Someone wrote me and asked “Greg, What do you believe is the future of Networking”. Here is my (mostly) humorous response.
Rant: Screen Reading – Comparing Windows and MAC
29th December 2011 by 21 Comments
In the last couple of years, I find that I rarely use physical books to read something new. I recently started a new role that requires me to use a Windows 7 laptop and I’m finding it unreadable. Either there is something wrong with Windows or Apple have done something exceptional with screen displays.
EtherealMind’s Fashion Tips for Network Engineering Men
10th October 2011 by 43 Comments
Just because you don’t speak to “customers” or “the public” it’s still necessary to look like you are a professional and take pride in your work.
Poster: The Eight Levels of Vendor Acceptance
30th September 2011 by 9 Comments
The answer that you get from your vendor is never a __YES__ , or, not directly. This handy guide is the eight levels of vendor acceptance where answers
Musing: Difference Between Success and Not Failing
17th July 2011 by 6 Comments
roject scopes means that the smallest possible money is spent to achieve the least acceptable outcome. That is, the scope of the project is defined as the smallest possible work to achieve the goal.The goal is often researched, analysed, and reviewed until it is reduced to as small as it can be. That is, the “least acceptable” goal for the business.
What Is the Definition of a Switch Fabric ?
30th June 2011 by 36 Comments
The marketing people in IT tend to be overwhelmed by complexity and deep technology. For many liberal arts graduates, they take the drowning option and latch onto certain terms and then grossly abuse it. The most egregious abuse today is “cloud” but “fabric” comes a close second. In this series of posts I want to look at what is a FABRIC and provide a canonical look at what it does and how it works for us.
OSX: Shortcuts for Subnet Masks With TextExpander
9th March 2011 by 4 Comments
I’m always looking for ways to improve my writing speed and accuracy. One way is to use specific keyboard shortcuts for tasks that are repetitive and prone to inaccuracy. So, using Cmd-C / Cmd-V for for Copy and Paste makes a whole load of good sense as it’s faster & more accurate than using the mouse to click through multiple menus, and put the cursor where it needs to be.
However, keyboard shortcuts are kind of limited. A more flexible approach is to use a program that can substitute short sets of text into much longer pieces. To do this, I use a program called TextExpander to keep a library of ‘snippets’ for expansion into a range of useful actions.
For example, I have a text snippet etmd and whenever I type these four letters, it is automatically expanded to EtherealMind.
The possibilities are endless, and I’m hoping to share a few different ideas and get feedback from you to help me build my collection of useful shortcuts.
Peter Tattam Created Trumpet Winsock and Got Very Little: Let’s Set Things Right
9th March 2011 by 1 Comment
Once upon a time, TCP/IP was not the preferred networking protocol for any operating system. Then Peter Tattam released a shareware version of TCP/IP stack that worked on MS Windows ™. I spent many hours making Windows TCP/IP work properlyand using Trumpet Winsock to get connected to the Internet for the first time in 1992. In my opinion, his shareware is a key factor in getting the Internet started by delivering a working IP protocol stack.
And yet, very few people ever paid for the software.
How To: Certification and Pay Rises
8th March 2011 by 3 Comments
One issue that often gets asked is whether you should ask for a pay rise after you have passed a certification exam. Let’s say that you have just passed your latest certification exam, and you feel that you now have greater value and skills so it’s time to talk about a pay rise with your boss. Here is a key tip.
Help: Got Questions for the NICs / RIRs About IPv6 ?
6th February 2011 by 2 Comments
Slightly off topic, but I’m working with Skeeve Stevens to get some interviews setup for PacketPusherswith people from the various Network Information Centre (NICs) while they are at APNIC 31. I think there are lots of questions about public / Internet IPv6 and some early discussion of the issues would be useful, especially focussing on [...]
