Windows and within 30 seconds of downloading it I was performing successful NAPTR queries from my windows box. It is worth grabbing if you need anything beyond simple DNS queries on your windows box.</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-17244979130732174722012-03-27T08:59:00.002+11:002012-03-27T09:06:47.877+11:00Setting up PowerDNS for ENUMI have a few installations coming up that are going to be using <a href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3761.txt" target="_blank">ENUM</a> for call routing. ENUM is a form of DNS that allows mapping of telephone numbers to URIs. While I understand the idea behind ENUM and how it works in a basic sense I wanted to get some hands on experience. So with that in mind I decided to set-up <a href="http://www.powerdns.com/content/home-powerdns.html" target="_blank">PowerDNS</a>. I built mine within a VM running Cent OS but it can easily run on any version of *nix.<br />
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There are heaps of guides out there on how to set it up and I ended up using a combination including <a href="http://www.howtoforge.com/installing-powerdns-with-mysql-backend-and-poweradmin-on-centos-5.2" target="_blank">this one.</a> Now, I didn't end up installing <a href="https://www.poweradmin.org/trac/" target="_blank">PowerAdmin</a> as really it seemed like overkill in my case so I just stopped at step 3. Now all that is left is to add ENUM records into the database. These are simply standard NAPTR records with the correct format for ENUM which is specified in <a href="https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2916.txt" target="_blank">RFC 2916</a>. I followed the instructions <a href="http://arielmonaco.com/articles/2009/10/27/e-164-enum-naptr" target="_blank">here</a>, mainly because SQL is something that I can never seem to remember after a few days. </div>
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Obviously I wanted to check that I had everything set-up by performing some queries. In my case local queries worked fine but I had some troubles with remote queries, I was getting no response. Stopping iptables sorted this out for me, obviously in a more permanent machine you would want to open up the firewall not remove it completely. Finally, while nslookup worked great for normal DNS queries it couldn't perform NAPTR queries so I had to turn to a windows port of dig, which can be found <a href="http://members.shaw.ca/nicholas.fong/dig/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-78883734274620139042012-03-21T17:29:00.001+11:002012-03-21T17:30:20.591+11:00Wifi RoamingSome of you may have read my post a week or so ago entitled <a href="http://www.tobytes.com/2012/03/wifi-is-too-fiddly.html" target="_blank">Wifi is too Fiddly</a>. Well, according to this <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/20/gsma-and-wba-wifi-roaming-framework-for-cellp/" target="_blank">press release on Engadget</a> it seems that the <a href="http://www.gsma.com/home/" target="_blank">GSMA</a> and <a href="http://www.wballiance.com/" target="_blank">WBA</a> agree with me. It is nice to feel vindicated.<br />
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Essentially they are proposing that SIM based authentication could be utilised to connect to WiFi access points. Thus your mobile service provider could setup some access points in areas where there is very high data usage and shift users onto this, thus freeing up the radio network for voice traffic and users outside the wireless range. Areas like airports and train stations immediately spring to mind for this type of hand off.</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-70664385311816658692012-03-20T09:10:00.000+11:002012-03-20T09:10:12.136+11:00No battery backup of NBN data connectionI'm not sure if everyone out there is following the National Broadband Network (NBN) as closely as I am, so I thought I should point out one small snippet that I know a lot of people are missing. In fact, it was only recently confirmed for me when reading the <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/spitfire-fighters-midget-subs-and-your-copper-phone-line.html" target="_blank">NBN blog yesterday</a>.<div>
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The UNI-D port will not have battery backup.</div>
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This means of course during a power outage you'll lose your internet connection. If you do opt for the battery backup option it will only back up voice services connected via the UNI-V port (up to 5 hours of talk time is the stated backup). Now, initially this struck me as quite a silly option, however on second thoughts it does make some sense. I can't imagine too many people will be connecting to the NBN with an ethernet cable and a laptop. Most will use some form of router, most likely with wireless. This of course would also require some form of battery backup. So really if people want to ensure their internet connection (and any voice services delivered over the UNI-D port) they'll need a UPS providing backup to the NBN CPE and their router.</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-18316198860302000272012-03-03T02:00:00.000+11:002012-03-03T02:00:04.673+11:00Wifi is too fiddly...I have to travel a fair bit for work and hence waste a bit of time connecting to various wireless networks hotels, offices etc.<br />
<br />
If everything goes smoothly then typically the steps are something like this:<br />
<ol>
