But, despite obstacles…this week has been ace. Quality family time, spent in a most beautiful part of the world, with adventure and new experiences.

I’ve done lots of “first things” during our time in the loverly Queensland Glasshouse Mountains in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland:

• Stopped in a lovely picturesque Queenslander-style wood cabin in the bush.

• Seen my first wild snake (a brown snake at that…nearly hit it with the car).
• Licked at raw milk directly [wrong adverb] from a cows udders.

• Used a fleecy blanket over the knees, whilst sat on the sofa.
• Got the small boy on a horse.
• Had a “Gypsy “ dinner.

• Heard the word “Daddy” over a thousand times in one day.
• Jongs in the sea.
• Been to Australia Zoo, the home of the “Crocodile Hunter”.

• Had the tall boy put up a serious challenge at skimming stones.

Coming back to a public holiday weekend, allowing me to get my affairs in order (as well as the laundry), is an added bonus.

I had nice surprise when I got home for a pretty nasty day today. Not only had the Tall Boy (the pet name for our eldest), bought the next instalment of one of my favourite iPad games, The Room: Old Sins by the excellent Fireproof Games…but he did it on HIS iTunes account, using HIS OWN debit card…and it appeared in OUR Family Sharing purchases. I didn’t have to folk out for it at all. Bring on the spending power of the younger generation. Thanks Son. x.

BTW - Nice picture!

Today’s Loverly Experience

About 10 sec later, a bird out in the back garden, performed a faultless mimic of the two tone sound. It kept it up for a good three mins, whilst the source kept alarming…it even kept going when the alarm had been seen to and turned off. I suspect that it was an Indian Mynah bird. Possibly horny!

 There was a really nice stereo field and a harmorny where the synthetic mixed with the organic. The digital and the analogue. It warmed my heart.

There has been a lot of things that have been happening to the blog over the last few months….all done with a view to a kinda reboot happening around New Year 2018.

As New Year’s Eve [or as my commercial terrestrial TV stations keeps telling me - NYE]…is a only few days away, I should summarise what has been done….before getting on with new writing, opinion and comment.

Here is the quick summary list [I’m good at those}:

• Server has been localised - This is a strange one, but has mainly involved moving the infrastructure and server instance to the same time zone and global hemisphere as I live. I have resisted this for such a long time, mainly due to the excellent hosting I have enjoyed for the last seven years. However, distance and global latency has meant that performance has needed to be fixed. And since I am the main user of the resources [my dear inattentive audience], it makes sense to have the infrastructure closer to me.
• The migration of the main server has also resulted in a re-skinning of the davesdowntime.co.uk website. With a broken WordPress plugin stifling blog posts….by that I mean giving me yet another excuse not to graff out some content…The site has a new look. To be quite honest, I have not decided if I like the new look and feel yet….so maybe expect further changes in this area.
• The new server is now multi-honed with some of my other sites and projects. It’s great to have a “well performing” cloud-based presence in the near vacinity…playgrounds abound!
• Implementation of HTTPS for the site….Been meaning to do this one for the last couple of years, but with the help of Let’s Encrypt I have been able to implement this in a meaningful way that improves security and confidence.

Farewell Claritas Solutions hosting and Mystique WordPress plugin.  You will be missed.

It’s kind of an “in joke” that I am indecisive when it comes to any kind of purchasing decision. I will often agonise about shopping. And there is a very direct correlation with value of a product and the time taken (as well as the amount of verbal comparison) that needs to be spent before a purchase is made.

You should see me when I’m looking to buy a house or car….the lead time can take years.

Technology can also cause similar thought agony. It seems that having just a little expertise in this area has led to an over-complication of the issues involved with a purchase and I get bogged down with the numerous choices.

Current Situation

Let me try to summarise:

I currently have an iPad Air ( the first one….not the iPad Air 2). Although the device has been on sale for over two years, I have had mine for about 18 months. It was bought as an emergency replacement for my iPad mini (version) that was presumed lost. The iPad mini was eventually found, and I ran two iPad for a number of months before gifting the smaller device to the boy.

( Subsequently the mini had a case failure and was smashed on the driveway )

So why do I want to upgrade? Two features that I’m missing….which although not critical…are annoying not to have. These are TouchID and SplitView. Using my current iPad is great, but does require the entry of too many passcodes and passwords. There are a number of apps that I use that support SlideOver, including OmniFocus, Tweetbot and Evernote/Byword. I would certainly benefit for being able to interact with apps at the same time.

Also, I have always seen the regular iPad as being a stay-at-home tablet….the kind of device that get left on the coffee table. The mini, with its paper-back form factor was always the device that traveled.

Which one to get next

• TouchID - preferably the new faster one, as seen on the iPhone 6s.
• SplitView - but not too much of a cramped view to prove unusable.
• Portability - need to fit in my man-bag.

This kinda means that I will only be considering the latest generation device, of which there are three:

• iPad mini 4
• iPad Air 2
• iPad Pro

Can’t make the decision in isolation

Although I have clearly set out my primary requirements….there is another list of requirements that could be counted as “nice to have”. Things like stylus/pencil support or 3DTouch.

And without a clear road map, or even a predictable release schedule ( there are a rumours of a Q1 2016 iPad release ), there is always the potential of buying a quickly out-dated model. That would never do when you absolutely must have the latest and greatest thing.

I’ll let you know what I decide and if I make a purchase.

Had a really crappy day….everything I touched (technically speaking), has gone to shit. So I wanted a quick pick-me-up, and have now hopefully deployed a new publishing mechanism.

I hope it goes well.

It has been pointed out to me in the last week that I have descended into long term hibernation………again.  This is not the first time that this has happened…and as a young adult I would frequently “drop off the radar” for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

However, in this modern day of hyper connected social media….where it is considered impolite to fart and not tell the world how smelly it was….my detachments from friends and relations has reached new heights.  It is not even possible for someone to come round and drag me out of my self-centered malaise….as I have made it extra difficult for anyone to pop-round….by going to live at the other side of the world.

I suppose I should apologise for the lack of post and activity on the blog….but I can’t be arsed with that. It’s not as if I have a lack of new experience and life content to impart….just the lack of time or inclination. Who knew that emigrating could be so time consuming?  A quick summary of events that you may have missed goes something along the lines of:

Got bored with UK -> Migrated -> Got made redundant -> Migrated the family -> Settled down -> Got Older -> Got fatter -> Had a hard long look at myself -> Got slimmer -> Got Healthier.

