October 2011

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My Experiences with Lion

Tuesday, October 25, 2011 in Macintosh by slowe | 21 comments

About two weeks ago, I purchased a new 13″ MacBook Pro for use as my primary laptop. As you probably know, I’ve been a Mac user for a while; this 13″ MBP replaces a 15″ MBP that I purchased about two years ago. Predictably, the new laptop was preloaded with Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion”, the latest and greatest OS from Apple. Since the release of Lion, I’d made no secret of the fact that I had no intention of upgrading my existing laptop from 10.6 to 10.7, as I didn’t see any real need to upgrade—Mac OS X 10.6 (aka “Snow Leopard”) was working just fine for me. If the existing OS is running just fine and you don’t need any of the features of the new OS, what’s the point in upgrading?

Since the new laptop came preloaded with Lion, I decided that I should at least give the new OS an honest try and see if I liked it. With that in mind, I upgraded the new laptop to the latest Lion release, 10.7.2, and installed any and all applicable software updates. I then set out to migrate all my files, apps, and data, which I managed to complete just before leaving for Copenhagen for VMworld EMEA 2011.

Throughout the show and the accompanying travel, the new 13″ MacBook Pro was my primary system, and I used it for all my daily tasks: e-mail, browsing the web, posting to Twitter, writing documents, creating presentations, building mind maps, configuring network equipment…you get the idea. Here are some of the observations I gathered during this time:

  • Even though I was able to unhide my user Library folder (using chflags nohidden), I wasn’t able to search the Library folder from Finder using Spotlight. I verified that the folder wasn’t excluded from Spotlight (there were no indications in the GUI that it was excluded). I was able to search the folder using mdfind.

  • I found that even though Finder was configured to search the current window when performing a search, it always defaulted to searching my entire home directory. No amount of fiddling changed this behavior.

  • Finder windows didn’t “remember” their toolbar/sidebar state. Just about every time I’d open a Finder window, the toolbar and sidebar were visible, even though I’d turned off the toolbar and sidebar the last time I had the folder open.

  • AppleScripts that I’d written to manipulate mail messages ran significantly slower against the version of Mail in Lion compared to Mail in Snow Leopard.

  • The new version of Growl from the Mac App Store would consistently crash under Lion. These crashes were typically caused by Twitterrific. A matching configuration on my older laptop never demonstrated the same behaviors.

  • Little things here and there throughout the interface felt sluggish. For example, there was always a noticeable delay between the sending of an e-mail message and the “whoosh” sound. That delay did not exist with Snow Leopard. This implied, IMHO, some sort of performance issue that prevented snappier sound performance.

  • I personally found the minor UI changes (smaller window controls, for example, and changes in window shading between active and inactive windows) made the OS harder to use. Distinguishing between active and inactive windows was particularly problematic.

  • Active windows would, from time to time, open behind an inactive window. There did not seem to be any noticeable pattern as to when this happened.

Because of all these various things, I found that the “frictionless” experience that I’d enjoyed in Mac OS X for years no longer existed. Lion, for me, now felt like Windows—the operating system was “getting in the way” and making it harder for me to get my work accomplished. To be fair, there were a few features that I really did like (the new Spaces, some of the gestures, Resume), but those features didn’t and couldn’t outweigh the disadvantages. I was so disappointed.

By the time I arrived back in the States, I’d resolved that I would rebuild the laptop with Snow Leopard. Because this particular model of 13″ MacBook Pro originally shipped with Snow Leopard, I knew that it would run properly (not the case with the new MacBook Air laptops, for example—they won’t run Snow Leopard at all because of drivers that don’t exist in 10.6.x). This past Sunday night, I rebuilt the 13″ MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard. Since that time, the laptop and my applications have been rock solid and functional. It’s surprising to me just how much of a difference I saw in usability and reliability between the original factory Lion install and my own clean Snow Leopard install. Snow Leopard has been, for me, worlds better.

