Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Jan 07
My New Podcast: "FIR On Technology" Episode 1 About Google+ Hangouts On Air
What are Google+ “Hangouts On Air” (HOA) all about and how can communicators best use them? How does a “Hangout On Air” differ from a “Hangout”? What kind of technology do you need to know to use them? What are some tips and tricks for working most effectively with a Google+ HOA? What is the linkage to YouTube? How do you get started?
Those were all questions I addressed with my guest Randy Resnick in the first episode of a brand new podcast I'm down doing called "FIR On Technology with Dan York". You can listen on the episode page (where there are also links to HOA resources) or here:
The interview was fun to do and from comments in the FIR Podcast Community on Google+ has already been a help to multiple listeners.
As I noted in the introduction post on the For Immediate Release (FIR) website, the goal of the overall "FIR On Technology" podcast is to answer questions such as these:
How can communicators best use new tools such as, say, Google+ Hangouts On Air to tell their stories in new ways or to reach new audiences? Are there tips and tricks they should be aware of? What is new in the latest release of WordPress? Why should someone in PR and marketing care about something like IPv6 or HTML5?
For close to 9 years now I've been contributing weekly reports into the regular For Immediate Release (FIR)podcast hosted by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson. Now, with the creation of the "FIR Podcast Network" and the launch of new shows, it was logical to launch a technology-focused podcast where I could do a deeper dive than just the 5 minutes in the regular FIR episodes.
Please do note - my regular weekly FIR reports WILL continue!
Nothing changes there... it's just that these "FIR On Technology" episodes will allow for more time to get into specific topics at a higher level of detail. I'd love to hear your feedback about this episode or the overall idea either as comments to this blog post or via social media or email:
- Twitter: @danyork
- Google+: +DanYork
- Email: danyork@forimmediaterelease.biz
In particular, if there are any topics you'd really like to see me address on future episodes... or if you want to pitch me on why it might be interesting to interview you or a client, I'm open to that as well.
The "FIR On Technology with Dan York" podcast will NOT be a "regular" podcast in that it will not be on a specific interval, i.e. weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc. It is instead "a periodic podcast" meaning that the episodes will come out whenever I have time to record and produce them. I'm aiming for at least monthly, but there may be more at different times.
If you'd like to follow along, you can:
A subscription option via iTunes will be available soon.
I'm greatly appreciative of the FIR podcast community who has been very supportive of me doing this podcast - and of course I'm deeply grateful to Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson for their support and continuing to involve me in the growing world of "FIR".
Please do join in and follow along... there is a LOT of technology and tools out there to talk about with communicators!
P.S. The music I am using (with his permission) for the intro and outro comes from my friend Mark Knox in Ottawa, whose music can be found on his SoundCloud account.
If you found this post interesting or useful, please consider either:
- following me on Twitter;
- adding me to a circle on Google+;
- following me on App.net;
- subscribing to my email newsletter; or
- subscribing to the RSS feed.
Jan 06
TDYR #061 – Beginning 2014 With A New Internet Society CEO
It's my first work day in 2014 and in this episode I talk about 3 reasons why today is significant, one of which is that the organization for which I work, the Internet Society, has a new CEO. More info at these links:
http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-names-kathryn-c-brown-new-ceo
http://www.internetsociety.org/meet-new-ceo
http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society%E2%80%99s-president-and-chief-executive-officer-lynn-st-amour-step-down-february-2014
Jan 06
No Jitter: IPv6 Impact on VoIP
How well do voice-over-IP (VoIP) and unified communications (UC) systems work with IPv6? That’s a topic that has long been a personal passion of mine – and we maintain a page here on Deploy360 specifically about IPv6 and VoIP/UC systems. So naturally I was very pleased when right before the holidays on December 20, 2013, Gary Audin wrote a piece on the No Jitter site about IPv6 and VoIP.
Gary identifies several issues that enterprises need to think about with regard to migrating their VoIP systems to IPv6, including:
- Increased bandwidth needs due to expanded IPv6 headers
- Upgrading IP PBXs, IP phones, softphones and gateways to IPv6
- Running dual stack operations with both IPv4 and IPv6
- Network Address Translation modifications
- Port sharing for signaling protocols
From my own perspective of having worked in the VoIP field I think his second bullet is probably going to be the most problematic, particularly the IP phones. Many of the older IP desk phones used by enterprises are severely resource constrained and may not be able to support dual-stack operations and may not be upgraded to IPv6. In many cases it may be the newer IP phones and the softphones that will lead the way to IPv6.
But interestingly in this article Gary is more focused on the potential bandwidth increases. He’s right that one of the differences in VoIP traffic from, say, web or file traffic is that VoIP is composed of a zillion tiny packets. This has to do with how most VoIP systems use a very small sampling size – they slice the voice stream into very tiny pieces, typically around 20 milliseconds, and then send those pieces in individual packets.
So, given all the tiny little packets, any increase in the overall size of the VoIP packets results in an increase in bandwidth. Gary’s argument is that the increased size of IPv6 headers will have an impact on bandwidth. Not necessarily a huge impact, perhaps only a 10% increase in needed bandwidth, but still, there will be an impact. Though I have not done the math as Gary has to make his table, I can see his argument.
