TechStop » Virtualization

Top Market for Apps

Joshua Wood — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:48:11 +0000

Hi all, it is obvious that China has awoken from his slumber and is now a capitalist market to be worked with. The new found wealth of the population combined with the more open nature of the government has allowed many previously closed trade routes to open for business. One of those businesses is the app markets that are allowed world wide.

WIth the iPhone/iPad App Store and the Android Play markets being two such examples everyone wants to know how big of a market is China actually. A report by Flurry has recently revealed that China is the hottest place for apps these days. Any developer looking to make apps for an emerging market should definitely take a look at that area of the world since it is looking very busy these days.

Flurry Blog: http://blog.flurry.com

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

Project Glass from Google

Joshua Wood — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 20:55:55 +0000

Hi all,

With how much we interact with the Internet in a given day, it isn’t a surprise that tech giants are coming up with ways to make it – yes – even easier to access information.

In April, Google announced Project Glass, a pair of Internet-connected glasses. Then this week they announced they’re close to bringing them to market. Developers have first grab at them – perhaps to come up with some apps to make them even better. Then they hope to sell them to the rest of us in 2014.

So, what exactly do the glasses do? They let you watch online videos, take photos and post them online, get directions, shop online and read text messages. All from a super close-up view in the corner of your eye.

Perhaps not appealing and maybe a little distracting to the everyday user who’s walking through a mall or driving a car, but I think where I see them having value – at least for me – is when I go for a run or jump on a treadmill.

That said, with close to two years before they come to market, who knows? It’s pretty much a guarantee they’ll evolve a lot more before then. I guess we’ll see…

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

VMware VS …

Joshua Wood — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:37:30 +0000

Hi all, in the world of hypervisors, is there anyone that is really better (right now) than VMware? In a few years it seems like Microsoft might start to take over the market but VMware is king for the moment.

While a lot of companies would take this an opportunity to coast on their past glory that doesn’t seem to be VMware. Let’s up they can keep up with the innovation.

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

VCP 5 Upgrade Course

Joshua Wood — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:35:11 +0000

Hi all, if you were lucky enough to get your VCP 4 upgraded to the new VCP 5 exam then congratulations. If not then you are going to want to check out the “What’s new” course below. It is now a requirement for people who didn’t take the upgrade exam from VCP 4 to VCP 5 in their alloted (very short) window.

http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrReg/plan.cfm?plan=12457&ui=www_cert

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

Google Two-Factor Authentication

Joshua Wood — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:06:40 +0000

Hi all, recently I had a family member who got her Gmail account hacked by someone outside of North America. Apart from the sick feeling of violation that she felt she also wanted to know how to make sure that this didn’t happen again in the future. Enter Google’s two-factor authentication. It works with most if not all of the Google’s products. It is easy to setup and free to use. Best of all it greatly increases the security level of your Google accounts such as Gmail.

The link below is a place to start of the information and the service has had some improvements over the last few months that make it more feasible if you are traveling. I strongly recommend that you grab the travel codes and print them off and store them somewhere really safe, like a safe. They are very useful for a variety of reasons

All-in-all the service is a great idea and I hope that other companies start something similar.

http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175197

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

Google Privacy Policy

Joshua Wood — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:37:41 +0000

Hi all, Google has changed their privacy policy so that all of your Google services will be (kind-of) merged into one online identity. This will allow them, or so they say, to offer a more comprehensive experience. This is obviously a problem if you maintained your lives of say Google+ and YouTube separate. If this is a situation that is familiar to you be warned. Your online identities will be more public and more controlled by Google than ever before.

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

Google Change Privacy Policy

Joshua Wood — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:11:54 +0000

Hi all, Google recently changed their privacy policy. The changes where pretty widespread. It seems that the looming FaceBook IPO is putting Google on the defensive at least in the short term. Based on the changes that they have made it looks like they are consolidating all of their resources into one pool of data about you. This will allow for the cross-solution sharing of information. For example, Google+ now shows up in your Gmail whether you want it to or not.

That could be good because now all of your information is immediately more accessible but that is also likely the issue with it. Having all of your data immediately be highly available creates another problem that some people don’t want. Do you necessarily want all of your Google+ friends to see you online while you are checking your email or have your searches customized to you? Probably not for most of us.

Until next time,
TechStop(JW)

Google Plus – Idle But There

Joshua Wood — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:45:50 +0000

Hi all, Google Plus is out there. People, whoever they are, are using it. And it is getting more users every day or so the stats say. Here is my main question. Who are these people using Google Plus? I definitely don’t see them. I saw an article a few months ago, that I can’t find again for some reason, saying that 80% of Google Plus users are idle. They’ve signed up and they are there but they aren’t doing anything.

This puts Google in a rare and interesting position. Lots of people are looking for a reason to use the service. Google must see this. I wonder what Google will try to do to capture the attention of the captive audience before they get bored and stop paying attention … like I will soon.

Google Plus Stats Article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/facebook-google-plus-growth/38337/

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

Android is King of the Hill

Joshua Wood — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:34:47 +0000

Hi all, when it comes to the OS that most smart phones use I would not have seen the Android and the gigantic lead that it has gained in the last year over its competitors. The small and free OS for smartphones has, as of last count, taken over 50% of the smartphone market. I don’t and haven’t (at least not yet) used a phone with that OS but the numbers do show a shift in the market. While Apple’s iOS still has a lead as far as apps available I would guess that you would start to see a shift in the works of product developers towards the Andriod OS if for no other reason than the massive market share that it now commands. What are your thoughts on the topic?

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)

Cisco Should Make Products Not Hardware

Joshua Wood — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:42:39 +0000

Hi all, I like Cisco. Someone would say I love Cisco. They make great products. They fill the voids that are in the market with solid solutions but here is what I don’t understand, perhaps you can enlighten me. Why isn’t Cisco moving towards a services focus more than a hardware one. I have said this before, in the age of virtualization Cisco needs to narrow their product lines and offer their products as virtual appliances not hardware products.

There are two trains of thought here so bear with me. First path, they make the products that don’t require specific hardware virtual appliances. AND THEY DON’T OFFER HARDWARE VERSIONS. This would reduce the complexity of scoping, buying, supporting and understanding their product lines thus reducing cost for them and their customes. It would also allow customers the flexibility of running their products on whatever hardware meets the specifications that are needed. Take the wireless LAN controller product, why offer that as a hardware appliance? If someone needs the hardware to run it on there should be a sku that is a router with service module that runs VMware that this comes pre-installed and configured that you can order. It would be ready to use right out of the box. You can get these VMware based service modules for some of their smallest routers.

There are cons to this of course. It puts a strong reliance on the VMware technology that Cisco doesn’t control and the cost of the router might be more than the cost of a 1U server. While this isn’t my preferred option it is one that I hope they have considered.

Second path, and this is the best path in my mind. Use the ISR G2 licensing model and make different products additional columns in the IOS licensing model. You already have voice, security and data right now, create an additional set of columns for WLC, ASA or ISE. That way the hardware that is great and already well-known only needs a license key to open up the functionality even further. This reduces so many various areas to one that are a lot easier to control that the benefit would be huge. Most if not all of the issues with the first option are removed as well.

Until next time,
TechStop (JW)