iOS 5

How To Update iPhone and iPad iOS Software Without a Computer

November 10, 2011 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Among the many new features in Apple’s iOS version 5 is the ability to update the operating system â€œover the airâ€ without attaching it to a computer. An added bonus of updating in this manner is a smaller (and thus much quicker) differential or delta download. Today, Apple released the first over the air update to iOS, 5.0.1. Here’s how to trigger an automatic over the air update.

Siri is AWOL After Upgrading to the iPhone 4S

October 15, 2011 by Stephen 2 Comments

One of the most important features in the new Apple iPhone 4S is Siri, the voice controlled â€œinformation assistantâ€. But folks like me who upgraded from a previous iPhone might not find Siri on our new Where did you go, searingphone. The reason: the upgrade process disables Siri! Here’s how to fix it.

How Apple iCloud Will Challenge the Storage Status Quo

June 17, 2011 by Stephen Leave a Comment

iCloud is a key enabler of the “post-PC” experience for iOS users. It supports wireless daily backup, storage of purchased music, apps, and books, and synchronization. It also has some interesting Mac OS X features, and it’s free. But the most-compelling feature of iCloud is what it means to future applications on iDevices, the Mac, and even Windows!

iOS 5 Will Support Exchange ActiveSync Tasks

June 6, 2011 by Stephen 4 Comments

One of the most common requests from readers of my iPhone and iPad Exchange ActiveSync guides is support for synchronization of tasks. Added in Exchange Server 2003 SP2, wireless synchronization of tasks has not been consistently implemented by mobile devices. Android doesn’t have it, and neither does Windows Phone 7 (yet). But iOS 5 will indeed include wireless, over-the-air synchronization of Exchange tasks using ActiveSync.

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.

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!

Virtualized and Distributed Storage: This Time For Sure!

September 2, 2014

We were never able to achieve storage virtualization in mainstream enterprise IT because we lacked the ability to identify and move data non-disruptively. This has been solved by caching and distributed storage solutions, and it’s only a matter of time before the legacy need for centralized storage falls away.

The Myths of Standardization

December 15, 2011

I certainly benefit from standardization of the world around me, and I welcome interoperability and interchangeability as well as the price and product selection advantages. But I am not blithely focused on standardization above all else. I will happily use a proprietary solution if the alternative is inelegant, ineffective, or insufficient.

ZFS Is the Best Filesystem (For Now…)

July 10, 2017

ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it’s inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it’s not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small office/home office (SOHO) environment. Here’s why.

Cisco’s Trojan Horse

September 15, 2014

Industry watchers like me have long wondered when Cisco will transform itself into a full-line IT infrastructure vendor. This strategy was tipped in 2009 as Cisco barged into the server market with UCS. But one leg of the stool is still missing: Storage remains the province of Cisco partners like EMC and NetApp.

It’s Time To Move Beyond Passwords (Especially On Web Sites)

January 8, 2016

Sure, single sign-on puts all your eggs in one basket. But this is vastly preferable to trusting that hundreds of third-party baskets are secure, especially when they prove on a weekly basis that they aren’t! It’s time to put distributed passwords behind us and switch to systems like SAML, both for businesses and consumers.

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!

Sony NEX-7 Hands-On Review Part 1: The New Super-Camera

March 26, 2012

It took over five months, but Sony finally delivered my NEX-7 kit on March 8 (my birthday, natch!). After using the camera for a few weeks, I can say it’s exactly what I hoped it would be: A worthy upgrade over the NEX-5, and perhaps the best enthusiast camera on the market. But it’s not without flaws, including some surprising shortcomings. Here’s my hands-on review!

How Fast Is It? A Storage Infographic

October 29, 2010

How fast is a hard disk drive? How about the various flavors of SATA and Fibre Channel? Check out this handy Pack Rat infographic to answer the question, “how fast is it?”