Matt40k

Barracuda provide a demo of there SSL VPN, well just connected up after installing the Java client. Locked down my arse.

Just came to the conclusion I’m in the wrong job. David downstairs got his new “laptop”. I say “laptop” as it’s a HP Elitebook, they call themselves a mobile workstation. It’s a darn beast!

Here are the stats for October:

• 467,107 blogs were created.
• 6,690,017 posts were published.
• 494,186 new users joined.
• 7,623,730 file uploads.
• 4,986 gigabytes of new files.
• 842 terabytes of content transferred from our datacenters.
• 9,281,146 comments.
• 7,856,864 logins.
• 1,405,459,558 pageviews on WordPress.com, and another 1,474,457,685 on self-hosted blogs (2,879,917,243 total across all WordPress blogs we track).
• 2,509,895 active blogs and 25,386,866 active posts, where “active” means they got a human visitor.
• 1,600,608,549 words.

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/october-wrap-up-2/

Just working on a minor bug with the Tidy backup utility Rawns found. Basically if extract the .bak file to the same folder as the zip, the zip will be blank and the bak will be deleted.

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/mis-systems/43573-sims-tidy-backups-sql-2008-autumn-release.html

Really wanted to move out early so I could get moved into the new place and settled by Xmas. Well I still can, it’s just going to cost the earth. I was hoping to pay at the worst, one and half month’s rent, now having to pay two lots of rent. Joy…

I did get an email back state the following, however chances are the same as winning the lottery:

from: kate@riverdaleestates.co.uk>
to: Matt Smith
date: Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 2:44 PM
subject: RE: 2 Maude Street

Oct 21 (12 days ago)
Hi Matt

Your landlord has responded to your request to leave the property early.  He
will not simply allow you terminate your agreement early.  He has, however,
said that we can remarket the property on his behalf for re-let and if we
can find a new tenant willing to move in between the 7th and 22nd then you
can be released from your contract early.  This means your contract would
end when the new tenant’s contract commences.  Obviously I cannot give any
guarantees over whether or not this will be possible and you should work on
the basis that you may have to pay rent for the entire period up to and
including the 22nd.

I should also remind you that you are still required to give one month’s
notice in writing in order to terminate your agreement.  This must be signed
by both tenants so an e-mail is not sufficient.

Please let me know what you decide to do.
Kind regards
Kate

hopefully they’ll get the finger out as far as the deposit is concerned, still the 3rd party holding company states it takes 10 days, which brings me into the year. Merry Xmas.

The ruddy buggy broke this morning, ended up going up Argos to get another one, turns out it was cr@p. Vanna’s order another one, hopefully that’ll be alright. Still need to RMA the old one, plan is to put it on eBay or something.

KillerCreations have purchased yet more Dell servers, this time they’ve gone and got themselves the new Dell R210 servers.

We recently purchased 35 new Dell PowerEdge R210 servers that should hopefully be arriving before 10th November. The R210 is a new offering from Dell based around the recently released Intel  Lynnfield Core Xeon CPU’s (Core I7 architecture) and sporting various new tech including Turbo Boost Technology and the reintroduction of Hyper-Threading (not seen since P4 days).  Specs below:

• Dell  PowerEdge R210
• Intel Xeon X3440 Processor (2.53GHz, 8MB Cache, Turbo, Hyper-Threading)
• 4GB Memory (2×2GB Dual Rank UDIMMs) 1333MHz
• 160 GB SATA 7200 16MB cache HDD

The new severs should be in our racks around 15th November and available to customers approx one week later after testing. We also expect to be offering an 8GB version suitable for customers wishing to run many CoD based servers

http://www.killercreation.co.uk/news/new-dell-poweredge-r210-servers-on-the-way

Boy do they look tasty.

The new Intel CPUs support hardware AES encryption. AES is the most common encryption agothirm currently in use, the US government are one of the main players use the encryption to secure sensitive documents.

Intel®’s AES instructions are a new set of processor instructions that will be introduced in Intel processors, starting from the processor called Westmere. These instructions enable fast and secure data encryption and decryption, using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) which is defined by FIPS Publication number 197. Since AES is the dominant block cipher, and it is deployed in various protocols, the new instructions will be valuable for a wide range of applications.

The architecture consists of six instructions that offer full hardware support for AES. Four instructions support the AES encryption and decryption, and the other two instructions support the AES key expansion. Together, they offer a significant increase in performance compared to pure software implementations.

The AES instructions have the flexibility to support all three standard AES key lengths, all standard modes of operation, and even some nonstandard or future variants.

Beyond improving performance, the AES instructions provide important security benefits. Since the instructions run in data-independent time and do not use lookup tables, they help in eliminating the major timing and cache-based attacks that threaten table-based software implementations of AES. In addition, these instructions make AES simple to implement, with reduced code size. This helps reducing the risk of inadvertent introduction of security flaws, such as difficult-to-detect side channel leaks.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/advanced-encryption-standard-aes-instructions-set/

Search engines continue to innovate in terms of presentation and features, with providers such as Microsoft and Yahoo seeking to differentiate their search by layout and relevance of results. Google, which remains the most popular search engine in the UK, has recently added a range of new features and services, including:

• Similar images is a Google Labs project that lets users refine image searches by clicking ’similar images’ (where available) below a particular thumbnail.
• News Timeline is another Google Labs project that gives summary search results from selected publications in a timeline format, which can be customised by date and publication.
• An open source 3D plugin for web browsers has been released, enabling users to navigate web environments in 3D, based on an experimental standard called O3D. The purpose is similar to Khronos (see TechNews 04/09) but based on different underlying technology. Google envisages producers creating web applications, such as 3D games and data visualisations, that control O3D functions using JavaScript. According to reports, Google states the new approach is complementary to Khronos, with the company expecting 3D support to be delivered natively (built into browsers) in a few years’ time.
• Google Squared is another project, soon due for an experimental release through Google Labs soon, that provides a tabular view of factual data. The spreadsheet output can be customised by means of filters and facts can be checked by following links, although it is reported that results can be unpredictable.
• ‘Public’ data (currently a limited selection from the US) can be presented on a chart by entering a specific style of search query.
• Search options. This new panel on the standard search page is available when results are displayed from ‘Show options’ near the top left (under the logo) and gives access to the features below.

o   Type of content – results from videos, forums and reviews can now be selected.

o   The timeline gives users an opportunity to narrow searches to dates mentioned within a web page.

o   The Wonder Wheel is like a mind map, so users can follow spokes from the current search to related searches.