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Saturday, October 25, 2008
VM WARE or WAR!
Microsoft extends most of its virtualization licensing benefits to platforms other than just its own Virtual Server. An organization, for instance, can run up to four instances of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition on a VMware ESX Server by purchasing just one license. Microsoft’s stance in regards to virtual appliances, though, remains unclear. On one hand, the company amended its licensing agreement this year to no longer require Virtual Server in order to activate a published Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive (VHD)-formatted virtual machine. On the other hand, Microsoft anti-virus and activation mechanisms cause these virtual machines to de-activate when they are run on other virtualization platforms. As virtual appliances continue to proliferate, this confusion may negatively affect the ultimate popularity of the VHD format.
The Allure of Virtual Appliances
Virtual appliances are quietly revolutionizing the distribution of both software and specific application functionality. Hardware appliances manufactured by Cisco, Citrix, Checkpoint and many other firms have long been sold to handle isolated IT functions such as VPN, back-up and firewall. This method of application distribution has several advantages over simply distributing software applications to be installed by customers on standard X86 machines. The hardware appliance typically includes a slimmed down version of the OS tailored to optimally manage just the specific application. This utilizes the computing resources more efficiently while improving reliability, simplifying troubleshooting and enhancing security. It requires less frequent patching and eliminates problems resulting from customers using incompatible hardware or from incorrectly installing the application.
The downside to hardware appliances is that they are costly to purchase. They take up rack space and require power to both operate and to cool. Hardware appliances result in more underutilized servers and in non-standardized hardware in the datacenter. They have parts that can fail meaning that duplicate devices may be required in order to guarantee redundancy. Further redundant devices may be required at disaster recovery sites.
By repackaging a hardware appliance as a virtual appliance, manufacturers gain all the advantages of utilizing a specialized operating system in a controlled environment, but without requiring a dedicated hardware server. Deployment is simplified, costs are reduced and high availability is enabled without requiring duplicate hardware. The virtual appliance can even be replicated off site for disaster recovery. Downloading, deploying, evaluating, and replacing virtual appliances is also much quicker and easier.
Software manufacturers are increasingly delivering their applications as virtual appliances for these exact same reasons. By packaging, say, a database as a virtual appliance, the software manufacturer no longer needs to be concerned about what hardware, drivers and OS version the application is being installed upon. The manufacturer’s best practices are already incorporated into the virtual machine ensuring that it is configured correctly. Complexity is reduced while reliability is improved. Manufacturers currently selling virtual appliances range from well-known industry leaders such as BEA to hundreds of small firms who are capitalizing on the enhanced functionality that virtual servers enable in terms of performance, reliability and security.
Virtual appliances enable further advantages when operating within a largely virtualized infrastructure. Organizations can collapse more of the infrastructure services into the virtual infrastructure along with the application servers. Virtual appliances relying on the network transport, such as firewalls, gain significant performance advantages by keeping the connections inside of the physical host servers utilizing the virtual switch. There is less latency within the virtual infrastructure than routing traffic from the virtual infrastructure out to the physical network and back.
Virtual Appliance Format
VMware currently dominates the virtual appliance market with its Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK). Microsoft is taking a big gamble by not fully supporting the running of its VHD format virtual machines within a VMware environment. VMware is the world’s fastest growing large software company in history – by a factor of two. The company will do well over $1 Billion in sales this year and shows no sign of slowing in terms of revenues, innovation and leadership. Over 10,000 attendees are expected at this year’s VMworld in San Francisco, and VMware centric organizations tend to be exceptionally enthusiastic about the platform.
