Blog and Blessay

Hosting Provider Migration

I am migrating hosting providers today. Please be patient if there are any problems.

Rant:New Logos ? Tasteless Rubbish

When I first heard about the logos, I thought, fair enough. Now I have had a closer look, and taken a few days to think about it - they are rubbish. Read More »

Bob Cringely - CCIE:the Leading Men - Judge Economic Progress

Bob Cringely analyses GDP per CCIE in a country to judge their future economic progress. Who cares about the information, this is a huge push for our CCIE certification. Folks, time to think about asking for a raise! Read More »

OSX:Punditry - Four Options From Apple in September - Unexpected!

I am holding on to some cash, waiting for Apple to make their September udpates. Here are my predictions for what they will release, and why. Read More »

My Proposed Code of Blogging Ethics - Updated

I put some more thought into ethics and have updated the list. A part of ethics is to make me check myself before I say something stupid when I am writing. Read More »

Cisco, IOS, ASA, etc

How to Make a Network Cable - wikiHow

Found this guide, which is well done. Everyone who works in networking should make a cable at least once to understand. It builds tolerance of the cabling guys.

How to Make a Network Cable - wikiHow

Bob Cringely - CCIE:the Leading Men - Judge Economic Progress

Bob Cringely analyses GDP per CCIE in a country to judge their future economic progress. Who cares about the information, this is a huge push for our CCIE certification. Folks, time to think about asking for a raise! Read More »

Enterprise Cloud Computing - Build Your Own With Cisco VFrame - Why Wait ?

I can see some value in external Cloud Computing, but why not just build your own with Cisco ? Take a bunch of leftover machines, that old storage system and get a demo version and make your own. Read More »

Random Posts

What Do I Do With the Leftover Cable ?

What I love about this photograph is that someone did a beautiful job on the network gear and patch panel, and then just went, ahhh stuff it.

Best practices pour le cablage réseau | French Cisco Users Group: “”

Why Use Two Routing Processes in a Firewall ?

In a recent post on Two OSPF Processes on an ASA firewall Christian asked why you would want to do this. Here is one case of a design that needs secure routing :

CSM, IDSM, ADSM Performance Problems or Memory Errors ? Increase Java Memory.

I have been getting out of memory errors in Java when running CSM and ASDM clients on MS Windows platforms. Here are some tips for improving Java performance, and letting you run more than one Java program / applet at the same time. Read More

The CCIE Medallion

Arden Packeer was passing comments on his plaque…. but mine is much cooler….Read More

Single Internet Connection but HA Infrastructure - Using Bridging Instead of Routing

Introduction - The Design Constraint

The customer had decided to build a hosting platform, but could only arrange for a single internet connection to that site due to location. However, all other hardware was duplicated for high availability. After considering the options the following diagram was prepared showing the first pass at the design. This was the Internet Connection (100Mb Ethernet) connected to the router, then connected to a switch, which was interconnected by trunk to a second switch. The first layer of firewalls is then connected.

In this design, the router and the first switch are single points of failure as shown on the diagram

Design and Architecture

Enterprise Cloud Computing - Build Your Own With Cisco VFrame - Why Wait ?

I can see some value in external Cloud Computing, but why not just build your own with Cisco ? Take a bunch of leftover machines, that old storage system and get a demo version and make your own. Read More »

Autonegotiation on Ethernet - It Works, It Should Be Mandatory!

EVERYONE - Autosensing on ethernet works just fine, and all manufacturers recommend using autosensing. Why aren’t you !

Lets look at how it works and why you should be using it.

Configuring Windows 2003 / XP SP2 to Use IOS NTP Server

In certain networks, it is difficult to get the time on your servers to be exactly the same as the NTP time on your network equipment. In this case, you want to force the Windows servers to use the same NTP Network time source as your routers and switches. But Microsoft Windows doesn’t understand NTP by default, it has its own ‘way’ of setting up NTP so you need a little tweak to make it compatible.
Read More »

Fast Introduction to SOCKS Proxy

Introduction

In the Blue Coat forums I often see people ask questions about SOCKS that show they haven’t taken the time to learn what it is. This is a fast introduction to what SOCKS is.
Read More »