January 2012 archive
Jan 17
World IPv6 Launch: This Time It Is For Real! – June 6, 2012 (Featured Blog)
No more "test flights" ... 2012 is the year that IPv6 gets permanently deployed! That is the message of "World IPv6 Launch," announced today by the Internet Society, Google, Facebook, Cisco, Microsoft, Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable and a whole host of other companies. While last year's successful World IPv6 Day was all about testing how your site or service worked with IPv6, this year's World IPv6 Launch is about enabling IPv6 permanently as of June 6, 2012 (or earlier). More...
Jan 16
On To The Next Sledgehammer In The War On Breast Cancer…
In her ongoing fight against breast cancer, my wife ended four months of chemotherapy with her last treatment back on December 6, 2011. She's thoroughly enjoyed having several weeks without any kind of treatments. Her hair is very slowly starting to re-appear and she's been feeling overall pretty good.
Today begins the next course of treatment. She is starting one year of receiving a drug called Herceptin. Her breast cancer tumor was found to be "HER2/neu positive" and the theory goes that the antibody in this drug will help reduce the chances of recurrence of her cancer. Every three weeks for the next year, she'll be coming in to the cancer center for a couple of hours to get an intravenous infusion.
Herceptin is NOT chemotherapy and the side effects are expected to be minimal. Perhaps just some fatigue for a couple of days. (And, oh, yeah, there are potential cardiac issues that need to be monitored... :-( )
And then assuming all goes well, in 3 weeks she will start five years of a daily pill of Tamoxifen an anti-estrogen hormone treatment that will effectively be trying to starve any remaining cancer cells that need estrogen to grow. All sorts of lovely potential side effects to that including many of the effects of menopause (ex. hot flashes, mood changes), memory loss/fuzziness, and even increased risk of other cancers.
Not fun.
As we've gone through this process, I admit to feeling that as far as we have come with research into breast cancer (and we HAVE come a long way), we still have such a long way to go.
The treatments we have today are like a series of sledgehammers, each trying to do what it can to beat the cancer cells down. Your treatment seems to be:
- operate on your body to physically remove the tumor
- slam your body with a series of radiation blasts to kill cells that may have been around the tumor (thankfully my wife did NOT have to do this)
- slam your body with truly toxic chemicals (chemotherapy) to try to kill off any remaining cancer cells (and many other good cells in your body)
- slam your body with antibodies to try to block and kill any remaining cancer cells
- slam your body with hormone therapy to try to starve any remaining cancer cells
Wham... wham... wham... wham... blow after blow after blow after blow in an attempt to kill off any cancer cells in the body and reduce the risk of recurrence.
All the while with the frustrating reality that there might not be ANY cancer cells in your body right now!
Now, the treatments are getting better. Instead of big, massive sledgehammers that are applied to every woman, the treatments today are perhaps smaller sledgehammers that can be targeted a bit more. There are tests that can determine whether some treatments are appropriate - or not - for people. (Something I wrote about before.)
Still, though, the treatments seem to be pretty heavy-hitting.
We need the mystical "scanners" of sci-fi shows that can scan a body and confirm the existence of cancer cells to see if any of this is really necessary.
We need even better drug options that can target specific cancer cells more like scalpels instead of sledgehammers.
We need the "nano-machines" of sci-fi that can travel through the blood and find and kill cancer cells.
We need more refined and targeted weapons in this ongoing war on cancer.
And I know we WILL have improved weapons over time...
Meanwhile it's hard to argue with the odds of using the existing treatments. According to the tests on my wife's tumor and based on various studies, there was a 60% chance that she'd be cancer-free after 10 years if she did no further treatments beyond the removal of the tumor.
Add chemotherapy... add Herceptin... add Tamoxifen... add all that together and statistically her chance of being cancer-free after 10 years is now up in the 90s percentage-wise. Maybe 92% or 93%.
60% vs 92%
Not a hard decision to make, even with all the side effects.
Jan 10
Will We See IPv6-Enabled Consumer Devices at CES This Week? (Featured Blog)
What kind of IPv6 support will we see in consumer devices at the massive Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening in Las Vegas this week? The show is already underway and much of the tech media is already writing in breathless prose about the latest tablets, notebooks and zillions of other consumer devices making their debut at CES. While the bright-shiny-object-chasing side of me definitely notices those articles, my own interest is on a deeper and far more technical level. More...
Jan 10
Fun Video: The Joy of Books
I can't even begin to imagine the amount of time it must have taken to create this video... but I admire the folks you did it! Fun to watch...
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Jan 09
TheNextWeb Highlights 9 Free Display Typefaces…
9 Awesome free display typefaces you can download right now
And indeed this post from TheNextWeb's "Design & Dev" site did pull me in...
... but that's okay, because I enjoy seeing what designers will come up with for new typefaces.
The 9 highlighted in this article are not necessarily ones you would use for typical written text but rather are designed for "display" usage, i.e. signs, banners, logos, etc.
