David Westerfield

Gospel. Culture. Technology. Music.

Author: David Westerfield Page 23 of 118


SharePoint Conference 2012 – Some Highlights of What’s Coming

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On November 14, 2012

In Events, Technology

Here are some highlights from the conference. There’s a lot more detail, but this is the good stuff I’ve gathered.

  • SP2013 RTM was released.
  • Drag and drop documents into document folder; preview documents in pop-up window (including the ability to scroll through, it’s not just an image). Really cool.
  • Drag and drop does work cross-browser. Really great news.
  • One of the coolest functions for developers and designers in SP2013: automatic HTML to master page conversion.
  • SP2013 is backward compatible with 2010 … in almost every way, from back-end to front-end (this was contradicted later as I’ll show, however for the most part, I believe it’s accurate)
  • SP2013 central admin UI is different but structure/taxonomy is the same for the most part
  • Said in keynote: custom solutions work just the same in 2013 from 2010. (Yeah, we’ll see 🙂 )
  • New: Search-driven navigation. Intriguing and powerful.
  • Your own profile in MySites has a news feed that looks almost like Facebook and Twitter combined. You can follow certain sites or (what were once called) document libraries and it will all show up in one feed. You can then interact with others’ posts and conversations.
  • Client and server-side, they made significant reductions in I/O (on the back-end) and bandwidth (via the front-end); 40% reduction in bandwidth usage over-all; 50% reduction in SQL I/O by eliminating redundant queries and limiting the number of queries a single page makes; image compression is now 4X what it was.
  • eDiscovery: not just for SP, but also Exchange and other apps (like Project Server). You can freeze a file in its existing state, without affecting the file itself (meaning changes can still be made, but it doesn’t change the copy you’ve frozen), without user knowing it, in case of audit.
  • When versioning items, now only the delta is saved as opposed to the entire item each time. This significantly reduces SQL content DB growth.
  • Web analytics is now rolled into search. Very cool.
  • Down side: you cannot do an in-place upgrade. Only database attach. Not many people were happy about that apparently (maybe it was just me; that’s how I upgraded 2007 to 2010).
  • Down side: Office Web Apps now exists on its own, you no longer install it within SP as a service application. If upgrading, you would need to install Office Web Apps on its own server(s).
  • OWA bolts into Exchange now. Interesting.

Some pictures:

For whatever reason, I got an upgraded hotel room at Mandalay Bay; a suite, very nice:

Keynote time!

It’s amazing these are still allowed in hotels. Wonder how much longer that will last. Even Vegas still holds out hope and truth though for now.

Mandalay Bay Hotel, Luxor in the middle, and THEhotel to the left.

ClubLAX, aka ClubSPC (since M$ bought it out from 6-8pm one night); the decibel level was astounding. I’m getting old.

Bumblebee, of course.

One of the many meals where 10,000 people were served two full meals a day. Quite a serious logistical operation. Mandalay Bay pulled it off. Very impressive.

Waiting in line, for 40 minutes, with 10,000 people for Jon Bon Jovi and a lot of food; the SPC Beach Party. The lobster tacos were killer. I was too full after those to try anything else. I had to bolt early to make it to the next event …

This was the highlight for me: The @RBAConsulting Sky Party. 34th floor of the Palms Casino Resort, overlooking the strip. I overheard that this loft/suite was $40,000 a night? Good grief. Cigar rolling, drink, food, music, all overlooking Vegas. The pool went out over the edge, suspended. It was by far the coolest event I went to.

Cigar Rolling

Best shot I got …

DJ, mixin’ it up! He never did get around to the Snoop Dogg song I requested though 🙂

Oh yeah, and looooots of SharePoint sessions 🙂

Joel Osteen: Declaring Things That Should Never Be Declared

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On November 5, 2012

In Christian Culture, Theology

Heard this through Jared Wilson: @JoelOsteen: “When you dare to #dreambig, you take the limits off of God.” Wow … How does this compare to Romans 9:21-23: “Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—
(Romans 9:21-23 ESV)”

YOU take the limits off of God. I didn’t know He was bound. I thought He did His best in Scripture to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that He is never, ever bound by what the creature does. This is precisely what sovereignty means. Joel Osteen’s teaching is absolute poison.

Always Refreshing to Hear Again and Again … What is the Gospel? – Michael Horton

By

On November 4, 2012

In Theology, Video

James White Versus Jack Moorman – Should We Exclusively Use The King James Bible?