So what’s the key takeaway here? Apple wants to make Mac OS X “easier” and “simpler,” to grow their installed base via the popularity of iOS, the iPhone, and the iPad. To that end, they shifted Lion closer to iOS and away from the UNIX roots that originally drew me to Mac OS X. Snow Leopard, on the other hand, retains the power and flexibility that were the key drivers for me to switch so many years ago (back in the days of the PowerPC G4 and Mac OS X 10.2k “Jaguar”). I suspect—although I don’t have any hard facts—that many other technical professionals switched to the Mac for similar reasons. Will those users also be alienated by the changes in Lion? Is Apple pushing away the highly technical audience that has been one of their biggest proponents in the Mac market? For me, this shift toward iOS made Lion less appealing, less powerful, less useful for me. It introduced friction in my computing experience where previously there had been none.

Am I alone in my experience? Do you love Lion, or still prefer Snow Leopard? If you are a Mac user, I’d be interested in hearing your own experiences or thoughts regarding Lion and Snow Leopard. Feel free to speak up in the comments.

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Formatting RTFs with TextSoap

Saturday, October 8, 2011 in Collaboration, Macintosh by slowe | 7 comments

If there’s one thing I miss about trying to avoid Microsoft Word and stick with more “open” file formats, it’s styles. Yes, styles. See, I’m a long-time Microsoft Word user, and in a previous life I worked in a role where it was my job to provide consistent formatting for some very large documents (300, 500, or more than 700 pages sometimes). In situations like that, styles are an absolute must. So, driven by necessity, I learned about styles, how to use them, and eventually grew to rely very heavily on them.

Now that I’m trying eschew Microsoft Word for more lightweight applications and text-based file formats, I’m finding that I really miss styles. So, I set out to try and find a way to provide some of the consistent formatting I had with styles, but in a way that is in alignment with my goals. I built a solution using these tools:

  • TextMate, for creating MultiMarkdown source files
  • Pandoc, for converting the MultiMarkdown sources into RTF
  • TextSoap, for applying some regex-based formatting to the RTF destination file.

It’s not the greatest solution in the world, but it does work (so far). Here’s the basic flow of the solution:

  1. I create the source file in MultiMarkdown syntax using TextMate. Along the way, I add some user-defined markup in the document for formatting later. Specifically, I’ve placed “[h1]” at the start of level 1 headings, “[h2]” at the start of level 2 headings, etc. It’s almost like another layer of markup within the MultiMarkdown syntax. (Yes, I know this kind of goes against the spirit of Markdown.)
  2. I use pandoc to convert the Markdown source document into RTF (a process I’ve automated using AppleScript and FastScripts). This creates a pretty plain and simple RTF document with my user-defined tags still present. Pandoc supports the idea of templates, but I’m not familiar enough with the syntax of RTF to create an RTF template.
  3. TextSoap parses the document and uses the user-defined tags to modify the font family and font size accordingly. I use a regular expression (regex) to find lines with the user-defined tag at the beginning, and apply a certain format to that line. After the formatting has been applied, the user-defined tags are removed. After the file has been processed by TextSoap—which is a really handy tool, by the way; I recommend it for anyone who works with text a lot—then the document has the formatting that I want and I can proceed with generating a PDF or delivering the RTF file as is.

This process is by no means perfect, but it does allow me to generate all my content using Markdown in TextMate, then spin it off to RTF for quick and easy formatting using TextSoap. This splits the content creation and content formatting steps into separate steps, and allows me to focus on “content first, appearance later.”

The next evolution in the process will be to use AppleScript to tie the Markdown-to-RTF conversion and the formatting together in a single step (yet another reason to choose TextSoap: it supports and can be driven by AppleScript for automation).