It's a nice collection and I've got some ideas in mind for a couple of them... :-)
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Jan 09
Out at CES In Las Vegas This Week On The Hunt For IPv6-Enabled Consumer Devices…
I'm there with my team from the Internet Society and one of our primary purposes will be to get a sense of the state of IPv6 support - or NOT - among consumer electronics providers. As large carriers look at how they can roll out IPv6 within their networks, having home equipment that supports IPv6 will become more important in the years ahead.
At the show, we will be meeting with some vendors who want to understand more about how to move their products to IPv6 and also talking with media about the launch of our new Deploy360 site to help accelerate the deployment of IPv6 and DNSSEC. We'll also be part of a presentation on Saturday with a representative from Comcast explaining IPv6 issues to a IEEE conference for consumer electronics vendors.
And, of course, we'll be walking all over the show floor seeking out vendors who have IPv6 support. We'll see what we find!
On a personal note, it will be interesting to go to CES. While I've attended hundreds of shows/conferences over the years, including the even larger CeBIT show over in Germany, I've never made to CES before this year. I've heard a great amount about the madness there, of course, and watched the coverage from afar. So it will be interesting to be on the ground there.
You can, of course, expect that I'll be tweeting a good bit both from @danyork and @deploy360 (although a colleague of mine may be doing most of the tweeting from that account). I'm also planning to put up some posts on CircleID related to what I find... and of course the Deploy360 blog.
IF YOU ARE OUT AT CES and want to connect, please shoot me an email, call me or ping on Twitter.
Let the fun begin...
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Jan 06
And Thus Was Born… the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme!
When I joined the staff of the Internet Society back in late September, the project I joined was charged with looking at questions like that and developing a means to promote online resources that would help speed up the usage of IPv6 and DNSSEC.
Yesterday, after a long 3 months of hard work, we formally announced what we are now calling the "Internet Society Deploy360 Programme" located at:
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/
On that site, you will find real-world deployment information about how to get started with both technologies. Case studies, how-to documents, links to other sites, and much, much more...
THIS LAUNCH IS JUST THE BEGINNING!
The site is certainly incomplete... we wanted to get the site out there and now my task over the months ahead is to fill the site up with answers to questions and pointers to new information.
We're not looking to add ALL the information found on the web about IPv6 and DNSSEC, but rather the best information we can find.
And where we can't find information that answers specific questions, we'll be creating new materials either directly ourselves or with partners. As an example, I'm working right now on some tutorials about how to add DNSSEC support into Firefox, and how to configure DNSSEC for your domain at a couple of different registrars.
And let me tell you, it is EXTREMELY clear to me now that this program(me) is definitely needed, as many parts of both DNSSEC and IPv6 are in desperate need of geek-to-common-language translation! Just sorting through some of the steps myself, it's very clear that there's a good bit of pain that needs to be taken away...
To that end, we will be constantly adding new material and resources as we both find and create new content - both in text, video and other forms.
Our goal is also to help foster the conversation around these topics, and so we'll have a constant stream of blog posts and will, of course, be engaging via many forms of social media. You can be part of what we are doing by:
- following @Deploy360 on Twitter
- liking our Facebook page
- adding our Google+ page to a circle
- subscribing to our YouTube videos
- following us on SlideShare
and I would definitely encourage you to join us on as many of those channels as you use. We're also actively seeking volunteers to assist us and have been rather humbled and pleased by the great amount of interest and support we've already seen.
I'm excited to get this project out there... and am looking forward to the months ahead as we build the momentum to help get both IPv6 and DNSSEC more widely deployed!
Please do take a look around the Deploy360 site. I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions you have. Are there other questions we can be answering? What are the barriers you have found to using these technologies? Are there sites or resources that you found very helpful that we don't have on the site yet? Please do let me know! Drop me an email, fill out our feedback form, ping me on one of the various social media... heck, leave a comment to this blog post! Somehow... I'd love to know what you think.
And with that, I'm off to write some content...
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Jan 04
Is Skype Now "Boring"?
Is Skype now "boring" in 2011? That's the question Phil Wolff raises over at the Skype Journal in his post "Skype is boring".
Phil points out, quite correctly, that Skype is no longer the scrappy little startup intent on disrupting the entire global telecommunications industry.
They've done that.
Telecom has been disrupted.
As I wrote about back in August 2011, Skype has accomplished a great amount in its eight years of existence... completely destroying the expensive costs of international telephony, bringing video telephony to the masses, introducing people to wideband audio, demonstrating that you can have secure VoIP... and so much more...
But as we enter 2012, Phil offers a number of reasons why Skype is now "boring". His main points are:
- Skype is a top dog, not an underdog.
- Skype is one-sixtieth of the Microsoft behemoth
- Skype is less unique
- Skype didn’t look innovative in 2011. Or 2010. Or 2009. Or 2008.
- Skype staff don’t talk to the public.
