Friday 27 March 2009

Reading half marathon approaching

Sunday 29th - Reading Half marathon

Not looking forward to this - I've not done enough training - a combination of snow, followed by a foot injury, followed by cold and sinus infection has knocked some big holes in my training schedule.

Last year was 2h 29 mins and about 48 seconds. I'll be pleased with under 2H 30 this year.

At least the weather forecast is good - the rain and wind today and saturday are due to blow over leaving it bright,but chilly, with little wind for Sunday.

Cheer me on if you see me - number 9725

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Celebrity Endorsement for London Marathon

My first celebrity endorsement for marathons sponsorhip: Bob Dylan no less:



(thanks to http://dylan.sonybmgmusic.co.uk)

But in less good news - ongoing foot pain caused a visit to the consultant today - possible neuroma or bursitis, with a scan coming up to confirm the diagnosis. The goods news - it's not a stress fracture and he doesn't seem too worried about me carrying on training. The bad news - it's going to continue to hurt, and we'll see how it does with some long runs.

And yes - still accepting sponsorship for the NSPCC - Protecting Children at: www.justgiving.com/26milesofjay

Thursday 12 March 2009

Cloudy or clear?

Having just moved into Sun's Cloud computing organisation, I was interested by a British Computer Society (BCS) meeting on Cloud and Green computing from Kate Craig-Wood, MD of UK hosting provider Memset and member of BCS Data Centre SIG committee.

She outlined the diffentiators between Cloud / Grid / managed hosting:
  • cost scaling: utility/cloud generally has linear scaling of price, no tiered pricing, hosting has lots of tiered pricing
  • time to scale: adding more compute / storage - minutes for cloud (automated), hours for hosting (manual)
  • choice: cloud has restricted choices, managed hosting has wider choices
  • resiliance: hidden advantage of cloud versus hosted VMs
  • SAAS: pricing per seat easier on a cloud as costs scale up linearly

How does cloud compare to utility computing and managed hosting? Kate suggested there will be a blurring of the boundaries - managed hosting on VMs becomes much more like cloud, through simplification of choice, reducing time to provision / scale, more granular billing, etc.

Intangibles, like security and resiliance, affect the perceived value to users, so visible price is not the only decision criteria.

Computing is not yet a utility - need ability to compare prices, and standard metrcis haven't evolved. For true 'cloud computing', we need open, standard APIs and the ability to move applications between cloud hosts.

My key takeaways for cloud providers:
  • Keep entry costs low - need a low barrier to entry
  • Need for open standards to allow portability of apps between cloud providers
  • A need to use tiered pricing to match economies of scale achieved by managed hosting
  • Cloud advantages: ability to scale rapidly (up or down), with costs following scale - billing per hour (or minute?), so very suitable for unpredictable, variable loads.
  • Several unresolved issues, like sw licencing for applications running in the cloud, ownership and access to data and compliance with data privacy requirements (where is the data?)
  • New opportunities: broker for cloud offerings - reselling computing - moving apps to low cost providers

Coincidentally, today I learn that Amazon are changing the billing model for EC2 to get closer to a managed hosted virtual machine with some significant cost savings compared to pure 'on-demand' pricing: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10194598-92.html

Find out more about Sun's Cloud computing approach at CommunityOne East
March 18 - 19


You can attend the CommunityOne East web event without registration by visiting http:/www.sun.com/communityone on March 18, 2009. And if you can't make it to the web event that day, we'll be recording and posting the sessions to the site for on-demand replay.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Gruntled and consolate - fun with language

How I Met My Wife -Jack Winter/The New Yorker 25 July 1994:

It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate.

I was furling my wieldy umbrella for the coat check when I saw her standing alone in a corner. She was a descript person, a woman in a state of total array. Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.

I wanted desperately to meet her, but I knew I'd have to make bones about it since I was travelling cognito. Beknownst to me, the hostess, whom I could see both hide and hair of, was very proper, so it would be skin off my nose if anything bad happened. And even though I had only swerving loyalty to her, my manners couldn't be peccable. Only toward and heard-of behavior would do.

Fortunately, the embarrassment that my maculate appearance might cause was evitable. There were two ways about it, but the chances that someone as flappable as I would be ept enough to become persona grata or a sung hero were slim. I was, after all, something to sneeze at, someone you could easily hold a candle to, someone who usually aroused bridled passion.

So I decided not to risk it. But then, all at once, for some apparent reason, she looked in my direction and smiled in a way that I could make heads or tails of.

I was plussed. It was concerting to see that she was communicado, and it nerved me that she was interested in a pareil like me, sight seen. Normally, I had a domitable spirit, but, being corrigible, I felt capacitated--as if this were something I was great shakes at--and forgot that I had succeeded in situations like this only a told number of times. So, after a terminable delay, I acted with mitigated gall and made my way through the ruly crowd with strong givings.

Nevertheless, since this was all new hat to me and I had no time to prepare a promptu speech, I was petuous. Wanting to make only called-for remarks, I started talking about the hors d'oeuvres, trying to abuse her of the notion that I was sipid, and perhaps even bunk a few myths about myself.

She responded well, and I was mayed that she considered me a savory character who was up to some good. She told me who she was. "What a perfect nomer," I said, advertently. The conversation become more and more choate, and we spoke at length to much avail. But I was defatigable, so I had to leave at a godly hour. I asked if she wanted to come with me. To my delight, she was committal. We left the party together and have been together ever since. I have given her my love, and she has requited it.

Cyberbullies

UK based and willing to help prevent bullying?

UK charity looking for volunteers, supported by Mozilla: http://patrickfinch.net/2009/03/03/mozilla-and-cybermentors/

As a parent of two teenage girls I worry, As a human I have memories of being bullied myself.