And since I had some calls today I decided to kick off a project to do just that.

So here is a simple github link for UBERLinkedTwit:

Basically a command line ruby script which using the LinkedIn gem to auth, pull, and grab twitter ID’s for your connections. I haven’t rigged it up to auto-follow using the Twitter gem yet. But that is pretty easy using the Twitter gem examples.

Hit the github project, get LinkedIn developer keys, read the README, and have fun. Free free to extend and I will pull into main project.

.nick

Last night I was lucky enough to be a guest on the Cloudcast(.NET) with cloud experts Brian Gracely and Aaron Delp.

We covered the trip to VMware PEX, CloudConnect, and a little bit on DevOps (when I would stay on topic). Brian & Aaron’s podcast has quickly become the best source for interesting discussions related to Cloud. You can hear the latest episode here: CloudCast Episode 33

.nick

NEW UPDATE – Based on some tips (thanks: Brian Katz @bmkatz) some of the details haved changed below to make UBER Twitter Stats work a little easier. The same old command style still works. But the newer one is much easier.

Written in 100% Ruby and running in the cloud, UBER Twitter allows you to ask me (technically my cloud-like proxy @myubertwit) for interesting recent stats about your Twitter account. It is really quite simple.

Send a tweet to my app account (@myubertwit) with the text: “<command>”. With the command being one of the following:

1. My Word Count – Will reply with the top 20 words you used recently. This automatically strips out very common words. Shortcut: ‘mwc’
2. Mention Word Count – This will reply with the same as the above but for tweets that mention or are to you. Shortct: ‘mmwc’
3. Who I Mention – This will list the top 20 people you talk to or mention in your recent tweets. Shortcut: ‘wim’
4. Who Mentions Me – This will reply back with the top 20 people who have mentioned you the most lately. Shortcut: ‘wmm’

If you get stuck just send ‘@myubertwit ’help’ to get the instructions back in a tweet.

Depending on timing response may take up to a minute. Also, 90% of this work was written while I was chilling in a cigar bar with some friends. So while I do have *some* error handling, it ain’t much . It should handle Twitter API limits and does a decent job of trying to iterate and gather as many tweets as possible. For some high volume users (Like @Beaker) it gets pretty close to a 1,000 tweets per request to analyze.

I WILL be releasing the source for this soon. I have to strip out some private stuff first. And this week I will be attending VMware Partner Exchange, Cloud Connect, and one other event along with a ton of meetings. Which means it might be a week or two before I have time to post to Github for everyone.

Feedback is king – let me know if you like it or if you have any good ideas to add!

.nick

I am a firm believer in voting for who you love so head over and take the quick couple minutes to choice your favorites. If something I have done on Nickapedia.com has been cool, useful, or inspiring then showing me through a vote would be awesome.

Here are some of the most popular posts I have done in the last year:

• Celerra VSA UBER 3.2
• UBERAlign – VMware Alignment
• Virtual Selection
• Fistful of Cloud (vSphere + Kinect)
• UBERShell (Powershell for Celerra)
• UBER Network Fuser (Mac OSX tool for VMware Fusion)

But, even if I don’t make your list. Vote anyways – this is a great way to provide feedback to bloggers.

.nick

Turns out there was a method being used on a Cocoa control that required changes made in the 10.7 SDK. I rewrote the function to not need the method and have released a new version (version 1 build 701). All download links are updated but you can download the new version here:

UBER Network Fuser 1.701 Download

Lion users don’t need to update.

Thanks,

.nick

Because of this switch I have come to learn the things that the Mac (and Lion) do really well with some things while Windows does better with others. For almost all of my UBER projects I use my beefy Windows workstation running VMware Workstation to setup my lab/dev environments.

But, recently I started trying to move over to my Mac and using VMware Fusion to build lab virtual machines for developing. And to my surprise I found that things in the Fusion world aren’t quite the same as for Workstation. Namely, the networking options are rather limited. By default you only get the choices of three networks 1) DHCP w/ NAT  2) DHCP and 3) Bridging to a physical interface. For me that meant that I couldn’t get a network without DHCP (important if you are testing it) or create multiple isolated networks like I could on Workstation.

So I went digging and found that at one point someone has written some slick scripts to allow for custom multi-network setup but it stopped being updated after Fusion 2. I also found that VMware has some KB articles on how to hack your way to adding networks. But neither was very easy to do or dealt with modifying the VM’s well.

