March 2014 archive
Mar 11
TDYR #125 -Voting In NH Today, And The Frustration Of Not Knowing What Is On The Ballot
Mar 11
TDYR #124 – Anyone Used The New Getty Images Embedding Yet?
Mar 10
Crossing 300,000 Views Of My CircleID Articles
As I wrote about back in November 2012 and have also spoken about on past FIR podcast episodes, CircleID is one of the sites that I watch to keep up on what is happening with the infrastructure that powers the Internet, as well as Internet policy issues and, in recent years, the evolution of the "new generic top-level domains (newgTLDs)". I enjoy reading many of the people who write there - and have learned a good bit in the process. There are a lot of contributors to the site (and anyone can sign up to contribute) and so you get to hear many different voices, including some, of course, with whom you may not agree - but that is good and helpful.
Beyond simply visiting the CircleID website, you can follow the site as @circleID on Twitter and via the CircleID Facebook page as well as good old RSS.
I'd highly recommend CircleID for people interested in the evolution of the Internet!
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Mar 10
FIR #746 – 3/10/14 – For Immediate Release
Mar 10
The Intersection of Github… and Babylon 5?
Back in the 1990’s I was a huge fan of the show “Babylon 5” for a great number of reasons. It remains, to this day, one of the best series I’ve ever watched on TV and I greatly admire the creator/writer, J. Michael Straczynski, for the narrative arc he used over the five year run of the series as well as the overall “universe” he created.
One of the web sites that those of us who enjoyed Babylon 5 frequently used was “The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5“. The pages there helped in the understanding of how all the pieces fit together and frequently offered glimpses of what was coming ahead. It was a great tool and reference source.
Today a Google search brought me back to that site although I hadn’t been there in years. And in visiting I learned that as of this past December the entire source for the website is now available on Github at:
It’s very cool that site creator Steven Grimm has made his site publicly available via Github. As he notes, others can now fork the code, send him updates via pull requests, etc.
It is also a great example of how I’ve told people that Github, and git in general, can be used for so much more than simply “source code” and that you don’t need to be a programmer to use it.
Plus… if you wander through some of the pages, like this one, it’s kind of fun to see references to how we used to get our information: “Stay caught up with the Usenet B5 discussions, which are often a great source of material.” š
Cool stuff!
Mar 09
TDYR #123 – “123” Occurrences, Jet Lag, Time Zones And An Interview About The Evolution Of The Internet
Mar 09
Free DNSSEC Training In Singapore March 19-21
Are you going to be in Singapore March 19-21 and would be interested in some DNSSEC training?
We’ve been alerted by our friends at ICANN and the NSRC that they have a few open seats in the DNSSEC training classes they are offering on March 19-21 in cooperation with the Singapore NIC (operators of the .sg ccTLD). Ā Rick Lamb, one of the instructors, notified us that the training is free if people can get there – and that people who hold ISC2 certifications such as the CISSP credential can earn Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits for attending the course.
The training agenda looks excellent and having worked a good bit with Rick I can very definitely say he isĀ incredibly knowledgable with everything related to DNSSEC. Ā I’ve also heard great things about the other instructor, Phil Regnauld, and of NSRC training in general.
Rick said it would be best if people contacted him directly via email to see if there is still space in this course. Ā I’ll note that this training is happening right before the ICANN 49 meeting in Singapore, and so if you are already going to ICANN 49 perhaps you can adjust your schedule and go a few days early to check out this training!
Mar 08
TDYR #122 – You Almost Never See People Smile In Airports
Mar 08
Weekend Project: Check Out The New āgetdnsā API
Are you an application developer who makes queries to DNS somewhere inside your application?
If so… or if you aren’t, but are just looking for a reason to play around with some code… there’s a new “getdns” API out that is designed to make it easier to interact with DNS. Ā From the website:
getdns is a modern asynchronous DNS API. It implements DNS entry points from a design developed and vetted by application developers, in anĀ API specificationĀ edited by Paul Hoffman. With the development of this API, we intend to offer application developers a modernized and flexible way to access DNS security (DNSSEC) and other powerful new DNS features; a particular hope is to inspire application developers towards innovative security solutions in their applications.
You can read more about it at:
And the code is available on Github at:
There are also bindings for python and node.js in the works. This new “getdns” API has been developed by a team of developers from NLnet Labs, Verisign Labs and No Mountain Software and is based off of the getdns API specification documented by Paul Hoffman.
Members of the team gave a presentation at IETF 89 whose slides you can view about this new API and what you can do with it. Ā While Ā I haven’t played with it myself yet, I’m pleased to see that one major point is that it provides developers with easy usage of DNSSEC. Ā All in all it’s very cool to see a new API out there and we do encourage people to check it out and see what you think of it. Ā I’d note that because the code is maintained at Github, you can file issues there if you have questions or bugs. Ā There is also an email list for developers and users who want to get more involved with the project.
Congrats to the developer team for releasing this new API and we hope that it enables Ā app developers to more easily interact with DNS and DNSSEC!
Mar 07
TDYR #121 – Of “Lifts”, Meeting Neville Hobson And Teleprompter iPad Apps
