Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Sep 10
FIR #668 – 09/10/12 – For Immediate Release
New Speaker and Speeches available; CW Bulletin addresses Wikipedia; Quick News: Connectify gets Kickstarter funding, Kred rolls out Salesforce.com integration, WordPress live-blogging plugin released, content marketing budgets rise; Ragan promo; News That Fits: information overload was a myth, Dan York's report, Media Monitoring Minute, the PR war over fracking, listener comments, communications planning needs to account for two screens, TemboSocial promo, Michael Netzley's Asia report, BBC guidance on headline-writing SEO; music from Annie Stevenson; and more.
Sep 07
Speaking in Montenegro about DNSSEC on September 12
On Wednesday of this week I’ll be speaking about DNSSEC at the 5th international conference for ccTLD registries and registrars of CIS, Central and Eastern Europe in Budva, Montenegro. I’m very much looking forward to this event as it is entirely focused around the concerns of registries and registrars – and they are one of the key groups who can accelerate the deployment of DNSSEC. In fact, you can see DNSSEC come up a few times on the agenda – and I’m looking forward to hearing the case study of the .UA deployment of DNSSEC.
My session on Wednesday is titled “Key Steps in Accelerating DNSSEC Deployment” and for the registries and registrars the steps really can be ultimately reduced down to these:
- Registries need to make it as simple as possible for registrars to upload DS (Delegation Signor) records into the registries’ zones.
- Registrars need to make it as simple as possible for DNS hosting providers to upload DS records into the registrars databases.
Those two steps right there would greatly accelerate the deployment of DNSSEC in those ccTLDs.
That’s not all I’ll talk about, of course. I’m also going to be discussing the growth of the .NL signed domains as that example may be something some of the ccTLDs can replicate. I’ll be talking about how the ongoing work with DANE securing SSL/TLS certificates via DNSSEC should spur enterprise interest in deployment. I’ll be providing some examples of a good user experience … and much more. I’ll be making the slides available later and potentially an audio or video recording if I am able to do so.
The main point of my attendance, too, is to interact with registries and registrars and find out what we can do to make it easier for them to deploy DNSSEC. That feedback will certainly help our DNSSEC content roadmap and help us prioritize what materials we are creating first.
If you attending the event I look forward to meeting up with you, and I look forward to learning from those there about DNSSEC – and all the other issues – in the Central and Eastern European region.
Sep 07
New Mailing List for “Migrating Apps to IPv6” Updates
Would you like to be notified when updates are made to “Migrating Applications to IPv6“? If so, there’s a nifty little sign-up box over in the right sidebar that will add you to an email distribution list that I will use ONLY to alert you to news about the book. Info about updates will also be posted here to the book’s blog, of course, and will also appear on the Google+ page and in my normal Twitter stream. But I realized recently that some readers might want to receive specific messages when updates are available. If you purchase the ebook directly from O’Reilly, you’ll get notified through their notification system, but if you purchase through another retailer – or would just like to receive an extra update, please feel free to subscribe. I promise I won’t spam you or do anything else with your email address outside of alert you to the new updates.
Thanks for your interest in the book!
Sep 07
AdhearsionConf 2012 Call For Speakers Ends Tomorrow (Sept 8)
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, why not consider applying to be a speaker? The call for speakers is at:
http://adhearsionconf.com/call-for-speakers/
The only catch is ... the deadline is TOMORROW, Saturday, September 8th!
Ever since I first saw Jay Phillips present about Adhearsion back at one of the early ETel conferences in maybe 2006 or so I've been intrigued by how easy Adhearsion made it to develop telecom apps. It's just incredibly simple to make powerful apps.
If you are a Ruby developer (or want to be) and you are interested in building telephony apps, Adhearsion is definitely worth a look... and if you do use Adhearsion, why not consider signing up as a speaker?
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Sep 07
.NL Becomes First TLD To Pass 1 Million DNSSEC-Signed Domain Names!