Should Microsoft continue its restrictive stance on virtual appliances, it may compel some organizations to choose its virtualization platform over VMware. But it will also, without a doubt, push many software manufacturers to go through the trouble and expense of rewriting their applications to utilize an open systems based operating system as part of a virtual appliance. Alteratively, by promoting Windows based virtual machines within all formats, Microsoft has an opportunity to evolve the traditional operating system– designed to support many disparate applications – to the new slim, high performing and secure O/S component of virtual appliances.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Some important news from Wikipedia to understand clearly
As you'll see in this video, there has been important progress in making Wikipedia compatible with the world of Creative Commons licensed work. But we should be very precise about this extremely good news: As Jimmy announces, the Wikimedia Foundation Board has agreed with a proposal made by the Free Software Foundation that will permit Wikipedia (and other such wikis) to relicense under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
That is very different from saying that Wikipedia has relicensed under a CC license. The decision whether to take advantage of this freedom granted by the FSF when the FSF grants it will be a decision the Wikipedia community will have to make. We are very hopeful that the community will ratify this move to compatible freedoms. And if they do, we are looking forward to an extraordinary celebration.
Read the Wikimedia Foundation resolution here.
My endless thanks to everyone who has helped make this possible, from Richard Stallman and the FSF board, to the important leaders within the Wikipedia community who say yet another legal obstacle to freedom that they could remove.
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Thursday, July 31, 2008
Quality of backlinks along with the Quantity that help you rank better in Search Engines.
http://weblogtoolscollection.com/
A very good resource for wordpress, ive only scratched the surface.
Firefly’s Chat-On-A-Webpage : Try it outFirefly’s Chat-On-A-Webpage Goes Live.: Found via GigaOm, Firefly is a cool little Javascript app that sits on tops of your blog or webpage and allows unfettered chatting and interaction ability for visitors. I have enabled it on WeblogToolsCollection for the time being for people to check it out. Enable at the bottom of the page (look for a small bar), click anywhere on the page and chat away! If you want to put it on your own blog, visit firef.ly WARNING: It is addictive in an “Ooo! Shiny!” sort of way. :) (0)
WordPress As A CMS Checklist 8comments
Jeff Chandler CMS, WordPress
Thord Daniel Hedengren over at Devlounge has published an extensive checklist based on his experience of things to consider when using WordPress as a CMS, especially when it will be used for a client. His post covers a number of different situations you should think about ahead of time before you step into your favorite code editor. According to Thord, there are three things you need to consider before committing to WordPress:
1. Is the functionality needed covered by the WordPress core functions, and/or with the addition of (not too many) plugins? This is usually managing information pages (using Pages), and publishing news/press releases (using Posts). If I need to add a lot of custom stuff, including the custom fields, then perhaps it gets too complicated for the client.
2. Is there a good translation of WordPress available, so that your client can get the backend in their own language? Why should my Swedish customers not have their CMS in Swedish? There is no reason, of course, and it is easy enough to install a language pack.
3. Will my client be able to upgrade WordPress themselves, or do I need to make plans for this as well? This is true for most platforms out there, but nevertheless you’ll need to have an upgrade strategy.
I’ve never dived into the realm of setting up WordPress for a client so this is all new to me. However, I know a lot of you install and configure WordPress for your own clients. With that in mind, I’d be interested in knowing your own checklist of things to consider before committing them to WordPress.
checklist, clients, CMS, WordPress
7/29/2008 ↓
WordPress Plugin Releases for 07/29 2comments
Ajay Wordpress Plugins
Breadcrumb Titles For Pages
This plugin modifies wp_title() (the function used to create the title of your website to output all parent Pages when viewing a Page.
Allow Numeric Stubs
Starting with WordPress 2.5, there is a bug where you cannot have a child Page that’s stub is a number. For example this will not work: /about/5/. That URL conflicts with paged content feature where you can posts and Pages with multiple pages of content by adding within your content.
This plugin allows you to have children Pages with numbers as stubs by giving up the ability to have paged Pages which isn’t a big deal as most people don’t use paged Pages anyway.
p2pConverter
Converts either a static Page into a Post, or a Post into a static Page! Just click on the Manage tab in the Admin interface, and click the Posts or Pages sub-tab.
