Brent Sordyl's blog

Centralized logging for fun and profit! | Revolution Systems

BrentSordyl — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 19:00:02 +0000

Setting up a centralized log server using syslog isn’t as hard as many may believe. Whether it’s logs from Apache, nginx, email services, or even from your own Python applications having a central log server gives you many benefits:
(Link: Centralized logging for fun and profit! | Revolution Systems)

Howto: Mac OSX on Linux

BrentSordyl — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:00:02 +0000

This tutorial shows the steps to run a Mac OSX guest under KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) on a Linux System.
If your distribution is an openSUSE 11.0 (IIRC) or later, you have only to install kvm package.
Otherwise you have to follow this tutorial to build and run latest pacthed KVM version.
(Link: Howto: Mac OSX on Linux)

Drools Fusion – JBoss Community

BrentSordyl — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:00:01 +0000

The vision on Drools 5 of a Behavioural Modeling Platform can only be achieved by moving away from any of the narrow modeling perspectives that see only Rules, or Processes, or Events as their main modeling concept. To effectively achieve the flexibility and power of behavioural modeling, a platform must understand all of these concepts as primary concepts and allow them to leverage on each other strengths.
(Link: Drools Fusion – JBoss Community)

Apache PDFBox – Apache PDFBox – Java PDF Library

BrentSordyl — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:00:02 +0000

Apache PDFBox is an open source Java PDF library for working with PDF documents. This project allows creation of new PDF documents, manipulation of existing documents and the ability to extract content from documents. Apache PDFBox also includes several command line utilities. Apache PDFBox is published under the Apache License v2.0.
(Link: Apache PDFBox – Apache PDFBox – Java PDF Library)

Eventually Consistent – Revisited – All Things Distributed

BrentSordyl — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:00:02 +0000

In the mid-’90s, with the rise of larger Internet systems, these practices were revisited. At that time people began to consider the idea that availability was perhaps the most important property of these systems, but they were struggling with what it should be traded off against. Eric Brewer, systems professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and at that time head of Inktomi, brought the different trade-offs together in a keynote address to the PODC (Principles of Distributed Computing) conference in 2000.1 He presented the CAP theorem, which states that of three properties of shared-data systems—data consistency, system availability, and tolerance to network partition—only two can be achieved at any given time. A more formal confirmation can be found in a 2002 paper by Seth Gilbert and Nancy Lynch.4
(Link: Eventually Consistent – Revisited – All Things Distributed)

SSH: Tips And Tricks You Need

BrentSordyl — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:00:02 +0000

Quick Hack to Make Your Boss (and you) More Productive | Both Sides of the Table

BrentSordyl — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:00:01 +0000

So the solution was that any time you had a question you had to write it down on these pre-printed tablets of paper called “point sheets” and once you had accumulated enough questions you could bring them en masse to your boss (everyone who worked at Andersen in the early 90’s is giving a small chuckle from nostalgia about right now).

And the funny thing – by the time you were ready to walk through 7-8 issues with your boss you realize that you had already figured out 3 or 4 of them on your own.
(Link: Quick Hack to Make Your Boss (and you) More Productive | Both Sides of the Table)

Introducing JITB a java-based flash player

BrentSordyl — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:00:01 +0000

JITB is currently able to translate a subset of ActionScript code at runtime into Java bytecode and runs nearly at the same speed as native Java. This is a really huge improvement compared to standard ActionScript performance. A lot of smart people worked on the JVM and made it really fast. Apparat will allow you to leverage all this hard work in the future. I am also shooting for Java interoperability at some level so that you can call Java classes from within ActionScript. Hopefully you will be able to use JITB on your desktop machine, on a server or on an Android phone. Basically everywhere Java runs.
(Link: Introducing JITB a java-based flash player)

Presentation Zen: A long time ago, before death by PowerPoint

BrentSordyl — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 20:00:01 +0000

What the same presentation would look like while following conventional slideware templates found on present day planet Earth. “You can’t see this well on this Micro Galactic ProjectionPoint, but an analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. Follow this link at the bottom of the screen for more info if needed.”
(Link: Presentation Zen: A long time ago, before death by PowerPoint)

Livescribe use models in special education | ZDNet

BrentSordyl — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:00:02 +0000

No smartpen will be the magic bullet that lets a child who is struggling because of a disability suddenly succeed. Success is based on a lot of hard work for the student and parents and complete commitment for the teacher. The right resources and supports have to tie all of these elements together. That being said, there are several classroom models where students with disabilities can easily benefit from the echo smartpen.

(Link: Livescribe use models in special education | ZDNet)

Accessing JBoss (JMS) behind firewall

BrentSordyl — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:00:02 +0000

What needs to be done to be able to access a JBoss JMS through a firewall.
(Link: Accessing JBoss (JMS) behind firewall)

Red Hat Pursuing Certification For RHEL 6, Hypervisor

BrentSordyl — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:00:02 +0000

Red Hat is pursuing a certification for its Linux OS and virtualization, paving the way for government agencies to use the technology to create secure, virtualized IT environments and private clouds.
The Linux vendor has entered into an agreement with Atsec information security to certify Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 under Common Criteria at Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4, according to a Red Hat blog post.
(Link: Red Hat Pursuing Certification For RHEL 6, Hypervisor)

SSH tip: Automatic Reverse Tunnels for Workflow Simplification | codysoyland.com

BrentSordyl — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:00:01 +0000

There is a way to get around this limitation with DNS/firewalls, and the answer is by using SSH reverse tunnels to bind your local SSH daemon port to a remote SSH alias. This can be accomplished in a simple manner by modifying your ~/.ssh/config on both the local and remote computers.
(Link: SSH tip: Automatic Reverse Tunnels for Workflow Simplification | codysoyland.com)

Scaling an AWS infrastructure – Tools and Patterns

BrentSordyl — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:00:02 +0000

How do you scale an AWS (Amazon Web Services) infrastructure? This article will give you a detailed reply in two parts: the tools you can use to make the most of Amazon’s dynamic approach, and the architectural model you should adopt for a scalable infrastructure.
(Link: Scaling an AWS infrastructure – Tools and Patterns)

Syslog-ng – centralized logging server

BrentSordyl — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:00:02 +0000

The syslog-ng application is a flexible and highly scalable system logging application that is ideal for creating centralized and trusted logging solutions.
1. transfers log messages in a reliable, TLS-encrypted channel;
2. is compatible with a wide range of operating systems and platforms, 3. including many Unix-variants and Windows versions;
4. can store log messages in encrypted, digitally signed and timestamped files;
5. supports the latest IETF syslog protocol standards;
6. provides unimaginable flexibility for sorting and managing system events;
7. has an enormous user-base;
(Link: Syslog-ng – centralized logging server)