Rant: Brocade Requires Login & Service Contract to Access Foundry Manuals

So, I’m work­ing on some Foundry gear and I’d like get access to some manu­als to learn how Foundry works. Except they are hid­den behind a login for valid ser­vice con­tract hold­ers. Whats up with that ?

Rant:Cisco — Masters of the Networking World — What’s That on Your Home Page ?

Is Cisco’s home page a com­plete FAIL today ? Or is that just me.

Rant: People Are Not Valuable or Why I Don’t Attend Office Parties

I am often asked to attend parties with my co-​​workers for people who are leav­ing, Christmas or team parties. Then I real­ised how little it really mattered and got on with my life.

Rant:Why Is the IEEE All About Secrecy ?

I’m not happy that IEEE hides much of the meet­ing and dis­cus­sions that pro­gress the stand­ards that affect all of us. Why does it have to be a secret ?

Rant:Cisco Networkers Virtual — Its Bad, Very Bad.

I went to Networkers in Barcelona last year and got a login to the Networkers Virtual. Frankly, what a pile of utterly mis­guided mar­ket­ing hype. It’s unus­able and not fit for purpose.

Rant:My Growing Dislike Of “Cross Marketing”

I pur­chase a new product /​ thing /​ soft­ware. I delight in open­ing /​ using /​ start­ing it for the first time. Then, an advert­ise­ment spews up for a related product. Lousy douchet­ards, if I wanted that, I would have bought it.

Why Does This Remind Me of Putting FCoE in My Network ?

This photo reminds me of net­works that I have worked on. FCoE anyone ?

Rant:D-Link Hijacks Your Internets — in FIRMWARE

Ubersource points out the D-​​​​Link router/​​modem firm­ware forces you to go their web­site and receive spam­vertising about secur­ity soft­ware. You have to login to the router, go Advanced and OPT OUT to stop this.
This is very poor prac­tice. Opt-​​​​out is NEVER ACCEPTABLE, and using a piece of hard­ware that is fully paid for to perform […]

Rant: Certguard in Computerworld — Go and Register Your Disgust

Certguard have been men­tioned in a Computerworld art­icle about exam cheats. Please go and leave a com­ment to show how dis­gust­ing that Certguard, who falsely accuse people of cheat­ing, have been used for comment.

Managing and Technical Life — Reprise

Give the amount of mis­in­ter­pret­a­tion from my pre­vi­ous post, let me expand my hypo­thesis a little further.

Rant:Managing Is Easy Compared to Technical Life

Not every­one will be a good man­ager, but very few people will ever be a good, I mean _​really_​ good, tech­ni­cian or engin­eer. You should be will­ing to pay for that.

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.

Rant: I Loathe Voicemail, Its Disruptive and Inefficient

Its hard to describe how dis­rupt­ive voice mail can be to an organ­ised engin­eer­ing day. The idea that someone can leave a mes­sage which requires me to under­take a fur­ther action (usu­ally without con­firm­a­tion) is ana­thema to being organ­ised and get­ting things done.

Rant: F5 LTM and GTM Doesn’t Do External AAA Authorization

F5 BigIP LTM and GTM does not have any user author­isa­tion cap­ab­il­ity for admin­is­tra­tion by Radius or TACACS. Can you believe that?
They have been pro­du­cing F5 BigIP soft­ware for more than a dec­ade and I can­not believe that cus­tom­ers have not been ask­ing to provide external user author­isa­tion. To com­pare, I have just been con­fig­ur­ing APC Switched […]