I have posted the talk information for my TTP Summit talk (finally). You can find a PDF of my slides, some links, and just some general information about the talk and event. I had a great time and I’ll have more to write both about the TTP Summit at BrainShare 2014 and BrainShare 2014 in the future.
At Martin Luther College we allow students to bring wireless routers into their dorm rooms so that they can connect their devices to our network. One thing we have seen creeping into more and more routers is the interstitial landing page and “helpful” software from the router manufacturers getting in the way of using our network.
Belkin and Netgear are the two worst at the moment but if history repeats, it will work its way into everything. The routers will ping out to some server (or a number of different servers) and if it doesn’t receive a response, it will throw up its page and keep you from using the network.
Awesome.
Even better is that some Belkin routers coming in recently have had some “content filtering” turned on which means that the router cannot get the proper DNS servers to allow them to register the device.
Awesome-er.
Defaults matter. Software matters. Hardware that might work just fine otherwise is broken by poor software with poor defaults. It isn’t helpful.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball spoke at XOXO 2014 and they recently posted his talk on YouTube about content on the web, companies, Daring Fireball … and other things. The entire talk is really good (the most quotable stuff is near the end) and it is mostly clean (language-wise).
Enjoy.
I’m looking forward to being able to attend BrainShare 2014 at the beginning of November. I’ll be there spending as much time as possible learning about the mobile and file-sharing options from Novell and NetIQ and especially focused on our upcoming Novell OES migration.
Before that, however, I will have the opportunity to speak with my education IT friends at the TTP BrainShare Summit 2014 happening on Saturday and Sunday. I will also have the pleasure to speak there on Saturday. The title of the talk is SmallOps: My First Year in IT Operations at Martin Luther College, and much of it will be familiar to those who read this blog but I’ll post what I can after the talk.
It should be a good time and if you happen to see me, just grab me to say “hi”!
I have no insider information, but as a heavy user of both Novell and SUSE technologies I do have an interest in what happens with both of the companies. A large portion of what I do every day replies on Novell and SUSE to function and any major change for either would mean many headaches and late nights as we work to move to different platforms.
No matter how well-intentioned both sides might be at the onset of any merger, there is going to come a time when the numbers are going to be looked at and a return on the initial investment is going to be expected. If there is no return, or the return is not big enough, then decisions are going to be made to rectify that. Many times that can manifest in layoffs and products being discarded into the heap of history.
I don’t know how well the Novell and SUSE portions of The Attachmate Group are doing, but the idea that some very good products could be discarded is disheartening. I don’t think it is a secret that Novell had been struggling mightily before its purchase, and I don’t know how the company is really doing now but I’m fairly certain that it is probably not as large as it was when initially purchased. SUSE has been spun off (which I think was a net win for everyone) and some of the products once shepherded by Novell are now under the care of NetIQ (which might make sense to some), which leaves Novell with only a portion of its prior product portfolio. A smaller company might be more focused, but it also leaves it a smaller company.
My fears for the two main companies I work with on a daily basis are distinct:
Is it all doom and gloom? Not necessarily. I think that if this turns out similar to the The Attachmate Group changes, then it could be an overall good thing for everyone involved, but any merger-and-aquisition is difficult and this one will be no different.
I wish everyone the best of luck and look forward to both SUSE and Novell being a major partner at Martin Luther College.