X-Geek

Extreme geekiness

There are 699 posts filed in X-Geek (this is page 17 of 70).

Up to speed on Amazon Web Services

I’ve been getting up to speed on Amazon Web Services over the past few weeks. With the end of the year bonus I got from my work I put down the money to get a 3-year reserved instance, gaining a hefty hosted server for a remarkably low price.

I’d had an Amazon instance for a few months just to kick the tires. However, when my reserved instance got purchased, it took me a while to figure out that Amazon had changed its virtualization techniques and in order to take advantage of the new instance I would have to convert my existing image to a completely new one. The blocker for this was that the CentOS-based AMI I used seemed locked and the root drive couldn’t be mounted to a new instance. I had to copy everything using the old instance.

My new instance was created completely by me, using a recipe that helped me build it from the ground up. Now that I have a good base to start from I can build some useful AMIs and share them with others. I hope to make a Rivendell Radio Automation AMI someday so that people can launch their own online radio station with a few clicks of a button.

I’ve also dug into the wonder that is S3, creating an s3fs “filesystem” on my Linux instance for serving up music for my Rivendell install. I will eventually do the same for the media included here on MT.net and push that to CloudFront.

The cool thing about the cloud is that it’s a geek’s ultimate laboratory. It’s incredibly easy and cheap to spin up computer sessions. I can play with technologies without having to commit to them long-term. I’m having a lot of fun with it.

I’m particularly proud that I was able to migrate the server that hosts my neighborhood email lists from a locally-hosted server over to AWS without any of my neighbors knowing I’d done it. I guess twenty years of sysadmin experience pays off every now and then!

How RadioShack Helped Build Silicon Valley | WIRED

My friend Laura Leslie posted a classic advertisement for the RadioShack TRS-80, complete with absurdly-high price tags. It reminded me of RadioShack’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Thursday, and of how different I’d be if it weren’t for RadioShack.

RadioShack was once every geek’s Mecca for electronics. Much of our digital world would not exist if it weren’t for RadioShack’s inspiration on a generation of geeks and tinkerers. Wired.com takes a fond look back at how many of our modern-day tech giants spent their formative years browsing the aisles at their local RadioShack.

Today, RadioShack filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Part of a coming reorganization will involve co-branding as many as 1,750 stores with Sprint, one of the company’s largest creditors, and will almost certainly result in the closing of many others. While the RadioShack name may live on, its original spirit is probably gone for good. As it goes, so goes one of the unsung heroes of a generation of tinkerers and builders, a key piece of the Silicon Valley tech-boom puzzle.

via How RadioShack Helped Build Silicon Valley | WIRED.

Street closing hints of Google Fiber disruption

Traffic backs up on Edmund St.

Traffic backs up on Edmund St.


Tuesday night, street crews began blocking off Glascock Street and side streets in preparation for a traffic calming and sewer line replacement project. Glascock’s traffic was detoured down the normally serene side street of Edmund, where traffic now roared down the 25MPH road. Understandably, the neighbors were livid with this gigantic disruption, especially in light of no notice being given to the community outside of the few neighbors who live on Glascock itself. Hopefully in the future, the city will choose to notify the neighbors on the detour street, too, as they get impacted just as strongly as those on the street getting the construction.

The whole mess got me thinking of what it might be like in the next few years when Google Fiber gets started here in earnest. Tuesday’s closure affected just one block whereas Google likely will be tearing things up everywhere. How will people react to this kind of disruption happening all over town?

Google Fiber and an FCC decision could give more people cheaper access to the Internet | News Feature | Indy Week

Indyweek talked with Erica Swanson, head of Google Fiber’s Community Impact programs, about bringing broadband to all income levels.

The bad news about Google Fiber coming to seven cities in the Triangle is that the high-speed Internet service won’t be installed in your neighborhood by the next season of House of Cards.

The good news is that Google Fiber says it will seek out traditionally underserved communities—low-income, minority, non-English speaking areas, where some residents don’t have home Internet at all.

About 60 million people in the U.S. don’t have Internet at home, according to the Pew Research Center. In cities, that number is 1 in 4. For some, a computer and a connection are too expensive; others say they don’t need it—the Internet has no place in their lives.

That might change, hinging on Google’s expansion plans, along with a pending decision by the FCC, that could give more people cheaper access to the Internet.

"Affordable connectivity, that’s the piece we can address," says Erica Swanson, Google’s head of Community Impact Programs.

via Google Fiber and an FCC decision could give more people cheaper access to the Internet | News Feature | Indy Week.

Taking aim at Gage’s Google Fiber op-ed

I submitted this letter to the editor to the N&O today. I trust they’ll agree with it and run it to correct the errors in the abysmal op-ed they ran last week.

Dawson Gage’s recent opinion piece about Google Fiber was deeply flawed. No public infrastructure is being “handed over” to Google. In actuality, Google will buy or build its infrastructure like any other provider. Gage also alleges Google was “deeply involved in the illegal, secret surveillance” when in fact much evidence exists to the contrary. Furthermore, how Gage can suggest that broadband hasn’t enriched our lives is bizarre and puzzling.

I know Google Fiber’s arrival is exciting news but let’s keep our heads, please.

