Category Archives: Blog

Humpty Dumpty

alert-icon-redIt appears there is an issue with the Mystique theme I’m using on my WordPress blog that is literally “hiding” a large number of the comments and replies to almost every post with more than 10 comments or replies.

I’ve spent a few hours looking into this problem but I’ve been unable to locate the culprit (theme, plugin, update, Nginx, etc). In order to quickly address this problem I’ve decided to switch to the default Twenty Twelve theme that ships with WordPress. While this theme doesn’t have that much bling it doesn’t hide the content from the user or visitor.

I’ll probably need to dig into the HTML and JavaScript to try and figure out what’s going on but right now I don’t have the time or energy to make that happen in short order so this workaround will need to suffice.

Cheers!

It’s the networks fault #10

network_cable_by_tootallWe’re back again with another edition….

Articles

HTML5 VIDEO bytes on iOS by Steve Sounders- I enjoy following Steve’s in-depth analysis. I often end up doing my own reverse engineering while trying to determine why something is broken or why it doesn’t work properly.

The Importance of Watching the Wire by Jeremy Stretch – Jeremy is well known within the community and his posts are very insightful. Just last week I had to put asside HttpWatch and look at a packet trace utilizing WireShark to determine what servers a custom Silverlight component was trying to communicate with.

How to Encrypt Your Nifty MiniDrive by Stephen Foskett – Stephen demonstrates how he encrypts his MiniDrive using Mac OS X’s built-in full disk encryption. In this day and age I highly recommend that everyone encrypt their portable storage devices, be it those portable hard drives or the USB flash keys. If you have a laptop you might also want to consider a full disk encryption solution to protect the data in case your laptop is lost or stolen. I personally use AxCrypt for individual files and TrueCrypt for volume encryption.

SDN Is Tomorrows Reality but You Will Love It When It Gets Here – CloudCamp London by Greg Ferro – Greg shares the slides he presented at CloudCamp London and provides a very brief (only 5 minutes – WoW) but concise delve into Software Defined Networking (SDN) and how it will revolutionize networking.

Software Releases

Avaya Virtual Services Platform 9000 v3.3.3.0

Avaya has release v3.3.3.0 for their VSP 9000 switch. While there are no new features in this release there are a large number of resolved bugs (issues) and a few “interesting” documented unresolved bugs (issues).

Please review the release notes for all the details.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 v6.3.1

Avaya has released v6.3.1 for their ERS 5000 series of switches.  There are three new features and a few bug fixes;

  • Default IP
  • Run IP Office Script
  • SLAMon agent

The most interesting of these features (to me) is the SLAMon agent. Avaya released the SLAMon agent on the ERS 4000 series sometime back and is now catching up on the ERS 5000 series. I see a future blog post.

I’m currently running 6.2.6. on a large number of ERS 5632s, ERS 5520s and ERS 5530s (IST Clusters) without any issue.

Please review the release notes for all the details.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 v5.6.3

Avaya has release v5.6.3 for their ERS 4000 series. There are two new features (see anything similar to above?) and a few bug fixes;

  • Default IP
  • Run IP Office Script

I personally ran into a very annoying bug resolved in this release.

wi01059920 – STP Learning: Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) learning does not change from disabled to normal on MultiLink Trunk (MLT) when MLT members are added to a new VLAN.

Anytime I would add a VLAN to the MLT of an edge closet the switch would enable STP on the MLT cause a brief 15-30 second outage as Spanning Tree went from Listening to Learning and eventually Forwarding. I ended up leaving Spanning Tree enabled on the MLT (it was disabled on the IST core switches). After I apply this upgrade, I can now go back and clean-up the configuration

Please review the release notes for all the details.

Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 8600/8800 v7.1.5.3

Avaya has released v7.1.5.3 for their ERS 8600/8800 switches. This is primarily a bug fix with no additional features.

I just recently deployed v7.1.5.2 on a very large IST cluster pair and things have been very stable. The actual upgrade from 5.1.7.0 to 7.1.5.2 was actually very uneventful which was itself a bit of a surprise. I also recently deployed 7.1.5.3 on 2 standalone ERS 8606 switches that are acting as 10GE WAN routers.

Please review the release notes for all the details.

Cheers!

 

 

Herniated Bulging Disc

If you’ve been following my sparse Twitter stream then you might have seen a few comments over the past 12 months about my health issues. Unfortunately they came to a climax around December last year just in time for the holidays. I’ve had pain on and off over the past 12+ years in my left shoulder and I always thought it was the scapula muscle that I perhaps bruised or injured years ago while playing ice hockey. It would seem that my novice diagnosis was completely wrong. I learned in December that I have a bulging and herniated disc in my back that’s pinching off the nerves going into my left hand and arm.

BulgingDisc-edit

At only 41 years old I never thought I’d be having this type of degenerative problem so early in life. I think the wife was secretly inquiring about the warranty, perhaps hoping to RMA me for a working model. I’m not sure NewEgg support can help with this problem though.

I know a lot of people that have back problems and really didn’t understand their pain and constant discomfort until now. It’s funny how we don’t really appreciate what we have until it’s taken away, words that are ringing true for me day in and day out.

I started physical therapy in January and I’m hopeful that will offer some relief in the long run but so far there’s been very little change up till now. I’m able to get around and get to work but it’s fairly painful to sit upright for too long. I accidentally discovered that the 25+ year old recliner in my basement offers the most comfortable position for sleeping.

I’ve been commenting to friends around me that there are people far worse off than me but when your body starts to fail you it’s a really frustrating and depressing experience.

Enjoy today because you never know what tomorrow might bring.

Cheers!