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April 12, 2004
Networking Class Project Presentations
I heard presentations about class projects today for the networking class I'm teaching this semester. The rules for the project are simple: it has to be equal to the effort required for two normal labs, it has to be vaguely about networking, and it has to be fun for the student. As a result, some of it turns into an opportunity to hack. Not everyone presents, but the one's who presented today had some good projects:
- Craig Hancock built an HTTP server with modular handlers for different data types that accepted GET and POST and ran PHP programs.
- Ben Watson built an instant messaging system with his own protocol, a client and server.
- Jeff Hansen built a secure shell server that ran entirely from a RAM disk and then installed it on server with a RAM disk mounted as the boot partition so that if the hard drives failed, he could still log in.
- Nathan Stocks built a distributed parallel computation system similar to SETI@Home and analyzed the parallelizability of RSA key generation.
- Steve Mak set up a SER SIP server and got two XLite softphones talking.
- Matt Mullins and Wade Berrier got Linux running on an XBox and then turned it into a MythTV set-top box complete with remote control.
I thought it was a good group of projects and it was clear that people had fun.
11:20 PM | Recommend This | Print This
Document Management with SharePoint
elearnspace points to a an overview of SharePoint, Microsoft's server-based document repository. The elearnspace article gives some pros and cons:
If you know Windows and Office, the learning curve is very low. In my experience, I've been disappointed with the product (sign in isn't direct and obvious, very little metadata support, very "boxy", no support for RSS, collaboration is basically just a threaded discussion, etc.) Given the opportunity, I would move toward a product like Plone, Groove, Drupal, or Convea. Over the next several versions, Sharepoint will certainly improve...but it's currently a product that looks like a poor duplication of the more effective collaboration tools now available (both open source and proprietary).From elearnspace: Microsoft Sharepoint
Referenced Mon Apr 12 2004 09:11:43 GMT-0600
The c|net news article admits that getting people to use the tools is perhaps more important than finding the perfect tool:
Relying on a familiar set of tools is particularly useful with collaboration, Nemertes' Turek said, because there are bound to be other worker issues with using a collaboration system. Routinely saving documents on a shared server rather than an individual hard drive not only requires fundamental behavioral changes but a shift in attitude.
First, you get people comfortable with tools. Then, you get them to expand their notions of what they should share and whom to share it with, she said.
"Most Americans are a little bit reluctant to share all their information," Turek added. "They don't want to lose ownership of their ideas."
But the approach can be valuable, because "if everything I do is available for everyone else to see, then everything I do has to meet some standard of excellence," she said. "Management really has to lead people into this style of working."From Sharing the love--and data--through SharePoint | CNET News.com
Referenced Mon Apr 12 2004 09:14:29 GMT-0600
09:16 AM | Recommend This | Print This
Speaking of Disruptive Bandwidth Upgrades
Britt has a well-written piece about Arrianna Huffington's infatuation with bloggers. The part that caught my eye was the about the "disruptive bandwidth upgrade" that the colonies experienced in the form of post roads that suddenly made it practical for the colonies to talk to each other in a peer to peer fashion rather than relying on the hierarchical communications structure between the colonies and London. The hierarchical communications infrastructure was necessary when the colonies were separated by impassable wilderness, but too slow and inflexible once intercolony communication was possible. Revolution was born of the post roads, the printing press, and leisure time to read, think and talk.
As I read Britt's article, I couldn't help thinking that UTOPIA, Utah's community sponsored, fiber to the home broadband project, represents a similar disruptive infrastructure upgrade. Rather than being at the mercy of Qwest and Comcast for whatever broadband services they think we need, new businesses will spring up to provide them. One example I thought of: video blogs. Not reasonable in Qwest's DSL world with their slow upload and restrictive rules, but maybe someday soon.