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7 posts are filed under: March 08

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March 08 Archives - Geek Speak Blog
31 Mar 2008
802.11n - Will you see a real difference?
by: Josh Stephens  |  Filed Under: WAN, Traffic and Performance
Recently I worked with a magazine editor who was evaluating and writing about some of the new 802.11n WAPs out in the market. These particular WAPs were aimed at the small business and home office. The testing went well and I think it was a good contest and should make for a great article. While this type of testing is helpful, as I was working from home this weekend over my 802.11 network I was thinking that what we really need is a test that is designed to catch the issues that typically tick off users like me. Lab tests typically involve testing for throughput, evaluating the...
26 Mar 2008
The saga continues - Blackberry is out and iPhone is in...
by: Josh Stephens  |  Filed Under: Careers & other Craziness
When last I wrote on this subject, I was in Cork Ireland and I'd just switched from a Windows Mobile device that I used as a phone and PDA to a new Blackberry Curve. I will admit that my opinion of the Curve was somewhat hasty. I used it for about a month and after learning several of the shortcuts and best practices that diehard Blackberry users leverage it was definitely more usable than I first thought. I can't honestly say that the UI was really all that much worse than on the Windows Mobile. The real difference is that I'm used to the Windows UI so I was already...
24 Mar 2008
March Madness and the Sweet 16... Cool ways to get more out of Orion
by: Josh Stephens  |  Filed Under: Planning & Design, Network Monitoring
So I got a chance to catch up on some basketball this weekend and then this morning we were all chatting about the NCAA tournament and a friend of mine told me that her husband wasn't going to shave until the Jayhawks won the tournament. Several years ago I lived in Kansas City and helped to design and deploy the network that is now Sprint PCS. One thing I learned while I was there - those people are passionate about their basketball... Anyhow, that got me to thinking about the lengths to which people will go when they are passionate about something and since I'm passionate...
19 Mar 2008
Understanding Network Traffic and Monitoring it with Orion
by: Josh Stephens  |  Filed Under: Network Monitoring, Traffic and Performance
A subject that I get asked about a lot is how to monitor and measure network traffic. There are many different ways to look at network traffic and link performance and several different schools of thought on which measures hold the most value. In discussing this subject, let's first limit the conversation to WAN link analysis which is usually where people start to see issues with bandwidth utilization and latency. This isn't to say that you can't see these issues on the LAN - just the other day I was talking to an engineer that is daily fighting these issues on his LAN...
12 Mar 2008
Network Configuration and its effect on Network Security
by: Josh Stephens  |  Filed Under: Planning & Design, Network Monitoring
I read an interesting article today by Bill Brenner over at SearchSecurity about how network configuration can affect network security. You can read the article: here While this topic is somewhat parallel, the article got me to thinking about how many times we focus on what we have to do with regards to security vs. what we should do. Nearly every day I hear someone talking about the extra work that SOX or HIPAA has caused them and I see them focusing much of their time, especially with regards to security, in these areas. It's gotten so bad that many people think that the terms...





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