Utahcon.com

Welcome to September, my how time flies. We only have a month to finish preparing for UTOSC, and you only have a month to register!

The price is our standard $70, but there are plenty of discount codes available. If you are a member of any Local User Group (LUG) then you can get a code for up to half off!

A quick word to potential sponsors: UTOSC is the premier event in the Mountain West to capture the attention of hundreds of IT professionals, as well as active hobbyists and some very loyal customers. Please contact me for more information about sponsoring UTOSC.

Remember, register now! http://2010.utosc.com

Today marks the last day of an almost three year journey with a great company, SOS Staffing. My hat is off to the men and women at SOS as they have truly made the last three years something I will remember for a lifetime. In my three years with SOS I have come in contact with a lot of people that have really enriched my life, and furthered my career.

Starting Monday I will be taking a new position at Code Greene. I will still be doing PHP development and handling some fun clients. I look forward to working with the team at Code Greene as they are also some of the best and brightest that I have come in contact with in my personal/professional journeys.

Thanks again SOS, you guys are awesome!

Commodity Hardware Crunching Pi

Commodity hardware has just shown up the big guys in Pi crunching.

Two fellas from Japan have reached the 5 trillionth digit of Pi using on commodity hardware and a custom Pi crunching software. Here are the specs of the box:

• Processor 2 x Intel Xeon X5680 @ 3.33 GHz – (12 physical cores, 24 hyperthreaded)
• Memory 96GB DDR3 @ 1066MHz – (12 x 8 GB – 6 Channel) – Samsung (M393B1K70BH1)
• Motherboard Asus Z8PE-D12
• Hard Drives
  • 1 TB SATA II (Boot drive) – Hitachi (HDS721010CLA332)
  • 3 x 2 TB SATA II (Store Pi Output) – Seagate (ST32000542AS)
  • 16 x 2 TB SATA II (Computation) – Seagate (ST32000641AS)
• Raid Controller 2 x LSI MegaRaid SAS 9260-8i
• Operating System Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise x64

It took the guys 90 days to tackle the 5 trillionth digit, which is a 2. I have to wonder what kind of increase we’d see if we simply changed the OS to Linux or BSD based instead of a clunky Windows Server install?

You can find more pictures and details of the event at http://www.numberworld.org/misc_runs/pi-5t/details.html

I was recently given the opportunity to fly to Florida and hire people to clean up oil from the BP spill. Given that I had some long flights (I live in Salt Lake City, UT) I picked up a Nook from Barnes and Noble and had on my computer a copy of jQuery: Novice to Ninja. What better way to spend my flight time than reading a jQuery book! So I dug in.

I have been using jQuery both professionally and personally for about a year now but this book still brought a lot to the table.

Earle Castedine and Craig Sharkie have a great sense of humor, and obviously know their way around jQuery, CSS, HTML and the likes. The book uses some real world examples of creating image galleries and user interfaces. They break down the jQuery code to it’s basic forms, and then explain why things work the way they do. They don’t get too deep into Javascript except to note that jQuery is nothing more than a fancy framework on top of Javascript and uses Javascript for everything! I thought it particularly neat when they would show the “hard” way to do things, then the better way to do them, and then finally a plugin that made all the work you had just done seem useless, but it isn’t useless because you now understand how the plugin works better than if you had just slapped it in place in the beginning.

The book is quite deep about animations, AJAX actions, DOM manipulation and the sort. Even if you know Javascript and you have been using jQuery there is something in here that will make you go “ah ha!”.

To the folks over at SitePoint (an O’reilly company) good work!

So technically yesterday was my first with the new phone, but it was late in the evening and I decided instead of try and formulate a review I would just get it setup and then use it for a day.

The phone is a dream! The 1GHz processor screams, and makes light work of heavy graphics and surfing. I am unfortunately stuck in an Edge network (Panama City, Florida) and so things are quite as snappy as they could be if I were back in SLC. All that aside things happen much faster still than they did with my old G1.

The Super AMOLED screen is dynamite! This is the best display I have ever seen on a phone (still haven’t seen a Retina display). The images are crisp and the colors are deep and rich. It is truly an amazing screen.

The internal memory is a big treat too. I have currently 14GB free with 1.4GB free on the external memory card. This is quite welcome as I was able to move all things from my phone over and keep going as if I never moved.

