Chris Kirby's Inner Monolog : Networking

First day with the Zune

Chris Kirby — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 17:08:00 GMT

I was planning on getting a Zune sometime next year, once they beefed up the software/firmware a bit, but to my surprise, Santa decided hook me up with one on Christmas morning! I guess those cookies and Jager I left for him paid off...

My first impression of the Zune and the companion software was very reminiscent of hooking up the 360 or more recently, the Wii for the first time. In that, that hardware seemed solid and full of potential, but the software was nowhere close. I believe that this is both a good and a bad thing. The good being that you now have a device which is capable of achieving a countless number of additional features, given its unique hardware features. Specifically the onboard wireless and the windows live integration. The bad being that this potentially great device is quite limited for the time being, and may not be up to the standards of the veteran Creative players or even the iPod. Which, unfortunately, has become common place in this 'beta' software age we now live in.

With that said, I think there are some specific things Microsoft will need to do to in order for the Zune to be successful. First, it needs to ride on the coat tails of the Xbox 360. Meaning that it should have wirelessly integrated with my 360 out of the box...giving all 6+ million 360 owners an immediate need to ditch their iPod and pick up a Zune. Second, clean up the DRM mess. Do i use Urge or Zune marketplace? Why doesn't my Zune work with Windows Media Player 11? What do i do with my PlaysForSure tracks? Will it DRM uninfected tracks share via wireless? Finally, get me the features that will bring the Zune up to par and eventually set it apart. We need podcasting support, games, and a video marketplace just to catch up to the competition...and real wireless functionality with tighter live integration to surpass it.

So, buy one or not? Well, for me, the potential and the quality of existing features was enough...but i'm not conviced that its ready for the masses just yet. Afterall, its the hardware that sells it, and the software that keeps it.

Wii has landed.

Chris Kirby — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 19:48:00 GMT

I was finally able to secure a Wii, thanks to my friend Brian. I did end up paying a littler over retail, but it was definitely worth it to snag one before the holidays. My wife really wanted one so I was tying to come through as a nice surprise...I also picked up Zelda for her because she is an avid fan of the entire series. Now, the mission is to locate a few more remotes, because beating the computer at tennis and baseball just doesn't' seem to satisfy my competitive spirit ;)

My first 24 hours with the Wii wasn't all sunshine though. For some reason, it refuses to connect with my Linksys WRT54G wireless router (most popular router on the planet)! I do have WPA encryption enabled (which Wii supports), but i can't even get it to connect with no encryption at all...finally, i was able to get a connection to my neighbors Linksys router...which is the same brand/model !?! And to top it all off, i don't even have the option of running a hard line to it...now that just wrong!

Virtualization showdown

Chris Kirby — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:25:00 GMT

I've been a huge fan of virtualization over the years. Its definitely the best way to maximize any workstation or server environment. I've always used VMware workstation on my desktop to test and demo software...and its especially great for demoing Linux environments on windows. I also heavily utilized virtualization on my Windows 2003 servers...so for the past year or so, i've been running Microsoft's free virtual server technology, Virtual Server 2005, to run additional web, mail, and database servers on my network. But, since the arrival of the first VMware server RC, I've been using a mixed virtual environment. Some servers are running VS 2005 R2 and some are running VMware server 1.0. The reason for this was to basically see how both tech's stood up to one another when it comes to management, deployment, performance.

On the management side, both offer excellent (and free) tools for managing the various virtual machines on a particular server...though, each take a slightly different approach. VS 2005's server/machine management is entirely web based (including remote control), with the exception of a very basic, remote desktop like client, that can directly connect to vm from your desktop. VMware also has a web based app, but it can only be used for monitoring the server/machines and changing some basic options. For complete management, its best to used the virtual console provided with the server install. The console is nearly identical to the vmware workstation interface, which allows you to manage multiple virtual machines at the same time as well as all of the available server settings. For me, the overall winner so far, is VMware. The desktop management interface is really in a different league from anything Microsoft currently offers with VS 2005. Though, I will say that VS 2005 has one significant option that stands out when running multiple vm's...In the web management there are a series of settings that allow you to set processor utilization caps and percentage base processor priorities on a server or machine wide basis. Now that is something that VMware server should have definitely included in this release, though the support for multiple virtual processors makes up for it, for the time being.

With deployment, neither one really stands out as far as functionality. Meaning, that I belive both do well at this by supporting the concept of Virtual Appliances. Virtual Appliance is a term make popular by VMware that basically describes a virtual machine which is ready to go with little to no configuration after startup. Now, technically, VS 2005 doesn't have tools to specifically support this concept, though Virtual PC 2004 can be used with a few exceptions or you can just create a new virtual machine description on the server and attach an existing (cloned) disk to it, which already has the server os installed and configured. With VMware, there is a more integrated approach to creating and viewing virtual appliances. The recommended approach is to create them using VMware Workstation and then simply deploy (copy) the vm/appliance to its hosted location. If you don't have workstation installed, then you would just use the Virtual Console to accomplish the same thing. VMware also has an excellent free app called VMware player, which allows you to view and interact with appliances on the desktop. So, on the free side of things, both are pretty even...though, once you jump in to the realm of paid deployment tools, VMware currently has VS 2005 beat. With their newly available Virtual Center 1.4 product for Virtual server 1.0, which allows the centralization of management and deployment across the network. Though, to be fair, MS has announced the upcoming beta of System Center, which will be direct competition for Virtual Center in late 2007.

Finally, the preformance comparison between VMware Server and VS 2005 is really too close to declare a winner (in single proc mode)...Now, that definitely wasn't the case during the VMware server beta, but now that 1.0 is out, the performance is very solid and up to par with VS 2005 on both the server and management side.

So, with ALL of that said. I will most likely phase out the rest of my VS 2005 vm's and import them into VMware format in the near future. Though both servers are very close in comparison, VMware still came out on top, showing that their still the best at what they do...and now that there stuff is (mostly) free, there's really no reason to for me use any other tech. Now, if they would just release a version of VMware workstation for free ;)

Great DNS service

Chris Kirby — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 01:03:04 GMT

If you're in need of a good primary or secondary dns provider and are on a budget, i found a great service. XName.org provides primary and secondary dns hosting via a web control panel on their web site which, once logged in, allows you to add and manage as many domains as you like. And, the best part about the service is that is completely free! You are, however, encouraged to donate if you like the service (which I did, I always like supporting solid free services). I believe the dns servers are located in France, so they may not be as snappy as local dns provider, but for the secondary service I needed it was prefect. If you host your own stuff and run your own dns server then its a good idea to have secondary dns service just in case your primary goes down for any reason.

If anyone out there has any experience with this service please let me know your thoughts. I've used a similar free service in the past provided by twisted4life but they limit you to only 10 secondary zones (unless you want to fork over some cash). They might, however, be a good secondary choice if you have less that 10 domains because their updates are much faster than XName and can even be initiate manually on their site.