Iomega’s ix4-200d: A Killer Desktop Storage Array
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Enterprise storage, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home, Virtual Storage on 27. Aug, 2009 | View Comments
Iomega is well into its second coming as EMC’s entry-level storage division. First, they applied EMC’s compact and full-featured LifeLine home storage software to existing gear, giving birth to the Home Media Network Hard Drive, StorCenter ix2, and StorCenter Pro ix4-100. Then they wooed the small-business community with the rack-mount StorCenter ix4-200r, adding iSCSI target [...]
Don’t Be Jealous Of The New MacBook Pros!
Posted by Stephen in Apple on 16. Jun, 2009 | View Comments
Apple’s recently introduced mid-2009 MacBook Pros sure do look nice! I am definitely tempted to trade up my late-2007 model, leveraging the excellent resale value that Mac hardware commands. But two of Apple’s trick features for 2009 are already present on my old workhorse: An integrated SD card slot and up to 7 hours of [...]
Drobo For Pros But Not Me
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Personal, Terabyte home on 09. Apr, 2009 | View Comments
DroboPro is here, and it’s quite a compelling offering. It’s generating buzz (DroboPro was the number one trend on Twitter for a while on Tuesday) but is it deserving? In a word, yes. But I’m still not going to buy one!
The Drobo for Pros
Just as in Apple’s Mac and MacBook lineup, the “Pro” name denotes [...]
Handy Gadget: USB to IDE/SATA Adapter
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Everything, Terabyte home on 16. Mar, 2009 | View Comments
I imagine every home computer hacker one day finds they have one too many hard drives to deal with. Maybe you are migrating to a new system or installing a new OS. Or maybe you’re upgrading the disk in your new Mac Mini. Whatever the reason, a universal way to connect any hard drive to [...]
New Mac Mini Is A Diamond In The Rough
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Everything, Terabyte home on 10. Mar, 2009 | View Comments
After a very, very long wait, Apple has finally updated their entry-level “bridge” Mac, the Mac Mini. It’s amazing that, after 19 months without an update, Apple’s new Mini looks exactly the same as the old Mini. But what’s under the hood matters, and Apple delivered a mixed bag there. The new Mini is an excellent home server, which is how mine will be used, but some poor choices limit its abilities out of the box.
Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?
Posted by Stephen in Apple on 26. Feb, 2009 | View Comments
One of the major advances introduced in iPhone software version 2.0 was the ability to sync over-the-air to Microsoft Exchange servers using Microsoft’s ActiveSync protocol. This was introduced to much fanfare with the iPhone 3G and is available on older updated iPhone and iPod Touch units, too. Google and NuevaSync also offer over-the-air calendar and [...]
The Future of Home Storage
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Computer history, Terabyte home on 12. Oct, 2008 | View Comments
Consumers demand friendly, flexible solutions. They don’t want to fuss with their media, and they don’t want simple shared storage. They want integration with multiple devices and flexibility to access their content on any device.
SanDisk ExpressCard Flash Media Adapter: Nifty MacBook Pro Accessory!
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Terabyte home on 06. Oct, 2008 | View Comments
The SanDisk ExpressCard flash media adapter converts a notebook’s ExpressCard slot into a versatile flash media adapter, takes most versions of SD and Memory Stick, and works in both OS X and Windows without a hiccup or even a driver install
Sun’s Excellent VirtualBox Goes 2.0
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Virtual Storage on 04. Sep, 2008 | View Comments
Today, Sun released VirtualBox 2.0, a major revision to the (partially open source) desktop virtualization software. I have long used VirtualBox on my Windows machines as my virtualization product of choice due to its compactness, functionality, and low impact on the host system. Although I’m happy with VMware Fusion on the Mac, I intend to [...]
Switch Day 58: Ten Pros and Cons of the MacBook Pro
Posted by Stephen in Apple, Personal, Terabyte home on 11. Aug, 2008 | View Comments
I’ve now been a Mac user for two months. Since I switched primarily to get access to Apple’s excellent hardware, I thought I would issue an update on my observations about it at this point. I should note that I’m limiting this post to the hardware (maybe I’ll cover OS X some other time), and [...]






