The world of storage can be confusing, with obscure terms hiding massive differences in technology and performance. Such is the case for the latest PCI express SSDs: They are much faster than traditional SAS or SATA SSDs, but many aren’t sure exactly why. In this article, I will try to explain the real difference.
Terabyte home
Repurposing an Older iMac As a Monitor and Server
Long-time readers of my blog may remember my adventures with my 2009 27″ iMac – adding eSATA, displaying all of Hamlet, and turning it into a monitor. That last bit has become increasingly handy lately, as I’ve repurposed that now-old iMac as a monitor and server. Here are some tips, tricks, and lessons if you’d like to do the same!
Replacing Google Reader With Feedbin and Reeder
I am an avid Google Reader user, so I’m thoroughly annoyed by Google’s decision to kill it as of July 1. But there’s no stopping the tide, so I’ve made the move to Feedbin as a Reader replacement as of today. It’s a slick, snappy web application with a committed developer and, critically, support for Reeder, my favorite offline RSS reading application. Let’s hope this works!
How to Encrypt Your Nifty MiniDrive
I am lucky enough to have received a Nifty MiniDrive for my Retina MacBook Pro, and am in process of putting it through its paces with a SanDisk 64 GB SDXC card. One of the first concerns I had is the steal-ability of such a small, valuable, content-rich item. So I decided to protect it using Mac OS X’s FIleVault 2 full-disk encryption technology. Here’s a step-by-step guide and my post-encryption thoughts!
International Roaming With the Verizon iPhone 5
Connectivity overseas can be a real pain. Roaming is prohibitively expensive, so a local SIM is best. But most American mobile phones are “locked” to a carrier, and American phone companies use different network technologies and frequencies than most other countries. That’s why I was excited to test my Verizon iPhone 5 abroad.