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My 2009 IT Industry Predictions

December 24, 2009 By Stephen 3 Comments

Predictions are perilous: Get it right and you look like a mere trend-watcher; get it wrong and you look like a fool. So I’m doing something different this year: I’m going to make predictions for 2009 now that it’s over, and reflect on just how smart I am (not) to have made them.

De-Duplication Goes Mainstream

March 12, 2008 By Stephen 3 Comments

Lotsa people use and love data de-duplication (to hyphen or not – that is the question) technology for backup and archiving, but it looks like this tech is about to bust out for primary, live, real, mainstream, what-you-are-using-to-store-your-stuff storage. Big news! First up was the company now officially called NetApp, which officially blessed the use […]

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!

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!

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.

Aerobie AeroPress Review: The Hacker Coffee Maker

February 7, 2011

Computer geeks like me love coffee, the stronger the better. We computer folks are also known for experimentation and a do it yourself ethic. Some of us even love to get outdoors and toss around a flying disc or football. What happens when you mash up all of this? You get the Aerobie AeroPress, the hacker coffeemaker.

Microsoft’s Big Chance to Change

August 23, 2013

It takes a truly-remarkable leader to be willing to kill his old golden geese to make room for a new one; so far, only Apple and Amazon seem willing to forgo continuity in the name of profitable destruction. But new corporate leadership at Microsoft might un-stick the company and awaken the once-innovative Redmond powerhouse. The retirement of Steve Ballmer is welcome news.

The Ideal pfSense Platform: Netgate RCC-VE 2440

September 21, 2015

After some frustration with stability and latency connecting my virtual pfSense router to my cable and DSL modems, I decided to switch to a physical box. I selected the Netgate RCC-VE 2440 as my hardware platform, since it’s the same box that pfSense themselves use as their OEM bundle. It also checks all the boxes with a dual-core Atom CPU, four Gigabit Ethernet ports, and low-power fanless design. Here’s my first impression and installation notes!

Nimble Storage Rolls Out an All-Flash Array

February 24, 2016

It took longer than I expected for Nimble Storage to introduce an all-flash array, but their AF7000 looks to be a very credible offering. They’re targeting XtremIO and Pure with their marketing, but I expect HP, Dell, and especially NetApp to be cross-shopped more frequently. In that fight, I expect the Nimble AF7000 to be very attractive indeed!

Mac OS X Lion Adds CoreStorage, a Volume Manager (Finally!)

August 4, 2011

Mac OS X was majorly deficient in that it lacked a volume manager. This wouldn’t seem like a big deal to the average user, but held back the operating system in so many ways. A volume manager brings storage virtualization to an operating system, allowing storage capacity efficiently to be managed and manipulated. But all this has changed in Mac OS X 10.7 â€œLionâ€ with CoreStorage.

How Will Cisco Recover From The Consumer Strategy Blunder?

January 2, 2013

Cisco made a massive strategic blunder in the last decade, aggressively moving into consumer devices rather than focusing on their core enterprise and service provider markets. It seems that Cisco is now in the process of rectifying this mistake, but charting a path to growth is an entirely different matter!

SMB 3 is Going to be Huge, in both Scope and Impact

May 6, 2012

Microsoft is about to release the third major revision to their ubiquitous network storage protocol, SMB. Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3 will really highlight this technology, and I predict it will transform the way people think about networked storage for Windows systems. But SMB 3 is big in another way, too: there are tons of new features, and not all will be implemented by everyone.