Status Press Widget
Adds a Facebook Status Widget to display your Facebook status in your sidebar. Based on Status Press plugin (not required!) by Adam Walker Cleaveland & C. Scott Andreas.
Customizable Search Widget
Adds a Customizable Search Widget to give you more control over how the search box looks on your sidebar.
List Drafts Widget
List Drafts is a simple sidebar widget which outputs a list of the titles of all posts currently saved as drafts. Users can set the title of the widget, and add a label to be used for all untitled drafts.
Post and Page Excerpt Widgets
Creates widgets that display excerpts from posts or pages in the sidebar. You may use ‘more’ links and/or link the widget title to the post or page.
And, while on the topic of plugins, take a look at Clever Carrot’s 10 WordPress Plugins to Grow Great Sites.
plugins, widgets, WordPress, Wordpress Plugins, Wordpress Widgets
7/30/2008 ↓
Firefly’s Chat-On-A-Webpage : Try it outFirefly’s Chat-On-A-Webpage Goes Live.: Found via GigaOm, Firefly is a cool little Javascript app that sits on tops of your blog or webpage and allows unfettered chatting and interaction ability for visitors. I have enabled it on WeblogToolsCollection for the time being for people to check it out. Enable at the bottom of the page (look for a small bar), click anywhere on the page and chat away! If you want to put it on your own blog, visit firef.ly WARNING: It is addictive in an “Ooo! Shiny!” sort of way. :) (0)
WordPress As A CMS Checklist 8comments
Jeff Chandler CMS, WordPress
Thord Daniel Hedengren over at Devlounge has published an extensive checklist based on his experience of things to consider when using WordPress as a CMS, especially when it will be used for a client. His post covers a number of different situations you should think about ahead of time before you step into your favorite code editor. According to Thord, there are three things you need to consider before committing to WordPress:
1. Is the functionality needed covered by the WordPress core functions, and/or with the addition of (not too many) plugins? This is usually managing information pages (using Pages), and publishing news/press releases (using Posts). If I need to add a lot of custom stuff, including the custom fields, then perhaps it gets too complicated for the client.
2. Is there a good translation of WordPress available, so that your client can get the backend in their own language? Why should my Swedish customers not have their CMS in Swedish? There is no reason, of course, and it is easy enough to install a language pack.
3. Will my client be able to upgrade WordPress themselves, or do I need to make plans for this as well? This is true for most platforms out there, but nevertheless you’ll need to have an upgrade strategy.
I’ve never dived into the realm of setting up WordPress for a client so this is all new to me. However, I know a lot of you install and configure WordPress for your own clients. With that in mind, I’d be interested in knowing your own checklist of things to consider before committing them to WordPress.
checklist, clients, CMS, WordPress
7/29/2008 ↓
WordPress Plugin Releases for 07/29 2comments
Ajay Wordpress Plugins
Breadcrumb Titles For Pages
This plugin modifies wp_title() (the function used to create the title of your website to output all parent Pages when viewing a Page.
Allow Numeric Stubs
Starting with WordPress 2.5, there is a bug where you cannot have a child Page that’s stub is a number. For example this will not work: /about/5/. That URL conflicts with paged content feature where you can posts and Pages with multiple pages of content by adding within your content.
This plugin allows you to have children Pages with numbers as stubs by giving up the ability to have paged Pages which isn’t a big deal as most people don’t use paged Pages anyway.
p2pConverter
Converts either a static Page into a Post, or a Post into a static Page! Just click on the Manage tab in the Admin interface, and click the Posts or Pages sub-tab.
Status Press Widget
Adds a Facebook Status Widget to display your Facebook status in your sidebar. Based on Status Press plugin (not required!) by Adam Walker Cleaveland & C. Scott Andreas.
Customizable Search Widget
Adds a Customizable Search Widget to give you more control over how the search box looks on your sidebar.