<li>What's the name of the wireless network?</li>
<li>The password is "ASDAHSDknaksdnaskjdnSAdasdasdaslkdj" great thanks.</li>
<li>Re type password.</li>
<li>Re type password</li>
<li>Re type password</li>
<li>Connect to wireless.</li>
<li>Wait 30 seconds for IP address to be assigned and to get actual internet connection.</li>
</ol>
<div>
More typically in hotels etc you have no security and a web landing page that you have to answer some questions on, so it goes something like this.</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Find wireless network "AwesomeHotelWifi" "Free Airport Wifi"</li>
<li>Open browser and try to go to random page (better not be a https page though).</li>
<li>Repeat for ~45 seconds until login page appears. (Or alternatively when you have opened your browser all of your saved tabs have reloaded and gone to the network landing page that doesn't have working redirect after logging in.)</li>
<li>Enter details</li>
<li>View cheesy ad/sign life away</li>
<li>Get disconnected after ten minutes for no apparent reason.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<br />
A recent post on <a href="http://www.buddeblog.com.au/frompaulsdesk/watch-out-for-the-next-wifi-wave/" target="_blank">BuddeBlog</a> got me thinking that there has to be a better way of connecting to wifi networks that would make them more widely used, trusted and less frustrating. The main idea is a better way of communicating the connection information or rather a method that allows most of the above steps to be automated.<br />
<br />
I've seen a couple of applications, like <a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.proj.wifijoiner" target="_blank">Wifi Joiner</a>, that have basically nailed the connecting to private network problem.
<a href="https://market.android.com/details?id=com.proj.wifijoiner" target="_blank">Wifi Joiner</a> lets you create QR codes with network connection information and then others to scan it to connect, no need to enter pesky passwords. While this is a great idea I think to be successful we need to see it expanded initially to other smart phones (I'm looking at you here Apple) and secondly into desktops via a little config utility. In addition, beyond just carrying the bare bones network information it could also contain account details etc so that your login can be personalise and automated. Obviously you would need to have the data on the laptop initially for it to be useful but consider this.<br />
<ol>
<li>You book at a new hotel overseas that has internet over wifi.</li>
<li>Hotel sends a confirmation email containing a config file/text string that contains all the information needed to connect to the network.</li>
<li>You check in, sit down in your room open your laptop and run the network utility.</li>
<li>It connects to the correct network, logs into the access control system and connects you to the internet in one step.</li>
</ol>
I would also like to see more advanced routing in mobile phones, so that I can go to a dedicated site over wifi connection but maintain the rest of my connections over my mobile data link. Think of the uses, you are in a shopping centre and the store is giving you discounts if you use their app or similar. Or you would like to be able to look at the directory for the centre to find a particular store. In this case the centre would like to provide you access to a certain webpage but nothing else. So you scan a QR code in the store, automagically connect to their network and this adds a route so that you can hit their server over the wifi, but everything else stays on your data connection.<br />
<br />
Obviously there are some security implications that need to be worked out for these scenarios and I can't profess to have thought of all the attack vectors and problems with the new approaches. (Now that I work from home I don't have anyone technical to bounce my ideas off before posting.)<br />
<ol>
</ol>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-69890845128635409202012-02-28T18:00:00.000+11:002012-02-28T18:00:04.771+11:00Priority Data Access: the one smart pipe feature I want to see nowMobile carriers, even if they have the best network (e.g. Telstra in Australia), will always at some point suffer from congestion on their network. If you're a Telstra mobile broadband user that spends time in the CBD of either Sydney or Melbourne you may have experienced slow and unreliable data connections whenever you are near one of the (many) Telstra offices, particularly around lunch time. My suspicion is that this is directly caused by the large number of phones in the vicinity that are connecting to the available towers.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I would say that somewhere in the vicinity of 80-90% of my data access is for work, on a mobile plan that is paid for by my employer. This means that I am more than happy to have my employer fork out extra, say $10 a month more to have priority data access on congested nodes. This deviates from the current service offerings of a large number of ISPs that punish users of bandwidth hungry services, such as bit torrent, without giving anyone the ability to easily raise their connection priority above that of other users. Additionally, there is no reward for being a user that doesn't use services such as these.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Further refining this offering you could even pay a lesser amount, say $5 and have the priority access to only a selected number of sites, say your employers domains, thus covering business access as required. This solution would obviously be harder to implement than blanket priority for a given user.