Lots happen….enough said.

Life is good at the moment and consequently I may have a bit more to say soon.  There are a few ideas on the way….and the renewed focus is going to be more on content and less on paranoid-ridden quality control.  I need to get away from a lot of unfinished drafts and an absent audience that is left in the dark.

No matter what happens with the blog, 2016 is going to be a huge year.

  *note: If anybody out there does want to get hold of me, the social network I do occasionally check is twitter (@davesdowntime).

Yet again….another busy summer season with very little in the way of blog activity.

I’ve said it many times….I don’t live to blog….I only do it when time permits and when I get the inclination.

To be honest….a couple of draft posts have been made….but these have turned out to be ill-conceived torrents of self-absorbed bull-crap….that are best left in the Wordpress draft folder.

So here is the quick update…the summer has been very pleasing….still enjoying the new[ish] job….been spending time with the family…getting the most put of our English Heritage membership.

The missus has started a new college course and boy is now an orange belt at karate. We’ve even found time to go on a couple of nice British holidays….Wales and Devon this year.

The rest of the time has been spent playing computer games, watching cookery shows and the doing the odd little bit of coding. Life this summer has been sweet, comfortable and somewhat mundane.

So why not mix it up during the latter half of the year? Why not put the house up on the market and take an extended business trip to the other side of the world? Sounds like that’s the kind of action that’ll take you out of your comfort zone.

So that is what I’m doing…Smoothwall have given me the opportunity of go and help set up an Australian office….helping to grow the channel in the territory….go and do my general funky technical project manager, architect and engineer thing. The brief is quite loose at the moment….so it looks like I’ll need to be prepare for anything.

And as I pen this from somewhere over the Black Sea…on my way to Sydney, via Abu Dhabi….it looks like that davesdowntime.co.uk and it’s new associated alias davesdowntimedownunder.com might be come a bit of a travel [b]log.

[caption id=“attachment_548” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Dave’s Downtime Down Under is Go![/caption]

So work stuff now….

…and the Friday afternoon before a Bank Holiday…and what drops into my inbox….

….something very exciting! At least that is what I have been telling all my customers and prospective customers for the last few weeks.

Smoothwall’s giant leap into the world of extended BYOD support is just around the corner.

And the inbox message was confirmation that the pre-release phase is now being entered into. We are into Staff release.

This was received with the exclamation to the relevant product manager…that I do have a life…things to do and people to see over the extended weekend….but with two nights of baby-sitting to do…it was inevitable that the new shiny update would get spun up….and a battle with a new implementation method would commence.

So let me offer a bit of explanation….this is upcoming Main 60 update to Smoothwall, and offers two main functional improvements. Namely:

• WPA Enterprise support. Version 2 is preferred, but legacy support for version 1 is included. Brand spanking new Smoothie RADIUS server and 802.1x support.
• Improved SNI support for un-supporting websites.

Apart from that it’s sweet. Forget messing around with SSL login pages, mis-behaving applications and double sign-in to your guest Wifi setup.

If your AP or wireless LAN controller infrastructure is 802.1x compliant with support for PEAP and MSCHAPv2 you are good to go.

So on Friday night…I thought I would have a go at attempt number one….knowing full well that it would probably end up being a swing and a miss.

Here’s what I did:

• Naturally backed and snap-shotted everything in sight.
• Main external component was the Wireless AP. I disassociated my Apple AirPort Express (first generation...the one on a plug) from the existing WLAN, as it was only being used as an extender.
• Created a new BYOD VLAN on the physical and virtual switching infrastructure. Two ports, one physical for the AP and one virtual for the Smoothie.
• Shutdown the virtualised Smoothwall UTM/AF install for the network, added a new virtual NIC to the VM. Booted into CLI and configured.
• Went to WebUI to configure DHCP/DNS and External access.
• Navigated to the new Service -> Authentication - WPA Enterprise section.

• Created RADIUS server, configured shared secrets and created new Access Point definition.

• Implemented a core authentication transparent proxy on the new network interface.
• Airport configuration now. And I have to say that this went very well. Despite the lack of compatibility documentation around MSCHAP, I needn't have worried. A quick config using AirPort Configuration Utility for both Mac and PC, and I was up and rolling. One note about AirPort, as it uses Bonjour...you'll need to be on the same subnet as the Smoothie's BYOD network. The correct feature support and ease of implementation make the Apple AirPort Express a strong candidate for BYOD implementation....and naturally offers great iOS integration for all your corporate and educational iPad estates.
• In the back-end, I was authenticating to a pre-existing Windows 2008 R2 domain. As I was serving AD users on the new 802.1x authenticated network, AD security groups and group mappings need no further integration. It just worked.

Very impressive….now the guest user experience to logon to the guest Wifi is simple. Fire-up the device…connect with WPA Enterprise….provide AD login credentials….either guest or know user….and then use. Maybe deploy the HTTPS Inspection CA cert via email if necessary.

But this then gives the user seamless app authentication…persistent browsing sessions….full user monitoring and control. Deep at its heart is the Smoothie’s Core authentication system, meaning full “Who” rule support through out the interface and rule bases…for all the new BYOD network users. Work great with devices your are unable to manage or set proxy settings…true transparent authentication.

Imagine giving someone a quick set of AD credentials and being able to control every aspect of their Internet and e-content usage. Bandwidth, times and quotas, exceptional categorisation and full visibility of usage.

Last thing to say about this deployment is the documentation is great. Puts you under no illusions [that’s what this post is for ;-) ], is concise and straight forward.

So in summary, when it goes Gold and is released to your target group….give your BYOD network a functional leg-up….and revel in Smoothwall’s Main 60 release.

P.S. If you think we are done….just wait until our reporting update comes out….my next work related post may be called: “Enter the Woodshed”!

It's that time again. It must be spring, as it's off to Infosec I go. And as the train speeds past the sewage farms of South Yorkshire, I get to contemplate "where the last two years have gone?".

My last visit to the Information Security exhibition, which is documented here and here , was short in both duration and interesting content.

