Well, other than paying for it when purchasing a Palm or a Treo, that is. That's why I was startled that Apple is going to charge users for an OS upgrade to the iPod Touch:
The grass looks less and less green when it comes to switching to Apple.
WWDC Apple will release version 2.0 of the iPhone operating system in early July, CEO Steve Jobs has revealed. Existing iPhone owners will get it for free - iPod Touch owners, however, will have to cough up $10.So, phone users get it for free, non-phone users have to pay? Of course, because Apple has total control over iPod market. AT&T would never agree to a pay upgrade for a phone, since they're billing those customers monthly.iPhone 2.0 offers the ability to view and edit iWork documents - files from Apple's own Pages, Numbers and Keynote apps. More users, we suspect, will make use of the upcoming OS' ability to handle Office documents.
The grass looks less and less green when it comes to switching to Apple.
Question from LinkedIn User:
I am looking to purchase a new NAS device for my home network. I would
prefer to have a RAID system that isn't dependent on one vendor for the
harddrives but if you feel strongly about a particular solution please
don't let that stop you from saying so. I expect the solution to have a
gigabit network card and would prefer RAID 1. 500 MB is fine but 1 TB
would be better.
My Answer:
I've set up the D-Link two-drive enclosure for a friend, but his main
need was to share music between a laptop, home desktop system, and one
for his kids. The D-Link product is $170-$200 with no drives, so you
could buy two 1TB SATA drives on your own. It's also sold with two
500GB drives for around $400. It's a far cry from the BlueArc NAS heads
I teach about for Hitachi Data Systems, but hey, it's a home unit!
The Data Robotics product is a bit more up-scale. Think of it as a
4-drive shelf where you can mix-and-match drives. You can start with a
single drive and scale up to all four as you go.
The big question would be, do you need a four-drive shelf? That's
4TB with no fault tolerance, or 2TB of RAID1, either way, that's a lot
of space for most home applications. Base investment in the Drobo
solution is $400 for the shelf, then $200 for the software, then $200
or so for each drive. No argument that Droboshare is much more robust
than other solutions, but the price tag is higher.
What do you have to say about external NAS appliances for your home network?
I am looking to purchase a new NAS device for my home network. I would
prefer to have a RAID system that isn't dependent on one vendor for the
harddrives but if you feel strongly about a particular solution please
don't let that stop you from saying so. I expect the solution to have a
gigabit network card and would prefer RAID 1. 500 MB is fine but 1 TB
would be better.
My Answer:
I've set up the D-Link two-drive enclosure for a friend, but his main
need was to share music between a laptop, home desktop system, and one
for his kids. The D-Link product is $170-$200 with no drives, so you
could buy two 1TB SATA drives on your own. It's also sold with two
500GB drives for around $400. It's a far cry from the BlueArc NAS heads
I teach about for Hitachi Data Systems, but hey, it's a home unit!
The Data Robotics product is a bit more up-scale. Think of it as a
4-drive shelf where you can mix-and-match drives. You can start with a
single drive and scale up to all four as you go.
The big question would be, do you need a four-drive shelf? That's
4TB with no fault tolerance, or 2TB of RAID1, either way, that's a lot
of space for most home applications. Base investment in the Drobo
solution is $400 for the shelf, then $200 for the software, then $200
or so for each drive. No argument that Droboshare is much more robust
than other solutions, but the price tag is higher.
As much as I enjoyed the look and feel of my T-Mobile Dash, I couldn't take the fact that, because it was Winders Mobile, it re-booted itself several times a day. No surprise this statistic:
Smartphones running Linux look set to become far more commonplace within the next five years, market watcher ABI Research has forecast.
The firm's VP, Stuart Carlaw, reckons that Linux will feature on 23 per cent of smartphones by 2013. He added that that share of the market will put the open source operating system in second place in the smartphone popularity stakes, putting it behind Symbian and ahead of Microsoft's Windows Mobile worldwide.
Combine the move to Linux by companies like Nokia with Palm going to Linux for the next version of its OK and perhaps we'll see fewer WinMobile phones.
