Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 8, 2011
by sjvn01
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Linux Foundation’s t-shirt competition

Normally, I look at serious subjects, but what the heck, Linux is turning 20 this year–although as its creator Linus Torvalds is the first to say deciding exactly when Linux turns 20 is a matter of debate–so why not tell you about the Linux Foundation’s “20th anniversary of Linux” t-shirt contest.

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June 8, 2011
by sjvn01
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The World IPv6 Day report card

Internet administrators were 99.9999% sure that World IPv6 Day would go by without any real problems. Of course, when you’re dealing with something as big as the Internet, even six nines of up-time could mean hundreds of thousands of users with trouble. So far, though, all is well.

At noon Eastern time, all the dual-stacked IPv4/IPv6 sites on the Réseaux IP Européens’ (RIPE, French for “European IP Networks”) IPv6 Eye Chart are checking in green. This means that these major Web sites are working correctly both for people using the traditional Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) Internet and users working with IPv6. This was one of the project’s major goals. The last thing Internet network system operators wanted was to find that their IPv6 support was breaking the Internet for the vast majority of users.

Breaking the Internet would have been “Bad.” There’s a lot of network administrators out there now who are no longer holding their breath.

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June 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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LibreOffice motors right along with a new release

OK, so Oracle did give OpenOffice’s intellectual property (IP) to The Apache Foundation. So what! The Document Foundation (TDF), which forked OpenOffice into LibreOffice, isn’t waving the white flag. Instead, the group has released its next major LibreOffice version: LibreOffice 3.4.

TDF proudly boasts that the latest LibreOffice “incorporates the contributions of over 120 developers (six times as many as the first beta released on the launch date).” And, that, “The majority of these contributors have started to hack LibreOffice code less than eight months ago, and this is an incredible achievement if one recalls that the OOo [OpenOffice.org] project has attracted a lower number of contributors in ten years.”

How does LibreOffice do it? In a statement, Italo Vignoli, a TDF Steering Committee member said, “We care for our developers, and it shows. Our core developers have invented the mechanism of the easy hacks, which makes it simple and enjoyable for volunteer contributors to get to know LibreOffice code challenging their development skills with basic or elementary tasks.”

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June 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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The Top IT Certifications

It’s a rough job market out there. The U.S. unemployment rate was 9.4% in December 2010. That’s better than it has been, but it’s still not great. And while some groups, like the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), expect things to get better – “Overall, employers expect to hire 13.5% more new graduates from the class of 2011 than they hired from the class of 2010,” says the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) – anyone searching for an IT job needs to do whatever is possible to improve the chances that an employer will pick you. That’s all well and good, but what can you do to improve your chances of getting an IT job? Well, the right certification won’t hurt – and it might help.

The good news: IT is a good place to be looking for a job. According to CareerCast, two of the top ten best jobs in 2011 will be IT-related: software engineer and systems analyst.

Certification can give your resume an extra “oomph” but don’t expect a certification alone to have employers beating a path to your well-papered door. No certification, not even becoming a Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), can get you a job without experience, and you likely can’t get a job without sensible job searching and networking.

Still, the right certification can help you get into IT or encourage a raise or a promotion.

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June 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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What is World IPv6 Day and why it matters

While you’ve been asleep in your beds with visions of iPad 2s dancing in your heads, network administrators have been wide awake getting ready for World IPv6 Day. And, what’s that?

As the The Internet Society explained, “The goal of the Test Drive Day is to motivate organizations across the industry – Internet service providers [ISP], hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies – to prepare their services for IPv6 [Internet Protocol version 6) o ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.”

Well, they’ve been motivated all right. Facebook, Google, and Yahoo! and important content delivery network (CDN) providers, including Akamai and Limelight Network will be offering IPv6 networking as well as the usual IPv6 on June 8, 2011.

We’ve been running out of IPv4 addresses for some time on the Internet, but few sites already offer their services via the next generation of Internet addresses, IPv6. Despite the fact that we’re now down to the last few IP addresses, indeed Asia is already out, of major sites, only some of Google’s sites; Netflix, to a degree; Germany’s Heise Online; Facebook at www.v6.facebook.com; and Limelight currently offer IPv6 addressing on a regular basis.

So it is that The Internet Society and others decided to star World IPv6 day. It’s both a way to encourage ISPs, CDNs, and Web sites to start moving to IPv6 and to see what, if anything goes wrong when they try to support both TCP/IP networking protocols at once.

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June 7, 2011
by sjvn01
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Is the iCloud the end of the Linux & Windows desktop?

I think a cloud-based operating system, like Google’ Chrome OS, has a bright future. But, when I look at Apple’s Lion, which will only be available as an upgrade by a 4GB download, and iCloud plans I begin to wonder just how much any fat-client operating system-Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows-have if Apple and Google have their way.

As Jobs put it, the PC centric data model is broken. And, so the digital hub will move from being the PC to the iCloud and the Mac will be “demoted.”

What did he mean by that? My fellow ZDNet writer, Andrew Nusca, put it well, “Mac vs. PC vs. Linux argument from the early days of consumer computing has lost a great deal of its luster in recent years with the development of cloud computing on the open web.” The operating system wars are far from over though. Nusca continued, “Concept of platform wars is quickly making up for lost ground with the development of cloud computing in the closed mobile space.”

I’ve always thought that thin-client computing has its place in technology. That’s one reason why I think Google’s Chrome OS has a real shot in dethroning the Window desktop in the office. By making the iCloud the center of everything, instead of the Mac, Apple is trying to wean consumers away from the fat-client PC model that’s served us so well since the day the first IBM PC rolled off the assembly line.

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