Running Android 2.1 is nice, but I had that on my G1, so nothing new there. I have seen and heard rumors that 2.2 is coming for the Galaxy phones, but we will have to wait and see. Rooting the phone was a cinch and I won’t look back. I can’t wait to find a good mod for the phone (hopefully Cyanogenmod).

The best thing I can report about the phone is the work that Samsung put into battery life. Android phones have been notorious battery monsters. The G1 on a good day would go 5 hours without a charge. These days are gone, and I brought proof. Today I charged my phone to 100% capacity, then I took the phone off the charger for the whole day. With the exception of 1 reboot (which fubbed the numbers to be shorter) here are the results:

As you can see from the screen shot I went over 11 hours and 27 minutes off the plug. This is just amazing! It wasn’t until the last hour or so that I noticed any real problems, like the camera not allowing pictures with such low battery.

The biggest draw back I have seen in the phone is that some features are turned off when on the phone or doing various tasks. For example you can’t take a picture while talking on the phone… I don’t know why.

The 5MP camera is nice, and quick to respond, would be nice to see a large MP but that is ok too.

Overall I think the Vibrant is a clear winner in the best Android phone category. Good work Samsung and kudos to Tmobile for picking it up.

I was looking through the No Starch Press catalog today to see what books Utahcon.com will be reviewing in the near future and there are so many I am excited for. In case I don’t get to them all I wanted to give No Starch a little love and post the books I think look exciting!

Network Flow Analysis

You know that servers have log files and performance measuring tools and that traditional network devices have LEDs that blink when a port does something. You may have tools that tell you how busy an interface is, but mostly a network device is a black box. Network Flow Analysis opens that black box, demonstrating how to use industry-standard software and your existing hardware to assess, analyze, and debug your network.

Unlike packet sniffers that require you to reproduce network problems in order to analyze them, flow analysis lets you turn back time as you analyze your network. You’ll learn how to use open source software to build a flow-based network awareness system and how to use network analysis and auditing to address problems and improve network reliability. You’ll also learn how to use a flow analysis system; collect flow records; view, filter, and report flows; present flow records graphically; and use flow records to proactively improve your network.Network Flow Analysis will show you how to:

• Identify network, server, router, and firewall problems before they become critical
• Find defective and misconfigured software
• Quickly find virus-spewing machines, even if they’re on a different continent
• Determine whether your problem stems from the network or a server
• Automatically graph the most useful data

And much more. Stop asking your users to reproduce problems. Network Flow Analysis gives you the tools and real-world examples you need to effectively analyze your network flow data. Now you can determine what the network problem is long before your customers report it, and you can make that silly phone stop ringing.

Ubuntu for Non-Geeks, 4th Edition

The Ubuntu Linux distribution makes Linux easy, and Ubuntu for Non-Geeks makes it even easier. Full of tips, tricks, and helpful pointers, this pain-free guide is perfect for those interested in—but nervous about—switching to the Linux operating system.

This revised and expanded fourth edition is packed with new material that covers all the latest features of Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx. It includes five new chapters that take you step-by-step through common tasks like installing and playing games, accessing your favorite social networks, troubleshooting common hardware and software problems, connecting with the Ubuntu community, interacting with your Windows installation, and more.

By following along with the book’s straightforward explanations and step-by-step projects, you’ll learn how to:

• Install Ubuntu and keep it updated
• Set up printers, scanners, USB flash drives, and other hardware
• Install and play free games like Frets on Fire, Frozen Bubble, and Warzone 2100
• Watch DVDs, listen to music, and sync your iPod, iPhone, or other mobile devices
• Edit and share digital photos and videos
• Create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
• Customize the look and feel of your system
• Work with the command line (or avoid it altogether!)

If you’re looking for a pain-free way to learn Linux, Ubuntu for Non-Geeks is just what you need to get started.

I am always amazed at the books that No Starch Press suggests for us to review, and The Art of Assembly Language truly wasn’t even on my radar. When it was suggested to me I couldn’t resist the opportunity to break out of high level coding and dive into Assembly.

Wikipedia says of Assembly:

Assembly languages are a type of low-level languages for programming computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other (usually) integrated circuits.

Sweet! This book will teach me how to work with microprocessors and microcontrollers! That is what I thought, and I was close.

