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Thoughts on network engineering from Jeff McLaughlin

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Author: ccie14023

October 25, 2022

Computers with Brains

A couple of years back I purchased an AI-powered energy monitoring system for my home.  It clips on to the power mains and monitors amperage/wattage.  I can view an a graph showing energy usage over time, which is really quite helpful to keep tabs on my electricity consumption at a time when electricity is expensive. […]

PerspectivesTagged ai, baselining, cli, futurism, immortality, nms, thresholdsLeave a Comment on Computers with Brains
October 3, 2022

Plain Language

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but here in America our police speak in a sort of code language.  Instead of saying “he got out of the car and walked away,” the police will say, “the subject exited the vehicle and proceeded on foot.”  It’s not that their language is any clearer–in […]

ReflectionsTagged corporatism, jargon, language, mbaLeave a Comment on Plain Language
August 17, 2022

Dear Diary

My blogging has been a little slow of late.  First there was Cisco Live.  Then there was the post-Cisco Live slump of not wanting to do anything.  Then there was the Cisco’s fiscal year-end crunch along with some very hot projects.  Then there was the departure of one of our key execs, and subsequent excitement.  […]

ReflectionsTagged cargo shorts, cisco live, covid, electriciansLeave a Comment on Dear Diary
July 13, 2022

Art of Network Engineering

I’ve been a little busy lately, and frankly sometimes topics to write about come fast and furiously, sometimes they don’t come at all. Meanwhile, I had a chance to sit down with the team over at the Art of Network Engineering podcast.  I was really enjoying their interviews with engineers around the industry and I […]

UncategorizedTagged art of network engineering, network nostalgia, podcastLeave a Comment on Art of Network Engineering
June 10, 2022June 10, 2022

Back to Cisco Live

I haven’t posted in a while, for the simple reason that writing a blog is a challenge.  What the heck am I going to write about?  Sometimes ideas come easily, sometimes not.  Of course, I have a day job, and part of that day job involves Cisco Live, which is next week, in person, for […]

PerspectivesTagged ccie, cisco live, public speaking3 Comments on Back to Cisco Live
April 28, 2022April 28, 2022

Plungers and hard drives

Two articles (here and here) in my Netstalgia series covered the old bulletin board system (BBS) I used to operate back in the late 1980’s.  It wasn’t much by today’s standards, but I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a Sysop (systems operator).  How the BBS died is a lesson in product management. My BBS ran […]

NetStalgiaTagged apple ii, bbs, drivesavers, hard drives, seagateLeave a Comment on Plungers and hard drives
April 22, 2022April 23, 2022

Are coffee and networks the same?

I shall avoid naming names, but when I worked for Juniper we had a certain CEO who pumped us up as the next $10 billion company.  It never happened, and he left and became the CEO of Starbucks.  Starbucks has nothing to do with computer networking at all.  Why was he hired by Starbucks?  How […]

PerspectivesTagged corporatism, juniper, starbucks, TACLeave a Comment on Are coffee and networks the same?
April 21, 2022

A night of vi

It was four o’clock in the early hours of one Sunday morning in 2001.  I had been up all night sitting in our data center at the San Francisco Chronicle with our Unix guy.  He was handing off responsibility for managing the firewalls to the network team, and he was walking me through the setup.  […]

NetStalgiaTagged checkpoint, failover, firewalls, unix, viLeave a Comment on A night of vi
April 20, 2022April 20, 2022

Blogging vs. Video

I must admit, I’m a huge fan of Ivan Peplnjak.  This despite the fact that he is a major thorn in the side of product management at Cisco.  It is, of course, his job to be a thorn in our side and Ivan is too smart to ignore.  He has a long history with Cisco, […]

PerspectivesTagged blogging, ivan peplnjak, substack, video7 Comments on Blogging vs. Video
April 19, 2022

The Ghost of Jobs

A post recently showed up in my LinkedIn feed.  It was a video showing a talk by Steve Jobs and claiming to be the “best marketing video ever”.  I disagree.  I think it is the worst ever.  I hate it.  I wish it would go away.  I have deep respect for Jobs, but on this […]

PerspectivesTagged apple, corporatism, marketing, steve jobs, think differentLeave a Comment on The Ghost of Jobs

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