Monthly Archives: November 2010

Comcast / Level 3 network peering dispute exposes failures in a private market internet

Comcast is threatening to cut off Netflix streaming unless an Internet backbone provider, Level 3, agrees to pay it money.  Comcast is quickly turning into the poster boy for Network Neutrality, and in the process, it is highlighting the inefficiencies … Continue reading

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Transfer from the TiVo or download on iTunes? Convenience is winning out

Steve Jobs is taking more of my money than is really necessary. He is winning the convenience war, and it may spell longer term trouble for my TiVo. With two kids under the age of three in the house, our … Continue reading

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I wonder if Microsoft would pay for my car if I let them personalize my license plate like this person did

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Recent ASP.NET security patch KB2416471 can break CompositeScript elements

Microsoft released a patch (KB2416471) to fix a security vulnerability where a malicious party could use errors generated in the application to decrypt the data used in certain requests.  In theory, the fix should not require changes in the application. … Continue reading

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Applying “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action” to troubleshooting

Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger said, “Once is happenstance.  Twice is coincidence.  Three times is enemy action.”  While managing web applications is not nearly as exciting as international spy thrillers, I often find myself thinking of the phrase when trying to debug … Continue reading

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#iMovie randomly not saving my project is solved – it’s the zombie project’s fault

A few weeks ago, my infatuation with my new Mac and iMovie was crushed when iMovie lost six hours of work.  I had been putting together a photo/video montage and was just putting on the finishing touches when all of … Continue reading

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Performance Tuning Tip: Turn on time-taken in your web logs (IIS, Apache, Tomcat) to identify performance hot spots

Everyone knows that the web logs generated by web servers like IIS, Apache, and Tomcat (JBOSS / Catalina) are a well-known goldmine of information.  They allow you to track site usage, find content errors, gather browser statistics, and all sorts … Continue reading

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The DNS Challenges of Using Akamai Sites for Global Corporations

Akamai’s web application accelerator product has been a tremendous benefit for our global operations.  Using their tools, we have observed a 400% performance boost between the United States and Asia versus accessing our site over “public” internet.  The benefits come … Continue reading

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According to Mini-Boden, UK companies cannot legally mail unpriced gifts to the US

With the holidays approaching, my wife and I have started looking for gifts for family members.  The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah falls very early this year, so we have had to get an earlier jump than normal. My wife found a cute … Continue reading

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More about my plan to fix the deficit, using the NYTimes budget balancing tool

This morning’s Week in Review had a fascinating section on all of the options on how to fix the deficit.  It puts you in charge of the budget, allowing you to mark off all of the ways you would save … Continue reading

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