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Mastering VMware vSphere 5 Now Available

Thursday, October 6, 2011 in Virtualization by slowe | 43 comments

I’m very excited to announce that both Kindle and paperback copies of Mastering VMware vSphere 5, the eagerly-anticipated vSphere 5 book, are now available from Amazon. At the time of this writing, the Kindle version was priced higher than the paperback version, but I’m hoping that Amazon—who solely controls pricing for Kindle books—will drop the price soon.

The book is also available from other outlets and in other formats, if you’re interested:

One of the complaints of Mastering VMware vSphere 4 was that the electronic formats weren’t fast enough coming, so we’ve really tried to address that this time around.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy the book!

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Content Creation and Mind Mapping

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 in Collaboration, Macintosh by slowe | 7 comments

In conjunction with my shift to more “open” file formats such as Markdown (MultiMarkdown, to be specific), RTF, and OPML—a shift described a little bit here—I’ve also had two other shifts in my content creation process that I think are worth mentioning.

First, I’ve started using a new and different method to create presentations. So what is this “different” way of creating presentations? The real value of a presentation is the content, not the pretty fonts and colors (generally speaking). Therefore, it kind of makes sense to me that I should focus first on content, and after content is mostly finalized then worry about appearance. To accomplish this, I’ve started creating my presentation content first in OPML format, then exporting that content into the presentation application (Apple Keynote, so far) for final formatting. While Keynote’s file format isn’t as “open” as I would like, the real meat of the presentation is the content, which is already stored separately in OPML format. This keeps me from having all my information locked up in Keynote’s file format (which, admittedly, is XML-based).

The second shift is related to this focus on “content first.” As I’ve turned my attention toward content creation first and foremost, I’ve taken an interest in the use of mind maps. Since many mind mapping applications can import and export OPML, this means that I’m also not locked into any one specific mind mapping application, and it fits well into my new presentation creation workflow:

  1. Do some brainstorming and idea creation using a mind map.
  2. Transfer the information from the mind map to my outliner via OPML. In the outlining application, revise and organize the content into its final form.
  3. Transfer the outline into Keynote for formatting and appearance.

The real problem so far has been finding the right mind mapping application. There are many different applications on Mac OS X: MindNode/MindNode Pro, Novamind, MyThoughts, MindManager, XMind, and Freemind, to name a few. I ruled out XMind and Freemind because they are Java applications; I much prefer native applications over Java applications for performance and integration reasons. That leaves MindNode (Pro), Novamind, MyThoughts, and MindManager. So far I’ve tried MindNode, Novamind, and MindManager. Of these, MindManager is far and away my favorite—it feels mature, polished, supports AppleScript, and seems to perform well.

Unfortunately, MindManager is also the priciest of the bunch. At $249, it is significantly more expensive than any of the other applications in this category. I’m still a bit on the fence with the decision, but I expect I’ll decide one way or another within the next week or so. I’d love to hear from any MindManager users on their likes, dislikes, and use cases. Speak up in the comments below!

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Updated Stretched Cluster Presentation

Monday, October 3, 2011 in Networking, Storage, Virtualization by slowe | 3 comments

Last week I had the opportunity to speak to the Toronto VMUG and present an updated version of my talk on considerations for building stretched vSphere clusters. Stretched clusters are a topic I’ve touched on several times, first in Denver in June 2010, again this past May in Charlotte, and finally in Toronto last week. Last week’s presentation, embedded below, includes new and updated content for vSphere 5.

As usual, feel free to speak up with any comments, suggestions, clarifications, or corrections. Thanks, and I hope you find this useful!

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Technology Short Take #15

Monday, October 3, 2011 in Networking, Storage, Virtualization by slowe | 4 comments

Welcome to Technology Short Take #15, the latest in my irregular series of posts on various articles and links on networking, servers, storage, and virtualization—everything a growing data center engineer needs!

