These past two weeks I’ve completely rewritten a multi-threaded TCP (and UDP) server that I developed about a year ago that my company uses to communicate with its numerous mobile assets. This not only includes completely revamping the architecture, but also refreshing the management-console UI and completely rebuilding the device simulator (part of out test/QA toolset).

I’m considering writing a generalized article on this project. Detailing what was done and the though process behind it. A brief overview follows, and more details will probably be forthcoming (so long as I can generalize the explanation enough – so that I don’t reveal any company secrets, of course )

It’s a .NET 2.0 solution, if you’re wondering. It was formerly a primitive console application that has been in use for about a year now. It was sufficient for handling input from multiple connections from various device types but we reached the design’s limits when we started implementing outbound communication to the devices.

We tried extending the base but it was really just a single-purpose app to get us through the hardware testing phase (we custom develop our own hardware too, btw). We didn’t want to do too much to it while the hardware was maturing so we worked on other facets of our product portfolio up until this point in time. My senior developer took a crack at it, but hit the limit of practicality in terms of the bending the original app to our will. He did an awesome job laying the groundwork for me though (happiness is working with other talented people). But, before he could burn himself out I took over and shut myself off from my regularly scheduled activities (namely architecture and development oversight). I hate to do that sort of thing but sometimes circumstances dictate.

Anyhow, the longer I spend typing out this blurb the more inclined I am to write up a detailed article. Perhaps this week, when things have finally settled down with the actual development.

I’ve been using SubEthaEdit for two years now and it’s a fantastic piece of software. Its collaboration features are top notch, and what set it apart from other editors, but it is a excellent standalone tool too. In fact I use it above all else for general text editing on my home machine.

Get it at: CodingMonkeys.de.

Lets see what we have here:

• A proprietary format that could only be used if you had a PSP;
• that cost the same amount of money as a DVD;
• doesn’t have all the extra-features of a DVD;
• and doesn’t show the movie at full DVD resolution.

Furthermore, a canny PSP owner can just buy a big memory stick (yet another wonderful proprietary Sony media format), encode their existing DVDs, and transfer them to the memory stick to watch on the PSP. The device had its own built-in UMD movie bypass!

Wow, now there’s a formula for success!

The mere fact that any retailer got into UMD movie sales in the first place boggles my mind.

Candidates: Logic (from Apple) and Live (from Ableton).

Well, my choice was made easier as I had just recently acquired an M-Audio Ozone keyboard (gen 1, unfortunately) and it came with a copy of Live Lite 4. I installed and within a few minutes of reading the manual, figured out how to hook it up with Reason via ReWire and I was off to the races.

Wow. The Live concept of a pallette of “clips” (essentially loops) that can be triggered at will, and automatigically mixed in on the appropriate measure, is super intuitive. The interface is simple and provides easy access to a ton of effects (between Reason and Live I’m spoiled with choice). I really dug it.

The only drawback being that most of my sound-design is done in Reason and Live doesn’t seem to launch it automatically when it detects a ReWired instrument in the “Live Set” file. Minor slow-down in my workflow, so no big deal; I might be overlooking an option though.

Anyhow, I was so taken that I shelled out for the upgrade to the full version of Live 5 yesterday. More effects, more options, more happiness.

I guess I could’ve went with Logic (I didn’t even evaluate it, so I’m not sure what I’m missing out on) but Live gave me everything I needed (and more) to add to my toolkit. Heck, it even has VST support which opens up even more options for me and I can still go out and get Ableton’s Operator soft-synth to add yet another instrument. I might have made the wrong choice, and I was deffinately not doing my usual due-dilligence by not evaluating Logic, but Live was almost exactly what I envisioned for a sequencer and blew me away. Who knows though, I may yet need Logic!

Now, what I really need is some focus on making actual tunes rather than just farting around, fiddling with the widgets and making aimless noodlings.

The hardware architect (my counterpart on the hardware team) noticed that a certain group of our mobile devices were connecting sporadically to our network. He setup the same type of modem on his laptop and would try to open a simple TCP connection and it would sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. We noticed that this started happening around the time we installed the new device.

Oh crap.

Couple of calls to our supplier and we spent a Saturday with their top tech hunting down this issue. The weird part is that it wasn’t showing up in the device’s memory logs, nor in the syslog (after we set up a syslog server). These connections were getting mysteriously bounced.

The network tech swapped in a Cisco 506e (roughly equivalent). Same behaviour!? Hmmm… Packet sniffing time. I had no idea what was in the logs. They were forwarded to Cisco and Fortinet and we’d hear back later.

