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Month: February 2009
Organizing retail loyalty cards on cell phone application
In Japan, NTT Communications has begun trials of a high-tech alternative to plastic or paper loyalty cards that promises to simplify their use for consumers.
Why in Japan? Well, Loyalty cards are big business there and it’s almost impossible to spend a day shopping without being asked for one or, if you don’t have one, being offered one during shopping time. The NTT technology, is called “Gyazapo,” and it’s a Java applet that can be used in phones that also include the Felica short-range RFID technology. Most current phones support the technology. Trials began this week at retailer Bic Camera and will last for four months.
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Cisco: How to use kron to automate tasks
Now and then everybody in IT network industry has to stay awake over the night to accomplish some tasks that cannot be performed during the work hours because will disturb regular activity. Some of this task usually need your presence in field (virtually or in place), to assure that everything is working fine and you don’t have any unwanted surprise the next day.Skipping this tasks, there are other ones with less impact in case of a failure, which I believe you rather prefer to do it automatically and to check the results when you can. I’m talking here usually about configuration save or archive, IP addresses being renew by DHCP or data backup
All this stuff can be achieved by using the Cisco “kron” present in the IOS. I think that everybody who’s ready this post heard about cron jobs, so I will issue just a small explanation. Cron jobs are tasks definite to run at one certain moment or to be recursive over a period of time. In human terms, cron jobs can help us sleep well why they are doing the job over the night.
Speaking now about Cisco “kron” command, you should know that it appear starting with IOS version 12.3(1), so don’t try to find it if you have a previous version installed. Also, The EXEC CLI specified in a Command Scheduler policy list must not generate a prompt or have the ability to be terminated using keystrokes. Command Scheduler is designed as a fully automated facility and no manual intervention is permitted. Command Scheduler allows you to schedule fully-qualified EXEC mode CLI commands to run once, at specified intervals, or at specified calendar dates and times.
Command Scheduler has two basic processes. A policy list is configured containing lines of fully-qualified EXEC CLI to be run at the same time or interval. One or more policy lists are then scheduled to run after a specified interval of time or at a specified calendar date and time. Each scheduled occurrence can be set to run once only or on a recurring basis. Policy lists can be configured after the policy list has been scheduled, but each policy list must be configured before it is scheduled to run. Policy lists consist of one or more lines of fully-qualified EXEC CLI commands. All commands in a policy list are executed when the policy list is run by Command Scheduler using the kron occurrence command. Use separate policy lists for CLI commands to be run at different times.
One mandatory tasks is that before you try to run “kron”, your Cisco device has to know the time. Either manully set or through NTP server. If the device does not know the time, than a warning message will appear when you’ll try to configure kron tasks.
Please see below some brief examples about how you can configure kron tasks.
AMD demos 6 cores Istanbul chips
AMD demonstrate it’s first working models of Istanbul chips, the company’s line of server processors with six cores. The AMD blog says: “As a city, Istanbul is the only city that sits on two continents, Asia and Europe. As a processor, Istanbul also bridges two worlds, the socket 1207 that has been such a strong platform in the past, and a 6-core Direct Connect architecture, with 12, 24 or 48 cores per server for the future.
Despite putting more cores in the processor, we managed to keep it in the same power and thermal ranges as our existing “Shanghai” processors. And since it fits into the same socket, our OEM customers should be able to bring products to the market quickly. End users will be able to quickly qualify and deploy these servers because the overall platform is the same as what they are using. In today’s challenging economic times, that’s music to the ears of IT departments both near, and as far away as Turkey. ”
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WLAN product blitz shows 802.11n getting more affordable, useable
A slew of new WLAN hardware and software suggests that 802.11n high-throughput WLANs are fast becoming more affordable and manageable across all industry segments.
Enterasys debuted its first 802.11n access point and a new high-end WLAN controller for large-scale deployments, while D-Link has a new $180 11n AP aimed at small and midsize businesses. Meraki introduced its first 11n product for municipal and multi-tenant Wi-Fi hot zones.
On the software side, Motorola’s AirDefense unit has added a WLAN troubleshooting application to its flagship wireless intrusion prevention suite, and radio frequency (RF) monitoring and configuration management to its WLAN controller software. Rival AirMagnet has created a version of its RF analysis and site survey applications and introduced a simplified troubleshooting tool, both aimed at improving WLAN performance and management for SMB customers.