Claire Chaplais

NAB Show – Las Vegas

April 11, 2012 by Stephen Leave a Comment

I’ll be at NAB Show this year, on Monday and Tuesday, April 16 and 17. That’s literally all I could spare out of my schedule, but I wouldn’t miss it!

Virtualization Field Day 2 – Silicon Valley

February 15, 2012 by Stephen 2 Comments

February 23 and 24 is Gestalt IT Virtualization Field Day 2. This is significant in many ways, but is especially poignant for me because I will not be there. For the first time, the â€œgeekherd’s crookâ€ at Tech Field Day will be wielded by someone other than me, though I remain as involved as ever behind the scenes.

GPS Time Rollover Failures Keep Happening (But They’re Almost Done)

This is week “1111111111” in the GPS system. Tomorrow morning it will roll over to week “0000000000”. How well will various systems handle this change? Not well, judging by what we’ve seen so far!

Ranting and Raving About the 2018 iPad Pro

I remain enthusiastic about the iPad Pro, despite getting a scratched screen and my concerns about durability. It’s a worthy successor to the original and offers enough improvements that I’d recommend the upgrade for just about anyone who uses their iPad for serious work. It’s still not yet a laptop replacement, but this is due more to a lack of desktop-class software for iOS than anything in Apple’s control.

Infographic: Real-World Port Throughput Relative To Thunderbolt (Formerly Light Peak)

February 21, 2011

Just how fast is 10 gigabits per second anyway? To help out, I’ve prepared another napkin-tastic infographic!

Scaling Storage Is Hard To Do

June 4, 2013

Data storage isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially at enterprise or cloud scale. It’s simple enough to read and write a bit of data, but much harder to build a system that scales to store petabytes. That’s why I’m keenly focused on a new wave of storage systems built from the ground up for scaling!

Frequent Flier Kung Fu for Novices

March 12, 2012

If you’re careful, even an infrequent flyer can rack up valuable points and maybe even elite status. But don’t do anything foolish, and don’t be fooled by the promises of first-class treatment. Even top-tier frequent flyers sit in coach most of the time!

Thinking About Storage In a New Way, From Cloud to Flash, with Dropbox and Fusion-io

July 23, 2013

I’ve been a storage revolutionary for quite a while, looking for new ways of data storage rather than technologies that perpetuate the same old approaches. That’s why I’m excited about the implications of two very different API access methods announced by Dropbox at DBX and by Fusion-io today at OSCON.

The I/O Blender Part 1: Ye Olde Storage I/O Path

May 23, 2012

This old-fashioned, predictable storage I/O path was deterministic and decipherable: The server, the switch, and the array all had enough information to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.

What’s (Still) Wrong With Dropbox For Business

April 17, 2013

I am a heavy (and paying) user of Dropbox, using it both for business and personal storage and synchronization. Although I find the service incredibly useful, Dropbox is far from perfect, especially for business users. So I thought I would take a few moments to talk about what I’d like to see Dropbox improve.

What More Could Alan Turing Have Accomplished?

October 7, 2012

Many of you have probably heard the name of Alan Turing, but most of those probably don’t appreciate the extent of his contributions. To say that he invented the modern world is an overstatement, but he did dream up the computers we see around us today, and helped win World War II in the process. But the story of Alan Turing is as much about exclusion and defeat as it is of genius.

What You See and What You Get When You Follow Me

May 28, 2019

Social media ought to be social, not just a broadcast platform. That’s my feeling at least. It’s been a while since I’ve ranted about “write-only” social media accounts, so I thought I might as well do it again. And at the same time, I thought I would update you on my promise to the people who read, follow, and interact with me online.