Networking

My thoughts this time around are pretty heavily focused on VXLAN, which continues to get lots of attention. I talked about posting a dissection of VXLAN, but I have failed miserably; fortunately, other people smarter than me have stepped up to the plate. Here are a few VXLAN-related posts and articles I’ve found over the last couple of weeks:

  • There is a three-part series over at Coding Relic that does a great job of explaining VXLAN, the components of VXLAN, and how it works. Here are the links to the series: part 1, part 2, and part 3. One note of clarification: in part 3 of the series, Denny talks about a VTEP gateway. Right now, the VTEP gateway is the server itself; anytime a packet on a VXLAN-enabled network leaves the physical server to go to a different physical server, it will be VXLAN-encapsulated. It won’t be decapsulated until it hits the destination VTEP (the ESXi server hosting the destination VM). If (when?) VXLAN awareness hits physical switches, then the possibility of a VTEP gateway existing outside the server exists. Personally, it kind of makes sense—to me, at least—to build VTEP gateway functionality into vShield Edge.
  • Some people aren’t quite so enamored with VXLAN; one such individual is Greg Ferro. I respect Greg a great deal, so it was interesting to me to read his article on why VXLAN is “full of fail”. Some of his comments are only slightly related to VXLAN (the rant over IEEE vs. IETF, for example), but Greg’s comment about VMware building a new standard instead of “leveraging the value of networking infrastructure” echoes some of my own thoughts. I understand that VXLAN accomplishes things that existing standards apparently do not, but was a new standard really necessary?
  • Omar Sultan of Cisco took the time to compile some questions and answers about VXLAN. One thing that is made more clear—for me, at least—in Omar’s post is the fact that VXLAN doesn’t address connectivity to the vApps from the “outside” world. While VXLAN provides a logical isolated network segment that can span multiple Layer 3 networks and allow applications to communicate with each other, VXLAN doesn’t address the Layer 3 addressing that must exist outside the VXLAN tunnel. In fact, in my discussions with some of the IETF draft authors at VMworld, they indicated that VXLAN would require a NAT device or a DNS update in order to address changes in externally-accessible applications. This, by the way, is why you’ll still need technologies like OTV and LISP (or their equivalents); see this post for more information on how VXLAN, OTV, and LISP are complementary. If I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me.
  • In case you’re still unclear about the key problem that VXLAN attempts to address, this quote from Ivan Pepelnjak might help (the full article is here):

    VXLAN tries to solve a very specific IaaS infrastructure problem: replace VLANs with something that might scale better. In a massive multi-tenant data center having thousands of customers, each one asking for multiple isolated IP subnets, you quickly run out of VLANs.

  • Finally, you might find this PDF helpful. Ignore the first 13 slides or so; they’re marketing fluff, to be honest. However, the remainder of the slides have some useful information on VXLAN and how it’s expected to be implemented.

Servers

I didn’t really stumble across anything strictly server hardware-related; either I’m just not plugged into the right resources (anyone want to make some recommendations?) or it was just a quiet period. I’ll assume it was the former.

Storage

Virtualization

  • Did you see this post about new network simulation functionality in VMware Workstation 8?
  • Here’s a good walk-through on setting up vMotion across multiple network interfaces.
  • VMware vSphere Design co-author Maish Saidel-Keesing has a post here on how to approximate the functionality of netstat on ESXi.
  • William Lam has a “how to” on installing the VMware VSA with running VMs.
  • Fellow vSpecialist Andre Leibovici did a write-up on a proof of concept that the vSpecialists did for a customer involving Vblock, VPLEX, and VDI. This was a pretty cool use case, in my opinion, and worth having a look if you need to design a highly available environment.
  • Thinking about playing with vShield 5? That’s a good idea, but check here to learn from the mistakes of others first. You’ll thank me later.
  • The question of defragmenting guest OS disks has come up again and again; here’s the latest take from Cormac Hogan of VMware. He makes some great points, but I suspect that this question is still far from settled.

It’s time to wrap up now; I hope that you found something useful. As always, thanks for reading! Feel free to share your views or thoughts in the comments below.

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