economics

Edward Snowden Is Right: We Must Protect The Internet

March 19, 2014 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, appeared at TED2014. His video, embedded below, must be watched. You may think he’s a hero or you may think he’s a villain, but he’s unequivocally right about one thing: We must protect the integrity of the Internet and online communications or we risk disrupting the world economy and all of our lives.

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.

Go Get a ProtonMail Account and Protect Your Online Life!

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!

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.

Generation 3 drobo: Fall In Love All Over Again

April 9, 2015

I remain a huge fan of drobo generally, and the third-generation drobo remains the best choice for home storage. It’s the perfect storage device for the long haul, and the performance improvements make it a no-brainer. Get one.

Making a Case For (and Against) Software-Defined Storage

January 9, 2014

Everyone is talking about â€œsoftware-definedâ€ everything lately, so it was only a matter of time before industry buzz turned to software-defined storage. VMware and EMC really stoked the flames with a constant barrage of marketing directed in this direction. But how exactly do you software-define storage? And what does this mean?

Deduplication Coming to Primary Storage

September 16, 2008

Although deduplication of storage is nothing new, with Data Domain and other making hay with the technique for years, it has never been ready for prime time – reduction of active primary storage applications like email and databases. Instead, deduplication has been relegated to second- or third-tier status, deduplicating archives and backup data. But change is in the air, and deduplication vendors are starting to bustle towards the bright lights of primary storage.

What’s the Deal with Containers?

October 21, 2016

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.

Virtual Machine Mobility: Of What, and to Where and in What State?

January 16, 2012

Moving cold virtual machine images from system to system, or even across great distances, is one of the main selling points of server virtualization. But it becomes much more difficult to manage movement of virtual machines that are still running, especially outside cluster or across WAN links. When talking about virtual machine mobility, it is important to consider what is being moved, the state it is in, and where it is going.

Review: Blue Snowball USB Microphone

March 31, 2010

I’ve really jumped into recording podcasts, and am also an avid audio and video conference user. Wanting better sound, I upgraded my Logitech microphone to the highly-regarded Blue Microphones Snowball desktop USB microphone. Here are my initial thoughts.

Why Are PCIe SSDs So Fast?

June 12, 2013

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.