- Skype abandoned its revolutionary People’s Product identity,
(read Phil's post for his full description)
And he notes the current status of Skype:
Skype should end 2011 with about a thousand employees, about a billion dollars in sales, a portfolio of more than a dozen clients and a few platform products, and hundreds of millions of users.
Most of Skype’s work in 2012 will be more of the same. Getting new users. Holding onto existing users. Inducing users to Skype more. Putting Skype on more devices. Keeping the network running. Boosting ARPU. Diversifying revenue.
Sadly, I must agree. I used to write about Skype all the time here. But I don't as much any more, in large part because, like Phil, I don't tend to find Skype as interesting to write about as it once was.
Instead of the little company taking on "the Man", Skype has now become "the Man". Heck, Skype is even now owned by Microsoft... who pretty much defines "the Man" in terms of the corporate enterprise.
I don't see this as a bad thing, actually. It shows the success of Skype to fundamentally disrupt and change the telecommunications industry. There is still MUCH more disruption that needs to happen, and it will definitely be interesting to see what role Skype plays in all that.
Will we see exciting and innovative things coming out of Skype in 2012? Will they be revolutionary? Or simply evolutionary?
Can Skype rekindle some of the passion that users had for the company now that they are as big as they are? (and part of Microsoft?) As Phil asks, should they even try?
Will the writing about Skype move now from the bloggers and media sites that focus on the leading edge to more of the "enterprise" sites such as those from industry analysts? (Has it already?)
What do you think? Is Skype now "boring"?
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Jan 02
My Report into For Immediate Release (FIR) Podcast #632
In this week's For Immediate Release episode #632, my report covered:
- Congratulations to Shel and Neville on 7 years of FIR! It's insanely easy to start something like a podcast, but extremely difficult to keep it going... and 7 years is quite an accomplishment!
- Text messaging is declining in some areas as people move to using other messaging systems working over the data network.
- Codeyear.com provides an easy way to learn a little bit about "coding" if you have ever been interested in dipping your toes in and understanding some of the allure of programming.
- A gentle plea to experience the moment rather than focus on capturing moments to share on social networks.
- My 3 Words for 2012.
If you are a FIR subscriber, you should have the show now in iTunes or whatever you use to get the feed. If you aren't a subscriber, you can simply listen to the episode online now.
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Jan 01
My 3 Words for 2012
Following on the tradition I've started over the past couple of years (2011, 2010) after enjoying Chris Brogan's take on this, here are my three words for 2012. They aren't goals, per se, or resolutions, but more just three words to guide my actions through the year.
FOCUS
In our age of distraction, it's insanely easy to lose focus and suddenly find yourself hours later not having accomplished anything you set out to do. It's an inherent challenge for those of us who are by nature bright-shiny-object chasers and whose job involves being on the edge of communication technologies...
Over the past six months or so I've been taking some very deliberate steps to reduce distractions and give me more time to focus.
I've reduced or eliminated many of the notifications on my computer. I've gone to checking email only at certain times of the day. I've blocked off time in my schedule where I just shut down all social media, IM, and email and just work on specific tasks. Friends would not recognize my desk these days because it is CLEAN... as I've worked on simplifying the distractions in my home office.
Still, these are just steps... and one of the areas I want to work on in 2012 is really bringing some discipline to this and trying to focus more on what is important to get done. (Oh, look, there's a butterfly.....)
QUEUE
There are two aspects to this word for me. First, due primarily to the unwelcome intruder in our life in 2011, I have a great queue of projects, both online and offline, that I want to work on in 2012. Naturally I have a l...o...n...g... queue of blog posts I'd like to clear out. I need to update my Migrating Applications to IPv6 book. I really MUST reboot the VoIP Security Alliance (VOIPSA) this year. There are some health issues I've put on hold that I need to address. There's a lot that was put on the proverbial back-burner... and I need to clear out that queue a good bit. There are a great many stories still left untold.
The second aspect of "queue" is that this year I really want to focus on maintaining a healthy queue of blog posts that are scheduled out in advance. Each week I'd like to be lining up some posts for the next week. Certainly there will be posts written in the moment to respond to other posts or to recent events... but I want to keep a schedule queue going so that my content is appearing regularly throughout the year. You do not need to hit the Publish button right now... and I want to work on that this year.
BALANCE
Finally, I've made some lifestyle changes over the past year... I've made a job change which also has brought some changes... I'm looking in 2012 at how to find a bit more of that ever-elusive "balance" between work and personal life. Beyond all that I do at work and online, I'm also a father of two daughters, a husband to a wonderful woman, a son, a brother, a friend, a community member... and many other roles.
This past year has once again reminded me of the incredible importance of all of that.
The challenge, of course, is that when you absolutely love what you do... when "work" is not a chore as much as almost "play"... well... it's hard to shut down the brain sometimes and let it go. Something I've always struggled with... to give that marvelous gift of being truly present with those around you.
So while I've made some changes in 2011, there's definitely further I can go...
Those are my "words" for 2012... we'll see how the year goes. What are you going to focus on this year?
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