So I decided to fill this gap myself. Over the Christmas holiday I worked furiously to make this and now I am proud to present the next UBER release and my first project in the Manic Innovation Challenge: UBER Network Fuser (UNF)

UNF is a native Mac OSX application supported on Snow Leopard and Lion that allows you to add additional networks to VMware Fusion, customize their settings, and easily change network selection for any Fusion VM’s. I designed it to be simple to use and be similiar to how VMware Workstation network editor works.

Here is the full feature list:

1. Allows up to 10 additional custom networks (total of 12)
2. You can enable/disable DHCP, NAT, virtual host adaptor on any network
3. Protects and provides rollback of default Fusion settings
4. Allows dynamic changes of network membership with Fusion VM’s
5. You may alias networks with custom names (even Workstation doesn’t do this)
6. Tested and confirmed that VLAN tagging works as expected within private networks
7. Saves configuration per user (names, paths, etc)
8. Integrates with Apple’s Security framework for elevated privileges when needed

I created a video to demonstrate how it works below:

And to download (free as always) use the link below:

Download UBER Network Fuser 1.0 – DMG for Snow Leopard & Lion (Updated link to new 1.701 version)

This is my first release in the Manic Innovation Challenge. It is written in Objective C & C and uses the Cocoa and Security frameworks. Challenge-wise it was definitely an experience learning and writing an app in Objective C in  few weeks. But, it was crazy fun and I have all kinds of cool ideas for the Mac now.

Also, this marks post #100 for me in the 2.3 years I have been running Nickapedia.com. Being that it is also my birthday I am considering today a good day.

As always please test and play with it and let me know with some comments below.

.nick

And honestly I don’t know where I will end up in 2012. But I have made myself a goal for self development that I am hoping will both challenge myself and encourage others to challenge themselves.

I am going to be taking on (what I call) the Manic Innovation Challenge in 2012. In simple terms and with simple rules to follow I will attempt to create something unique and creative using as wide a variety of frameworks, codebases, and presentation methods as possible. My goal is to release one example each month with a stretch goal of one example every two weeks.

All this work will be in my spare time unless it is also an EMC supported example. I have a couple crazy ideas kicking around in my head and one midway to completion.

I will also be starting a new series of commentary posts focused on what I see are cool trends in modern information technology at a very geek-centric level. My goal on these is brevity and something to hook you into exploring more on a topic.

Ultimately this blog has been a massive outlet for my personal development and I want to extend that in 2012 even further. Thanks for reading this so far and hopefully I can find a way to keep your interest this coming year.

.nick

 Top 7 Things I Learned in 2011

1. I must be doing something right

This is the obligatory stats part of my list. Comparing 2011 to 2010 I doubled my visits, unique visitors, and pageviews. Time on site went up about 33% per visit which may just be because I cleaned up the look and made it easier to find stuff. The most interesting thing is my traffic has been much higher in the last half of this year. It is yet to be seen if I can keep this up in 2012.

2. Rental cars need love too

I learned a couple good lessons about rental cars this year. First, if you attend a conference and park your rental car right under the awning of a luxury golf resort hotel. And because you travel all the time you *think* you remember that you had it valeted when you didn’t. You may have an awkward moment 22 hours later when the very large head of security finds you by having the local police track your license plate. And an even more awkward walk through the gauntlet of freshly pressed security guard suits while you are holding the keys in your hand to go move it.

Also, a nice tip to remember is that push button cars require you to push the button to turn them off. And 4 hours of idling in a parking lot will make a 2011 Dodge Charger a refrigerator with foggy windows if you happen to have left the AC on MAX…

3. Vegas can get old

Seriously, not trying to make those that didn’t get to go to Vegas tons of times feel bad. But, after calling Vegas hotels home for more conferences that I can remember in 2011 I am ready for some more Boston, San Francisco, or Orlando in 2012.

4. What being a zombie is like

As part of the prep for making the EMCWorld vLabs work this year both myself and my team lost a LOT of sleep. In fact that was the first time I saw a human being work for 40 hours straight without sleeping and still be lucid (Chris “The Rock” Horn). There are gaps in my memory that I will never fill. But when the fog lifted and the labs rocked I don’t think I have ever had quite such an awesome feeling. I think I can still walk from a Venetian hotel room through the casino and into the convention center by sound and smell alone.

