United Airlines

Transformative Success – My Thoughts on the Apple Watch, Part 1

September 14, 2014 by Stephen Leave a Comment

Although it won’t be available for purchase for months, Apple just announced the new standard in smart watches and wearable computers. It’s as far ahead of the status quo as the iPhone was from the “smart” phone pack on its introduction back in 2007. But as it stands, the Apple Watch doesn’t transform the market: Although it will undoubtedly capture most of the smart watch market, this isn’t yet a transformative product for modern society like the iPhone or iPad.

Beta Testing United’s Wi-Fi-Based In-Flight Entertainment

August 24, 2014 by Stephen 3 Comments

I got to try out the new in-flight entertainment system from United Airlines on this morning’s flight from Cleveland to San Francisco. This Wi-Fi-based system allows streaming of movies and TV shows to laptops and apple iPad and iPhone devices and is much more satisfying than the old ceiling- or seat-mounted systems.

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.

Why I Am Biased Against FCoE

October 21, 2011

I am biased against FCoE because it’s too new to be blithely and broadly recommended for production enterprise use. That’s all. Yes, the standards are standardized and there are products extant. But that’s not enough for me.

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.

Scaling Storage Is Hard To Do

June 4, 2013

Data storage isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially at enterprise or cloud scale. It’s simple enough to read and write a bit of data, but much harder to build a system that scales to store petabytes. That’s why I’m keenly focused on a new wave of storage systems built from the ground up for scaling!

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!

Storage Changes in VMware vSphere 5.1

September 4, 2012

As I have done since version 3.5, I’m charting the storage changes in VMware’s latest release of vSphere, 5.1. Unlike version 5, which included many new technical storage features, 5.1 mainly tweaks existing features and adds these new elements to the mix.

Frequent Flier Kung Fu for Novices

March 12, 2012

If you’re careful, even an infrequent flyer can rack up valuable points and maybe even elite status. But don’t do anything foolish, and don’t be fooled by the promises of first-class treatment. Even top-tier frequent flyers sit in coach most of the time!

How To Keep Your Family Activities In Sync With A Shared Google Calendar

April 18, 2010

Smartphones, computers, and iPads are proliferating in families today. Although my three kids do not (yet) have their own mobile phones, we still have quite a few devices with calendar functions: An iPhone each for me, my wife, and our au pair along with an iPad and a few computers. Using Google Calendar, we have set up an awesome shared calendar to keep all of our activities in sync. Read on for instructions!

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.