In the meantime, our hardware guru sets up a Suse Linux 9.3 box with basic gateway/firewalling features turned on. Things were looking good. Then things started to deteriorate almost immediately and we were back to square one.

Cisco and Fortinet get back to our supplier’s tech guy and say that the issue is with the handshake between the particular network gateway our mobile devices originate from and our device. Apparently we’re getting packets with their ACK flags set, from an ip/port pair that hasn’t established a connection; they’re getting bounced WAY before the firewall even analyzes anything. *phew* the devices aren’t nutty. So what now?

Reconfigure the Linux box. Add some logging. Then do a lot of testing from our undeployed modems. Survey says:

A connection will be initiated from the external network. The source-ip/port are logged by the FW. The transaction continues as per normal, then it terminates normally. A short time later (40sec – 2min or so) we’ll start to receive packets, with their ACK flags set, from the closed source-ip/port.

Time to open up a conversation with the mobile-device network tech-support.

Grr…

What fun!

This truly is the summary of the “Web 2.0″ phenomenon.

Please, for the love of [thing], stop the bubble before it it forms.

Excellent, even well written (as in articulate and cogent) article. From an obvious sci-fi, gamer, geek culture fanboy.

[So What Happened?...] The Chicago Cubs, that’s what. The Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908. Why? Because Cub fans sell out Wrigley Field every game, regardless of how bad the team is. Management makes money regardless of whether or not the team is winning, so why bother?

Likewise, studios think video game fans will pile into the theater on opening weekend regardless of whether or not any effort was put into the film. Will that change? Come ask me after I’ve seen the Peter Jackson-produced Halo.

Show some love and read the article

I feel great otherwise. No headache, soreness, fever, upset stomach, nor congestion. But I can’t get any consistent sleep so I’m really run down.

Just this past Tuesday, at about 2:00am, I went to the nearest ER. I was coughing so hard that I couldn’t breath. My throat had closed up and I had to vomit to clear the passage. I’ve never been diagnosed with asthma, but according to the ER Doc the symptoms were very close so he gave me two puffers (a cortico steroid, and something else) to help keep the airways open.

The strange thing is, I caught this from another guy here at work. He has the same symptoms, and to his knowledge has never been diagnosed as asthmatic either. His teenage son, not an asthmatic either, also had the same symptoms.

It gets stranger… two other guys here at the office are coming down with the same thing.

Viral asthma?

I don’t think so.

The ER waiting room had a free internet kiosk, so while I was waiting (a whole other story…) I decided to see what I could come up with.

Google: coughing vomiting choking

Okay, I know, the last thing a doctor wants to hear is his patient’s “expert” self diagnosis. I can understand that (it’s the same thing on an IT help desk). So I let the doctor do his thing without interfering. He was a really good doc, and frankly admitted that he was stumped but because the symptoms were so close to asthma he believed that it could be treated similarly, hence the puffers.

So anyway, Whooping Cough wtf?!

Well apparently it is common enough, and there’s a persistent misconception that it’s somehow been eradicated through vaccination. Turns out that the early childhood vaccination only lasts about 10 years and begins to wear off.

I guess it doesn’t matter much regardless, because if it is Whooping Cough, there isn’t anything that can be done about it except wait it out. The asthma puffers are helping though – I’ve had paroxysmal coughing fits since my trial Tuesday morning, but I’ve been able to breath much easier, even if I still had to vomit (some attacks reminded me of the Barforama from Stand By Me).

Very frustrating, and gross, not to mention frightening (that not breathing thing still scares the crap out of me).

After missing earning expectations the honeymoon for Google’s stock appears to be over.

Some analysts have added that Google will soon face more significant competitive pressure from Yahoo! as well as Microsoft. Microsoft’s MSN Internet unit is set to launch a new online search tool for advertisers soon called adCenter this year.

All I can say about that is, “about time!” Google makes a search engine. A SEARCH ENGINE. They catalog information and let you go through that catalog, while presenting advertisements that relate to you search. That is essentially it.

They also have some add-on services, like email and local searching and mapping, but so does every other “portal” company in existence. Yes, gmail is very good (better than yahoo mail) but it’s just email, not a revolutionary concept. Google hasn’t done anything truly innovative since their search engine. Incremental improvements that drive the rest of the industry, yes deffinately, but nothing revolutionary and nothing that can’t be done by just about anyone.

They’ve acheived fantastic brand recognition, and that counts for something. But they need to produce something that sets them apart, that proves that all their Phds are doing something, that justifies their ridiculous market valuation.

To me, it just looks like Internet 2.0 is going to followed by Bubble 2.0 and I’d rather avoid that.

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