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Why Soft Skills Matter in Today’s Job Market
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IPv4 Update
The IPocalypse struck the United States in 2015 and three years later – nobody cares. The end of IPv4 was going to mean the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) takes over the world. Well, recent updates say IPv4 is still the dominant protocol on the Internet.
IPv4 number trading between private parties has proved to be an effective means of extending the life of IPv4 by redistributing previously allocated IPv4 numbers. Trading between private parties is very active in North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific regions. This has allowed IPv4 network operators to support and extend their IP networks with excess unused supply through the IPv4 market.
Janine Goodman, Vice President and co-founder of Avenue4 LLC., a Washington DC-based IPv4 broker and advisory firm posted a 2018 Q3 update on the IPv4 market for CircleID. In the update, the author noted that during Q3 of 2018 there is still a voracious appetite for IPv4 numbers – 18 million IPv4 numbers were transferred in the quarter. There were nearly 42 million IPv4 addresses changing hands in the 2018 year to date, a 160% jump compared to 2017
The article states that IPv6 adoption in the U.S. (based on Google user stats) fell after the beginning of the year and has yet to recover. Ms.Goodman cites predictive models which suggest that U.S. IPv6 adoption will not hit the 50% mark until sometime in 2020. Globally, IPv6 adoption has been slow, peaking at 21.5% during weekdays and 25% during weekends. The data from Avenue4 confirms that IPv4 continues to be the dominant Internet protocol.
For those firms purchasing IPv4 addresses, the most common IP block size is the /24 (256 addresses), followed by the /16 block (65,536 numbers). Nearly 90% of those /16 blocks were transferred to large block buyers. The /17 (32,768 addresses) and /18 (16,384 addresses) are also popular as large block buyers are increasingly willing to accept a collection of smaller non-contiguous ranges from sellers.
Block prices will rise over the next 6-12 months. The article reports that most block sizes are north of $17.00 / number with larger blocks reaching and occasionally exceeding $20.00 / number. Avenue4 says fierce competition among large block buyers is driving unit prices up. Until this demand is met, pricing should continue to escalate. IPv4 prices were $11.25 / address when I first wrote about Microsoft’s purchase of Nortel’s IPv4 addresses in 2011.
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The switch to IPv6 is being slowed by two factors. The first is network address translation (NAT) which has become better understood and implemented. The other is the evolution of the buying and selling of IPv4 addresses, led by firms like Avenue4 and IPv4 Brokers.
One of the knocks against moving to IPv6 is CAPEX and OPEX costs. But neither really holds water anymore. The data from Avenue4 says that firms are willing to pay over $1.3 million for a \16 block. Firms could leverage $1.3 million to update to IPv6. IPv6 is fully built into modern operating systems and networking hardware. Buy the right devices during your regular update cycles.
Microsoft (MSFT) recently decided to embark on the tricky transition from IPv6 and IPv4 or ‘dual stack’ to IPv6-only, which Microsoft believes will solve its problems with IPv4 shortages and enable simpler network management.
Related articles
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Category: Uncategorized |
Tags: 2019, IPocalypse, IPV4, IPv6, Microsoft, MSFT, NAT, Networking, Nortel
10 Step to a Happier You
Thanks to the relatively new field of positive psychology, science has come up with a few ways to make humans happier. summarizes some of the findings for Inc. She points out findings of what makes people truly happy and offers actionable suggestions to become better, most joyful versions of themselves.
What makes people happier
Practice gratitude. According to research, consciously counting your blessings is a workout for your brain’s capacity for gratitude, making it easier to be more positive and happier going forward. (Complaining works in the opposite way, causing your brain to default to gloom.) Here are a few practical, science-backed ideas to cultivate an appreciation for the good things in your life.
Focus on the now. Ms. Stillman points out that we usually think of daydreaming as a pleasurable activity, but recent studies show that letting your mind wander can actually make you miserable. According to science, paying careful attention to what you’re doing in the present moment boosts well-being even if what you’re doing is as boring as the dishes. It appears that focusing on the task at hand acts as a simple form of mindfulness, calming the mind by blocking future worries or ruminations on the past in a way that’s akin to meditation.
Exercise more
The science is unequivocal. Moving your body is a powerful happiness booster. The author writes that regular exercise works as well as popular antidepressant drugs at relieving depression because working up a sweat increases the number of neurotransmitters circulating in our brains. It also reduces stress, and, of course, keeps you healthy.
Get out in nature. Humans are hardwired to need physical exercise, the same can be said of nature. Humans have lived in cities for a blink of evolutionary time after spending millions of years evolving on the savannah. The article concludes that is why study after study demonstrates that getting out in nature has profoundly positive effects on our mood. Even putting a simple potted plant on your desk will boost your happiness.
Be kind. The point of generosity, as commonly understood, is helping others, but according to research, lending a helping hand is also a huge happiness booster for the do-gooder. Simply reminding yourself that small acts of kindness have big impacts on yourself and others can help make you happier.
Connect. Humans are social animals, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that socializing makes us happier. For instance, the article cites a study that revealed that for those suffering through a grumpy day, meeting with friends as soon as possible was a surefire mood booster.
Limit social media
Using Facebook and social media to plan get-togethers may have a positive effect on your state of mind, according to Ms. Stillman, but passively browsing other people’s feeds has a negative impact on your state of mind.
Looking at carefully curated and often highly distorted representations of other people’s lives have been shown to increase envy and loneliness, and decrease life satisfaction. One study even found that quitting Facebook results in a boost in well-being. Be conscious of how you consume social media.
