It’s an easy decision: Get a free ProtonMail account and use that as your verification address for important financial and social media accounts. Keep using whatever email account you like for regular communication, but don’t mix security and communication!
ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)
ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it’s inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it’s not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small office/home office (SOHO) environment. Here’s why.
Co-Processors, GPGPU, and Heterogeneous Computing
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about microprocessors, from the many-core CPUs that AMD and Intel introduced recently to the massively scalable GPGPU processing that’s taking machine learning by storm. After years of consolidation on commodity x86 CPUs, it seems that the computing paradigm is turning again to specialized offload processors. This trend towards heterogeneous computing will change the face of hardware, from mobile devices to the datacenter.
My Core i7 Macintosh SE
I recently built the biggest, clunkiest iPad mini case ever, transforming my old Macintosh SE case into an iPad stand. But what to do with that empty case? Why, it’s the perfect size for a custom Mini-ITX PC! Introducing my liquid-cooled Core i7 monster Mac SE!
Download My Free E-Book, “Essential Enterprise Storage Concepts”!
I’ve got a lot to say about storage, as you might have noticed from reading my blog. So I finally sat down and wrote a book on enterprise storage. Now you can download the e-book for free, thanks to support from my friends at SolarWinds!
The iPhone Revolution 10 Years Later
10 years ago today, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, perhaps the most revolutionary technological product in history. There have been many important products introduced before and since, but nothing else was as groundbreaking as the iPhone. Watching the introduction, it’s amazing to see just how many things were introduced that day that have become integral to daily life today.
What’s the Deal with Containers?
Lately, it seems like everyone just can’t stop talking about containers. But I’m sensing a distinct lack of real understanding of the technology from many people, not to mention lots of confusion about what containers really mean for today’s datacenter folks. So I set about learning more and figuring out for myself what the deal is with containers. Here’s where I’m at.
It’s Fine To Mount Hard Drives On Their Side Or Even Upside-Down
Have you ever wondered if mounting a hard disk drive on its side or even upside-down affects its lifespan or reliability? According to every drive manufacturer, it’s perfectly acceptable to mount a hard disk drive in any orientation as long as it’s not tilted and has sufficient cooling.
Here’s Something Your Raspberry Pi Can’t Do: Gigabit Ethernet and SATA in the Olimex A20-OLinuXIno-LIME2
I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with the Raspberry Pi, and have even deployed a few as UNIX servers in my home and office network. The quad-core performance of the latest Pi models is awesome, but serious I/O limitations remain. With just one USB 2.0 interface shared for all network and storage operations, you aren’t going to […]
Free as in Coffee – Thoughts on the State of OpenStack
Last week I headed to Austin, Texas to attend the semi-annual OpenStack Summit there. Along with the usual socializing, I was looking to understand the current state of the technology: What does OpenStack really mean these days, and where is it going? Let’s start with “free”. As “the Internet” is quick to point out, this critical word has multiple […]