History was made today in the ongoing effort to deploy DNSSEC globally and bring about a more secure Internet -
.NL became the first top-level-domain (TLD) to pass 1 million DNSSEC-signed domain names!
Celebrated in tweets from SIDN, the operator of the .NL registry, and from Bert Hubert, principal author of PowerDNS, as well as in an announcement from SIDN, the milestone can be clearly seen in the unofficial .NL statistics site operated by PowerDNS:
It is also visible on SIDN’s home page where they also show the total number of .NL domains:
Note, too, the significance of those numbers –
over 20% of all .NL domains are now signed!
Outstanding to see… and we look forward to seeing how much higher it grows.
We’ve previously covered (also here) the rise of the .NL domain and we’re delighted to see them hit this milestone! Kudos to the folks at SIDN, PowerDNS, SURFnet, NLNet Labs and everyone else involved!
Now we just need to get all the other TLDs moving on the same path! (Including .COM, which has just over 106,000 domains signed… as Bert commented to me on Twitter, .NL had more signed delegations added yesterday than .COM has in total!)
Want to help? Here are some steps for how you can get started signing your domain!
Sep 04
The Amazing Number of Live Video Streams From The Republican And Democratic National Conventions
Naturally, the major US "TV networks" all have their own video livestreams: ABC, CBS, Fox News, CNN. (Interesting to see that NBC was not listed for either convention.) Similarly C-SPAN and PBS will also have livestreams.
This is not really any great surprise since all of those organizations would typically be broadcasting live video coverage from the event anyway over the traditional TV networks, so adding an Internet livestream is really just a matter of putting the technology in place to stream out the existing video feed.
But look at some of the other players...
- The Wall Street Journal is streaming out the DNC convention on both YouTube and through its own mobile apps for iOS and Android (as it did for the RNC convention last week).
- The Sunlight Foundation is streaming out a "fact-checked live stream" (as it did last week for the RNC).
- Politico.com is offering a video livestream tonight as they did last week.
- Various "Occupy" groups have livestreams of the protests at the conventions via Ustream.
... and I'm sure there are probably others who aren't listed on those GigaOm pages who will be streaming out video from the floor of the convention. It's fascinating to look at what tools like YouTube, Google+ Hangouts, Ustream and so many more have done to make it possible for so many more people to offer video livestreams.
Perhaps more importantly, both the Republican and Democratic parties have their OWN video livestreams and in the case of the DNC their own mobile apps.
They are using the Internet to tell their own story in their own words, bypassing the media entirely for those who want to watch the party's view of the event.
So many different players... from both the "traditional" media and so many newer organizations...
Simply amazing at times to see what this Internet thing has enabled... :-)
P.S. And yes, from a technical point of view, I'd be fascinated to learn more about how the various organizations put together the technical capacity to pull this all off. On a network level, there has to be a great amount of bandwidth going into these convention centers... and presumably multiple layers upon layers of redundancy.
Image credit: I took a screenshot of one of the photos on the DNC website.
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Sep 04
Summer is over… time to get back to IPv6 and DNSSEC – how can we help?
Here in the northern hemisphere where I live, summer is now basically over. People are (mostly) back from vacations. Kids are returning to school. The rhythms and routines are returning… the weather is getting cooler… the days are getting shorter… people are turning their focus a bit more back to work.
Which means it is a perfect time to get back to deploying IPv6 and DNSSEC!
Let’s make it happen now! You’ve still got a few months left to get a project underway in 2012! Or you can be planning for a deployment that will happen in 2013…
Take a look at our IPv6 and DNSSEC resources to see what is out there to help you get started. If you are a website owner, take a look at our “IPv6 for content providers” page that we’ve created… we’re planning to build out the other pages in a similar style for other audiences. If you have a domain name registered, look at our page about how to sign your domain with DNSSEC using various domain name registrars.
If you don’t see a resource that helps you get started, check out our content roadmap to see if what you are looking for is in our plans… and please let us know if you don’t see what you need.
Now is the time to deploy IPv6 and DNSSEC – how can we help?
