Muffin Tops
April 13, 2007 | 1 Comment
I was recently reading a blog post that used the phrase “muffin tops” while criticizing current American fashion and sexiness in defense of hajib wearing Arabian women. The blogger said: “I’d rather get an eyeful of one of them walking down the street than any of the garden variety trolls who parades their muffin-topped under-dressed corpulence through the typical American mall.”
I loved the sentence but was sadly ignorant to the term, which Wikipedia defines as:
I love this term, it has officially entered my daily vocabulary. This fashion trend is horrible. Many of the women (or men) who end up with muffin tops would otherwise be very attractive. Unfortunately, squeezing the midsection can make one look fatter than they actually are. Hopefully this term becomes ubiquitous and the trend is reversed.
Tags: american, arab, arabian, arabian women, corpulent, define, definition, fashion, flabby, hajib, humor, midriff, midsection, muffin, muffin top, muffin top girl, muffin topped, muffin tops, pejorative, sexiness, slang, spilling
Definition: Code Turd
April 7, 2006 | 19 Comments
In a major enterprise system we pay a lot of money for, a recent patch threw us an error based on the following line of code in a shell script:
echo "I am what is running, this is linux" >> /home/ban7/jobsub/for_whatever_purpose.txt
This line was not conditional and was ironically being run on a Solaris system, not Linux. Our DBA Jon Graton defines these little gems of “production” code as “code turds”.
Tags: code, dba, definition, disk turd, jon graton, linux, programming, shell script, solaris, unix
Web Initial Sign-on (WebISO)
March 8, 2006 | 6 Comments
Web initial sign-on or WebISO is a term defined by Internet2 as a system
designed to allow users, with standard web browsers, to authenticate to web-based services across many web servers, using a standard, typically username/password-based central authentication service.
They created the definition, but that doesn’t mean I need to like it… I’d like to propose an alternate working definition:
A single point for web based authentication which provides SSO across multiple systems and services.
I think that could be word-smithed further to really get it nice and concise. Please comment any recommendations you have on this.
What excites me about WebISO solutions is their fantastic ability to deep link systems and services. Users can bookmark or share URLs and when someone accesses these systems and services they will be required to provide credentials and then be directed through to what they need. This also sets up applications in a loosly coupled structure ideal for changing individual services without affecting others.
The drawback of this approach (when compared against a monolithic portal application) is how there is generally not a single welcome screen presented to users after authenticating. This loss of a “funnel” approach can cause weaknesses in communication and a perceived loss of control in your user population. Another potential area for weakness is providing a directory of services and ways for users to find what they need initially.
For those not familiar, a couple examples of real life WebISO tools would be: CAS (now JA-SIG as opposed to Yale), Pubcookie, WebAuth (from Duke), Shibboleth, and more.
Tags: "central authentication service", "web initial sign-on", authentication, cas, definition, duke, federation, identity, identity management, single sign on, sso, webauth, webiso, yale, yale cas
Defining Unix Load Average
November 7, 2005 | 5 Comments
Went looking for a simple definition of load average in Unix, but alas, simplicity is not in the nature of load. I read UNIX® Load Average Part 1: How It Works by Dr. Neil Gunther who breaks load down into much appreciated, yet excruciating detail.
In short it is the average sum of the number of processes waiting in the run-queue plus the number currently executing over 1, 5, and 15 minute time periods.
It’s calculated like this: load(t) = load(t - 1) e^(-5/60m) + n (1 - e^(-5/60m))
(at least in Linux)
From Gunther’s PDF Guide:
Most sys admins tend to refer to and use the m = 1 minute load average For queueing models we want the steady-state average […] that suggests the m = 15 minute load average is more useful for capacity planning
So load is useful but complex.
Casey experienced some pretty sever load numbers recently…
Tags: definition, dr. neil gunther, gunther, LA triplets, linux top, load, load average, monitoring, performance, performance monitoring, solaris, unix
Authentication Definition
September 26, 2005 | 5 Comments
According to Internet2, authentication or AuthN is defined as:
Authentication is the process of establishing whether or not a real-world subject is who or what its identifier says it is. Identity can be proven by:
- Something you know, like a password
- Something you have, as with smartcards, challenge-response mechanisms, or public-key certificates
- Something you are, as with positive photo identification, fingerprints, and biometrics
Once again, this is a nice concise definition. It’s good to have these clearly defined to eliminate any confusion or debate when discussing, similar to what I did with my “Single Sign-On Definition” post.
Tags: authenticate, authentication, authn, biometrics, challenge-response, definition, fingerprints, identity management, internet2, middleware, password, passwords, smartcards
Mishmash of Acronyms
August 29, 2005 | 5 Comments
While reading technical documentation today Jon and I busted a gut when we read:
“You can set the LDAP authentication process to use Single Socket Layer (SSL).”
I assume this is some tech writers confusion between Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Single Sign-On (SSO).
Tags: definition, secure socket layer, single sign on, single socket layer, SSL, sso
Single Sign-On Definition
August 9, 2005 | 15 Comments
At a SunGardSCT training there was a slide with a nice, concise definition of single sign-on or SSO.
Single Sign-On:
One userid, one password, entered one time, with passage allowed from one system to another without interruption
Sometimes there is debate over the meaning of the term, I accept this definition as true, and all further references I make henceforth will be based off this.
Tags: definition, identity management, integration, single sign on, sso