Author Archives for Mike P.
Terminals in the Cave
I’m a big fan of having a very clean desktop, as a part of The Cave, which is an idea I picked up from Rands.
A part of having a good workspace, for me, is having a very clean desktop. I run everything as lightly as I can get it because the goal — the thing [...]
Google grants for non-profits
When I’m not working in XMission Research and Development, I run a non-profit web radio station. There are a lot of interesting opportunities for non-profits on the web, (such as XMission’s policy of donating services to non-profits) but one of the most helpful is the Google Grants program.
With Google Grants, registered non-profits can receive free [...]
SQLite Firefox plugin
Over in XMission Research and Development we’ve been finding ouselves having a lot of conversations about overengineered databases. Sure, it’s nice to have fully relational databases and be able to store procedures and do subselects, but how often do developers really need these sorts of features?
Enter lightweight databases like SQLite. As the home page says, [...]
Ignite SLC
Looking for something to do after a stressful 48 hours? (I know I am.)
Tonight is the first-ever Ignite SLC event at the Leonardo. There will be some great talks, a paper airplane Olympics and a whole lot of fun. I hope you’ll join us.
DNS security and resolution
As many have noted, a serious vulnerability in DNS was recently discovered.
Immediately after release of the patch in question and prior to exploit code being released into the wild, along with most other major providers, XMission has patched its servers for this serious issue on both its primary nameservers as well as its dedicated resolvers.
Flash to the Future
The XMission Research and Development team was in Boston this week, catching a ball game, taking in some local flavor…oh and we went to USENIX.
While there, I had the chance to hear from Adrian Cockroft, who is currently leading a performance tuning and research group over at Netflix.
Though his presentation was excellent, one of the [...]


