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February 6, 2009

Load Balancing EC2 with HAProxy

Until the time comes when Amazon will offer a load balancing service in their EC2 environment, people are forced to use a software-based load balancing solution. One of the most common out there is HAProxy. I've been looking at it for the past 2 months or so, and recently we started to use it in production here at OpenX. I am very impressed with its performance and capabilities. I'll explore here some of the functionality that HAProxy offers, and also discuss some of the non-obvious aspects of its configuration.

via agiletesting.blogspot.com

 

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Filed under  //   cloud   code   internet  
Posted by Jerry Daniels 

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February 6, 2009

See the internet as sixth human sense

When he encounters someone at a party, the system projects a cloud of words on the person's body to provide more information about him -- his blog URL, the name of his company, his likes and interests. "This is a more controversial [feature]," Maes said over the audience's laughter.

In another frame, Mistry picks up a boarding pass while he's sitting in a car. He projects the current status of his flight and gate number he's retrieved from the flight-status page of the airline onto the card.

"If you need to know what time it is, it's as simple as drawing a watch on your arm," Maes said, while Mistry used his right finger to draw a circle on his left wrist. The face of a watch popped up on his hand, which the audience liked.

When Mistry folds his hands in "namaste" fashion, the system opens a menu to allow him to choose an application. If he wants to read e-mail on his phone, he draws an @ symbol in the air with his finger. He can project a phone pad onto his palm and dial a number without removing the phone from his pocket. As he reads the newspaper on the subway he can project a video onto the page that provides more information about the topic he's reading.

Maes and Mistry told Wired they've been working on the project for four months, day and night, and have filed a patent for it.

Maes' MIT group, which includes seven graduate students, were thinking about how a person could be more integrated into the world around them and access information without having to do something like take out a phone. They initially produced a wristband that would read an RFID tag to know, for example, which book a user is holding in a store.

via blog.wired.com

Very compelling. Real world-looking stuff.

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Filed under  //   future   internet  
Posted by Jerry Daniels 

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February 2, 2009

Who's on Twitter?

Pretty funny list...

  • people who are just back from a really awesome run
  • people who are involved with "computers"
  • DJs
  • DJs at the airport
  • DJs who are drunk
  • people who don't seem to have anyone else's email address
  • people who are mad at the TV sets
  • people who have forgotten how to use email

Click for more. Thanks to Daring Fireball for the direct.

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Filed under  //   humor   internet   twitter  
Posted by Jerry Daniels 

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February 1, 2009

Everyone can have a laptop

There is a great New York Times article talking about how the economic crisis is creating great incentives to embrace new, very inexpensive technology. As an example, pictured below you'll see a catalog entry for a sub-$200 laptop that can do all the web browsing and email you want.

Save yourself time, money, find employment, score new contracts, watch TV without cable or commercials, keep in touch with friends...there is NO REASON everyone cannot have a laptop if they want one. $200 is within reach.

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Filed under  //   internet   laptop   technology  
Posted by Jerry Daniels 

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