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What are your thoughts on this?</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-62182036619446568442012-02-24T00:00:00.000+11:002012-02-24T00:00:07.047+11:00Synology and External DrivesI was having trouble with my DS211J taking ages, in the order of 2 days, to backup ~1TB to the external drive (A Samsung Story Station 3). Occasionally it would also fail at some random point and require restarting further prolonging the pain.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Initially when I set-up the external drive I used NTFS thinking that I would want to be able to read it from my Windows PCs. After some digging around on the <a href="http://forum.synology.com/">Synology Forums</a> and finding plenty of posts like <a href="http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=42202&p=168617&hilit=external+backup+native#p168617">this one</a> I decided it was time to reformat the drive to native format (i.e. EXT4).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All I can say is wow, the backups are 4 times as quick now.</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-39079394211666440602012-02-23T16:05:00.001+11:002012-02-23T16:05:43.489+11:00QuickLoc: A Robust “on the fly” Indoor Localisation System Using Ad-hoc Sensor NetworksSo I stumbled across my Electrical Engineering Undergrad thesis the other day. It was excitingly titled<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Design and Implementation of QuickLoc: A Robust “on the fly” Indoor Localisation System Using Ad-hoc Sensor Networks</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span><br />
We engineers sure know how to come up with titles! :)Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-42728091943492898772011-09-21T15:40:00.000+10:002011-09-21T15:40:04.555+10:00Samsung HD204UI Firmware UpgradeRecently when I logged into my DS211j I was greeted with a message telling me that I the write cache was disabled on my SamsungHD204UI 2 TB drives due to a firmware issue. (Read here for background on my <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/finally-getting-back-up-solution.html">Synology Setup</a>).<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A <a href="http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/faqView.do?b2b_bbs_msg_id=386">notice on the Samsung website</a>, worded as only someone with English as a second language could, indicated the issue and had installation instructions for the fix.</div>
<blockquote>
If identify commmand is issued from host during NCQ write command in the condition of PC ,<br /> write condition is unstable.<br /> So It can make the loss of written data.</blockquote>
I found some other instructions on how to perform the upgrade on various forums and the like, but the most clearly worded one was on trusty old <a href="http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/">Whirlpool</a>, which I tend not to frequent because of the tendency towards Whingepool that it displays. It is however good for specific issues or Australian ISP related questions. I followed the instructions provided in <a href="http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1597038">this thread</a> and it was a fairly straightforward process.<br />
<br />
The most annoying part of this was that I had to both pull apart my NAS and my desktop computer and flash a USB key to achieve the firmware upgrade (which only took about 20 seconds per disk).<br />
<br />
It seems that my DS211j NAS is happy again now and I can continue on my merry way.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-53302258803850516242011-06-23T15:40:00.002+10:002011-06-23T15:42:33.074+10:00Synology NAsterisk: Stage One Installing Ipkg and AsteriskAlrighty, so as you may have guessed it has been a little hectic over here but I am finally getting a chance to start on the glorious plan that I hatched in <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2011/02/synology-nas-hosted-home-asterisk.html">Synology NAS hosted home Asterisk Server: The plan</a>.<br />
<br />
<i>Actually I should probably say I started doing this 3 months ago, before the wedding and all that and have almost zero spare time since then as I am now studying and travelling a lot for work at the same time.</i><br />
<br />
I am basically following the instructions given on the <a href="http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/Overview_on_modifying_the_Synology_Server,_bootstrap,_ipkg_etc">Overview of modifying the Synology Server</a>.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Enabling the CLI</span><br />
The first step to getting ipkg installed is setting up the command line interface (check out <a href="http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/Overview:_What_is_CLI,_how_do_I_access_it,_SSH_or_Telnet%3F">this CLI overview from Synology</a> for more info). There is a <a href="http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/Enabling_the_Command_Line_Interface">handy guide to Enabling the CLI</a> on the Synology forums which has instructions for much older versions of DSM than I have, but no worries it is just as simple in DSM 3. Simply open up the Control Panel and select terminal from the second row. I'd always pick SSH for my systems but if you feel like using Telnet then go for it. Once enabled reboot.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Downloading IPKG</span><br />
