We Hire Bloggers Who Immediately Stop Blogging

Years ago in 2007, when I first joined Canonical as a staffer, I attended their yearly in-person all-hands meeting during my second week of employment. During the opening plenary, after the icebreaker where all new employees were asked to stand up and explain the history of their IRC pseudonym, the presenter lamented, “We hire bloggers […]

Configuring a TFTP server on Ubuntu for switch upgrades and maintenance

Note: Community TFTP documentation is on the Ubuntu Wiki but this short guide adds extra steps to help secure and safeguard your TFTP server. Every Data Centre Engineer should have a TFTP server somewhere on their network whether it be running on a production host or running on their own notebook for disaster recovery. And […]

Wi-Fi regulatory domains are a pain

Managing multiple facilities across multiple continents can be a pain especially when Wi-Fi is involved. Different regions use different frequencies depending on regulatory domain. And, depending on your hardware vendor, compliant hardware could be backordered. In my case, the Cisco Aironet 1140 Series Access Point (AIR-AP1142N-T-K9 802.11a/g/n Standalone AP; Int Ant; Taiwan C) is backordered by […]

HP Mini 1000 and 110 batteries on sale

For you mobile geeks out there HP Home currently has 3-cell batteries for the HP Mini 1000 and 110 on sale for 60% off as well as a $15-off coupon you can use (ACY93421). No idea how long this is going to last. HP 3-cell Battery for Mini 110 Series (BX03) (NY221AA#UUF) HP 3-cell Primary […]

Upgrading Polycom firmware

If you have a mixed bag of Polycom kit in your office, be sure to check out the VoIP SIP Software Release Matrix to check on compatible versions. In our case, I chose SIP version 3.1.3RevC since it’s compatible with both the IP 430 and the IP 4000. I’ll probably bump up to SIP version […]

Creating DOS floppies and USB thumbdrives for BIOS flashing

MS-DOS or another DOS derivative is still required for flashing the BIOS on some desktops, servers, notebooks, and mobile devices. These tools automate the creation of boot floppies and USB thumbdrives instead of fighting with tools like MKBT (Make Bootable). Required Tools Unofficial MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy Official Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics version CW1337A0 17-Jul-2008