His main point, really, is that as enterprises plan their moves to IPv6 they need to think not only about potential software and hardware upgrades, but also about additional bandwidth requirements. It’s good advice to think about.
Are you ready to migrate your VoIP or UC system to IPv6? Or have you already done so? If you haven’t, check out our page on VoIP and UC resources for IPv6 – and if you have already done so, we’d love to talk to you about writing up a case study! 
Jan 06
FIR #737 – 1/6/14 – For Immediate Release
Our 10th year begins; FIR on Technology debuts; Linked Conversations episode 5 is up; Bryan Person creates an FIR host graphic; Shel and Joe Thornley host 8-week IABC workshop; Quick News: philosophers in the boardroom, a real-time hit and a miss, Barclays CEO on building trust, sponsored photo use is surging; Ragan Communications promo; News That Fits: why hire a PR firm when there's Task Rabbit?, Dan York's Tech Report, verifying identity with Facebook, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments, why orgs need social media experts, Michael Netzley's Asia report, will collaborative economy tower above all other 2014 trends?; music from Plastic Sky; and more.
Jan 05
DNSSEC Deployment Statistics For TLDs (Rick Lamb)
Recently DNSSEC advocate Rick Lamb made available publicly a site he’s maintained for some time offering statistics about what top level domains (TLDs) are signed with DNSSEC. The interesting aspect is that his scripts list the TLDs in reverse chronological order and so right now you can easily see when the “new generic TLDs” (newgTLDs) are being added as they all must be signed with DNSSEC from their launch. Rick’s site is available at:
http://rick.eng.br/dnssecstat/
Scrolling back the site provides a useful history of when various TLDs were first signed.
Jan 05
TDYR #060 – Facebook, Twitter And Google+ Are NOT The Open Internet!
Recently Mitch Joel at TwistImage talked about why the content created by many companies is not being seen on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks:
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/almost-no-one-is-seeing-your-content/
In this episode I expanded upon this a bit to note that you have to remember that these companies are NOT the "open Internet" and are providing services based on their business plans... which are open to change whenever they want to do so.
Jan 04
Weekend Project: Find Out If Your Domain Name Registrar Supports DNSSEC – And Request It If They Don’t
Looking for a quick weekend project that could help make the Internet more secure?
Find out if the registrar you use for your domain name(s) supports DNSSEC – and if not, file a bug report or feature request asking them when they will support DNSSEC. We have some information about some of the registrars that support DNSSEC and ICANN has a longer list of registrars that support DNSSEC, but there are many more registrars out there who are not yet on that list.
We’ve heard repeatedly from registrars that they haven’t implemented DNSSEC because “no one is asking for it.”
So let’s change that.
Let’s make sure as many registrars as possible hear from their customers that we want a more secure Internet.
Thanks!
Jan 04
TDYR #059 – Serendipity, Discovery And The Role Of Big-Box Book Stores
A trip today to a "big box" bookstore reminded me of the power of bookstores to help us discover authors and books... and overwhelmed me a bit in the process...
Jan 03
TDYR #058 – How Do iPhone GPS Running Apps Work On A Treadmill?
TDYR #058 - How Do iPhone GPS Running Apps Work On A Treadmill? by Dan York
Jan 03
Whitepaper: Balancing IP Address Distribution and Decentralization
Have you ever wondered about how IP addresses get distributed to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other network operators to give out to you in your home or office? Regardless of whether for IPv6 or legacy IPv4 addresses, would you like to know more about how that process actually works?
In April 2013, some of our colleagues here at the Internet Society authored a white paper exploring these exact topics. Titled “A Fine Balance: Internet number resource distribution and de-centralisation“, the document has this for an executive summary:
Internet number resources (IP addresses and AS numbers) are distributed to resource users through processes that have evolved over time. Although initially centralised, the processes of policy formation and resource distribution have more recently been devolved to regional organisations. In addition, technology evolution has been embraced. IPv4 allocations have successfully evolved to meet the needs of the global community and IPv6 allocations, starting from a clean slate, are now able to leverage this successful global platform. This decentralisation is a direct consequence of the expansion of the Internet to cover all regions of the globe and it serves a number of important functions. Decentralisation is not an end in itself however, and experience shows us that a careful balance and coordination are needed to ensure that the over-riding objectives of aggregation, conservation and registration continue to be met.
The commitment between the resource distributors and the resource users is bidirectional, and resource distribution is essentially an operational engineering function that requires careful co-ordination and consensus building to succeed.Network operators have very strong incentives to partner with operationally knowledgeable organisations when obtaining numbering resources and will choose not to interconnect with networks that disregard this reality. As a consequence, proposals either to further centralise or de-centralise the processes whereby Internet numbering resources are distributed should be given very careful consideration indeed, with maintenance of the fine balance that has served the community well to date uppermost in our minds.
The document goes on to explain how IP address allocation began and how it evolved to the current model. It is well worth a read for anyone seeking to better understand how the Internet really works at an operational level.