I do work with a local web hosting company who, up to now have been a Windows shop (IIS, .NET, you get the idea). This works well for them, since their strong suit is database programming and developing e-commerce sites. They've been getting enough requests from both existing and potential customers for blog hosting that they've asked me to get them started with a couple of Linux servers for this purpose.
So, bloggers, I'd like some feedback. What sort of things do you want from the hosting company your blog calls home? I'm installing Linux on the first of these servers today, so the slate is clean. I know the things I'll be doing to enable Moveable Type for the streetcar nonprofit (which will be hosted here), and for the streetcar wiki. I'll also be adding WordPress in anticipation of at least two other clients. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
So, bloggers, I'd like some feedback. What sort of things do you want from the hosting company your blog calls home? I'm installing Linux on the first of these servers today, so the slate is clean. I know the things I'll be doing to enable Moveable Type for the streetcar nonprofit (which will be hosted here), and for the streetcar wiki. I'll also be adding WordPress in anticipation of at least two other clients. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
(cross-posted from my Seashell-Software.com blog)
I wrote an article for this blog back in 2006 explaining the sort of thing I teach for EMC, specifically Business Continuity on large-scale storage systems. Since I'm teaching a lot for Hitachi Data Systems now, I thought it would be a good idea to elaborate a bit on their classes.
First, some background. In 2000-2001, I was doing a lot of teaching for a company in the Boston area that was a training partner for Compaq. They were partners with Digital Equipment Corporation prior to Compaq's acquisiton of Digital, and we continued to deliver classes on Tru64 UNIX, TruClusters, and StorageWorks disk systems. Boston is one of those areas where compter professionals move around regularly, so one of our Digital/Compaq contacts landed at EMC. We were engaged to develop a course on how to hook up non-EMC storage to their then-relatively-new product, EMC Control Center. We went out and acquired some Compaq StorageWorks frames, a couple of NetApp filers, and a HDS Thunder frame.
It was then that I began digging into the sublime mysteries of HORCM. We designed a number of lab exercises involving in-system replication on the Thunder, and showed the EMC folks what could and could not be controlled through ECC. Overall, the class was fun to teach, in spite of some complications involving accessing the hardware for the labs (which was located in Southborough, MA). While ramping this course up, I also was auditing several other EMC classes, dealing with the Symmetrix product line. That's how I came to be up to speed on that product line so I can teach TimeFinder/SRDF and ECC now.
Of course nothing stays the same in this business, and soon one of the EMC contacts we had landed at HDS, right at the time the company was expanding HDS Academy and implementing their new certification program. I was contracted by a company to help with development of two "foundations" classes, one each for the HDS "enterprise" and "modular" lines. These classes are now THI0515, Storage Foundations (Modular), and THI0517, Storage Foundations (Enterprise). After the developer, I was the first instructor to deliver both of these classes. I've also been over to Holland to do a TTT (Train-The-Trainer) class for THI0517.
Unfortunately, the company I was working for HDS through fell out of favor with the Academy for reasons I'm not quite sure about. (I stay out of the office politics as much as possible), so I spent most of 2006 and 2007 teaching for EMC. I made the decision to stay home for a while in the fall of 2007, to work on the streetcar nonprofit and be dad to my 8th grader who made marching band at his high school. When family was pretty much tired of me being home all the time, I e-mailed a couple of folks at HDS to see what was going on, and was immediately re-connected with the Academy.
There are a number of classes I'm qualified to teach for HDS, such as Replication Fundamentals, Hitachi Universal Replicator, External Storage (UVM), and the other topics/products we cover in the Foundations classes. THI0515 and THI0517 are currently popular enough that they're keeping me busy doing those, and I'm not complaining.
The storage arrays addressed in these classes hold a LOT of hard disk drives. The smallest array is the WMS-100, which is the size (more or less) of a half-height refrigerator. It has seven shelves that hold 15 hard drives each, for a total of 105 drives. The largest array is the USP-1100, which consists of five cabinets each the size of a refrigerator, filled with those 15-drive shelves. These storage systems are designed for companies with large data needs.