But this time I have my exhibitors badge and a more prolonged exposure to the excessive heat and claustrophobic corridors beckons. I'm not sure I'm going to like being figuratively tied to the stand and not able roam the exhibition hall at will.

Still, it should be nice to catch up with some old faces, and I get to evangelise about good quality web filtering and functional fire-walling. Apart from that I don't know what I want to get out of the experience. I'm sure a couple of fun challenges will present themselves, although they are unlikely to involve the inevitable goody bag....I don't think they give them to the people on the stands.

In any case....expect some tweets during the week....or failing that, find me drowning my sorrows in a bar somewhere in South Kensington.

I wanted to do a quick wrap-up post on winter activities, before spring inneveratably springs, and I become far too busy to post anymore. It's been like this in previous years. Lots of posts in the winter, and then living life to the full during the warmer months.

Having said that, this winter has been unusually busy. Lots of hobby activities, as well as a couple of major life events. Change of job and technology refresh.

My god...did I just refer to mobile phone and tablet update as a life charging event? What a geek!

So...following an unexpected Xmas present, I've been getting interested in Bonsai. For most of my adult life, I have had a deep-seated reluctance to have anything to do with plants and gardening...I was brought up by green-fingered Nazi [sic]...and despite some discomfort concerning not allowing the trees to grow naturally....I have found this activity to be engaging and rewarding.

I have also got some satisfaction from that fact that my own couple of trees have not shrivelled up and died as soon as they have come under my care. In fact, the Chinese Elm I got on Christmas morning....is not only dead....but thriving. From this:

as pictured in a previous post...to this:

I guess I'll need to get the branch cutters and pruning shears out.

During January and February, I have been attending my Intro to Astronomy course. I can now how have a fair stab at navigating my way round the night's sky.

The course, given by the Huddersfield Astronomical and Philosophy Society, compromised of 4 weeks in the classroom/Society's club house attending lectures, and two weeks up at the Observatory. Apparently, we are the first class in years to have both of our observatory sessions, as usually one is cancelled due to bad weather.

As well as giving me a good arrays of club member's minds to pick and ask questions of...this course also confirmed that the telescope, or more accurately it's mount, which I bought last year, is a right pile of poo!

So, I've started again, taking the advice of my local Optics Shop (Greenwitch in Birstall). I now have a sweet setup of Celestron 15x70 Binoculars mounted on a First Horizon 8115 Tripod....as modelled here by the boy:

Despite waiting over 3 weeks to get clear and dark enough skies to test this rig out....once I finally did, it gave great views of Jupiter and the Galilean Moons, the Orion Nebula and the rich star-fields of the Milky Way. More to come on future outings.

So with all these goings on, coupled with the usual gaming and computer programming antics...it's been a very busy winter.

And lastly....I've got engaged...to the woman of my dreams and mother of the boy. I know that I am not one for massive shows of public affection....but she has made me the happiest guy around and I love her dearly. I guess this is really is the most important thing that's happened to me all Winter.

Here's to great summer.

What started out as an annoying little problems with my getting the @davesdowntime twitter feed to display on the blog…turned into a full operating system upgrade on a new hosting server and complete Wordpress restore.

Phew!  A lot of back end activity [wrong], with what must look like very little gain….but not so!

Not only have do I have a working twitter feed, but the whole social media part of Dave’s Downtime has been reworked.  In light of my recent change in employment, I have also re-thought the overall ethos and purpose of the site….therefore there is a new About page, with the relevant Facebook and Twitter profile rewrites.  Links also at the top of the page on the little posh widgets.  I have also implemented a nice little “Search Website” widget.  And lastly, I have verified my restore procedure [piece of mind for any sysadmin].

Obscure Viz reference there….but I remember this one from way back….in the good old days of my mid teens when I used to cut the jokes and satire out of the adult comic and staple [that’s right….staple] them in to a little black and red hardback note book.

But the sentiment still holds true…great things can come in small packages and the Lightening to USB connector is one such device punching above its weight.

Now the recent upgrade in Apple’s iPhone and iPad line-up has brought some dismay! Changing the main data and power wiring has been a right royal pain in the arse. Not only are there still very few accessories to support docks and like….but more cables also need to be procured and consumed. And Apple isn’t in the market for providing things on the cheap.

So reluctantly I bought the new Apple iPad to USB cable (Note: subsequent tests show this doesn’t support iPhone 5):

….you see I bought this dongle expressly to connect my [M-audio] midi keyboard to my new iPad mini. Sure, I thought, it may need external power, but being able to turn my music keyboard, with no on-board means of making sounds on its own…into an interface with the excellent GarageBand, was too much to resist.

And the best part is that it is not only able to provide a great low latency interface….but it carries enough power to discard the nasty black power brick that has been associated with every keyboard I have owned since my first ’80s Casio!

Great…coupled with the Logitech tablet Bluetooth typographic keyboard and I have a really sweet little setup:

Not wanting to be backwards about these things....I recently started looking at markdown! [and I know I am four years behind the times here].

You see, I used to use be a junior web developer, back when I was a student with chronic insomnia. As this was the mid to late nineties, and the employer was my university, there were no fancy tools or CSS to help with the development. I had to format all my pages by hand, as in raw HTML, and there were a lot of pages.

But writing in raw HTML can be a "bitch" and quite cumbersome. Certainly not what's needed for the blog's new focus....were I just want to write what I've got to say [probably using lots of ... period spacing....], "and then get out of Dodge". So markdown is of interest.

I watched a couple of video tutorials on the subject, namely ScreenCastOnline, and found the concept quite easy to pick up.

And then went to find some tools to help with it's construction....reviewed a couple and finally went for Writing Kit 3 for iPad and MarkdownPad for Windows

Now I have loverly markdown documents linked to my Dropbox account. Leaving me with the task of getting them into Wordpress. And ideally I'd like to do this from my iPad. Hunting around and I find two candidate applications: Poster and Blogsy for iPad. Unusually, I can't find a comparison or "versus" review. This is strange, as the so called blogosphere tends to review and critique such tools to death. So maybe I'll have to bite the bullet, blow the cob-webs off my wallet, and buy both of them....and then write that missing review. Sometimes I like making work for myself.

For those who don’t know…I have left Claritas….a bit of a heart wrench as it’s been my employment for well over eleven years.