5. If you build it they will come

I have had a massive amount of downloads from both the older VSA’s and newer tools (UBERAlign for one). YTD comes out to over 30,000+ downloads with the majority being over 2GB in size. Nothing makes me happier than some crazy idea in my head making someone’s life easier.

6. I know jack about Cloud

This is a tough one to admit. But, 2011 was the year where I ended it questioning whether I had a decent grasp of cloud computing like I thought I did. I believe the key to development is knowing you need to know more. And I really want to dive into the guts of the evolving cloud paradigm from more than just a virtualization or storage perspective.

7. People matter

From my incredible teammates, my managers, my close friends, my family, and my community friends I have been supported in so many ways. Leaving my old vSpecialist team was very hard. And I miss their infectious interactions. I am looking forward to working closely with more people in 2012, meeting new rockstars I can learn from, and hopefully positively affecting others.

2011 was a good year. I am looking forward to what this next year will be like. Thanks for visiting Nickapedia.com in 2011.

.nick

At first I was a little taken back. I think @Beaker thought I didn’t get the point (and I don’t more than I do).

So I *cheated* and just turned on Web Sharing with the good tips from my other twitter buddies. But the Node.js idea bugged me because technically Chris is right. It should work fine.

So I did it. I installed the Node.js package for OSX (been using the Linux version) and fired up TextEdit and wrote this simple bit of code:

var http = require('http');
var fs = require('fs');
var path = require('path');
var rootpath = "/Users/lynxbat/Webroot";
 
console.log('*Starting');
http.createServer(function (request, response) {
 console.log('Server started');
 var pathToFile = rootpath + request.url;
 console.log ('File was requested: ' + pathToFile);
 path.exists(pathToFile, function(exists) {
 if (exists) {
  fs.readFile(pathToFile, function(error, content) {
   if (error) {
    response.writeHead(500);
    response.end();
   } else {
    response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'application/x-gzip' });
    response.end(content);
   }});
   } else {
     response.writeHead(404);
     response.end();
   }});
}).listen(8010);
console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8010/');

I fired up the server:

node webserver.js

And opened my Safari browser to request a file I had dropped in my root directory.

Which works perfectly. Output on cli:

*Starting
Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8010/
Server started
File was requested: /Users/lynxbat/Webroot/node-v0.6.6.pkg

Now in my case I am using the Webserver to hand out packages for installing as a local mirror for some VM’s I am building (big demo for Jan). So I hardcoded the MIME type and left response encoding unset. If you were looking to properly serve you should perhaps add some logic for switching types and responses based on the file extension. Kind of like a proper web server works.

So Chris was right. This works. Though I think proving him right probably isn’t a good habit to pick up.

.nick

What is interesting about the intra-IT delineation of suspect proficiency is that the ever-shifting world of technology and its self-evolving nature lead to new roles, terms, and sudden expertise in a constantly changing landscape. While the COBOL programmers were a hot item back when I was in diapers, most of those folks evolved to fit other roles as time marched on (but not all).

This evolution of new boxes to put people in can be driven by market dominance demanding new silos of expertise. Being an expert in Microsoft, VMware, Oracle, Cisco, EMC (obligatory plug) and many more can be directly linked to the success in the product’s dominance in some facet of the market. And to that extent we all should admit that the further you develop and professionalize yourself for a silo product, the more invested you are in their success.

The scope of this can also be driven by the degree of depth needed. Disciplines driven by deep foundations (such as the Cisco CCIE program) or some of the requirements for being an expert in intimidating tech (like Linux Kernel development) lead to highly paid fur-lined boxes for specific needs. This is based more on a technology skill being a bottleneck, or maybe we should say enabler for the needs of an organization. It can be argued either way whether this is more prevalent in software development or infrastructure circles.

Though the finely tuned and specific box for the Exchange guru, or the Oracle database master, and the C# event-driven wizard is easy to understand, well-defined silos are not the only type of stereotype to apply. Many individuals out there claim the *generalist* title and claim it well. They possess broad abilities to understand software stacks from multiple vendors as well as (and maybe even more importantly) how to layer and integrate vendor components together. I see the root of this type being based on critical troubleshooting and analysis skill sets. Those with the ability to understand and consume a tech quickly and then offer immediate value eventually learn that this has demand. These titles usually fall under more generic names like Network Administrator or Senior Systems Engineer. And when these generalists grow up they can develop into nicely titled generic boxes like Infrastructure, Software, or even Cloud Architect(my new favorite). These boxes are a loose analogue to hold this individual to a semblance of definition for their broad ability to connect and understand dots.

