Micro-USB

2016 MacBook Pro USB-C/Thunderbolt Survival Guide

October 30, 2016 by Stephen 145 Comments

So you bought a late-2016 MacBook Pro? Congratulations! So did I! But how will you connect your favorite monitor, hard drives, and other accessories to those pesky new USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports? Read on for my “survival guide”, listing the essential cables and accessories you should (and shouldn’t) buy to go with your new MacBook Pro!

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!

Apple’s Lightning to Micro USB Adapter is Tiny But Useful

October 16, 2012 by Stephen 5 Comments

I’m pleased to have a couple of Apple Lightning to Micro USB connectors in my bag. They’re handy when a Lightning cable isn’t available and are fairly cheap at Â£15. It’s disappointing that these adapters are not more widely available, but third-party Lightning cables ought to begin appearing soon to fill the void.

In Search of the Perfect USB Cable

December 14, 2011 by Stephen 4 Comments

You wouldn’t know it from hefting my backpack, but I’m always looking to lighten my load with clever, compact, versatile cables. With so many devices now using USB for both data and power, I’m always on the lookout for nifty new cables. Here’s a quick overview of a few cables that I found useful recently.

Why Won’t My MiFi Charge?

February 15, 2011 by Stephen 9 Comments

The MiFi 2200 requires a special charging cable. The bundled charger works, but normal folks (like me) might assume that any Micro-USB cable will work. They would be wrong.

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!

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?

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.

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.

On the Death of Innovation, or “These Kids These Days!”

May 21, 2012

An obnoxious meme has returned to the fore lately, claiming that innovation is dead. The hippies did it, or maybe it was the Internet, or even a decline of America. But nothing could be further from the truth, and statements like this make me question the perspective of the speaker.

What’s the Difference Between a Jailbroken and an Unlocked Phone?

May 5, 2012

If you’ve traveled much, you’ve probably run across â€œunlockedâ€ mobile phones and devices. If you own an Android or iPhone smart phone, you probably also heard about â€œjailbreakingâ€. It seems like lots of people are confused about these two things, so I decided to write down a quick post explaining them.

What is VMware VASA? Not Much (Yet)

November 11, 2011

VMware is adding storage integration features to their flagship vSphere server virtualization product line at a rapid pace. From backup to enterprise array offload, VMware is staking their claim. But information about one new storage feature in vSphere 5 has been scarce: The true nature of the Storage API for Storage Awareness (VASA) is only just beginning to be revealed.

Debit or Credit? Always Choose Credit!

December 19, 2013

“Credit of debit?”ï»¿ It’s all very confusing for American shoppers. But the news about a massive point-of-sale data theft at Target makes one thing very, very clear: Always choose “credit” when the cashier asks!

Co-Processors, GPGPU, and Heterogeneous Computing

June 26, 2017

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about microprocessors, from the many-core CPUs that AMD and Intel introduced recently to the massively scalable GPGPU processing that’s taking machine learning by storm. After years of consolidation on commodity x86 CPUs, it seems that the computing paradigm is turning again to specialized offload processors. This trend towards heterogeneous computing will change the face of hardware, from mobile devices to the datacenter.