Mark Turner
Raleigh, NC
Founder, Bring Google Fiber to Raleigh! Facebook Group

Update 6 Feb: The N&O ran my letter today. Gave it a headline of “Google all good.” I’m not sure I’d go that far, but at least someone has now set the record straight. On the same page, though, another letter writer repeated Gage’s “public giveway” premise. Sigh.

What does it Mean to be a Gig City? Upload Speeds Powering Entrepreneurs — Next Century Cities

Remember when I pointed out the secret sauce of Google Fiber is the upload speeds? Will Aycock, operations manager of Wilson’s Greenlight community broadband system, agrees.

It’s all about the upload. If you are the owner of a small engineering business with dense blueprints to send to your European clients, or a specialized country doctor who depends on the quick transmission of x-rays, a digital film effects company, or a media artist, your ability to upload your dense information to your clients means business. For GigCity, Wilson, North Carolina, offering gigabit upload speeds to its community is real business for its future.

via What does it Mean to be a Gig City? Upload Speeds Powering Entrepreneurs — Next Century Cities.

The FCC is moving to preempt state broadband limits – The Washington Post

It looks increasingly likely that the FCC will overturn North Carolina’s anti-municipal broadband law, freeing cities like Wilson, NC to provide broadband to whomever it chooses.

Federal regulators are moving ahead with a proposal to help two cities fighting with their state governments over the ability to build public alternatives to large Internet providers.

The Federal Communications Commission this week will begin considering a draft decision to intervene against state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that limit Internet access operated and sold by cities, according to a senior FCC official. The agency’s chairman, Tom Wheeler, could circulate the draft to his fellow commissioners as early as Monday and the decision will be voted on in the FCC’s public meeting on Feb. 26.

Chairman Wheeler just released the following statement:

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler issued the following statement today regarding a proposed Order on community broadband that he will circulate to his fellow commissioners this week:

“Communities across the nation know that access to robust broadband is key to their economic future – and the future of their citizens. Many communities have found that existing private-sector broadband deployment or investment fails to meet their needs.

They should be able to make their own decisions about building the networks they need to thrive. After looking carefully at petitions by two community broadband providers asking the FCC to pre-empt provisions of state laws preventing expansion of their very successful networks, I recommend approval by the Commission so that these two forward-thinking cities can serve the many citizens clamoring for a better broadband future.”

I wonder if this means the FCC can also veto any spending limitations that state law has shackled municipalities with?

via The FCC is moving to preempt state broadband limits – The Washington Post.

N&O runs horrible broadband op-ed

The Google Fiber op-ed that ran in today’s N&O entitled “Google Fiber deal not in best interest of NC public” is so godawful that I don’t even know where to begin. Written by Dawson Gage, who calls himself an “IT worker, freelance writer, and aspiring law student,” it is incredibly misinformed on so many levels:

I rejoiced when my family first got broadband Internet when I was about 13, but I doubt it has made any of our lives richer or more productive. The usefulness of computers, for the most part, has little enough to do with how fast they are. No one wants delivery vans and school buses that go 20,000 mph.

Is Gage actually suggesting that life isn’t richer than in the days of dialup? Before YouTube, NetFlix, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Google? Apparently, having a mind-blowing amount of the world’s information instantly available isn’t rich or more productive enough for him. I bet he’s a big fan of the abacus.
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Google Fiber: fast download AND upload speeds

fiber_house
Most of the local news stories I’ve read about Google Fiber coming to Raleigh highlight the ability to “download YouTube videos quickly.” Quickly downloading the stuff you’ve always downloaded is cool, but it isn’t an Earth-shattering use case. The real value of Google Fiber is that Google treats the Internet the way it should be treated – like a two-way street.

Other broadband providers will sell you fast connections but those connections are strictly asymmetrical. You may get a 15 Mbps download speed but you’ll only get a 1 Mbps upload speed. You see, Big Telecom wants you to treat you as a “consumer,” meaning you’ll take whatever the media companies choose to give you. They don’t think of you as having anything to bring to the conversation.

Google Fiber is different. Not only can you get 1 Gbps download speeds, you also get equally fast 1 Gbps upload speeds! Your download and upload speeds are equal, exactly how God intended. You become a full partner in the Internet, able not only to download at blazing speeds a multitude of cat videos from YouTube but able offer up your own. Or, you can hold videoconferences with your friends without being interrupted by buffering. Or play video games with others without sluggishness.
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An Introduction to Google Fiber

An_Introduction_To_Google_Fiber_cover

One of the most useful things I got out of yesterday’s Google Fiber press conference (well, aside from a sweet Google Fiber water bottle) is an insightful booklet called “An Introduction To Google Fiber.” It basically spells out what the next steps are for the Google Fiber rollout.

Of particular interest is the question of “how do I get Google Fiber in my neighborhood?” Google’s answer?

Our approach is to build where people want us.

Fiber optic cable will travel into your neighborhood into boxes called telecom cabinets. One of these cabinets can serve you and a few hundred of your neighbors with Fiber — we call this grouping your “fiberhood”.

That’s where you come in. For us to bring Google Fiber to you — i.e. for us to light up your local telecom cabinet with working Google Fiber service and then for us to bring that service right down the street and up to your house — you and your neighbors first need to tell us you want us. Each fiberhood will have a sign-up goal that you can see on our website by entering your address — and the process is transparent, so you and your neighbors can see how close your fiberhood is to the goal.
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