Whereas the telcos are migrating from voice-centric architectures to flat, all-IP networks, cable operators are set to go through a similar transition, but from video-centric to IP-centric networks.
Open Source is Not Just About Cost
While some in the past have associated open source with cost – it’s the cheaper alternative to proprietary approaches – that’s not the point anymore. The innovation model for open collaboration enables multiple competitive vendors to co-operate on core functionality and then compete on value added support and services.
via Red Hat CEO: Open Source is Not Just About Cost – Datamation.
UML Tool for Fast UML Diagrams
UMLet is a free, open-source UML tool with a simple user interface: draw UML diagrams fast, produce sequence and activity diagrams from plain text, export diagrams to eps, pdf, jpg, svg, and clipboard, share diagrams using Eclipse, and create new, custom UML elements. UMLet runs stand-alone or as Eclipse plug-in on Windows, OS X and Linux. (Also, check out its sister tool PLOTlet to create chart grids and our other tools.)
Statistics, Probability, and Survey Sampling
This web site provides training and tools to help you solve statistics problems quickly, easily, and accurately – without having to ask anyone for help.
Cisco Brings SON Innovation to Israel
Cisco’s SON technology is part of its Quantum software network management tools that can manage the hodgepodge of small cells and integrate them with the macro network core.
via Light Reading – Cisco Brings SON Innovation to Israel.
I don’t understand how this differs from SDN.
Review: Facebook Home
It’s not simply the case that Zuckerberg is sneaky in his promotion of sharing and creepy in his ambivalence about privacy. Rather, he is a true believer. Privacy lowers the value of the social graph. If one sincerely believes in the merits of the graph, then one should be suspicious of privacy, because privacy is selfish.
Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions
The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated – incorporating water molecules into its structure – and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together.
via Roman Seawater Concrete Holds the Secret to Cutting Carbon Emissions « Berkeley Lab News Center.
This seems like an amazing discovery.
Their analyses showed that the Roman recipe needed less than 10 percent lime by weight, made at two-thirds or less the temperature required by Portland cement. Lime reacting with aluminum-rich pozzolan ash and seawater formed highly stable C‑A-S-H and Al-tobermorite, insuring strength and longevity. Both the materials and the way the Romans used them hold lessons for the future.
Attacks on Package Managers
To provide an example of the sorts of attacks an attacker can launch on package managers, this page describes an example attack called a replay attack. Other attacks are described on a separate page.
via Attacks on Package Managers.
Here’s a piece of advice I always adhere to for any kind of upgrade.
Manually update your systems (and local mirror caches). Know when package updates become available and what the versions should be. Manually verify and install the updated packages (or add them to your local mirror cache that your systems update from) rather than relying on automated updates. We have observed mirrors many months out of date for some distributions, so you should check periodically that your mirror is being updated.
Facebook Saves Datacenter Costs with Frigid Arctic Wind
The constant, biting wind may have stunted the growth of Lulea’s tourism industry, but it has proven a big factor in luring big IT facilities into the area. Datacenters in Lulea are just as difficult to power and cool as any other concentrated mass of IT equipment, but their owners can slash the cost of cooling all those servers and storage units simply by opening a window: the temperature in Lulea hasn’t stayed at or above 86 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours since 1961 (PDF), and the average temperature is a bracing 29.6 Fahrenheit.
via Facebook Saves Datacenter Costs with Frigid Arctic Wind.
TreeSheets
It’s like a spreadsheet, immediately familiar, but much more suitable for complex data because it’s hierarchical.
It’s like a mind mapper, but more organized and compact.
It’s like an outliner, but in more than one dimension.
It’s like a text editor, but with structure.
Have a quick look at what the application looks like on the screenshots page, see how easy it is to use in the tutorial (out of date, the live in-app tutorial works much better!), then give it a download (above).
via TreeSheets.