Understanding the accumulation of data
VMworld is an awesome event, and one of the few technical conferences that is still growing even as the old standbys falter. But it’s also expensive – a pass costs almost US $2,000, and airfare isn’t cheap these days, either. I was so pleased to see Jason Boche offering a VMworld 2010 pass as a contest prize that we at Gestalt IT decided to pitch in, too. We’ll pay for airfare for the winner, as well as providing them a platform to share what he learns at the event.
I’ve really jumped into recording podcasts, and am also an avid audio and video conference user. Wanting better sound, I upgraded my Logitech microphone to the highly-regarded Blue Microphones Snowball desktop USB microphone. Here are my initial thoughts.
Concluding my series on vendor bloggers, I present my own experiences wearing multiple hats and trying to remain credible.
Predictions are perilous: Get it right and you look like a mere trend-watcher; get it wrong and you look like a fool. So I’m doing something different this year: I’m going to make predictions for 2009 now that it’s over, and reflect on just how smart I am (not) to have made them.
Last week I bought my third (modern) Mac, a new Core i5-powered 27″ iMac desktop. My new iMac has become a video editing workstation, running Apple’s Final Cut Studio software to process the video footage from Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day. The massive display and speedy quad-core CPU and graphics continue to impress: This new iMac is a keeper!
Data Robotics has doubled the size of their product line, adding two new Drobo storage devices alongside the existing Drobo (version 2) and DroboPro, which I’ve previously written about.
It was a week of HAM in the enterprise storage industry and angry arguments in the CloudCamp camp. But things looked up at the end with a productive discussion about backups. Google sent us a wave, but nobody was happy when GM threatened to collapse. Enterprise Storage HDS’ HAM-Fisted Announcement did not impress, with many wondering [...]
Although I’m no search engine expert, I’m naturally interested in “how all this stuff works.” That’s why I’ve never owned any gadget I’ve never taken apart (iPhone, Mac Mini, and MacBook Pro included!) and why I’ve recently become interested in how the Internet search and referral world works. I’m not interested in being a search [...]
We’re taking my Building Virtual Infrastructure presentation to Columbus Ohio at the end of the month. Cool! I live in Ohio, and don’t get much opportunity to speak at events here. There’s also Backup Central Live! with W. Curtis Preston the next day, if you want to go to both!
I’ve always loved my Wi-Fi iPad, but the Verizon LTE iPad (third-generation) is too awesome to overlook. Apart from the “retina” display and voice dictation, the killer app is unlocked roaming on just about any carrier network. Yes, you can use your Verizon iPad Verizon iPad on AT&T, Vodafone, or even Verizon!
The mobile phone network landscape is incredible confusing. I pulled together the following overview to help myself make sense of it, and I thought it might benefit my readers, too.
I don’t get much chance to read for pleasure, but two things I’ve been reading recently spurred my imagination. After reliving the advent of modern transportation in the solid non-fiction Jet Age by Sam Howe Verhovek, I stumbled upon two pieces of speculative fiction from an unlikely source that predated everything presented there.
Even though I grew up on the other side of the great baseball divide, I have always loved going to New York City. Next week, I return again, but this time I’m bringing a whole new event to the city: This is the first time the New York audience gets to see my Building Virtual Infrastructure presentation!
I’m really thrilled about the improvements Microsoft is making to the core SMB protocol in Windows Server 2012. But it won’t really matter if nobody but Microsoft supports the new protocol. So I like to call out to all the enterprise storage vendors: Let me hear your support for SMB3.0!
Microsoft is about to release the third major revision to their ubiquitous network storage protocol, SMB. Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3 will really highlight this technology, and I predict it will transform the way people think about networked storage for Windows systems. But SMB 3 is big in another way, too: there are tons of new features, and not all will be implemented by everyone.
If you’ve traveled much, you’ve probably run across “unlocked” mobile phones and devices. If you own an Android or iPhone smart phone, you probably also heard about “jailbreaking”. It seems like lots of people are confused about these two things, so I decided to write down a quick post explaining them.
IBM has really stepped up their game this year, and they will highlight all this at their upcoming storage technology conference, Edge2012. I’m really looking forward to seeing what IBM Edge is all about, and I’ll be attending and speaking at the event in June.
I am thrilled to return to speak at Interop next week, though not so much about returning to Las Vegas for the third time already this year. This time around, I’ll be on two Interop panel discussions in Mike Fratto’s storage track. If you will be at Interop and would like to meet up, let [...]