The real question is, how the paradigm changes for our somewhat newly evolving cloud constructs will affect these definitions? How will we slice ourselves into containers and how will existing skill sets migrate to them? In my mind I see the effects being completely different depending on where you start.

Let us start with an example of a powerful Infrastructure Architect. In their current world, value for them comes from an innate or trained ability to assemble layers of hardware and software stacks into consumable services. Whether as an internal role or as a service sold to a business as a consultant, they can take the complex and varied and produce a result. They do not need the ability to debug a kernel or write a endpoint for a service bus to accomplish their job. What is interesting is how the new infrastructure or platform as a service models(IaaS, PaaS) affect them. Suddenly organizations are being presented the option to purchase stacks that come pre-built for internal use or offerings that provide the required services and frameworks immediately as an instantiated third-party platform.

Now we have an issue for our generalist. While the adoption of these new *aaS models will take time, steadily and to some degree his or her value proposition will become diminished. Why does a business need a smart and savvy architect to align the stars to make our services work if we can buy them for purpose and on demand? Maybe they might have a role in evaluating new service platforms; but in itself this might be limited and a conflict of interest. With IaaS (public/private) for hosting of vertical applications like Exchange, SAP, Oracle, and more becoming solution-based offerings on a menu. And with PaaS services now offering enterprise architects and developers the ability to demand and develop on their own, where does our infrastructure expert move to next?

I think the answer is two-fold. In reality the demand for a person with broad skills and maybe even more importantly, possessing a broad-mindset, does not actually go away. Rather, it just relocates to be more aligned with the newer model. If the consumer of platform and infrastructure services no longer has to assume the responsibility to build and create them, then the demand moves to whomever now provides that service. As time moves on and business start expecting an IaaS or PaaS service to meet their needs, the demand for these providers will grow. This new galaxy of platform and infrastructure suppliers will need highly skilled and broad-minded generalists to help them build a better mousetrap.

And while we are on the subject of mousetraps, this becomes an important driver also. As adoption of IaaS and PaaS develops, demand for different levels and specializations of an *aaS will surface. Some services will spring up that need to meet specific demands by verticals such as healthcare, government, or even really narrow ones like insurance providers. Now providers we are in a position where expertise in these fields in building broad platforms while understanding the basic tenant needs will be valuable. And now, our infrastructure architect with 10 years experience in the healthcare industry suddenly is valuable again. She or he is now a critical asset in helping shape an *aaS that meets demands. They become an important cog in building the better mousetrap for our business consumer. The same skills in understanding vendors, layers, and models are just as important for a provider as they were as part of a business consumer.

And I would venture that this creates an even more specialized role for a broad skilled individual. In a previous life, they may have had to deal with business demands that led to environments with nice clean lines of separation between infrastructure and development zones of control to make things work. But in an *aaS world, things may naturally be more focused.  Providing a well-defined and measured service is critical to the success of a cloud service. The greater the ability of our architect to have in-depth understanding of selected codebases and deep integration levels, where maybe they were not so deep before; the better equipped they are for their business goals. Now we have an interesting situation where broad skills could possibly evolve into more focused experience in delivering value. This also makes an interesting case for why something like DevOps is becoming a hot topic in the convergence of operations and development silos.

Perhaps our generalist does not necessarily lose value after all with cloud constructs. Their value migrates in the new model. And maybe in the end the broad abilities become more narrow and specific in a quest to deliver that better mousetrap.

Now let us switch back to our focused expert, our development guru in .Net or our data analytic expert. It is much tougher to predict how cloud models will affect an individual with highly specialized skills. Really, the same rules apply above in many ways. You would expect some roles in networking, database or development silos to remain in demand and just slowly merge across service-consumer and service-provider lines. But in the end, some may always remain within medium to larger orgs. It is likely that some will also phase out as technologies begin to be replaced completely by cloud offerings. This of course means people in those roles may have to migrate to a newer way of doing the same thing; which is something that has happened many times over in the past.

But what is more interesting at a choice level is how things like PaaS enable more options around platform choices. A good example is recent announcements around .Net enablement of formerly primarily open-system focused language PaaS platforms like Cloud Foundry (see: Iron Foundry and Uhuru). Which opens up interesting thoughts on whether that changes *how* developers are specialized.