List Drafts Widget
List Drafts is a simple sidebar widget which outputs a list of the titles of all posts currently saved as drafts. Users can set the title of the widget, and add a label to be used for all untitled drafts.
Post and Page Excerpt Widgets
Creates widgets that display excerpts from posts or pages in the sidebar. You may use ‘more’ links and/or link the widget title to the post or page.
And, while on the topic of plugins, take a look at Clever Carrot’s 10 WordPress Plugins to Grow Great Sites.
plugins, widgets, WordPress, Wordpress Plugins, Wordpress Widgets
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Diesel Calculator - Clean fuels?
Wow Check this out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ever wonder how much you could save by switching to a fuel-efficient clean diesel vehicle? Planning a vacation or a road trip?
Click here to calculate your potential savings.
Visit AAA’s Fuel Price Finder for fuel prices in your local area.
Official fuel economy information is available at www.fueleconomy.gov.
Click here to download the calculator to your desktop or embed it into your website.
Ever wonder how much you could save by switching to a fuel-efficient clean diesel vehicle? Planning a vacation or a road trip?
Click here to calculate your potential savings.
Visit AAA’s Fuel Price Finder for fuel prices in your local area.
Official fuel economy information is available at www.fueleconomy.gov.
Click here to download the calculator to your desktop or embed it into your website.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
the newest, easiest, and most flexible way to run ads within the RSS feed of your WordPress blog.
Feedvertising: Make Money With Your RSS Feed
In the last episode, you learned how to better position AdSense to monetize your Web site. While that’s a great way to make money off of your site itself, did you know that a large percentage of your audience might never see those ads?
Because an ever-increasing number of Web surfers prefer to read their favorite blogs via RSS feed (or email generated by RSS) rather than on the actual Web site, making money with your feed is crucial. So, if you want to monetize your entire audience, then you’re going to need a way to make your RSS feed work for you.
Enter Feedvertising, the newest, easiest, and most flexible way to run ads within the RSS feed of your WordPress blog. Unlike other feed advertising solutions, Feedvertising is totally within your control — you can accept brokered ads, sell ads yourself directly, insert affiliate links, or cross-promote your other blogs. It’s totally up to you, and the technology is completely free.
Take a look at this quick demo video to see how Feedvertising can turn your RSS feed into a great revenue source. It’s completely compatible with Feedburner too!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
quickly.to short URL redirect and forwarding service
quickly.to short URL redirect and forwarding service
The only web address you'll ever need
quickly.to is a free short URL service offering the best web redirect and email forwarding service available. quickly.to allows you to take a long web address like www.somehostingservice.com/member/yourname123 and turn it into a short, search engine friendly address like quickly.to/yourname.
http:// Select Your Domain quickly.to --------------------------- all.at come.to connect.to fly.to get.to go.to hello.to jump.to listen.to move.to on.to run.to start.at surf.to travel.to welcome.to more... /
Established in 1997, quickly.to is part of the oldest and largest web forwarding and email redirection service in the world. Try it out, your short URL will be live instantly, and it's totally free.
Features Include:
learn more
Web Forwarding
Transfer your traffic from your memorable short URL to any domain. Build traffic on your short URL and then point it to any website you want!
learn more
Email Forwarding
Get a free email address that will forward to any other email account: you@quickly.to
learn more
Multiple Formats
Your short URL will work in either format:http://quickly.to/you
orhttp://you.quickly.to
learn more
SEO Friendly
Don't waste money on multiple domains to drive traffic to your site. You can set up multiple redirects from one account, our addresses are highly ranked on search engines, and best of all they're FREE.
about us terms of service privacy policy a service of MyPhotoAlbum Inc. © copyright 2008 MyPhotoAlbum Inc.
