A Scenario where the Cloud is not an Option, Private Communication beyond Control of Those who Want to Spy on You

One of the parts of using those free cloud apps is those who run the service can spy on you and even cut you off.  This has occurred with the Hong Kong protesters and their choice of using Firechat which allows communication to others without internet access.

Hong Kong protestors use FireChat to text without cell service 

 

Hong Kong protestors are using FireChar, a mobile messaging app, to communicate without using cellular or Internet service. Pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong downloaded the app 100,000 times in just one day.

By Bryan Cronan, Staff Writer OCTOBER 1, 2014

What do the protests in Hong Kong and the festival Burning Man have in common? FireChat.

Protestors in Hong Kong are using the messaging app FireChat to communicate without using cellular or Internet service. 

Venturebeat has a guest post suggesting there will be more services that skip the cloud to support those who want to be private.

In 2015, popular online social networks will be reduced to serving for social branding, and a next generation of apps using peer-to-peer networking instead of cloud computing will be used for texting and image and video sharing.

The exodus from popular social networks will be accelerated by increasing revelations of both the storing and monitoring of personal communications by the government, and experimentation on users of social networks for the financial benefit of third parties. The exodus, like most all technological trends, will be led by the young and the tech-savvy, and the rest of the worlds’ users will slowly follow as technology inevitably spreads.

• 
  Vincent Yu/AP

  View Caption

What do the protests in Hong Kong and the festival Burning Man have in common? FireChat.

Protestors in Hong Kong are using the messaging app FireChat to communicate without using cellular or Internet service. 

eBay and Paypal split, what happens to the "conscious uncoupling" of the data center?

eBay and Paypal are becoming two independent companies.  They have CEOs identified.  Figuring out how the stock will be split.  Teams are separate so not an issue except for a few groups.  Finance and HR issues not a big problem.  uh.  What about the data centers?  Will eBay run the data centers and Paypal be a tenant?  Or should it be the the around?

eBay Inc.  today said its Board of Directors, following a strategic review of the company’s growth strategies and structure, has approved a plan to separate the company’s eBay and PayPal businesses into independent publicly traded companies in 2015, subject to customary conditions. Creating two standalone businesses best positions eBay and PayPal to capitalize on their respective growth opportunities in the rapidly changing global commerce and payments landscape, and is the best path for creating sustainable shareholder value, the company said.

“eBay and PayPal are two great businesses with leading global positions in commerce and payments,” said eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe. “For more than a decade eBay and PayPal have mutually benefited from being part of one company, creating substantial shareholder value. However, a thorough strategic review with our board shows that keeping eBay and PayPal together beyond 2015 clearly becomes less advantageous to each business strategically and competitively. The industry landscape is changing, and each business faces different competitive opportunities and challenges.

Or is it like Gwyneth Paltrrow’s infamous not naming a divorce, a conscious uncoupling?  Each of the companies own their own servers, storage, network.  OK.  But what about shared stuff.  Building, power and mechanical infrastructure, network gear to carriers?  Some of that other stuff is like the kids that Gwenyth has to handle in uncoupling.

Who is bigger eBay or Paypal?  Not in terms of revenue, but in terms of data center utilization?   Paypal or eBay?  I think PayPal and some of the friends do.  So do you split the infrastructure and teams based on the % of servers you have in the data center?  No, because some of you may have beefier servers than others.  You could split it based on the power used.

There are three data center sites?  And given availability it would seem both would like to leave things alone and not mess with then infrastructure.  So who moves out?  Or is it shared custody.

This would be an entertaining presentation at a data center conference.

Win X vs. OS X, Microsoft skips Windows 9 to 10

Microsoft just announced Windows 10, skipping Windows 9.  

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The next version of Microsoft's flagship operating system will be called Windows 10, as the company skips version 9 to emphasize advances it is making toward a world centered around mobile devices and Internet services.

Wouldn’t it be funny if instead of Windows 10, it was Win X.  The ad battles between Apple and Microsoft would be so much more entertaining. Win X vs. OS X.  BTW, the apple guys always say “OS Ten” not “OS X”.