Once you're in via terminal you'll need to download the correct ipkg bootstrap for your Synology system, go to <a href="http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have">What kind of CPU does my NAS have</a> to figure out which one you need, you can double check your NAS version on the System info page. In my case for the DS211J its the <i>Marvell Kirkwood mv6281 1.2Ghz ARM Processor. </i>This means I need to use <a href="http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/unstable/syno-mvkw-bootstrap_1.2-7_arm.xsh">http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/unstable/syno-mvkw-bootstrap_1.2-7_arm.xsh</a>. Once it was downloaded I executed the script using the instructions provided and rebooted the system, then updated as instructed, unsurprisingly there was nothing new to install.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
BackupCentre> ipkg update<br />
Downloading http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/unstable/Packages.gz<br />
Inflating http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware/cs08q1armel/cross/unstable/Packages.gz<br />
Updated list of available packages in /opt/lib/ipkg/lists/cross<br />
Successfully terminated.<br />
BackupCentre> ipkg upgrade<br />
Nothing to be done<br />
Successfully terminated.<br />
BackupCentre></blockquote>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Installing Asterisk</span></div>
<div>
After ipkg is installed and upgraded it is time to install Asterisk, outputting the list of available packages gives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<blockquote>
BackupCentre> ipkg list | grep asterisk<br />
asterisk - 1.2.24-1 - Open Source VoIP PBX System<br />
asterisk-gui - 2.0.4-1 - Asterisk-GUI is a framework for the creation of graphical interfaces for configuring Asterisk.<br />
asterisk-sounds - 1.2.1-1 - Supplementary asterisk-sounds.<br />
asterisk14 - 1.4.22.1-1 - Asterisk is an Open Source PBX and telephony toolkit.<br />
asterisk14-chan-capi - 1.0.1-1 - capi module for asterisk<br />
asterisk14-core-sounds-en-alaw - 1.4.19-1 - asterisk-core-sounds-en-alaw<br />
asterisk14-core-sounds-en-g729 - 1.4.19-1 - asterisk-core-sounds-en-g729<br />
asterisk14-core-sounds-en-gsm - 1.4.19-1 - asterisk-core-sounds-en-gsm<br />
asterisk14-core-sounds-en-ulaw - 1.4.19-1 - asterisk-core-sounds-en-ulaw<br />
asterisk14-extra-sounds-en-alaw - 1.4.11-1 - asterisk-extra-sounds-en-alaw<br />
asterisk14-extra-sounds-en-g729 - 1.4.11-1 - asterisk-extra-sounds-en-g729<br />
asterisk14-extra-sounds-en-gsm - 1.4.11-1 - asterisk-extra-sounds-en-gsm<br />
asterisk14-extra-sounds-en-ulaw - 1.4.11-1 - asterisk-extra-sounds-en-ulaw<br />
asterisk14-moh-freeplay-alaw - 0.0.0-1 - asterisk-moh-freeplay-alaw<br />
asterisk14-moh-freeplay-g729 - 0.0.0-1 - asterisk-moh-freeplay-g729<br />
asterisk14-moh-freeplay-gsm - 0.0.0-1 - asterisk-moh-freeplay-gsm<br />
asterisk14-moh-freeplay-ulaw - 0.0.0-1 - asterisk-moh-freeplay-ulaw<br />
asterisk14-moh-opsound-alaw - 2.03-1 - asterisk-moh-opsound-alaw<br />
asterisk14-moh-opsound-g729 - 2.03-1 - asterisk-moh-opsound-g729<br />
asterisk14-moh-opsound-gsm - 2.03-1 - asterisk-moh-opsound-gsm<br />
asterisk14-moh-opsound-ulaw - 2.03-1 - asterisk-moh-opsound-ulaw<br />
asterisk16 - 1.6.2.13-1 - Asterisk is an Open Source PBX and telephony toolkit.<br />
asterisk16-addons - 1.6.2.2-2 - Asterisk extras<br />
asterisk18 - 1.8.4-1 - Asterisk is an Open Source PBX and telephony toolkit.<br />
BackupCentre></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
I'm going to install version 1.6 and the GUI, I chose 1.6 because some people are having issues with getting the GUI working with 1.8.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Installation was as easy as <i>ipkg install asterisk16 </i>and <i>ipkg install asterisk-gui.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Following that I attempted to start asterisk and was presented with the following error.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<blockquote>
BackupCentre> cd /opt/etc/asterisk/<br />
BackupCentre> asterisk -vvvvr<br />
Asterisk 1.8.4, Copyright (C) 1999 - 2010 Digium, Inc. and others.<br />
Created by Mark Spencer <markster@digium.com><br />Asterisk comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; type 'core show warranty' for details.<br />This is free software, with components licensed under the GNU General Public<br />License version 2 and other licenses; you are welcome to redistribute it under<br />certain conditions. Type 'core show license' for details.<br />=========================================================================<br /> == Parsing '/opt/etc/asterisk/asterisk.conf': == Found<br /> == Parsing '/opt/etc/asterisk/extconfig.conf': == Found<br />Unable to connect to remote asterisk (does /opt/var/run/asterisk/asterisk.ctl exist?)<br />BackupCentre></markster@digium.com></blockquote>
I had to start it with <i>asterisk</i> first and then I can reconnect to it... duh!<br />
<br />
Following that I made the changes suggested in <a href="http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=37280">this awesomely timely post </a> from the <a href="http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewforum.php?f=40">Synology IPKG Forum</a> and now, after a quick reboot, I can connect to the webpage front end.<br />
<br />
Now all I have to do is determine the correct password..... :)<br />
<br />
Until next time when I configure some extensions and start making test calls.</div>
Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-18418504537960676012011-02-10T17:28:00.001+11:002011-02-10T17:29:09.089+11:00Synology NAS hosted home Asterisk Server: The planReaders of this blog will be aware that I purchased and setup a Synology DS211J a few months back, if not you can check out the series of posts starting with <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/finally-getting-back-up-solution.html">"Finally getting a backup solution"</a>. Readers will also be aware that I have started a new job that involves equal parts <a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/working_home">sitting at home turning into a slob</a> and travelling around meeting clients and working on site. So what I am currently trying to do is optimize my home office and communication solutions.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>At home I've got a NodePhone account and it is currently connected to a base station and linked into a few wireless handsets. This works pretty well for a home phone, but none of the handsets have headsets or speaker phone so conference calls are going to be a killer. Unfortunately NodePhone doesn't support multiple registrations in its current guise so simply logging in on the laptop with a headset or something similar isn't going to work.... or is it!</div><div><br />
</div><div>The plan then is to have an <a href="http://www.asterisk.org/">Asterisk</a> server log into the <a href="http://www.internode.on.net/residential/home_phone/nodephone/">NodePhone</a> account and then let my current router and it's inbuilt ATA log into the Asterisk server, plus also I will be able to have other computers and phones logging into the Asterisk server and sharing the line out and also allowing me to register to the Asterisk server remotely and call the home phone as well as make cheap international and other calls. Now the beauty of the plan is that I should be able to install Asterisk on my NAS creating a NAStrisk solution (terribly imaginative name) that means I don't need to have another server on the network and the associated upkeep.</div><div><br />
</div><div>So the stages for this (as far as I can tell are):</div><div><ol><li><a href="http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/Overview_on_modifying_the_Synology_Server,_bootstrap,_ipkg_etc">Install ipkg package manager on the DS211J</a></li>
<li>Install the Asterisk ipkg and its dependencies.</li>
<li>Configure Asterisk and make some local test calls.</li>
<li>Configure router to let SIP traffic through to the NAStrisk</li>
<li>Get NAStrisk connected to NodePhone account and forwarding calls to other sip accounts locally.</li>
<li>Connect routers ATA to the NAStrisk so that the WAF isn't affected.</li>
<li>....</li>
<li>Profit</li>
</ol><div>Hopefully I'll have the time to get this going in the next week or two, of course I will be posting here as I go, so you can all <s>feel my pain</s> bask in my success!</div></div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-81182571402959474492011-01-25T04:19:00.001+11:002011-01-26T03:32:40.771+11:00New job, fewer updatesSo I started a new job on the 4th of January and to say things have been a little hectic would be an understatement! I have already traveled to Phoenix, Arizona for a conference, to a customer site in Sydney and now I am in Madrid for a training course. Needless to say that sort of travelling, plus the massive amount of stuff that I have to learn for the new job doesn't really leave that much time for posting. Unfortunately this means that new posts from me will probably be few and far between for a while (unless I am stuck somewhere and have a wave of inspiration wash over me when I miraculously have no work to do).<br />
<br />
Hopefully when things slow down a little bit I will have the time and the inspiration to write some more posts but for now things will likely remain a little quiet.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-41167601021135593742011-01-02T18:54:00.000+11:002011-01-02T18:54:41.474+11:00Most Popular Posts of 2010Perhaps 2010 is a bit rich, as I only really started this blog in June. All the other blogs out there seem to be doing a most popular posts of the year past so I may as well join the crowd.<div><br />
</div><div>Overall I must say I am fairly happy with the traffic that I have been able to generate to the blog. I never really set out with the intent of attracting lots and lots of readers. However I must admit that I get a little thrill when I check the stats and see that people have been viewing my posts.</div><div><br />
</div><div>The most popular post, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;"><a class="GK43L3BBON" href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/synology-disk-station-211j-setup-part-1.html" style="color: #ff6600; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;">Synology Disk Station 211J Setup Part 1</a>, </span>has more views than my entire blog received in the first 5 months of its existence. The second and third most popular are the two follow up posts to the most popular post, <a class="GK43L3BBON" href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/synology-disk-station-211j-setup-part-2.html" style="color: #3366cc; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;">Synology Disk Station 211J Setup Part 2</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;"> </span></span>and<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'trebuchet ms', verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; white-space: nowrap;"><a class="GK43L3BBON" href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/synology-ds211j-to-samsung-story-3.html" style="color: #ff6600; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline;">Synology DS211J to Samsung Story 3 Backup</a></span>. This is altogether not too surprising.</div><div><br />
