Grand Central

Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard”: In Our Hands August 28!

August 24, 2009 by Stephen 36 Comments

Apple’s bizarre online store reboot this morning revealed that the next point-update for Mac OS X will be in the hands of the faithful this Friday, August 28! Many speculated on the purported September availability of the operating system upgrade, but today’s information clears the air. Although Apple’s web site clearly states that Snow Leopard […]

iPhone OS 3.0: Apple’s Netbook OS

March 12, 2009 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Apple has a big 2009 planned, focused on mobility: Apple will introduce us to the basic features of iPhone OS 3.0 on March 17. Apple will release a new iPhone handset in June, powered by OS 3.0. Apple will introduce a 10-inch touch-screen netbook/tablet in September, for Fall release. That’s my take on Apple’s timeline, it […]

The New Mac Mini is Finally Here!

March 3, 2009 by Stephen 8 Comments

I’ve been waiting on a Mac Mini to replace my sluggish and crash-prone Firefly/NSLU2 home music and file server, and Apple finally delivered the goods today, after leaving us in the lurch at Macworld 2009! I’ve placed my order for a base-model Mac Mini, and look forward to using Apple’s iPhone Remote with the Airport […]

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!

The 2018 iPad Pro is a Beast!

The third-generation iPad Pro is a great machine but also a bellwether of change at Apple. It will be very hard for the rest of the mobile and client computing industry to keep up with this kind of progress!

Ten Terrible Apple Products

June 14, 2012

I’m often accused of being an Apple fanboy. While it’s true that I love my vast selection of fruity products from Cupertino, I’m not blind when the company makes mistakes. In fact, I think Apple’s mistakes are as enlightening as their successes: They reveal a company that is fallible, sometimes learning but often allowing the junk to rot far longer than other companies would.

10 Mysteries The Lost Finale Definitively Settled

May 25, 2010

The series finale of Lost didn’t settle every question, but it did settle many of the long-running questions raised by fans. Although my live viewing was frustratingly complicated by failed transmission equipment at ABC affiliate, WEWS, I was able to watch the entire episode thanks to iTunes. So let’s settle the things that can be settled regarding Lost.

Scaling Storage In Conventional Arrays

November 19, 2013

It is amazing that something as simple-sounding as making an array get bigger can be so complex, yet scaling storage is notoriously difficult. Our storage protocols just werenâ€™t designed with scaling in mind, and they lack the flexibility needed to dynamically address multiple nodes. So my hat is off to these companies and others who have come up with clever ways to maintain compatibility while scaling out beyond the bounds of a single storage array.

Thoughts on the Modern Miracle of 3D Printing

July 28, 2015

Although I enjoy my AIO Robotics Zeus 3D printer, I’m under no illusions that it’s an economical or practical device. It’s a toy that takes me into the future, and I love being there!

A Fairy Tale of Two Storage Protocols

September 23, 2014

It’s clear how this fairy tale ends. So many companies are using “S3 plus” as their standard interface, and even inside their solutions, that it’s safe to say it’s won the cloud storage API battle. But S3 isn’t a finalized spec – the industry will extend and improve it over the coming years. Soon we’ll have a cloud storage standard based on S3, just like we have a LAN file services standard based on CIFS.

A Complete List of VMware VAAI Primitives

November 10, 2011

VMwareâ€™s introduced the â€œvStorage APIs for Array Integrationâ€ (VAAI) in vSphere 4.1, and block-heads like me went nuts. Weâ€™ve been trying to integrate storage and servers for decades, and VMwareâ€™s APIs finally allowed this to work in truly seamless fashion. But the world of VAAI is a thicket of bizarre naming and puzzling functionality. Some VAAI primitives are ignored or even hidden! Letâ€™s take a look at the complete list.

How to Get Me to Write about Your Company or Product

March 15, 2012

Blog posts are really, really important for PR and awareness these days. And posts on independent sites like this one are critical to get awareness and search engine ranking. I get dozens of requests every week from companies wanting me to write about them. So I thought it would be a good idea to lay out exactly what it takes!

The End of Unlimited Data – Part 1: The Buffet

June 2, 2010

The headlines are all over the blogs: AT&T announced today that they are doing away with “unlimited” data plans and replacing them with limited packages at lower prices. I’m not going to repeat the news – Boy Genius Report has the best overview I’ve seen. Instead, I’m going to explain why I think this is a positive move for everyone involved, including AT&T, the customer, and the US wireless phone industry as a whole. This first post talks about the buffet mentality that got us here.