The Art of Assembly Language from No Starch Press covers the basics of all low level programming but has a pretty heavy slant toward intel based CPUs. With support for Linux, Mac and Windows, and even FreeBSD.

The book is big, heavy and full of knowledge. It covers the HLA (High Level Assembly) which is the best match of high level coding with low level code. The author, Randall Hyde, starts with the absolute basics explaining what each part of the controller (cpu) is and what it is meant for. He explains why things are setup the way they are and even how things have changed over the history of computing.

If you are asking yourself why you need to pick up this book, take this quick little survey:

• Have you ever wondered how a computer actually works?
• Do you ever dream in code?

If you answered yes to either of those then you probably want to go get this book right now.

The Art of Assembly really opened my eyes to what goes on in the underbelly of the computer, and I have a better understanding of why my code works now. Learning HLA has truly been an experience, and it is one I think the whole world of programmers should have.

So a while back I found a cool little site called Glyde, and their About Us page really sums up what they are all about:

Glyde.com is a new marketplace that combines the great deals of a person-to-person online marketplace with the ease, simplicity, and safety of a retail store.

So I think the best thing about Glyde is they already know 95% of the details for anything you want to sell on their site, and they make doing business super easy.

Start a Sale

Getting started is easy, simply sign up (free), and start listing products. You can sell DVDs, CDs, Games (console) and Books. Listing is as easy as typing in the title of the product, or ISBN (or other unique identifier). They will load your store with all the images and descriptions you need.

Price to High?

One thing I find particularly handy about Glyde (beside their very easy to use interface) is the notifications that my products are not within market price. Let’s say I list a book for $25 (market value) and two weeks go by and no one buys. As time goes by books lose value and so prices in the market adjust. Glyde doesn’t auto adjust your price, but they do tell you what the system considers fair market value and you can decide to accept that and change your price, or ignore it and try to sell your book for more.

Shipping Sucks

Now let’s admit that we all hate having to deal with shipping details and figuring out pricing for books etc. Well Glyde makes this easy too! When you sell an item on Glyde they handle the shipping. What they do is mail you an envelope ( or other mail package ) which you put your item into and drop in the mail. That’s it! Your item you sold is then sent to the purchaser and all is grand.

Glyde Fees

So how much is this awesome service? Well cheaper than some, and more than others. Glyde takes 10% of the sale (not bad), plus the cost of the shipping materials. The listings are always free.

Go Glyde!

Glyde is really a great way to look at purchasing new media, and I hope to see good things from them in the future.

Head on over to Glyde now for the Utahcon.com Book Sale!

Watch Cliffy B and some friends demo GoW3 at E3:

If that doesn’t sell you on the experience and get your pumped for April 2011… I just don’t know what will.

Matthew Weier O’Phinney has posted about the State of Zend Framework 2.0:

The past few months have kept myself and my team quite busy, as we’ve turned our attentions from maintenance of the Zend Framework 1.X series to Zend Framework 2.0. I’ve been fielding questions regularly about ZF2 lately, and felt it was time to talk about the roadmap for ZF2, what we’ve done so far, and how the community can help.

He goes on to talk about the processes being taken to get Zf2.0 the exemplar of PHP 5.3 and to add namespaces to the project. He talks about his team, the road map and the struggles they have already expereienced:

After completing this process, my entire team — all three of us — started the work of migrating the code to namespaces. Ralph wrote a tool that scanned the library and created a map file of existing classes and suggested namespace/classname combinations. We then used this tool as a launching point for the migration, each of us working on a component at a time. This work was by no means automated — we discovered very quickly that such a tool only took care of the most cursory work. I detailed some of our findings a couple months back; we ran into a number of issues we never anticipated, and the progress has been far from speedy. At this point, however, we have migrated everything but theZend_Service classes, the MVC, and those components that build on top of the MVC (Application, Navigation, Form, etc.).

Finally he shares details about getting ZF2.0 available through Git and Github, and what the community can do to help:

A number of contributors are also starting to discuss rewrites and refactoring of components. Much of this is being done on the zf-contributors mailing list, and some on the #zftalk.dev channel on Freenode. If you are interested in contributing, I highly recommend subscribing to the list and dropping into the channel when you can.

You can read the post in it’s entirety at  http://weierophinney.net