So, what do we teach in a "Storage Foundations" class? Well, the Enterprise class, which covers the TagmaStore USP/USP-V and NSC-55/USP-VM storage arrays, is a four-day class that breaks down (more or less) like this:
Day One: Introductory stuff, Product Philosophy, Overview of the product line, a detailed hardware overview, and a module on the software that is used to manage the array.
Day Two: Modules covering software products used for data replication. We cover both "in-system" and "remote" replication. In-system replication is when you copy data from one set of drives in a storage array to another set of drives in the same array. The backup set can sit there in case there is a problem with the production data, or it can be mounted and used for another purpose. Remote replication is when data on a set of drives in one storage array is transmitted to a different storage frame in another location. That way, if something happens to your main data center (power blackout, fire, other disaster), you can start up the copy in a different location.
Day Three: Overviews of many of the software products used on these arrays, such as how to implement the HDS Tiered Storage concept. We also cover the various management products which can be purchased as add-ons to the basic frame, such as HiCommand Device Manager, Hitachi Storage Services Manager (a product similar to EMC Control Center in scope), and HiCommand Tuning Manager.
Day Four: Class wraps up with discussions of HCAP (Hitachi Content Archive Program), NAS (Network Attached Storage) options, as well as the data protection and virtual tape capabilities of the arrays.
Whew!
It's fun, I love it. The only thing that's more fun than these foundations classes are the more-advanced, single-product classes, because those involve helping the students work with lab exercises. Those classes are also easier on my voice, since they're half-lecture, half-lab work, and the Foundations classes are all-lecture.
So that's what I'm doing when I'm not home. If there's a downside to teaching at this level, it's that I don't get to teach folks who work in less-technical fields. This storage training is really only useful to IT professionals, and a specific segment of those folks at that. Talking to folks about scanners this morning on Twitter reminded me that it's a lot of fun to teach less-technical stuff, such as ACT!, business card scanning, and e-mail. Still, those classes don't get me trips to Holland, Tokyo, and Singapore. :-)
I wrote an article for this blog back in 2006 explaining the sort of thing I teach for EMC, specifically Business Continuity on large-scale storage systems. Since I'm teaching a lot for Hitachi Data Systems now, I thought it would be a good idea to elaborate a bit on their classes.
First, some background. In 2000-2001, I was doing a lot of teaching for a company in the Boston area that was a training partner for Compaq. They were partners with Digital Equipment Corporation prior to Compaq's acquisiton of Digital, and we continued to deliver classes on Tru64 UNIX, TruClusters, and StorageWorks disk systems. Boston is one of those areas where compter professionals move around regularly, so one of our Digital/Compaq contacts landed at EMC. We were engaged to develop a course on how to hook up non-EMC storage to their then-relatively-new product, EMC Control Center. We went out and acquired some Compaq StorageWorks frames, a couple of NetApp filers, and a HDS Thunder frame.
It was then that I began digging into the sublime mysteries of HORCM. We designed a number of lab exercises involving in-system replication on the Thunder, and showed the EMC folks what could and could not be controlled through ECC. Overall, the class was fun to teach, in spite of some complications involving accessing the hardware for the labs (which was located in Southborough, MA). While ramping this course up, I also was auditing several other EMC classes, dealing with the Symmetrix product line. That's how I came to be up to speed on that product line so I can teach TimeFinder/SRDF and ECC now.
Of course nothing stays the same in this business, and soon one of the EMC contacts we had landed at HDS, right at the time the company was expanding HDS Academy and implementing their new certification program. I was contracted by a company to help with development of two "foundations" classes, one each for the HDS "enterprise" and "modular" lines. These classes are now THI0515, Storage Foundations (Modular), and THI0517, Storage Foundations (Enterprise). After the developer, I was the first instructor to deliver both of these classes. I've also been over to Holland to do a TTT (Train-The-Trainer) class for THI0517.
Unfortunately, the company I was working for HDS through fell out of favor with the Academy for reasons I'm not quite sure about. (I stay out of the office politics as much as possible), so I spent most of 2006 and 2007 teaching for EMC. I made the decision to stay home for a while in the fall of 2007, to work on the streetcar nonprofit and be dad to my 8th grader who made marching band at his high school. When family was pretty much tired of me being home all the time, I e-mailed a couple of folks at HDS to see what was going on, and was immediately re-connected with the Academy.