[caption id=“attachment_504” align=“aligncenter” width=“225”] Bowcliffe Hall in the Snow[/caption]

The seperation happened at the end of 2012 and [quite frightenly] has been perfectly amicable…so much so that, I haven’t felt the need to run away with the sales database :p

Seriously….what can I say?….despite the overwelming number of reasons to move on…there were an many reason why I should have stayed….great set of people…fantastic work ethic…great geographic place to travel to and spend time at…loyalty for the years of good times and solid engineering background. It was my dream job for so many years…

But at the end…challenge was lacking and terminal stagnation had set in. I had been telling myself for a couple of years that…“if I didn’t move on soon….I wouldn’t ever move on!”…so split I did….and thankfully with only a slight bad taste in my mouth!

So…as mentioned previously…Winter 2012-2013 has been exceedingly busy.

New gadgets…new job…

…and that’s an odd thing…the new job….

I have landed where I said I would land….my next position was always going to be with a distributor or vendor….I needed that level of experience and knew that joining a supplier (either connectivity service provider or security vendor) would build on my already strong experience.

So I’ve got a job with a security vendor…Smoothwall . It’s great being able to apply all my aforementioned knowledge….but there is still a new product to learn….new working practises to adhere to….old preconception to break…

…for me, this is highly exhilarating. Change is good…Challenge keeps me young.

But I guess I’ll start that story in another post.

[and still that’s not the most important thing that has happened to me in the last few months]

I been saying it for years….“Dewsbury bus station is the centre of the know universe”….mainly from the premise that if you sit there for long enough, all people will pass you at some point!

But I found out at my astronomy class tonight….did I mention I am now a proud member of the Huddersfield Astronomical and Philosophical Society and I’m currently doing the Introduction to Astronomy night class….that the guy who first theorised about black holes did it in Dewsbury.  He called them “Dark Stars”.

John Michell…Reverend of St Michael and All Angels at Thornhill…I salute you!  More info about his achievements can be found here and here.

I think I’ll go and pay homage this weekend

Been doing my introduction to bonsai course today.

Had a really great day learning about compost, re-potting and controlling tree growth with wires. It was good to end up with muck under the finger nails.

The worst bit was the extreme privet trimming, going from this:

to this:

Arrrgggggggg! I hope it grows back, which the bonsai gurus assure me that it will.

I also acquired a new Serissa tree to accompany the Chinese Elm I got for Xmas. Both have been repotted and ready to flourish in spring.

Part two of the course scheduled and already booked. I can’t wait.

Following on from…http://www.davesdowntime.co.uk/?p=302

After a round of angst and worry about price and reputation….I got over myself…and Santa delivered.

It was Apple all the way….but with a nice dig dollop of humility.

Simplicy of installation and integration with just the services I need, made this installation go swimmingly…highlights being Siri on the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini serving as a great device in almost any situation.

The downside…accessorising with Cases, Stands, Screen Protection and Cabling…but to be honest this has been fun…if not a bit pricy. I could have splashed out a lot….but my choices have been reserched and nothing has been left to chance [in the most part].

List includes:

• Apple lighning to 30pin connector.... allowing all my previous power and VGA adaptor [not tested], to contiune be used.
• Zagg InvisibleShield Screen Protector with professional fitting and life-time guarentee.
• Clone Apple iPad Smart Case in gun metal gray.
• Logitech Tablet Keyboard for iPad.

Christmas has been kind to me this year…..but that is less than a 10% of what has been happening to me over the last couple of months.

Microsoft have gone all Amazon….with their download recommendations.  And it gave me quite a shock.

I was just installing the MAP toolkit on my new Windows 8 install.  In typical MS style, MAP has nothing to do with cartography….but is all about Planning and Assessment.  The tool needs .Net 4.0.2 to work…which the install give a little link for, nice touch!

So I went to the Microsoft website to download said version of .Net….and was presented with the following screen….i.e. customer who bought this <insert product name here>, also enjoyed this.

Very reminiscent of shopping on Amazons on a Kindle Fire HD.

Also, very strange as I’m not even running windows 7….so why the recommendations.

In any case, the install failed due to issues with connecting to the local “master” instance of SQL Express.  I really should read the release notes before doing this kind of stuff.

Dependent on how you view me, I’m either:

A massive Apple Fan-boi, who has no regard for personal expense or professional reputation, in pursuit of the latest shiny chrome gadgets…

…Or a…

… frustrated technology consumer who wants a simpler integrated way of using technology, to improve the quality of his life, without spending every spare waking hour reconfiguring/tweaking house-hold appliances and personal entertainment equipment with non-standard configurations, whilst completely alienating all members of my immediate family.

In either case, it’s true: In recent times…I have chosen to use Apple equipment. And after a recent count-up, there turns out to be quite a lot of it. But with the recent explosion in the gadget devices market, it’s time to consider the inevitable upgrade. So let’s look at the requirement….and then consider the choices.

So, what do I need? Well…the requirement’s haven’t changed that much in the last two to three years.

Firstly, I need a personal phone…or more accurately I would Like a new phone. My iPhone 4 has been a trusty companion for the last 2 1/2 years, never really giving me any jip or failing. Although battery life has always been limited to a day, that’s has been the case with the all the top-end smartphones that I have used for the best part of a decade now. Build quality is great and reception fine (when network allows). I have never regretted buying this unlocked phone direct from Apple.

But the boy’s 10 birthday is soon, and I have always said he has to wait until that age before he can have a mobile phone….and guess what he wants for his main present. So…he’ll probably end up getting my iPhone 4…and I’ll something new. At the moment it’s a straight fight between the iPhone 5 and the Nexus 4:

• iPhone 5 Pros - LTE compatible (but not necessarily on the spectrums in the forthcoming 4G auctions), nice big screen, good integration with the other Apple products I have, maintain investment in Apple Store apps, fast and light, best new app Eco-system.
• iPhone 5 Cons - Expensive, generic/low "wow" factor these days, new charging/data cabling format (highly annoying).
• Nexus 4 Pro - Inexpensive allowing "sim free" purchase and being more flexible in terms of network selection. Give a good range of products and test systems in my arsenal.
• Nexus 4 Cons - Even less "wow" factor than the iPhone 4. Lack of integration with iOS devices (but not as much as I first thought). Need to become more equated with a new OS. Availability is poor (Can't get one for love nor money).