By

On October 21, 2012

In Apologetics, Theology

Sentimental Christianity: “God won’t give you more than you can handle”

By

On October 17, 2012

In Christian Culture, Theology

We always hear the nice, sentimental, comfy, American, coffee-mug-Christianity phrase, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” But isn’t “God giving you more than you can handle” the very definition of a trial, in order that you rest on His provision and not your own? And isn’t the trial designed for this? “…we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:3-5 … In the words of How Firm a Foundation, “Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”

Defending Christianity … Against Pat Robertson

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On September 11, 2012

In Apologetics, Theology, Video

Trying to gently and constructively answer claims of patriarchy by the secular left against the religious right, claims of the suppression of minorities, war against women, etc, are not helped by absurd comments like this … in fact, it’s because of some of his outrageous comments that some of the apologetics I’ve engaged in at a personal level at work and elsewhere has even had to be engaged at all (defending true, authentic, unmuddled, Biblical Christianity against the likes of Pat Robertson). It’s my estimation that this man alone has conveyed so much confusion about what Christians believe to the unbelieving world that he actually represents a threat to the faith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoHdO2rwGwE#

Eh? Comment from a “Fan”

By

On August 26, 2012

In Bizarro

Exact quote, copy and pasted from the email:

“Are you saved by grace alone or are you saved by grace alone through “faith” in Christ Jesus? You leave out the actual key to salvation.

There is a difference. No faith no salvation pal! Faith is not belief but proven trustworhiness faithfulness. Paul called it the obedience of faith. So just because you believe in God’s grace is nothing but intellectual asscent to something that happened.

You weren’t just saved you were purchased. You were bought with a price you are not your own nor are you property of James White.”

Coherence please. Context please. 😉

OpenVPN Sharing a TCP Port with SSL on NGINX and Apache?

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On August 10, 2012

In Technology

I’m absolutely baffled there isn’t more information out there about this. It seems like web managers and techs would be all over this, but there’s barely any information out there on this. I had a hard time finding documentation on OpenVPN’s site itself!

As one guy stated here (the post where I finally understood how this works) it’s not really “sharing” the port per se, but OpenVPN is deciphering between HTTP/S traffic and OpenVPN traffic and then forwarding web traffic over to another port, defined below. That’s crucial to understand.

Before I start, I want to note this doesn’t have to be done on an SSL port, as I understand it. I’m just using that as an example because it seems to be the most logical way to make it work if this is your configuration (you know, an SSL VPN going to an SSL port).

It should also be noted in this configuration example that OpenVPN, using the port-share parameter, is actually doing the listening on TCP port 443 and acting as a proxy itself that forwards non-OpenVPN traffic to the NGINX SSL port which we’ll layout below. You cannot do this utilizing UDP, that I know of.

So here’s what you do.

1) Set your NGINX or Apache listening ports. Set your NGINX standard http port 80 and SSL listening port to something OTHER than 443 … so, for arguments’ sake, let’s set it to 4443.

So it would look like this for Apache and NGINX:

For Apache, in the main httpd.conf (Windows) or in ports.conf (Ubuntu/Linux):

Listen 4443

For NGINX, in /etc/nginx/sites-available/defaults:

server {
        listen   4443;

        location / {
                root  /web/etc/blah;
        }
}

Once implemented, restart your respective service, Apache or NGINX.

2) Next, you’re going to set your OpenVPN server parameters. Set your listening port to 443 from its standard 1194 and add the port-share parameter to point to the Apache or NGINX port created above. The config should look as follows now:

port 443
port-share 127.0.0.1 4443
proto tcp

OpenVPN will now be ready to accept connections over 443 and route the appropriate https/SSL traffic to Apache or NGINX.

3) Change your firewall settings. Leave your TCP port 80 rule pointing directly to Apache or NGINX. Then point your SSL rule to TCP port 443 running on your OpenVPN server. OpenVPN will now catch the traffic directed at it and decipher between OpenVPN traffic and HTTPS traffic.

4) Change the configuration in your OpenVPN clients. Point your OpenVPN clients to TCP port 443 instead of the port you were using before:

remote domain.name.com 443

or

remote [IP ADDRESS] 443

Hope it works. Cheers!

Discussion Between James White and Brian McLaren

By

On July 26, 2012

In Apologetics, Audio, Theology

This episode of the radio program in the UK called Unbelievable with Justin Brierley is a discussion between James White and Brian McLaren on the Emerging Church and postmodernism. It aired in 2011 and I just now got around to listening to it. Good stuff. They both outline their positions very clearly and respectfully. Worth the listen:

http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/7684e862-dcf2-4bd2-a1f3-aceb16f2f17c.mp3 (MP3)

Sometimes Movies Merely Serve to Illustrate Reality

By

On July 25, 2012

In Movies

On Bourne Legacy: “Gilroy then began work on a treatment for the project even as he outlined a blueprint for where the story might go after The Bourne Legacy… He looked most particularly at the secretive U.S. government agency known as DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) that is hard at work trying to figure out how to make better soldiers. DARPA and its intelligence counterpart, IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity), fund many research programs with the objective of enhancing the cognitive and physical performance of American soldiers and spies. Gilroy notes: ‘There’s no drug testing in war. There’s a very real appetite to have soldiers with increased energy, higher pain thresholds and less need for sleep. The warrior who heals, learns and processes information faster is the dream of every commanding officer. We’re in a place now where the science has begun to make real that dream in a very unpredictable and terrifying way.'” http://www.thebournelegacy.net/media/Production_notes.pdf … Just go read some of the declassified CIA docs on what they were doing in the 50’s and 60’s alone as a blueprint for what they’re working on now, with science that is waaaay more advanced than 50 years ago. Sometimes movies merely serve to illustrate reality, using a fictional story line.

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