Theron Conrey

Dell World 2012: A Retrospective

December 18, 2012 by Stephen 1 Comment

Dell invited me to attend their Dell World conference in Austin, Texas last week, and it was an enlightening experience.

VMworld US 2012, San Francisco

August 15, 2012 by Stephen Leave a Comment

At the end of August, I’m headed to San Francisco for VMworld US 2012! I say this with quite a bit of excitement because VMworld is always a highlight of my year but also because of the fun stuff I have planned this year: A special Tech Field Day Roundtable discussion, fun meetups like VMunderground, and of course lots of great technical content!

Where Are They Now? A Tech Field Day Delegate Retrospective

July 31, 2012 by Stephen 3 Comments

Yesterday, I posted about the numerous companies that have been acquired after presenting at Tech Field Day. An obvious follow on question relates to the number of delegates to have “graduated” to go work for a vendor in their field. So I put together this follow-up, saluting these Field Day alumni.

VMworld 2011, Las Vegas

August 21, 2011 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Next Sunday, I’m headed back to Las Vegas (for my fifth time this year!) for another enterprise IT event. But this is a special event: VMworld always includes an amazing group of attendees and companies! And for the first time, I’m participating in the event, presenting to vExperts on Sunday. I hope I see you there!

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.

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.

From LAN Manager and SMB to CIFS: The Evolution of Prehistoric PC Network Protocols

March 22, 2012

Computers aren’t much good on their own. This simple fact was evident even at the dawn of the microcomputing age, and has never been more true today in the “post-PC” world. If the standard microcomputer is the “Wintel” box (Microsoft’s Windows, Intel’s CPUs, and all that implies) then the standard network services protocol is SMB. So let’s take a nice deep dive into SMB, past, present, and future!

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.

Why You Should Never Again Utter The Word, “CIFS”

February 16, 2012

CIFS is not the network storage protocol used by Microsoft Windows, and many other clients. The protocol used to share files over a LAN by the majority of personal computers is called SMB. I wish everyone in the industry would get that through their heads.

Why Are PCIe SSDs So Fast?

June 12, 2013

The world of storage can be confusing, with obscure terms hiding massive differences in technology and performance. Such is the case for the latest PCI express SSDs: They are much faster than traditional SAS or SATA SSDs, but many aren’t sure exactly why. In this article, I will try to explain the real difference.

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.

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.

Fasting to Mitigate Jet Lag: Surprise! It Works!

February 11, 2013

I’m a frequent traveler, and thus a frequently suffer from moderate jet lag. It’s just so hard to adjust to a new time zone! But I recently stumbled on a simple method many claim helps your internal clock re-calibrate to travel. After trying it out on my trip to Australia last week, I’m convinced it can help!