Ever wonder how Netflix stays up when AWS has problems?

It turns out that they developed a program called Chaos Monkey.  They have also announced that they are going to be releasing it as open source.  This is great news if your company is plannig on deploying applications to the cloud.  This type of planning is generally what has plagued the companies that have had issues when Amazon Web Services has had issues in the past. 

Episode 71 - Azure supports Linux...Sort of

Running Time:48:00

1) Introduction

Brian has been playing with this:

S3QL for backing up to S3 and other Cloud Storag Solutions

Brian has ordered a Raspberry Pi   Thinking maybe he should have ordered the MK802 for $74 running

2) News

Linux Mint PC's on Sale More about the system: mintBox

Microsoft's Azure adds Linux support...Sort of

Navy to use Linux for Drones

Linus Torvalds splits millenium award

Microsoft to unveil Windows RT tablets on Monday Or maybe this rumour is true 

3) Conclusion

Recommendations for People to interview

E-Mail us at podcast@linuxinstall.net

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Are you looking for a way to back up on S3?

Have you ever wanted to back up to S3?  How about Google Storage or Rack Space's storage solution?  There is an amazing little piece of software that will let you create a drive.  It really does a lot more than that.  It also encrypts everything you put up there.  It compresses it and it does de-duplication.  Wait there is more, it also does copy-on-write snapshotting, is optimized for high performance and supports low bandwidth connections.  

So what's it called?  S3QL written and maintained by Nikolaus Rath.

Here is how they describe it:

S3QL effectively provides a hard disk of dynamic, infinite capacity that can be accessed from any computer with internet access running Linux, FreeBSD or OS-X.

So far our tests have proven that it works great.  So if you are looking for an easy way to backup linux or freebsd systems onto a cloud solution check this out.  They even provide a script to help you do parallel rsync backup for even faster performance.

If you are on Ubuntu check out this article on how to get it setup.  If you aren't don't worry the documentation on the site is very complete.  There is a great wiki and active community.

Open API's VS. Open Source....

WARNING THE LINKED TO ARTICLE IS A DIFFICULT READ!!!  The concepts are good but there is almost no conclusion and a really hard path to follow.  The reason we are pointing to it is to try and help form a conclusion.  The bulk of the article talks about what the author sees as a sift from open source to open API's.  Will companies sift away from Open Source?  The problem with the question is that it's not a zero sum gain.  Take Google for instance, they offer both Open Source software they develope and Open API's for developers to use.  As does both Amazon and E-Bay.  There are serious problems when you build an applicaiton or business on open API's as opposed to Open Source.  With Open Source the software is yours to use and while you may be never get another update to the code you at least have the code and could hire a developer to fix/update to meet your needs.  With an Open API if the company shuts off the API you are out of luck.  The most recent example of this is the changes over at Twitter.  Twitter wanted to make money and changed how things worked to make it happen.  Unfortunately if you wrote an app that relied on something they removed from the API you are out of luck and get to re-write your app.  So what do we want to make you aware of?  Remember when you write your application that you need to control where your data is and comes from.  If you don't have data you really probably don't have an application.  So if all of your data comes from an Open API what will you do if that API goes away?  What if the companies who's API your using goes under or starts competing with you.

Episode 59 - The Year in Review Show 2011

Running Time:
1) Introduction

The HTC Rezound kicks ass! Brian is going to get it....

NOTE: Brian ended up getting the Galaxy Nexus. He Loves it. :)

2) News

Joe, got a kindle fire, Corey got an HTC Rezound and Brian got a HP Touchpad
Amazon Outage
Novell got bought by Attachmate
hacking, hacking and more hacking (Just to many to link to any one.)
Patent WARS (Again just to many stories.)
Openoffce/Libreoffice
Toyota Linux
mint overtakes ubuntu  (who didn’t see this happening), and continues its dominance for world power

3) Conclusion
Recommendations for People to interview
E-Mail us at podcast@linuxinstall.net
Facebook Fan Page
Follow us on Twitter and Identica as @linuxinstall
Look for us and comment on iTunes, odeo