OS X, whose X is the Roman numeral for 10 and is a prominent part of its brand identity, is built on technologies developed at NeXT between the second half of the 1980s and Apple's purchase of the company in late 1996. The 'X' is also used to emphasize the relatedness between OS X and UNIX.

Check out this comparison between Windows 7 vs. Macs.

DCIM ≠ ECMA - 400 Smart Data Centre Resource Monitoring and Control Standard, Why Not?

I was chatting with Intel’s Henry Wong at Intel Developer Forum and he mentioned the ECMA-400 standard.

Introduction 

Operation of data centres requires management of storage, computation, communication, electrical energy and temperature to achieve the required quality of service and efficiency parameters. Often, however, the separate management of Information Technology (IT), electrical energy (or power) and cooling Resource islands yields a sub-optimal result. 

This Standard provides Messages that facilitate integrated or “smart” monitoring and control of Resources in those islands. The Messages are exchanged between the Management Function and Resources. The Standard acknowledges that those Resources may be composed of other Resources (e.g. a rack may contain servers, ventilators, etc.). In addition, e.g. those servers may be viewed from their computing, energy consumption or dissipation aspects which this Standard models as Resource Components and groups into IT, power and fluid Domains, respectively.

This specific seems like it should be associated with DCIM, but when I ran a google search on “ecma 400 dcim”  the results showed up without DCIM and when DCIM was used the 400 didn’t refer to the standard.

DCIM = ECMA-400 should be the state

DCIM ≠ ECMA-400 is the current state.  When will someone fix this?  Seems like someone out of all the DCIM vendors would be looking at working the ECMA-400.  

• Smart Data Centre Resource Monitoring and Control - Ecma ...

  www.ecma-international.org/.../ECMA.../ECMA-400....

   

  Ecma International

   

  Annex A (normative) ECMA-400 Edition 1 Resource configuration options ............. ................................. 27. A.1. SDC VM Allocation Option.

  Missing: dcim

• Index of Ecma Standards - Ecma International

  www.ecma-international.org/.../Stnindex.htm

   

  Ecma International

   

  ECMA-328 · ECMA-341 · ECMA-370 · ECMA-383 · ECMA-389 · ECMA-393 · ECMA-400. Safety, EMC and EMF, Acoustical Emissions, Environmental Product  ...

  Missing: dcim

• 2 - AltaTerra Research

  www.altaterra.net/.../Zen-and-the-Art-of-Data-Center-Greening-and-Ener...

   

   

  So his breakdowns are: 1) 480/277V AC, 2) 400/230V AC, 3) 48V DC, 4) 380V .... as the EPA, ECMA and Climate Savers that promote a similar goal and vision.

  
  

  
  

  
  

Telling Story with Pictures, Blurry is OK

When you take pictures, the presence of blur, by being out of focus, motion of camera, or motion of subject ruins the shot you took.  But, when it comes to action sports blur can tell the story of motion.  Yesterday I was at my son’s football game and was on the chain gang.  That gave me a chance to take pictures close to the action.  Using a dslr wouldn’t work and using a smartphone wouldn’t either.  I used my Sony RX100 which is prosumer compact camera, it has a full size sensor at 20 megapixel with a leica lens, so it can capture photos that look as good as a dslr. Working the chains I couldn’t be distracted fussing with the camera so I put it in programmed mode and just shot away, pointing the camera in the direction of the action and not looking at the screen.  The following are shots that tell a story.

The below shows left red defender in focus.  The ball runner is blurred with motion, but his left hand extended is not.  The right defender’s movement makes it look like he isn’t significant threat.

I was panning with the runner so he is in focus whereas everyone else is blurry in their movement relative to him.

The kids running towards me are clear, the defender to the right is crossing.  So he is blurred showing his speed towards the ball carrier.

At the start of a play everyone is clear, except the ball which is moving faster so it is blurry.

Normally with my camera I would focus on getting shots with no blurriness like.

The ball carrier being tackled is in focus as he is moving slower than the rest and he is moving towards the camera.

Everyone is moving in the same direction.  There is little blur as 5 defenders are after the ball carrier.

Here are a few more.  You get the idea. These blurry pictures worked well to tell the action of the game.  I guess blurriness is not such a bad thing.

Here is a photo with little blur.  Final score 33-0.