NFS: Windows client?

In my recent studies for the RHCE I have covered the NFS file sharing system. I have used this system in the past, but not extensively. I have been told that it is faster than SMB by a great degree between Linux and Unix boxes so I am going to run some tests on it and see how it works. I am currently downloading Services for Unix from Microsoft so that I can test the Windows client that they provide for NFS. I'll post results.

RHCE: The Road to Certification

Aggregation of my posts on the RHCE:

Starting out!
RHCE Exam Prep Guide
RHCE Networking and Configuration

RHCE: The Road to Certification

Over the next couple of months I'm going to be studying for the RHCE exam. I have purchased the book, "RHCE 4th edition", by Michael Jang as a study guide since I heard it was the best one out there. I'm not terribly impressed with it so far, as I have found quite a few technical errors. I hope to be able to start posting about my learning experiences and relate that to how well I perform on the exam. One of the reasons that I am doing this is so that I can start doing some private consulting around my area and I'd like to have some certifications to back up my experience and knowledge. Stay tuned!

NX: Remote X-Server Session

I recently discovered an excellent client application for connecting to X remotely. NX is a client/server application developed by NoMachinewith some clever caching techniques which provide near real-time response for X-sessions. The NX server works with an SSH server to provide secure authentication and SSL encrypted traffic, if desired. A GPL'd server has been written and is available here, while a free client is available from Nomachine.com. The NX client will also connect to Microsoft applications which use the RDP protocol and VNC sessions. An excellent series of articles has been written on NX at Linuxjournal.com which provides some details as to the actual technical operations.

For anyone who has used VNC for remote GUI control of their systems, NX is far superior!

Speakeasy

I recently received an email from Speakeasy with an offer for broadband service in my area. I was impressed with the email as they gave me an option to test my current speed with one of their servers in Seattle. I have attached a link to this speed test in the left nav bar for all to use. I really like the way that Speakeasy does things and I do plan on switching to their service sometime in the next year. One of the good flexible options that Speakeasy has is that you can become a mini WISP if you purchase their service and they will take care of the billing and email problems with your customers. The bad part is that you have to take care of the tech support and security portions.

Responsible Disclosure: Ciscogate

For those who have not yet heard (shouldn't be anyone), Mike Flynn presented a flaw in Cisco routers at Black Hat 2005 that could bring the Internet to it's knees. There are conflicting sides to the story, but the gist is that Cisco was trying to down-play the seriousness of the flaw and keep the researcher from disclosing the vulnerability. Responsible disclosure means that after a reasonable amount of time trying to work with the vendor, the researcher must disclose the vulnerability to the security community so that the flaw may be fixed or defended against. There are rumors that the Chinese have already been exploiting this flaw, which makes it imperative that the security community know about it.

Open Standards: HTML and web technologies

As an avid supporter of open standards in all things digital, I was pleased to see this article on Slashdot wherein Paul Thurrott talks about boycotting Internet Explorer 7.0 until Microsoft comes out with a standards-compliant browser. I think that IE is a huge disappointment and a very lazy offering by MS. Any self-respecting tech company will strive to better the field that they work in and IE has made the field of web browsing and development worse for the wear. Please use Firefox.

Other reasons to not use Internet Explorer:

1. Privacy
2. Security
3. Diversity
4. Competition is better for innovation (not patents -- contrary to popular belief)