There are a number of classes I'm qualified to teach for HDS, such as Replication Fundamentals, Hitachi Universal Replicator, External Storage (UVM), and the other topics/products we cover in the Foundations classes. THI0515 and THI0517 are currently popular enough that they're keeping me busy doing those, and I'm not complaining.
The storage arrays addressed in these classes hold a LOT of hard disk drives. The smallest array is the WMS-100, which is the size (more or less) of a half-height refrigerator. It has seven shelves that hold 15 hard drives each, for a total of 105 drives. The largest array is the USP-1100, which consists of five cabinets each the size of a refrigerator, filled with those 15-drive shelves. These storage systems are designed for companies with large data needs.
So, what do we teach in a "Storage Foundations" class? Well, the Enterprise class, which covers the TagmaStore USP/USP-V and NSC-55/USP-VM storage arrays, is a four-day class that breaks down (more or less) like this:
Day One: Introductory stuff, Product Philosophy, Overview of the product line, a detailed hardware overview, and a module on the software that is used to manage the array.
Day Two: Modules covering software products used for data replication. We cover both "in-system" and "remote" replication. In-system replication is when you copy data from one set of drives in a storage array to another set of drives in the same array. The backup set can sit there in case there is a problem with the production data, or it can be mounted and used for another purpose. Remote replication is when data on a set of drives in one storage array is transmitted to a different storage frame in another location. That way, if something happens to your main data center (power blackout, fire, other disaster), you can start up the copy in a different location.
Day Three: Overviews of many of the software products used on these arrays, such as how to implement the HDS Tiered Storage concept. We also cover the various management products which can be purchased as add-ons to the basic frame, such as HiCommand Device Manager, Hitachi Storage Services Manager (a product similar to EMC Control Center in scope), and HiCommand Tuning Manager.
Day Four: Class wraps up with discussions of HCAP (Hitachi Content Archive Program), NAS (Network Attached Storage) options, as well as the data protection and virtual tape capabilities of the arrays.
Whew!
It's fun, I love it. The only thing that's more fun than these foundations classes are the more-advanced, single-product classes, because those involve helping the students work with lab exercises. Those classes are also easier on my voice, since they're half-lecture, half-lab work, and the Foundations classes are all-lecture.
So that's what I'm doing when I'm not home. If there's a downside to teaching at this level, it's that I don't get to teach folks who work in less-technical fields. This storage training is really only useful to IT professionals, and a specific segment of those folks at that. Talking to folks about scanners this morning on Twitter reminded me that it's a lot of fun to teach less-technical stuff, such as ACT!, business card scanning, and e-mail. Still, those classes don't get me trips to Holland, Tokyo, and Singapore. :-)
As I mentioned a while back, I was sorely tempted to buy a MacBook Air. The desire to have a twist-screen for use on planes won out, but wow, it's a very neat computer. Here's the summary from El Reg:
I agree with the reviewer that the non-removable battery isn't a deal-breaker, and even the minimal port count is something I could survive. I could see using an Air as a work-in-coffee-shops system, but I still like working in Ubuntu as my primary OS.
The Air is a 'love it or loathe it' machine, but don't let the naysayers put you off if it offers the form factor you prefer. Of course it's not going to be the laptop to suit everyone - you can buy cheaper or more capable Macs and PCs - so it's not a must have for the price-conscious buyer or the power-hungry. It's pricey, but with the exception of the tiny, basic Eee, the Air's no more expensive than other slim'n'light laptops.
I agree with the reviewer that the non-removable battery isn't a deal-breaker, and even the minimal port count is something I could survive. I could see using an Air as a work-in-coffee-shops system, but I still like working in Ubuntu as my primary OS.
I'm working on the infrastructure for the NOLA Bloggers Bazaar project. I fired up windfola, my 4U, 4-processor (750mhz) Compaq Proliant. It had Debian "Etch" on it, but I decided to experiment a bit.