The only web address you'll ever need
quickly.to is a free short URL service offering the best web redirect and email forwarding service available. quickly.to allows you to take a long web address like www.somehostingservice.com/member/yourname123 and turn it into a short, search engine friendly address like quickly.to/yourname.
http:// Select Your Domain quickly.to --------------------------- all.at come.to connect.to fly.to get.to go.to hello.to jump.to listen.to move.to on.to run.to start.at surf.to travel.to welcome.to more... /
Established in 1997, quickly.to is part of the oldest and largest web forwarding and email redirection service in the world. Try it out, your short URL will be live instantly, and it's totally free.
Features Include:
learn more
Web Forwarding
Transfer your traffic from your memorable short URL to any domain. Build traffic on your short URL and then point it to any website you want!
learn more
Email Forwarding
Get a free email address that will forward to any other email account: you@quickly.to
learn more
Multiple Formats
Your short URL will work in either format:http://quickly.to/you
orhttp://you.quickly.to
learn more
SEO Friendly
Don't waste money on multiple domains to drive traffic to your site. You can set up multiple redirects from one account, our addresses are highly ranked on search engines, and best of all they're FREE.
about us terms of service privacy policy a service of MyPhotoAlbum Inc. © copyright 2008 MyPhotoAlbum Inc.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
AutoForums - Automotive Enthusiast Forum Network
AutoForums - Automotive Enthusiast Forum Network: "AutoForums
AutoForums.com operates more than 100 vertical and community-oriented websites for automotive enthusiasts. On our sites, users consult with their peers for shopping information and advice, and share experiences and opinions as a community.
Registered members 2,227,049 Monthly visitors 9,731,070 Monthly page views 81,433,176
AcuraWorld.com HyundaiPerformance.com NissanForums.com TRUCK
Audi-Forums.com Kia-Forums.com ScionForum.com LandRoversOnly.com
BenzForum.com Lamborghini-Talk.com SaabScene.com
BenzWorld.org LandRoversOnly.com SRTforums.com MISC
BimmerWerkz.com LotusTalk.com SuperHonda.com Engine-Care.com
Ferrari-Talk.com MazdaWorld.org Suzuki-Forums.com HybridForums.org
FordForums.com Mini2.com ToyotaNation.com
GMinsidenews.com Mitsubishi-Forums.com Volvo-Forums.com
Hyundai-Forums.com NissanClub.com VWforum.com
300cForums.com GTOForum.com ViperAlley.com TRUCK
CaliberForums.com LS1GTO.com VoltForums.com CherokeeSRT8.com
ChevyMalibuForum.com ModdedMustangs.com Vseries.net CumminsForum.com
ChallengerTalk.com NewAgeGTO.com XLRForum.com DieselPlace.com
ChargerForums.com RedlineForums.com"
AutoForums.com operates more than 100 vertical and community-oriented websites for automotive enthusiasts. On our sites, users consult with their peers for shopping information and advice, and share experiences and opinions as a community.
Registered members 2,227,049 Monthly visitors 9,731,070 Monthly page views 81,433,176
AcuraWorld.com HyundaiPerformance.com NissanForums.com TRUCK
Audi-Forums.com Kia-Forums.com ScionForum.com LandRoversOnly.com
BenzForum.com Lamborghini-Talk.com SaabScene.com
BenzWorld.org LandRoversOnly.com SRTforums.com MISC
BimmerWerkz.com LotusTalk.com SuperHonda.com Engine-Care.com
Ferrari-Talk.com MazdaWorld.org Suzuki-Forums.com HybridForums.org
FordForums.com Mini2.com ToyotaNation.com
GMinsidenews.com Mitsubishi-Forums.com Volvo-Forums.com
Hyundai-Forums.com NissanClub.com VWforum.com
300cForums.com GTOForum.com ViperAlley.com TRUCK
CaliberForums.com LS1GTO.com VoltForums.com CherokeeSRT8.com
ChevyMalibuForum.com ModdedMustangs.com Vseries.net CumminsForum.com
ChallengerTalk.com NewAgeGTO.com XLRForum.com DieselPlace.com
ChargerForums.com RedlineForums.com"
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