And yet again, it’s a straight fight between iOS and Android. i.e. iPad mini vs Nexus 7. [I can see a pattern forming here]. It is quite clear that I am keen on integration and, unlike in my youth, I don’t have as much time or patience for “hacking” together technology from different stables. Therefore, I’m likely to purchase either one brand or another. I’ll have to see how I get on…

After several morbid and self-obsessed post, I really should get back to discussing technology!

And as I still have an non-existent audience, this blog can still offer me well needed therapy for the technological quandaries. And with a number of “interesting” product launches in the next couple of weeks, it time to don the guise of gadget consumer (as opposed to IT professional and Guru), and go shopping.

I must be getting old….or at least more odd….because I seem to be increasingly questioning my own choices. Take this morning for example….I’m stood on the train platform, iPhone/iPod in hand….Spotify and iTunes Match ready to spring into action….my eyes casually browsing the concourse….and my attention is grabbed the latest Pet Shop Boys album….Eh?

That’s not right.

More’s the point….why do I start fiddling with my music player and start streaming it into my ears? And then go and enjoy it. So much so in fact, that I’m still listening to it as I post this…..some 30 Miles down the mainline track.

I know that my music selection has sometimes been rather….errr….unorthodox….over the years….and I hope I’m open minded enough to not conform to stereotypes…..but something about this music selection doesn’t sit right.

I’m not sure if my inner workings don’t like being reminded that I’m a child of the eighties, and I’m fast approaching my 5th decade on the planet.

Or, there some underlying homophobia bubbling to the surface…..a feeling of akwardness that comes from getting pleasure from a pair of older gentleman….or an knee jerk reaction to being told to “Get Over It” from Stonewalled bus-side poster, I saw earlier this morning. I’ve never liked being told what to do!

Or, most likely it’s being suckered in by the advertising. A poster designed to make me buy and consume….made me do just that. Bah…..I hate it when I fall for that old trick.

Ow well…best not to beat myself up about it….sit back and enjoy the album….it is rather good.

Ok…maybe my last post was a little harsh, but with numerous things going wrong at the moment, I am a little out of sorts. Let me try to explain (and maybe get myself some well needed therapy!):

You see…the letter ‘R’ key on my bluetooth keyboard has fallen off….and the usual “snap back into place” fix isn’t working. It not that it is out-and-out bust, but one of those intermittent faults that make life slightly more tedious. You know the type…you can still get things done, but your sub-conscious is screaming at you that you are not operating at 100% efficiency. I can get this post written…but it’s taking a very long time, and the person sat opposite me on the train must think I have some form of mental health issue, as I keep muttering obscenities and fiddling with little bits of plastic.

Also…I have been reviewing the site lately, and realised there are a lot of half finished blog posts cumulating in the draft pile. Part baked ideas just sitting there…languishing….in an irritatingly incomplete state. I hate half finished work….especially when it’s my own.

I really do need to get myself sorted out….rid myself of these petty tiresome little niggles.

How?

Well that’s easy….buy some super-glue and either complete or discard the unfinished articles.

It’s funny how writting down the little trivial problems that I some time come across….helps me structure my thoughts….allowing the sometime obvious but obscured solution, to present itself. And sharing the experience to an ill-attentive audience, just helps to add definition and impetuous to the solution and its execution. I suppose it’s a little like sitting watching the telly with your significant other and muttering, half outloud, half to yourself…“We need to get some milk”….it usually results in you getting ouf of your seat….nipping down the shops and getting some.

Anyway…I promise to be more upbeat the next time I post…..whenever that will be!

Well…I would apologies….but I don’t feel sorry in the slightest.   Not being a serial tweeter, blogger or facebooker, I have no compulsion to update everyone about my every mood, whim and bowel movement.

As the blog name suggests: it’s my downtime….and frankly over the summer months, I don’t get much….and what little I do get, I’d rather spend doing stuff than commenting upon stuff.

Coupled with the fact that I strongly suspect that no-one read this drivel anyway….I will probably continue in my malaise of radio silence.

As the Winter holiday period slowly gains momentum, my professional life enters the strange “stop-go” cycle that dogs most people in the IT industry. It is a strange world inhabited by change freezes, bargins and special prices caused by vendor’s year end promotions and those mega urgent projects that simply must be implemented before the new year is here.

Despite the distractions of my little boy at home demanding that the tree is put up in late August, finding enough baubles and tinsle that survived in year in the cellar, meeting up with friends for a Xmas drinks and organising the big shop at the supermarket, I find my work life at this time of the year both exciting and challenging. You never know what your going to run into when you start the morning.

Over the last week or so, I have been spending quite some time evaluating, comparing and contrasting various products relating to Log Event management, with a specific focus on security [as always] and operational IT support. My little “proof of concept” server is more than paying for itself.

I am also preparing for the extended Christmas break by buying any computer game that takes my fancy. Both the Humble Bundle and Royal Indie Bundles have made substantial dents in my wallet over the last few months. The latest Humble Bundle is particularly good. Go Super Meat Boy! [probably the most addictive and infuriating platform game in the known universe]

Other Christmas preparations include trying to find a suitable subject for my holiday coding project. I think that an iPhone or iPad app will be where I focus this year….though the functionality of said app is still to be finalised. Comments and suggestions are welcome…but please keep them clean!

If I don’t get time to post before the beginning of 2012……Have a good ‘un!!!!

I’ve just spent most of the morning in a “breakfast briefing” at Easynet, where Nigel Titley (RIPE NCC Chairman, 6UK Chairman and also Easynet’s Global Peering and Transit Manager) was evangelising about IPv6.

Although the general theme was very similar to much of the written content on the subject, namely IPv4 depletion and how it could really mess-up your decade if you don’t at least start looking an IPv6 migration soon, it was quite refreshing to get an insight straight from the “horse’s mouth”.

I found Nigel’s perspective quite unique, as he has one foot in the regulator’s camp and one foot in service provider’s. His knowledge and obvious passion for the progress of IPv6 adoption, seems only to be tempered by the apparent lethargy of content and services providers (and the platforms they sell) to get out of the way of the oncoming juggernaut that is IPv4 address depletion.