Tame your materialism. The author points out that a pile of studies shows that craving more and better stuff seriously dents your happiness. Science also shows it’s entirely possible to get a handle on your materialism and boost your well-being by consciously reflecting on your values, keeping a careful eye on your spending, and turning away from advertising as much as 
possible.
Spend wisely. Despite what #8 says, spending money can make you happier. The article explains that buying a bigger TV will improve your mood for a few days, but spending on experiences can help us squeeze more joy out of our hard-earned cash.
Spending on travel, for instance, will purchase you the pleasure of planning the trip (which research reveals to be about as enjoyable as the trip itself), a chance to bond with your fellow travelers, and a lifetime of happy memories to savor. It’s a better deal than nearly anything you could pick up at the mall.
Trim your commute. When researchers rank activities for how happy they make us, commuting consistently comes in near the bottom of the list. It’s no surprise that sitting in traffic sucks, but the magnitude of misery commuting brings into your life might surprise you. “Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day,” Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has commented.
No wonder, then, that experts strongly urge those considering buying a house far from their work to think carefully about the trade-offs involved, and suggest those who can swap bikes, trains, or their home office for that time in the car consider doing so.
Related articles
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Category: Uncategorized |
Tags: 2018, Business, Commute, Excersise, Happiness, Mindfulness, Social media
How Lava Lamps Secure the Internet
The web performance and security company, Cloudflare provides security and domain name services for companies such as Cisco (CSCO), FitBit, OKCupid, Uber, and Zendesk. It serves a total of 10 million website domains and the average Internet user touches its services around 500 times per day, according to its website.
The company hopes to leverage its solid reputation for its secure encryption into a 2019 $3.5 billion IPO. Cloudflare’s reputation is based in part on a shelf full of lava lamps.
The lava lamps in the lobby of Cloudflare’s San Francisco headquarters ensure randomness for generating encryption keys. ID Quantique explains that the strength of any cryptographic system lies in its keys – the random stream of bits used by the cryptographic algorithm to transform plain text into ciphertext and back again.
Lava laps provide Internet security
The secret to a secure key is the amount of randomness, or entropy used to generate the key. The greater the degree of entropy, the more secure the key is. Because conventional computers cannot generate true randomness, information from inputs such as mouse movements, disc interrupts, or system timers are all placed into a ‘pool’ of numbers, from which a ‘seed’ is picked. This ‘seed’ is then used in the pseudo-random number generation (PRNG) which generates the keys.
Instead of using mouse movements, disc interrupts or system timers, Cloudflare videotapes its wall of colorful constantly morphing lava lamps and translates that video information into unique cryptographic keys. The lava lamps work because fluid dynamics are hard, and no one has figured out how to predict the movements inside a lava lamp, let alone a wall of them. That means the random numbers being used in Cloudflare’s encryption are effectively random.
Nick Sullivan, Cloudfare’s head of cryptography, explained that instead of relying on code to generate these numbers for cryptographic purposes, the lava lamps and the random lights, swirling blobs, and movements are recorded and photographs are taken. This footage is then turned into a “stream of random, unpredictable bytes.” According to Mr. Sullivan, “… this unpredictable data is what we use to help create the keys that encrypt the traffic that flows through Cloudflare’s network.”
Mr. Sullivan continued,
Every time you take a picture with a camera there’s going to be some sort of static, some sort of noise,” . “So it’s not only just where the bubbles are flowing through the lava lamp; it is the state of the air, the ambient light — every tiny change impacts the stream of data.
The information is then fed into a data center and Linux kernels which then seed random number generators used to create keys to encrypt traffic.
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Who didn’t have a lava lamp in college? Not only is Cloudflare’s wall of entropy fun, but it makes it harder for bad actors to break encryption.
Related articles
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Happy Thanksgiving
Windows 95 – There’s An App For That
With all the problems Microsoft (MSFT) Windows 10 has had lately – a few of us of a certain vintage may long for simpler days when we controlled what Windows did, not Redmond. Well, it’s time to relax because Windows 95 is now available as an app for Mac, Windows, and Linux.
The Verge writes that Slack developer Felix Rieseberg is responsible for this ingenious app. The operating system is encased in electron, a framework for building cross-platform apps with HTML and CSS.
Now nostalgia lovers can play around with Windows 95 in an electron app. Mr. Rieseberg has published the source code and app installers for this project on Github, and classic apps like Solitaire, Wordpad, phone dialer, MS Paint, and Minesweeper all run as you’d expect. Sadly, Internet Explorer isn’t fully functional as it simply refuses to load pages. It does have floppy disk support.
As Mr. Rieseberg suggests, if you were hoping to run Doom, you’re probably better off doing it through an actual virtualization app, but it surprisingly does work. He admits it only worked well “by accident and was mostly a joke.”
The app is only 129MB in size. Once it’s running it surprisingly only takes up around 200MB of RAM, even when running all the old Windows 95 system utilities, apps, and games. If you run into any issues with the app you can always reset the Windows 95 instance inside the app and start over again.
Enjoy this trip down memory lane.
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OK – Cut Windows 95 some slack, the 20something-year-old OS is the first step-up from 16-bit DOS to 32-bit Windows NT. But more importantly, it introduced the Windows graphical user interface that so many of us have a love/hate relationship with.
As you’d figure, running Windows 95 these days is mostly just for a laugh. Windows 95 is still popular after 20 years. The OS has appeared on the Apple Watch, Android Wear smartwatch, and even the Xbox One.
Related articles
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Category: Uncategorized |
Tags: 2018, 95, Bill Gates, Doom, Microsoft, MSFT, PC, Steve Ballmer, Windows