I installed FreeBSD 7.0, and it went very smoothly. Using the "ports collection" with FreeBSD is an interesting and enjoyable way to build a server. While FreeBSD has packages like the popular Linux distributions do, the "ports" are a different principle. Instead of downloading and installing pre-compiled binaries, you go into a tree structure (/usr/ports), choose what you're looking to install, and run a pre-configured Makefile.
This procedure makes old-school *NIX people more comfortable, since you're compiling specifically for the particular machine. I successfully got Apache2 and php5 up and running with no problem. Still, since I already have a FreeBSD server (shadowfax), I opted to go back to Linux for windfola, in the form of Ubuntu.
I downloaded the "server" distribution of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), burned it and booted it up. Unlike the "desktop" CDs, this is not a "live" boot. It kicked directly into a character-based install. After getting started and configuring the hard drives (I essentially used the same partition configuration that was there for FreeBSD, with ext3 file system), the install asked what server packages I wanted to install. One of the choices was LAMP.
Yup, it said LAMP with a box to tick an X next to it.
Linux
Apache
MySQL
Perl/PHP/Python
LAMP
ORA promotion of LAMP has made them a lot of money publishing books in the last few years, and it's pretty much a no-brainer for most Linux/FreeBSD shops that they'll go down this road. My first LAMP configuration was on shadowfax, and that was a drawn-out process. I fetched all the necessary tarballs, made a pot of tea, and did a lot of web surfing while all that stuff compiled. This time, I ticked a check box and all four appeared on the server. VERY nice!
Of course, the package installs are never perfect, so there's tweaking to be done. I'm using advice from a HowtoForge article entitled The Perfect Server - Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu 7.10) So far, so good.
I installed FreeBSD 7.0, and it went very smoothly. Using the "ports collection" with FreeBSD is an interesting and enjoyable way to build a server. While FreeBSD has packages like the popular Linux distributions do, the "ports" are a different principle. Instead of downloading and installing pre-compiled binaries, you go into a tree structure (/usr/ports), choose what you're looking to install, and run a pre-configured Makefile.
This procedure makes old-school *NIX people more comfortable, since you're compiling specifically for the particular machine. I successfully got Apache2 and php5 up and running with no problem. Still, since I already have a FreeBSD server (shadowfax), I opted to go back to Linux for windfola, in the form of Ubuntu.
I downloaded the "server" distribution of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), burned it and booted it up. Unlike the "desktop" CDs, this is not a "live" boot. It kicked directly into a character-based install. After getting started and configuring the hard drives (I essentially used the same partition configuration that was there for FreeBSD, with ext3 file system), the install asked what server packages I wanted to install. One of the choices was LAMP.
Yup, it said LAMP with a box to tick an X next to it.
Linux
Apache
MySQL
Perl/PHP/Python
LAMP
ORA promotion of LAMP has made them a lot of money publishing books in the last few years, and it's pretty much a no-brainer for most Linux/FreeBSD shops that they'll go down this road. My first LAMP configuration was on shadowfax, and that was a drawn-out process. I fetched all the necessary tarballs, made a pot of tea, and did a lot of web surfing while all that stuff compiled. This time, I ticked a check box and all four appeared on the server. VERY nice!
Of course, the package installs are never perfect, so there's tweaking to be done. I'm using advice from a HowtoForge article entitled The Perfect Server - Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (Ubuntu 7.10) So far, so good.
I'm tempted to play with Ubuntu 8.04 Beta (Hardy Heron). After all, I don't have the tablet functions working on GG at the moment, so I don't think there's anything I'll lose in terms of functionality.
HH installs Firefox 3, though, and that might cause problems with some of my add-ons.
Maybe I'll burn the CD and bring it with me on the next trip.
HH installs Firefox 3, though, and that might cause problems with some of my add-ons.
Maybe I'll burn the CD and bring it with me on the next trip.
and installed Ubuntu on Firefoot anyway, but this is pretty cool:
Of course, if they made SuSe work with the tablet pc's twist screen out of the box, I might even forsake Ubuntu.
HP has agreed to pre-install Novell's Linux distribution on some of its notebook and desktop range in India. However, the computer maker said it currently has no plans to extend that deal to EMEA.
SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10-loaded HP computers will begin shipping to India in the second quarter of this year.
