I was at Interop Las Vegas this week, and the Expo floor was alive with gimmicks. We had a talking robot, a boxing ring, a GT40, and two Mythbusters lookalikes. But what’s the point of a gimmick without a tie-in?
The Techie/Business Schism
April 29, 2010 By 1 Comment
IT is fixated on endless technology upgrades but fails to adequately address the human side of the equation. The schism between application developers and infrastructure managers is reflected in many current controversial topics, and IT infrastructure must radically change its course to avoid it being left in the dust.
Use Process Solutions For Process Problems, Technical Solutions For Technical Ones
April 27, 2010 By 1 Comment
If there is a universal best practice, it’s the simple idiom, “use the right tool for every job”. We in IT spend so much time trying to fit square pegs into round holes, it becomes second nature. But the time has come to adopt a new best practice: Use process solutions to solve process problems, and technical solutions to solve technical ones.
AT&T iPhone Users: Activate A-List and Save Money
April 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
If you have a job like mine, you spend a lot of time on conference calls. Thankfully, AT&T has added a new calling feature, A-List, which gives you unlimited calling to a set of numbers you designate. This has saved me a bundle on overages, but it’s not exactly well-known. Just about all American iPhone users can benefit from this feature, but it’s not turned on by default!
FCoE Symbolism
April 25, 2010 By 4 Comments
Visitors to the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) booth at Storage Networking World in Orlando were greeted by a strange symbol, but what is the symbol exactly? I was amused to get some puzzled looks (and no correct answers) when I polled a number of industry insiders.
How To Stream Any Size Podcast to an iPhone, Even Over 3G or EDGE!
April 23, 2010 By 3 Comments
Ever see that screen? You want to download a podcast from the iTunes Store on the iPhone, but you can’t. It’s over 20 MB, so it’s off limits. Surprise! There is a way to stream any podcast of any size to the iPhone, even over EDGE, with no hacking required!
The CEO Shuffle
April 22, 2010 By 1 Comment
It’s an old story: Hot startups are created by clever technologists, but it takes a different kind of leadership to really hit the big time. Many of today’s smaller companies are following this well-worn path, with both Panasas and ParaScale this week replacing their CEOs with industry veterans. These changes show that the investors in these businesses are looking either for a path to growth or an exit as the economy improves.
How To Keep Your Family Activities In Sync With A Shared Google Calendar
April 18, 2010 By 4 Comments
Smartphones, computers, and iPads are proliferating in families today. Although my three kids do not (yet) have their own mobile phones, we still have quite a few devices with calendar functions: An iPhone each for me, my wife, and our au pair along with an iPad and a few computers. Using Google Calendar, we have set up an awesome shared calendar to keep all of our activities in sync. Read on for instructions!
1000Base-What?
April 17, 2010 By 4 Comments
Networking may be straightforward, but the world of networking terminology is not. I’ve been steeped in the strange lingo of Ethernet for many years, but I still get confused by some of the terms. What’s the difference between 1000BASE-CX, 1000BASE-SX, and 1000BASE-T? In this post, I’m going to tackle this Ethernet network naming convention.
Where Is Microsoft’s FCoE Support?
April 15, 2010 By 7 Comments
The storage and networking industry is pushing for high-end Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and its dominance of FCoE seems almost certain to many industry watchers. But where is Microsoft when it comes to FCoE? Put simply, Microsoft does not seem to be participating in FCoE development, either on the initiator or target side.