The briefing also contained a fair amount of anecdotes, including “NAT is EVIL”, which was said with such vigour that it reminded me of my Advanced Networking module at university, where the choice-phrase of the semester was “ATM must DIE!” [we even had this slogan printed on t-shirts, what geeks we were].

Getting back to the briefing…I was also able to add to my collection of IPv6 address space analogies. I was also quite fond of the following one, which was used to describe the state of IPv4 address allocation today:

"There are no more coming off the factory floor....the only ones left are those still on the supermarket shelfs"

During the Q and A session after the presentation, there where a mixture of queries. One delegate was very interested with the effect that IPv6 and its built-in security, will have on law enforcement. This smelt like snooping secret squirel stuff to me. I also learnt today that until recently IPv6 was illegal in France, for the same security reasons (i.e. encryption without giving the goverment authorities your keys).

I was able voice my main concern with IPv6 and its adoption:

The need for IPv6 is clear, and a viable migration strategy is dual-stacking. But at some point there will be no IPv4 addresses to give out. Therefore a suitable bridging/mapping technology needs to adopted. Who is going to be responsible for that? The Internet user community needs better visibility about the techniques that can be and are going to be used, and how this will affect current [legacy] and future network service roll-out?

To their credit, the guys at Easynet did take this request for information onboard, and promised to produce a road-map and distribute more implementation details to their user-base and partners.

Before bringing his presentation to a close, Nigel casually asked how “many bit are in a IPv6 addresses?” and I glibly answered “128”….apparently this question won me a prize, and the RIPE chairman then threw a “IPv6 - Act Now” fridge magnet at me…for a second I though it was being thrown in anger, and that all those slightly exaggerated RIPE IP justification had come back to haunt me!

[caption id=“attachment_199” align=“aligncenter” width=“300” caption=“Aforementioned Fridge Magnet and other IPv6 related paraphernalia”][/caption]

[caption id=“attachment_200” align=“aligncenter” width=“224” caption=“Fridge Magnet In Situ”][/caption]

So….all I have to do now is digest all the information, rip-off the presentation, and prepare for a update session to my own client-base on the same subject. I hope I don’t get too many hard questions…but I guess Kharma will decide.

This week I am getting my head round some VMware 5 stuff, mainly the High Availability,Fail-over and VMotion. I have a number of clients who are looking at WAN solutions, but want to use VMware/NetApp solutions to achieve Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery.

So…..I need to know more about load balancing VMs than I do at the moment.

In the last month, I have bought myself a little HP Proliant Microserver, stacked it with RAM and NICs, and it has now become my lab/Proof-of-Concept box. I have already been able to give Check Point R75.20 and iPad/iPhone L2TP VPNs a thorough test-out.

I was toying with the idea of buying another Microserver to do the VMotion stuff, but I remembered reading articles somewhere that you could put Vmware vSphere 4 on vSphere 4, but I never gave it a go. I thought it would also be cool to see it you could do it with ESXi 5.

So I gave it a go today….and it worked. Straight away, with no messing about. Before I tried it, I read this article which gives the step for vSphere 4….but in the end I didn’t need to do any customising, or “hacking”….computing never used to be this easy in the good old days.

I’ll let you all know if the Vmotion stuff works as well.

It looks like my first technical “Introduction to…” guides have gone live.

They are supposed to be technical primers, which explain the subject matter in a way that is accessible to a lay person.

The first two look at Connectivity and Hosting, and can be found on the Claritas Solution website.

Comments are welcome.

It’s fast becoming that loverly part of the year, around my birthday, when the corn is getting long in the fields and humid thunderstorms threaten in the late afternoon. It is a time when some people take their summer holidays [the one who don’t mind paying extortionate prices], and the daily commute to work becomes a pleasure as the schools are off. Just the right time to take stock and do a catch-up post….

What a busy couple of months it has been…..hence the lack of blog post or facebook/twitter updates. And I have a rule which ensures that if I am busy, I tend to get on with being busy and forgo the written commentary…..a bit like if I’m at a gig, I would rather see the band with my own eyes, rather that through the view-finder of a camera phone. Hence the near terminal case of Blog Neglect.

So what have I been doing? Well there was InfoSec and CPX (two security conferences), various types of product training sessions, a plethora of Team Fortress 2 updates and competitive tournament games to play, a 90 minute technical security update presentation to give, loads of client meetings, helping to organise a wide scale asset audit for a leading national hotel chain, technical primer writing, a summer holiday at Butlins (Skegness) and numerous music gigs/festivals to attend.

And what is yet to come? Well, probably lots more same, but hopefully at less of a frantic pace. I’m just not sure how much blogging will be done…but I will make a concerted effort to update more often. [That sounds like so many New Year’s resolutions to “keep up with a journal/diary”, that I have broken over the years!]. In the meantime I hope to retrospectively post some of the post that have been written over the last couple of months, but never published….

So in its simplest form InfoSec is just a large warehouse of a room, with lots of people/geeks getting hot and sweaty, and waffling a lot. A more profound description would indicate that InfoSec is a barometer gauging the health of the Information Security industry in the UK and wider afield. And it would be fair to say that this years event is bigger than last years, with more exhibitors, whilst also remaining more modest [with most of the stands being somewhat smaller and more compact]

As usual there where two styles of exhibitor...those who where the big names, the big hitters, the almost "house-hold" names in information security, with there big/brash stands usually situated at the frount of the exhibition hall. Then there was the small, 4 meter by 4 meters, modest stands, with little or no marketing colleral and just one guy, complete with beard, glasses and sandels who want to discuss Information comliance and governance with you, until your ears bleed and your nervous system makes your limb mussels twitches and spasm "get me out of here" in Morse code.

Another fun activity when attending this type of event is the continuous search from treasure. The freebie. The useless piece of marketing tat, that your take back home from the kids. In particular, I was looking for a replacement for my red F5 stress ball, as the last one sadly disintegrated during a prolong game of "hit the account manager on the head" (AKA Matt's Bonce Bounce), sometime during the last year's Xmas festivities. Thankfully, F5 came up trumps again, and not only do I now have all the datasheets relating to their IPv6 gateway devices, but I also have ample ammunition to throw at the sales staff.

Most bizzare bit of treasure? We this year the award has to go to the pair of socks provided by Pen Test Partners. As well as giving a new nice demonstration of hacking OWA via iPhone's almost implicit trust of previously connected WIFI hot spots, they where also quite free with the foot apparel, with the whole experience turning from information security demonstration to twisted "game show like" prize give-away in the blink of an eye.

