Coding Smackdown TV http://codingsmackdown.tv Putting a headlock on the coding lifestyle! Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:37:57 +0000 en hourly 1 A $100 Brick? http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/04/15/a-100-brick/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/04/15/a-100-brick/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:23:00 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/04/15/a-100-brick/ Yesterday I received my new GuruPlug Server from GlobalScale Technologies and being the “Head First” type of person I am, I went out to their wiki and started running through their “Newbie Getting Started Instructions” and promptly bricked my device!

It turns out that the “Newbie Getting Started Instructions” were for a totally different device with a totally different Linux distribution. So now I’m faced with waiting for GlobalScale Technologies to send me their JTag Serial adapter so I can re-flash the device back to it’s factory settings and start all over again!

I guess in the future I’ll have to take it a little more cautiously, but where would the fun be in that? To me, if you’re going to post a Wiki to support your products maybe you ought to make sure that it is perfectly clear what device the instructions are for and don’t make the assumptions that everybody who is reading your Wiki is going to know the differences.

It looks as if GlobalScale has rushed this product out without much thought, after spending a couple of hours digging through their forums I’m a little skeptical if the device will even live up to my expectations and planned uses. There are numerous threads about heating issues, Wifi and Ethernet connectivity issues as well as boot time problems indicating to me that the product is not really ready for primetime. I’ve also dug through numerous threads where people are trying to make sure they’ve got the latest OS image and from what I can tell, there is no definite answer for that question either.

I guess I’ll have to hold my final verdict until the serial adapter shows up and I can unbrick the device to find out it’s true potential. To me the device could be perfect for all those small little “I just need a device that will do X” type of scenarios, which is why I bought it in the first place.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with looking at it and planning on what I’ll do with it. For those of you interested, here are some pics and the specs for the device.

GuruPlug Standard
  • Marvell Kirkwood 6281, 1.2GHz
  • 512MB 16bit DDR2 RAM, 800MHz
  • 512MB NAND Flash
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g
  • Bluetooth
  • 1 Gigabit Ethernet Port
  • 2 USB 2.0 ports
  • U-SNAP I/O
  • Linux Kernel 2.6.32

 

Ethernet and USB Interface

Serial Connections

Package Contents

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/04/15/a-100-brick/feed/ 0 The Lost Art of Debugging http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/the-lost-art-of-debugging/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/the-lost-art-of-debugging/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:21:05 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=27 Over the past couple of years I have been a technical lead on a large global virtual team and I have spent hundreds of hours mentoring developers and one of the most important skills I see lacking is the ability to debug an application.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/the-lost-art-of-debugging/feed/ 0 Securing Your Apps and Services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework Part 6 http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-6/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-6/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:16:19 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=23 This episode is part six of a six part series on securing your applications and services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

This episode’s topic covers how to modify your WCF client code to call a web service secured with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

Download the Source Code for all episodes.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-6/feed/ 0 Securing Your Apps and Services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework Part 5 http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-5/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-5/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:14:33 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=21 This episode is part five of a six part series on securing your applications and services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

This episode’s topic covers how to secure a WCF web service using the Microsoft Geneva Framework and how to access the claims provided by the Active STS we built in Part 4.

Download the Source Code for all episodes.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-5/feed/ 0 Securing Your Apps and Services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework Part 4 http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-4/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-4/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:13:22 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=19 This episode is part four of a six part series on securing your applications and services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

This episode’s topic covers how to build an Active STS to use in web service call delegation.

Download the Source Code for all episodes.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-4/feed/ 0 Securing Your Apps and Services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework Part 3 http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-3/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-3/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:11:32 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=17 This episode is part three of a six part series on securing your applications and services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

This episode’s topic show how to use the Microsoft Geneva Framework to secure an ASP.NET application and access the claims provided by the Passive STS we built in Part 2.

Download the Source Code for all episodes.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-3/feed/ 0 Securing Your Apps and Services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework Part 2 http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-2/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-2/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:10:08 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=15 This episode is part two of a six part series on securing your applications and services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

In this episode we cover how to build a Passive STS to use in authenticating users in a federated scenario.

Download the Source Code for all episodes.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-2/feed/ 0 Securing Your Apps and Services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework Part 1 http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-1/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-1/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:06:14 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=12 This episode is part one of a six part series on securing your applications and services with the Microsoft Geneva Framework.

Download the Source Code for all episodes.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/securing-your-apps-and-services-with-the-microsoft-geneva-framework-part-1/feed/ 2 Your Experience and Your Resume http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/your-experience-and-your-resume/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/your-experience-and-your-resume/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:05:09 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=10 One of the things that urks me to no end is the liberty people take with their resumes. In this episode of Coding Smackdown, I jump on my soap box and let everyone know what I think about resumes and the three levels of experience.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/your-experience-and-your-resume/feed/ 0 The Developer’s Creed http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/the-developers-creed/ http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/the-developers-creed/#comments Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:03:31 +0000 Jim Lavin http://codingsmackdown.tv/?p=8 This episode covers five simple principles of software development I call the Developer’s Creed.

]]> http://codingsmackdown.tv/blog/2011/03/11/the-developers-creed/feed/ 0