The deal marks HP as the latest big name vendor to provide systems pre-installed with the Linux distribution to the consumer market.
Of course, if they made SuSe work with the tablet pc's twist screen out of the box, I might even forsake Ubuntu.
I go back-and-forth on the whole "browser-based" thing. When I was working in Windows, I was a happy camper in terms of blogging. I used the Semagic client to post to LiveJournal and a freeware program called W.bloggar to post to my Movable Type blogs. Switching to Ubuntu, I gave ScribeFire a try, had some issues with it, and switched to LogJam for LJ and BloGTK+ for the blogs.
The issues I originally encountered with ScribeFire centered around discovery of blogs and categories. At the time, my server was running MT 3.2, and the categories were just not coming up. I lost patience with SF and started in with BloGTK+. That application worked just fine, but only allowed me to select a single catgory per post. If I wanted multiple categories, I would have to go back to the server and edit the post. For LiveJournal, ScribeFire was particularly problematic, because I'm a member of over 100 LJ communities, and post in about 20 of those. My LJ activity is at a level where I really need a LJ-specific client.
When I upgraded MT on shadowfax to 4.1, I wondered if SF would behave any better. I had a brand-new install of Firefox 2.0.12 on this computer (stybba), so now was the best time to give it a shot. I don't know if it was improvements in MT that made the difference or if I messed up something in FireFox, but it's looking good so far.
There are two things I like most about ScribeFire, multiple category selection, and the ability to use different accounts. I post to Linux-Blog.com under my name, but I post to the political and cooking blogs as YatPundit. When I set up both accounts, SF allowed me to select the blogs I want to list, so I picked the ones for each account, making one complete list. With a standalone client, I would have to log out of one account and back in to the other one. The multiple categories is something simple but useful.
ScribeFire also has a split-window feature, so you can put up a page in the top of the browser window and the editor below. I usually slide the editor to fill the window, but the split effect is useful when doing a copy/paste from a source page.
The RTF editor is also a help. I've always been comfortable with using source HTML in a client, but the latest MT presented a challenge with that. If I post in source, I have to use paragraph tags. If I do that, though, the cross-post feature sent extra spaces between paragraphs over to LiveJournal. I'd still have to go back in a LJ client and fix it. By using the RTF editor, everything works smoothly.
ScribeFire is a current plugin up to FireFox 3.04 beta. I recommend it.
The issues I originally encountered with ScribeFire centered around discovery of blogs and categories. At the time, my server was running MT 3.2, and the categories were just not coming up. I lost patience with SF and started in with BloGTK+. That application worked just fine, but only allowed me to select a single catgory per post. If I wanted multiple categories, I would have to go back to the server and edit the post. For LiveJournal, ScribeFire was particularly problematic, because I'm a member of over 100 LJ communities, and post in about 20 of those. My LJ activity is at a level where I really need a LJ-specific client.
When I upgraded MT on shadowfax to 4.1, I wondered if SF would behave any better. I had a brand-new install of Firefox 2.0.12 on this computer (stybba), so now was the best time to give it a shot. I don't know if it was improvements in MT that made the difference or if I messed up something in FireFox, but it's looking good so far.
There are two things I like most about ScribeFire, multiple category selection, and the ability to use different accounts. I post to Linux-Blog.com under my name, but I post to the political and cooking blogs as YatPundit. When I set up both accounts, SF allowed me to select the blogs I want to list, so I picked the ones for each account, making one complete list. With a standalone client, I would have to log out of one account and back in to the other one. The multiple categories is something simple but useful.
ScribeFire also has a split-window feature, so you can put up a page in the top of the browser window and the editor below. I usually slide the editor to fill the window, but the split effect is useful when doing a copy/paste from a source page.
The RTF editor is also a help. I've always been comfortable with using source HTML in a client, but the latest MT presented a challenge with that. If I post in source, I have to use paragraph tags. If I do that, though, the cross-post feature sent extra spaces between paragraphs over to LiveJournal. I'd still have to go back in a LJ client and fix it. By using the RTF editor, everything works smoothly.
ScribeFire is a current plugin up to FireFox 3.04 beta. I recommend it.