Other awards which are quite apt for this event....

...most blanket marketing coverage? Same as last year: Webroot....everywhere you look in the exhibition hall you can see some evidence of their luminous green livery. Everything from the initial bag of treasure you are handed on the way in....to the bar where you have that all important one-to-one networking meeting....are all sporting the Webroot moniker!

...most ostentatious Stand? That's a hard one. There where the usual "over the top" lighting affairs at AV avenue....the row where most of the Anti-malware vendors hang out. Both Sophos and Cisco continued with their bright white minimalist look. McAfee and Wickhill both had split-level two-floor stands [I wonder if they get charged extra for the additional square footage]!

So it off to Earl’s Court we go…and for those who don’t know, InfoSec is the UK biggest exhibition and conference relating to Information Security.  Lot’s of things for me to get excited and geek over.  Yippee!

I am now on the train on my way down…wondering what the day has got in store for me.  Plenty of meeting with partners and probably the odd bit of “distributor bashing”.  Loverly.  I wonder what I shall focus on this time.  Last year I was on a mission to find alternative content security products…but today I’m a bit less distinct with my expectations.

Most of the clients, customers and prospects I am talking to at the moment have very streamline requirements.  Keep costs low [obviously], prevent data breaches and give improved visibility of what is going on.  

So it appears that I’ll be on the look out for new products with good scalability, anything with new/innovative protection mechanisms, and new management/reporting tools.  Pretty standard stuff really.

Anyway…I should be tweeting/facebooking [is that a verb] throughout the day….and have a summary post to wrap everything up….

…onward to the exhibition hall!

With the public EA release of R75.10 (the first HFA/service pack for R75) and vendor training this week, I can see us rolling it out to our Provider-1 installation and taking it up to our customers in the very near future.  It will probably become the version of choice for new deployments.

Up until now I have only been playing with it, but the main things to impress so far include the speed with which AppWiki, the application and Web 2.0 widget database, seems to be growing.  Also the amount of information available in both SmartTracker and SmartEvent/SmartReport are more than comprehensive.

I’ll post when we have done our first installation in anger.  This is likely to be our HQ firewall.

As you can see the site has had a bit of a face lift.  Thanks to Rob for the assistance with the guides and the Gimp [and if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry….it’s nothing perverse]!

Comments welcome about the “new look”!

Again, more archive material that has been looking for a permanent home.

This time a subnet calculator program for J2ME capable devices/phones, that I created a few years ago.

I put a link to this in the new link section that can be found on the main pages “side bar” .

Enjoy!

I was working my way through some old backups this weekend and found some old university work.  Most prominent of which was my old “Global Brain” research and comment from old Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence module.

This used to have a permanent home on the University of Derby’s website, but itlooks like that they have removed it!  [boo!]

So I have put it back up on the new website, where it can languish, collecting dust for another 11 years. [has it really been that long - sigh!]

I am currently getting ready to write a “primer” whitepaper for my clients regarding the implications of IPv6.  This has involved reading a lot of literature from a variety of different sources, all of which offer an explanation of what IPv6 is and why is its implementation is imminent. [is that too many “I"s for one sentence?]

These explanations can be summarised as “we are running out of old [IPv4] IP addresses and IPv6 offers more.  A lot more.”

Each of these technical explanations then offers an analogy about how many IPv6 addresses there really are.  Some have come up with various ingenious/improbable/crazy ways to express this really large number.  I thought I would share a few with you:

To put this into perspective: there are currently 130 million people born each year. If this number of births remains the same until the sun goes dark in 5 billion years, and all of these people live to be 72 years old, they can all have 53 times the address space of the IPv4 Internet for every second of their lives. Let nobody accuse the IETF of being frugal this time around.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2007/03/IPv6.ars/2

This extra character length allows IPv6 to produce 340 undecillion - that's 34,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - IP addresses. Or, to put it another way, several billion addresses for each person on earth.

[http://www.silicon.com/technology/networks/2011/03/02/ipv6-cheat-sheet-39747054/]

To help put this number in perspective, a 128-bit address space provides 655,570,793,348,866,943,898,599 (6.5´10²³) addresses for every square meter of the Earth’s surface.

[Microsoft Corporation - Introduction to IP Version 6 - 2008]

If each IP address is the size of small drop of water....the IPv4 space is about the size of a telephone box...the IPv6 address space is about the size of the sphere of Mercury. [Nigel Titley (RIPE NCC Chairman, 6UK Chairman and also Easynet's Global Peering and Transit Manager) - Easynet Breakfast Briefing on IPv6 - 22nd September 2011 - London]

IPv6 addresses are being currently being allocated at a very fast rate, and with really large allocation size per applicant. If this contiues for the next 50 years....we will have used approximately 2% of available addresses. [Nigel Titley (RIPE NCC Chairman, 6UK Chairman and also Easynet's Global Peering and Transit Manager) - Easynet Breakfast Briefing on IPv6 - 22nd September 2011 - London]

If you have any more examples, please post them here.  I find them vaguely funny.

I awoke this morning to find my bed-side radio, which is usual tuned to be Radio 4, informing me that UK broadband users are being swindled. The nasty terrible Internet Service Providers are over selling their products and the whole industry was guilty of mis-advertising.

I then went downstairs, and BBC breakfast news continued to tell myself and the British public they were being ripped off. Not that I watch BBC Breakfast News for it quality output or noteworthy delivery of journalist content, you understand. But I do like to start the day with a good old rant and shout at the screen, and I find that the moronic BBC presenters on this show generates the correct amount of hostility. (This is opposed to ITV’s breakfast telly, which usually results in me destroying the TV set).

Ofcom comes up with its report into advertised broadband speeds and actual user experience, and the pessimistic press suddenly appear to tell us all we have a significant consumer affairs issue. They only focusing on the bad aspects of the report, and make out that it’s the telecommunications industry’s fault that Mister Joe Public can’t download his porn in double quick time.