</div><div>What does surprised me a little bit was how much search traffic I receive, indeed most of my site traffic is from google. I guess it shows the importance of getting the keywords and that sort of thing right if you intend to get a lot of traffic into a blog. It also showed to me why there are so many sites out there dedicated to new hardware reviews, it is all well and good for me to try and write about the things that I find interesting, <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/12/name-is-net-stuxnet.html">Stuxnet</a>, <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/12/memristor-mind.html">Memristors</a>, <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/atlassians-performance-review.html">employee performance evaluation and career development</a> and <a href="http://tobytes.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-to-be-dumbest-guy-in-room.html">self improvement</a>, but what really pulls new readers into the site is content on new hardware and software. </div><div><br />
</div><div>I don't see these observations really changing what I post on here very much, I will continue to try and improve my writing style and hopefully find the time post longer posts with more detail and background. I find that I enjoy the writing, but at times struggle to think of good topics to talk about.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Over the coming weeks I'll either post a lot or not much at all depending on whether the mood strikes me. I have some plans for background posts, talking about my Theses for example but I haven't had the time to put them together yet.</div>Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-337748718534399243.post-91119929818481621092010-12-27T11:20:00.000+11:002010-12-27T11:20:18.070+11:00I have a confession to make...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">I am not a coder!</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;"><br />
</span><br />
Ah, that feels better, like a weight has been lifted from my chest.<br />
<br />
Now, let me explain what I mean. I can code, I understand different design patterns, I can break a problem down into tiny little pieces, I can work out the sticking points. It just doesn't rock my world. I'd prefer to spend an hour reading about a new system, a new type of database, Apple's latest shiny new gadget.<br />
<br />
At heart I guess I would prefer to spend my time fiddling with a large system and getting it running than staring at strings of characters and <a href="http://xkcd.com/303/">sword fighting while I wait for it to compile</a>. <i>Alright, maybe I wouldn't mind the odd sword fight in the office.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
This is all well and good of course, I've got a new job that should help me do what I like, but in the past it has caused me a few problems. Firstly there was the boss that told me that I had to do programming for a while because every Systems guy worth his salt has done some programming. This led to a particularly painful part of my working life, where I slowly lost motivation as I repeatedly flung myself at the near vertical learning curve and slid back down to the bottom. Secondly there was the company I worked for that repeatedly told itself that it wanted quality software but didn't practice what they preached, it took a year of badgering from me to introduce code reviews. This was a problem because even though coding wasn't my Raison d'être I cared about whether the product I was working on was good and I know enough about coding to recognise bad code and coding practices when I see them.<br />
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Begrudgingly, I probably have to admit that my boss was right, I did need to spend a year or two trying to be a coder to come to the conclusion that I am, in fact, not. This lesson was important because I didn't really know what I was, and I was probably telling myself that I was a coder. There are several reasons for this I guess, I like creating things, doing something constructive and I once had the misguided impression that if you weren't crunching out lines of code then you weren't creating things, you where just assembling parts that someone else had built, not adding something new to the world. Now of course I realise that it is probably harder to be a full systems guy than a run of the mill coder. You need to understand a whole lot and see things that others probably wouldn't be able to see.<br />
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I guess the round about point that I am getting to is that, despite what you see around, there is plenty of space in IT for people who aren't coders at heart. Sure, I'm not going to Zuckerberg together a billion dollar website from my dorm room in the wee hours of the morning but equally no site like Facebook works without a whole lot os Systems guys in there doing the hard yards to keep the thing going.<br />
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And there concludes this holiday ramble.Toby Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03237505398250206037noreply@blogger.com1