(in case you’re wondering what I’m on about, think Flash, iPhone 4 antennas, Android…I don’t really need to continue, do I?)

The server is colocated at a data center in Amsterdam by the good people at ColoClue, a colo…well, I guess “club” or “association” is the best word, but mostly they are a most excellent group of people I’m quite proud to have joined.

The full post: Apples attack on Adobe Flash, its all about online video. (via Slashdot)

James closes his article with:  ”In conclusion, as a developer who likes Flash, to tell the truth, I can respect the business decision by Steve to not allow Flash on their iTechnology platforms for good old competitive reasons. What is wrong here is that Apple is on a campaign of deception. They are not happy to not use flash, but are also producing FUD to displace Flash as a relevant web technology.”

I agree. In my view it’s all about the money, although James thinks it’s about the video. I think Mr. Jobs just does not want a platform that can be (and is) used for free games on his devices where he is currently making 30% off every game sold in his App Store. And that is fair and completely up to him, but just come out and say that, don’t piss on another company’s work and products to hide the fact that you like your revenue stream.
And for the record: as a developer I have rarely seen any company so closed, proprietary and revenue-focused as Apple. Apple is no longer “cool” (although they do make very “cool” products), it is just as much an “Evil Empire” as they say Microsoft, Google, Adobe or anyone else is. No biggie, it happens to every company at that level, but for God’s sake be honest about what you are.

Red Hat has won a legal fight with a small Texas company that claimed the Raleigh-based software maker infringed on its patents.IP Innovation (a subsidiary of Acacia Technologies LLC, a well-know patent troll) sued Red Hat and another software company, Novell, over technology that involves sharing icons across computer workstations. But on Friday, a jury in federal court in Marshall, Texas, agreed with Red Hat and Novell that the patents were invalid.

Here’s hoping this is the first of many more of these verdicts to come. Maybe one day even the law makers will wake up to the malodorous practices by these bastards.

Via: Techdirt

By the way, buy these shirts and show your distaste of these bungholes.

The attached ZIP file includes three files:

Get ready for the CS5 launch here.

Source: Make

An example from the past: I’d been managing Windows networks and servers since 1995-ish but never got any sort of certification, until I got my MCSA and MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator and -Engineer respectively) in 2002, basically because my employer demanded it of me. Not a problem, hit the books at home, do some test exams followed by the actual exam and hey presto, certified. In 2007 my current employer asked me to upgrade my Windows 2000 MCSA and MCSE to Windows 2003. Once again, books – test exam – exam – bingo.
In both of these cases the books and exams tought me nothing new, nor showed me any aspect of the OS and its functions that surprised me or that I hadn’t worked with before, so the certifications at the time felt like ‘an extra piece of paper’.

The big question that arises of course is: are these certifications of any real use? In my opinion, if the exams (or the books prepping you for the exams) teach you anything really new you’re not really ready to be a certified anything. On the other hand, if it’s all easy and old hat for you, what is the point of getting the certification aside from adding to your C.V., as you’re already fully versed in the actual subject matter?
Most of the time IT geeks must pass certain exams to keep their employers on a certain partnership level with the company in question, for example Microsoft demands (among other things) a certain number of certified engineers at a company for them to accept your company as a “Microsoft Certified Partner” at any particular level (which, to be honest, does have some advantages such as access to NFR software to play around with, extra internal-use licenses, some business tools for selling and marketing their stuff and of course a slightly lower purchase price for their products, increasing revenue).

All well and good, but what’s in it for me? Do my certifications really make my C.V. stand out in the crowd when looking for a job? Or is it just a minimum-level-marker so the prospective employer is assured he’s not getting a complete dolt? I personally think it depends on the actual certifications, and (prospective) employers should be aware of what is actually demanded from people to get certain certifications. Example: Microsoft’s MCSA, and in some cases MCSE, exams could have been passed by someone with a good memory for test questions but with no actual work experience with the prodcuts, whereas Cisco’s exams try to weed out the ‘book smart’ people by posing actual issues to solve. Thus, just relying on a person’s list of acronyms is not enough, you do have to invest some time in figuring out what the certifications really mean, and in any case: there is never any substitution for actual work experience.

For me, I’ll probably stick with the way I’ve been doing it now. Really get to know the products and technologies I work with, and take the exam when I feel comfortable I could pass it without opening a single book beforehand, with the possible exception of an exam guide to prep me for the exam itself.

Here’s a quick tip to keep an eye on the snapshot deletion: Once you’ve given the command to delete a snapshot, go to the CLI (i.e.: log in to the ESX server that the VM is on), then cd to the directory where the VM is located:

cd /vmfs/volumes/DatastoreName/VMname

Once in the directory use the command:

file *

This will give you an extended list of the files in that directory. The files that the snapshot process is working on will be listed as ‘can’t read ‘diskfilename.vmdk’ (Device or resource busy)‘. Now you can check that these are both the snapshots and the main disks that the snapshot data is to be committed to. To see if the process is actually writing to the target disk file, just ls it every so often and keen an eye on the date and time, it should update to indicate that the disk image is being written to.

A short example: Say the VM is called ‘VMSERVER01′ and it’s on a datastore called ‘SANvolume1′. You use the Snapshot Manager in the VI Client to delete a snapshot, then SSH to the ESX server.

cd /vmfs/volumes/SANvolume1/VMSERVER01
file *

The result would look something like this:

VMSERVER01-flat.vmdk: can't read 'VMSERVER01-flat.vmdk' (Device or resource busy).
VMSERVER01.vmdk: ASCII English text
VMSERVER01-d1e733fe.hlog: ASCII text
VMSERVER01-d1e733fe.vswp: empty
VMSERVER01-000001-delta.vmdk: can't read 'VMSERVER01-000001-delta.vmdk' (Device or resource busy).
VMSERVER01-000001.vmdk: ASCII English text
VMSERVER01.nvram: VMware nvram
VMSERVER01.vmsd: ASCII text
VMSERVER01.vmx: a /usr/bin/vmware script text executable
VMSERVER01.vmxf: XML document text
vmware.log: ASCII C++ program text, with very long lines

This shows you that the server is busy committing the data from the snapshot file (VMSERVER01-000001-delta.vmdk) to the main disk file (VMSERVER01-flat.vmdk). Now you know which disk file should be the one being written to so you can just use ls every once in a while, while the server is still busily chewing on the snapshot, to see the time on the main disk file change to confirm that is is still being written to:

ls -l VMSERVER01-flat.vmdk

Every once in a while also run the file command again to se whether or not the snapshot files have disappeared, confirming that the snapshot has indeed been deleted.

Hope this helps, it did for me