I totally disagree with the way that this issue is being reported. There are various things that are set out in the Ofcom report, which I have read in detail, that seem to be missing from the popular press' coverage. In the interest of fair-play, I would like to offer some kind of balance, by pointing out some of the findings overlooked by more sensationalist outlets:

Residential super-fast broadband and high speed Internet is on the increase. By quite a lot. To quote directly from the report:

"...test data suggests that average download speeds in the UK increased by 5% between May and November/December 2010, this following an increase of 27% between April 2009 and May 2010."

[Point 1.5 - http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/telecoms-research/broadband-speeds/speeds-nov-dec-2010/]

My second gripe is with why an “Up to” advertised speed is such an issue. I’m an intelligent man. I know that if someone quotes a figure and it is prefixed with the words “Up to”, I know that they are talking about a range from zero to that number. In a similar way, if someone is advertising a product at “prices from”, I understand that this is going to be the minimum price and I am unlikely to buy the product at the price. It is a guide. I agree with Ofcom’s recommendation that a Typical Speed Range (TSR) should also be included in advertisements and sales literature, to give an indication of what an average user experience will be. But again, the end consumer needs to realise that this is still just a guide. That’s why telecommunication links are always sold “subject to survey”.

It is going to be a long time before we get to accurately quote actual line speeds for all users, as ranges of line quality and distances from exchange vary from property to property, region to region and technology to technology.

The press coverage also focuses on the bandwidth speed only. There is no mention of service availability/stability, price, latency/delay or customer service. All of these things are important factors when deciding on a broadband provider.

So….to summarise….things aren’t all bad….users should wise up….the press should be more positive and stop scaremongering….and life may end up being a little better for everyone.

It’s now over a week later, I have just completed the second business trip away overnight in as many weeks. Both without lugging around the traditional laptop or netbook equipment.

It’s now time to pronounce success or utter failure on the whole experience.

Well…the remainder of the time spent on trips….after my last posts (Part 1 and Part 2)…have mainly involved being the audience in training sessions or sales/technical update sessions.

Due to the previous six months of ownership, I already know that the iPad is alright as a note taking device. It’s usefulness is further enhanced with the bluetooth keyboard. The almost instant-on feature of tablets and quick access to fully syncable note taking apps, make this format precisely what is needed for jotting notes and such. It makes perfect sence for anyone with such appalling handwritting, like me who has problems reading what I have written only a few days before.

The main suprise of this whole experiment was a data centre visit. I have recently purchase a server for the Dave’s Downtime project (ebay special), and it was time to go put it into colocation.

I was appropriately equipped. I had network cables and both type of power cables (I can never remember which data centres use UK pin and which use IEC female on their PDUs). I had bought the racking kit and also checked that it fitted the server before getting myself in front of the rack. We’ve all be caught out by that one. I also had all the sundries of cage nuts/booths, insertion tool [oh-er] and screwdrivers. Access was booked and parking had been arranged.

It was whilst travelling down the road to the data centre that I realised that I had left the now redundant laptops under the coffee table at home. Arrrggggg! Now, I have spent a lot of “out of hours” time in data centre, and have had more than one occasion when a whole schedule of work has been stopped due to a laptop’s battery running out of charge, and the correct power pack or cable being unavailable.

I had to make a quick decision. Pospone the whole thing, turn back and try again later…or push on through, see how far I got and maybe call in a few favours to get the remote access tested.

As this was a kinda personal project, with no or little impact on anything important, I decided to proceed. I would note that I probably have not gone on if I had a fixed outage window, or was working on a customer’s critical system. The safety net rule always applies.

Needless to say, the physical installation of racking, powering and cabling went fine. I then needed to make sure that I could admin the new server once I had left the DC facility, and so had to test remote access. The hand went to the iPad, and the RDP application (Wyse Pocket Cloud, which has a built-in machine connection feature), was called into action. Using a 3G connection I was able to access my work PC and perform the neccessary VMWare, Linux and Check Point functions. WIN! Didn’t need to bother anybody else, and the whole thing was done in about 15 mins.

The only thing I missed was a mouse, as the screen taps on an RDP client can be quite inaccurate at times. To implement a mouse on the iPad would involve buying a new bluetooth mouse (tight Yorkshire man sighs), jailbreaking the iPad and voiding it’s warranty and losing the ability to use the keyboard at the same time. Not compeling reasons to give it a try! But I may give it a go at a later date.

On the flip side of this experiment, was yesterday’s “upgrade” [cough] of an Apple TV 2. This required putting the multimedia device into maintenance mode and flashing it with firmware. This was done by using the unit’s MircoUSB port and could only be performed from an PC or Mac.

To save time I though I would do the whole process, in situ, using my Samsung Netbook running Windows 7. After about 15 mins, when the net book had finally stop booting and updating (Windows Update, Adobe flash and reader, iTunes, anti-virus, Windows Defender, system restore point, etc), I finally tried to do the upgrade. This resulted in an extremely frustrated user (me), and several nasty looking scratches on the AppleTV, due to me raging and bashing all things technical within my reach against a radiator.

In the end I went and unplug the ATV 2 and took down into the cellar. I was then able to do the flash on my desktop PC, which went surprisingly well.

So all-in-all the whole “discard the laptop” experiment has gone well, although there will be times when such a “locked down” device such as a tablet and its lack of physical connections, will simply not cut the mustard. I must admit I am suprised by how much a iPad can replace two laptops, in most everyday situations….

…now to go put the Samsung on ebay!

The business meeting I had today went well. But then I already knew that the iPad, ZaggMate, Dropbox and Good Reader were a winning combination for meeting agendas and previous specifications.

I have already used the iPad and Keynote several time for impromptu presentations…including in the Pub…which everyone knows is where the real business gets done.

Onward to the night away.

So….I have a lot going on in my life….technically speaking…at the moment! As I am currently finding storage for the new web-server, I need to wipe a couple of hard disks and this has kicked off another session of data backups and consolidation. Therefore my workbench in the dungeon (AKA as my cellar), is current a litterny of USB hard-drives, USB cables, ESATA cables and associated power supplies. I hope the local fire brigade don’t call round for an inspection, or they’ll have a fit!

Now I’m going away overnight, and I was little pressed for time with my packing [isn’t that always the case], I didn’t want to spend 30mins of advanced knot untying to extract the relevant power-blocks.

So…I’ve made a brave decision….no Window 7 netbook…no Hackingt0sh Laptop…just me, m' iPhone and m' iPad