Lets say I am a developer that has used and abused .Net since C# was barely a twinkle in Anders Hejlsberg’s eye. I work for a banking institution that has moved from building applications in-house and hosting them on infrastructure managed by an outsourcing firm, to using a newly minted PaaS provider with a focus on banking vertical. In my previous life I would find a way to solve a problem using my core codebase. But now, my new PaaS provider not only has great options for using the .Net framework- they also offer options for Ruby, Node.js, Scala, and other frameworks. Instead of limitations because of integration and build hurdles by the outsourcing firm(expense/time) and even my own feelings of safety by remaining on my core knowledge-base; I am now presented with easy avenues to utilize codebases I never had before. And because the path is easier, my excuses for not using the best-of-breed development solution for a given service model or core component become fewer. It presents an interesting question whether the new multi-codebase PaaS cloud service eventually causes developers to become more broad in the way they look at attacking problems. If I can use the same development toolkit to deploy .Net, C++, Ruby, or  Scala to the same PaaS platform without having to worry about obstacles normally inherit in internal enterprise solutions, how does that change my personal development?

It presents an interesting idea of the multi-disciplined developer who uses any given framework available via his PaaS provider(s) depending on the core need. They could approach module building differently than the old paradigm by using Scala for building resilient APIs, C# for data presentation, Node.js for Map/Reduce streaming, and Ruby for user portal creation/extension or any other permutation. More than this, exposed constructs around normally infrastructure-based terminology can be used by developers in modern IaaS/PaaS designs for cool orchestration, isolation, and metrics in a new way (one barely out of the gate example).

As the languages, models and more become consumable by internal development teams and the walls dividing languages and frameworks break down- we are left with an interesting scenario for our silo-trained experts. And while it is impossible to predict outcomes, I predict many individuals branching out into new tech and new ways of doing things. No longer is their proficiency domain sacred in this new world. I offer no other proof than the simple example of how Microsoft themselves both helped the development(iisnode) and released Node.js on their Azure platform recently. I think this speaks to the wisdom of looking at languages and frameworks as tools and the viability of multiple codebase options with PaaS as a model.

And what we are left with is interesting if we step back. The narrow-focused expert may end up broadening how they apply their efforts in building value. It may no longer be about how to be the best with a hammer since it is the only tool you can bet on. It may be about knowing the difference between the hammer and the nail-gun. And even more importantly, knowing when and where to use each.

The key to either change is that responsibilities may move but in the end people are still required. What I personally find fascinating is how valuable individuals with curiosity for knowledge and passion for communication will have the opportunity to excel. A Infrastructure Architect who spends his/her time really understanding the needs and constructs of a vertical-focused PaaS could be a boon to a new startup. There are opportunities in these new worlds for ideas to provide major innovation and market value. Especially around stuff like DevOps integration(process & toolchain), infrastructure automation/modeling for IaaS, and fast-to-market development frameworks for PaaS.

Another interesting thought is how this may affect vendor-focused specialties. Someday being specifically an expert in a single vendor may be less useful than being an expert in the application of the common model used. I think advanced training and hands-on experience with a leading vendor’s technology will always be valuable, especially ones that stay current with cloud adoption and model their own products accordingly. And as always, this is usually controlled more by the market dominance and success of the vendor than anything. But, this is definitely something to watch as time goes by for whether it morphs into something different.

Having said all that let me get to the point of this blog post and say this directly to you. If you are a person that fits in a box like I described above and you are wondering where you fit in the crazy world of change- take heart that this is more of an opportunity for development than a dead end. Nothing changes overnight, and much has yet to be proven and produced. Because of this, there is going to be a massive demand for individuals that are capable of evolving into new roles for cloud models. There will be a need a combination of strong foundations in technology and forward-thinking mindset to attack the impossible in a new way. Or in a more concise and less dramatic way of saying it: technology will always need good people.

I believe that critical mass is reached where several of the IT containers we have placed ourselves in start to converge and evolve through the need for communication, common understanding, and the enabling technologies like IaaS and PaaS. Some see cloud as a threat to their career development paths. Some see it as marketing labels and hot air. I see it as the next evolution of how IT defines itself. A reordering of roles and ideas. Nothing new, just the next evolution of technology. And I for one, welcome our new cloud overlords.

.nick