Derek Schauland

Building Virtual Infrastructure – Chicago and Milwaukee

April 22, 2012 By Stephen Leave a Comment

I’m back out on the road May 1 and 2 in Chicago and Milwaukee for two more in my Building Virtual Infrastructure seminar series. Produced in conjunction with Truth in IT, this series focuses on challenging conventional wisdom in data center infrastructure for server virtualization. It’s also a bit of a refresher course on the unique features of hypervisors, and the challenges of building infrastructure to support them.

Storage Field Day 1 – Silicon Valley

April 13, 2012 By Stephen 2 Comments

Storage Field Day has an amazing lineup of presenters, with a special focus on disruptive market entrants. We will start off on Thursday with Kaminario, Nimbus Data, Drobo, Coraid and Quest Software. Friday we visit Dell, Brocade, Tintri, and Pure Storage!

Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, January 28, 2011

January 28, 2011 By Stephen Leave a Comment

This regular series features highlights from the week. I was pretty busy at the Exec Event this week, but did sneak out a few posts about VMware hardware compatibility (SATA/PATA and FCoE CNAs) as well as a review of the Samsung pico-projector I bought for Tech Field Day 4.

Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, January 14, 2011

January 17, 2011 By Stephen 1 Comment

This regular series features highlights from the week. It was another big one for me, with my Network Computing writing gig starting up, the announcement of my Storage for Server Virtualization seminar series, and the finalization of Tech Field Day for February.

Live This Week: Gestalt IT Tech Field Day Seattle

July 13, 2010 By Stephen Leave a Comment

I’ll be reporting live and direct all week from the vicinity of Seattle, WA at Gestalt IT’s Tech Field Day Seattle. I’m organizing this “co-op analyst day for bloggers” event series, and I’m so pleased with how it’s come out. Read on to learn more about the event, the folks, and how you can be a part of it!

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.

Put that camera away and enjoy the view!

April 11, 2012

Photography is an act of observation and contemplation as much as a technical process. Although cameras, lenses, and (ugh!) flashes can seem cumbersome and intrusive, I ask for patience. I promise itâ€™s not getting in the way of life like some entertainment device. My camera enhances my experience of the world!

Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!

July 19, 2017

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!

Replacing Google Reader With Feedbin and Reeder

May 5, 2013

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!

MacBook Users: Encrypt Your Drive with OS X FileVault! It’s Easy and Free!

December 20, 2012

Once you encrypt your MacBook’s drive with FileVault 2, you’ll never even know it’s there. But if you ever lose your machine, you can rest easy knowing that your data is safe. Considering how well this solution performs and that it is included free of charge, there is no reason not to use it!

Nimble Storage Rolls Out an All-Flash Array

February 24, 2016

It took longer than I expected for Nimble Storage to introduce an all-flash array, but their AF7000 looks to be a very credible offering. They’re targeting XtremIO and Pure with their marketing, but I expect HP, Dell, and especially NetApp to be cross-shopped more frequently. In that fight, I expect the Nimble AF7000 to be very attractive indeed!

My Core i7 Macintosh SE

May 25, 2017

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!

Begun, the Patent Wars Have

July 9, 2012

Every day, it seems there is a new lawsuit in the mobile phone industry. HTC, Motorola, Google, Microsoft, and especially Apple and Samsung are actively litigating their way through a thicket of patents. The same is increasingly happening in the rest of the IT industry. But is all this bloodshed really about innovation? Or is it, as one federal judge noted, simply a new form of intense business competition?

Top VMware Blogs 2014: How I Voted

February 25, 2014

Once again, it’s time for vSphere-Land.com’s “Top vBlog” voting. And once again Feedbin and Twitter are full of hundreds of bloggers lamely begging for me to vote for them. And once again, I didn’t base my votes on their begs or my own hunches. Follow along as I explain how I actually voted and why I think you should use the same mechanism. And no, I’m not going to say who I voted for!