Ford Flex

Hands-On Review: Automatic, a Nanny For Your Car

September 15, 2013 By Stephen 1 Comment

Automatic is a cool idea: Monitor your car and your driving using a Bluetooth dongle plugged into the diagnostic port found on every recent car. But the service itself is frustratingly limited, a dunce driving nanny rather than a useful tool.

Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPhone 5: Hands-On Review

April 15, 2013 By Stephen 5 Comments

The iPhone 5 gets decent battery life, considering how thin it is, but it certainly doesn’t last all day. That’s why I decided to pick up a Mophie Juice Pack Air battery case for it. How does this compare to the Juice Pack for the iPhone 4? And is it worth $99? Read on for my full review!

Yes! Ford Offers “X-Plan” Pricing for Shareholders!

May 21, 2012 By Stephen 12 Comments

I love cars, but I hate buying them. The car buying process can be a catfight or ripoff, and it’s never fun. That’s why I was pleased to hear that Ford offers â€œfriends and familyâ€ (X plan) pricing to shareholders like me. But it’s been awfully difficult actually getting this benefit!

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.

How Smart Is the Mondaine Helvetica Smart Watch?

December 30, 2015

I love watches and technology, so I was thrilled to hear about the creation of a “horological smart watch” base by the Swiss watchmaking industry. One of the first examples of this new breed is the just-released Mondaine Helvetica Smart. I purchased one of these watches, the limited-edition “1 of 1957” variety, and have had a chance to evaluate it both as a watch and a gadget.

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!

The Rack Endgame: Open Compute Project

September 17, 2014

On reading my thoughts about the evolution of enterprise storage, many pointed out that this looks an awful lot like the Facebook-led Open Compute Project (OCP). This is entirely intentional. But OCP is simply one expression of this new architecture, and perhaps not the best one for the enterprise.

The Best Mac OS X Terminal Font: Glass TTY VT220

October 6, 2015

More than five years ago, I blogged about a “stupidly cool” terminal font. Now that Mac OS X isn’t a big cat anymore, I figured it was time to repeat that: If you’re an old-school computer nerd like me, Glass TTY VT220 is the coolest terminal font for Mac OS X!

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!

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.

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.

Defining Failure: What Is MTTR, MTTF, and MTBF?

July 6, 2011

Most computer industry vendors use the term â€œMTBFâ€ rather indiscriminately. But IT pros know that systems do not magically repair themselves, at least not yet, so MTTR and MTTF are just as important!