Sep 03
FIR #667 – 09/03/12 – For Immediate Release
Interview with Brian McNely on Instagram and image-power is up; Quick News items: local farm store at center of Facebook kerfuffle, Google introduces Google Plus elements to enterprise products, the potential of social influence, how top brands are using Instagram; Ragan promo; News That Fits: addressable TV ads take step forward in US, Michael Netzley's Asia Report, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, Buzfeed's data report to partners reveals social media trends, listener comments, Denmark pioneers high-tech graveyard memorials with QR codes, TemboSocial promo, Dan York's report, the worst brand page on Facebook; music from Yonder Mountain String Band; and more.
Sep 01
Second Time Running The Covered Bridges Half-Marathon This Sunday
Tomorrow, Sunday, September 2, 2012, is the Swanzey Covered Bridges Half-Marathon, also known as "Elijah's Race".
Last September this was my first - and so far still my only - half-marathon, as I chronicled first in a post about the upcoming race and then in a post about the results which photos and charts.
It was a great race and I really enjoyed running it. It was fun to put the "13.1" sticker on the back of my car when it was all over.
However, I had a severe problem with my running pace that I hope to change this time around.
If you look at the image to the left with the map produced by my Nike+ iPhone app, you can see the problem. It's showing the pace of my run and you can see from the color legend at the top the speed at which I was traveling going from fastest (green) to slowest (red).
I started out at the very fast (for me!) pace of about 7 minutes a mile... and then...
... I nearly collapsed at mile 12.
Oops.
In fact, I walked through the water station at mile 12 as I had been walking through all the aid stations... but then I just kept on walking!
After what I remember was close to a half-mile, I said to myself that I "just" had a half-mile or so left and that I really should run that final bit. So I picked up my feet and struggled to the end.
My issue was that at the very beginning I had positioned myself in the middle of the pack of runners and so when they all took off... I took off with them all! Running very fast! My "normal" pace is about 10 minutes/mile and so dropping it to a 7 minute mile was a definite - and unsustainable - speed increase.
Added to the situation was that for a short bit near the beginning you run over a trail by some power lines that is quite narrow with little room to pass. So once you enter that section it is really a "channel" through which everyone must go and it's hard not to run fast with people right behind you.
This year my goal is to do the "tortoise approach" and run slower and steadier for the whole race. If I can run it all at around 10 minutes / mile that would be an excellent outcome. If I could even do it a bit faster in between 9 and 10 mins/mile that would be even better. Last year the official results had my overall time as 11:13/mile and I would like to do better than that.
My strategy, such that it is, will be to start out at the back of the pack so that I don't get sucked into the adrenaline-fueled initial surge. I also have a friend of mine who is running with me... and said he'll make sure I run the whole thing! ;-)
I've also had an entire year more of running, along with a set of other races (although none this long).
We'll see.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to the race!
P.S. If you are in the area (or want to travel here), information about the race is online. Online registration is closed but I believe you can register on the morning of the race.
Aug 31
IPv6 Friday: IPv6 for beginners
What are some good steps for someone just beginning with IPv6? Over on his IPv6 Friday site, Olle Johansson published an “IPv6 for beginners” post today that provides a nice checklist for individuals who want to get started.
Olle’s primary focus is on suggesting you set up an IPv6 tunnel so that you can get IPv6 into your home network – even if your local Internet Service Provider does not support IPv6. I can say myself that this works great as it is how I get IPv6 connectivity into my home office in Keene, New Hampshire. As Olle notes, there are now a number of different IPv6 tunnel providers. Hurricane Electric (HE) and SixXS are probably the best known out there, but others exist too.
Olle also answers a number of other questions and points to a number of resources out there for learning more about IPv6, including Deploy360. (Thanks, Olle!)
It’s good to see more tutorial info like this out there and I do hope it encourages more people to try out getting IPv6 into their local networks.
P.S. If you live in the US or Canada, this is probably a long weekend for the Labo(u)r Day holiday… if you need a geeky distraction, why not try getting IPv6 set up on your home network? 
