February 2014: I found these photos of the equipment used in one of my early security consulting projects. This was the gear used to support Europe’s first Internet-accessible stock trading system:
There were two firewalls in this configuration (separating the DMZ from internal and external networks), plus two application processors. All of these were built atop Sun Ultra 1 systems (each one featured a 143 MHz processor, 32M RAM, and a 1GB disk for about $16,000 in 1997 dollars).
We visited the San Francisco Cable Car Museum. This is actually a small museum and the powerhouse for the four operating cable car lines. It’s a real Rube Goldberg operation, yet it works somehow. The longest line has in excess of 21,000 feet of steel cable running around underneath the streets.
Click the image below for the full set of photos.
We took a ferry to Sausalito. I took a bunch of pictures of the skyline (again) and some more of Alcatraz Island (a truly dreary-looking place). Click the photo below for the set of images.
We had ice cream in Ghirardelli Square. Click the image for photos. The particular concoction we had is called the Earthquake Sundae; it’s aptly named.
We walked through Chinatown en route to Ghirardelli Square…
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We wanted to take a look at the San Francisco skyline from the TransAmerica Pyramid, but the building was closed for the weekend. So we went to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel instead; the building contains a number of beautiful glass walkways over 40 stories up.
The hotel is visible in the photo below; it’s the tall building to the right of the TransAmerica Pyramid. Click the image to see the rest of the skyline photos.
We had tea at the Sheraton Palace with our friends Janet, Jennifer, and Dan. The Sheraton Palace is a grand old hotel; the photo of the interior space hardly does it justice.
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We stayed at the Stanford Court Hotel while in San Francisco. We were fortunate and had a nice view from our room…
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Holly and I drove up to Napa Valley for a day; it’s a really nice place to visit.
We visited the Sterling Vineyards Winery, partially because it has a pretty nifty sky tram from which one can see a lot of Napa Valley. The winery tour itself was pretty interesting as well; even relatively small vineyards have to work on a fairly massive scale (note the size of those tanks!)
Click the image for more.
