I’m floored by what “Enterprise Storage Solutions” cost.  $40,000 to $50,000 will buy you a fully redundant, fault-tolerant system in an integrated package with something approaching 20TB of storage.  However, we can get 90% of the functionality for under $6,000 and 95% of it for under $8,000.  For smaller businesses with big storage needs (such as graphics design firms), here’s what I’d do instead:

Parts List:

• 4 Sans Digital eSATA 5-bay RAID enclosure (Newegg: N82E16816111057 $200 each)
• 20 2 TB hard drives (Newegg: N82E16822136494 $160 each)
• Server:  $1,500 from Dell, HP or anyone else running Linux and Samba.
• 2 dual-port eSATA cards (Newegg: N82E16816132020 $25 each)

What you end up with:

• 40 TB of raw storage configured as 4 RAID-5 fault-tolerant file storage spaces available to Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux clients.
• 29.8 TB of USABLE storage space
• Total cost of $5,550 + tax and shipping charges.

For complete fault tolerance buy a second server, eSATA cards, a couple of spare drives and a spare enclosure.  You STILL come out under $8,000.

You get 50% more space than the “integrated solution” vendors are offering for 20% or less of the cost.  That’s just messed up in my opinion.

After the REACT police task force (for which Apple is an advisor) decided to raid the home of a Gizmodo journalist over the iPhone 4G scoop, Jon Stewart had this to say:

Apple – you guys were the rebels, man, the underdogs. People believed in you. But now, are you becoming the man? Remember back in 1984, you had those awesome ads about overthrowing Big Brother? Look in the mirror, man!

It wasn’t supposed to be this way – Microsoft was supposed to be the evil one! But you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes!

Yes, Apple is reporting the phone as stolen, but the finder did contact them via a support request to attempt to return it (Apple did not respond) and Gizmodo did return the phone as soon as Apple requested it back. Maybe Gizmodo did cross a line, but Apple sure looks like Big Evil, Inc.  rather than the scrappy underdog.  I really like Apple products, but I’m also really disappointed in this heavy-handed corporate giant behavior.  I think this kind of thing really offends the group of people I call “alpha geeks”, and alpha geeks are important to consumer tech companies as they tend to be the “computer guy” (or girl) for their families, friends and coworkers.  So… the behavior is not only a bit repulsive, it may be a stupid move from a corporate point of view as well.

Do I even need to comment?

My iPad has a 1GHz CPU, 64GB of storage, location awareness, spatial orientation awareness, wi-fi connectivity and the ability for it’s various apps to work with one another (e.g.: Pages sends to email, email sends to Photos, etc.).

Our cars have dozens of computer chips, miles of cable and intelligent systems that warn us of maintenance needs and system problems. Newer cars even warn you if your tires need air.

Houses generally have a thermostat for heating and cooling and another for hot water. For most of us, that’s about it.

Here’s the kicker: for most people, their house is the single most expensive item they will ever own.

Why should the most expensive thing we buy — and probably our most important possession — basically be a dumb box?

Why doesn’t our house notice that the HVAC system is using more and more energy to do the same task and warn us that it’s developing a problem BEFORE it dies on the hottest summer night?

Why doesn’t it notice that we haven’t change the filters in three months and remind us?

Why doesn’t it know that we left the door unlocked after we’ve gone to bed?

Why doesn’t it notice that there is a water leak somewhere?

Why doesn’t it turn off the AC when we open the windows?

I went to a talk a few weeks ago where a speaker said “Always have a driving problem”. I do believe that my hobby interest in home automation deserves to be raised to that level.

Our 21st century houses are still largely 19th century boxes. How can we fix this?

This is about my personal reasons for buying an iPad. I think they are going to sell a gazillion of them, but for many different reasons. I’m not covering all the reasons I think the iPad’s time has come. I’m only covering why its time has come for me.

This is my current computing environment:

• a desktop (Ubuntu Linux on an AMD-powered HP Pavilion with a 20-inch screen).
• a Lenovo ThinkPad T500 (Windows 7/Ubuntu dual boot from my employer)
• a 3G 16GB iPhone

My favorite environment to work in is Linux (in spite of how poorly it handles Flash video at times).

Each has its pros and cons.

The desktop is a great work environment for coding, word processing, home server functionality, media storage, etc, etc, etc. However, to use it I have to go to the room it’s in, sit down at a desk and stay there until I’m done.

The laptop is OK for coding, casual surfing, email, word processing, etc. Its plus is portability, but it is not always on nor is it really all that portable, nor is it comfortable to use, nor is it big enough to put coding and output windows up simultaneously. In other words, it does about everything I need (except server functions), but does them poorly. Because of that, I mostly use it at work as a second system when I need to do testing and debugging.

My iPhone is great when I’m on the go. Connection anywhere! I use it a lot at home as well because it can always be near me, doesn’t have to be put to sleep to conserve power, and is therefore great for looking up a quick fact or checking for an important message. However, for anything substantial (even reading articles at the Times or Wikipedia), the tiny screen and dinky keyboard are not sufficient.

Then comes the iPad. It’s small enough to be wherever I am in the house, but big enough to use comfortably for reading articles, checking email, social networking, reading eBooks, etc. In fact, it’s big enough to do light duty as a word processor, blogging tool, and even for Remote Desktop to the office or Secure Shell into a server. For pulling up schematics when I’m working on a project it’s big enough to see clearly, small enough to stay out of my way. It also sports a plethora of casual (and some not-so-casual) games for a few minutes of downtime. In other words, I expect my iPad to become my primary computing device for non-work activities and an important secondary device for work activities.

What’s the big loser as I see it? The ThinkPad. Many people see the iPad as a fourth class of device and are asking “Why?” because we already have smartphones, laptops and desktops. The trick for me is to imagine having two devices: a smartphone and a desktop. If someone was to introduce a third device, would you rather have an iPad or a laptop? There are PLENTY of people that will say “laptop” or “netbook” or the like, but for ME, that third device would be a Star Trek-like pad that does all the casual things I want to do and does them well. For big jobs I’d have my desktop. For extreme portability, my phone. I can’t imagine (personally) choosing a laptop over an iPad as the sweet spot between desktop and smartphone.

Here is Ariel’s rather steampunk creation in brass and laser-cut acrylic: a school supply box made at Techshop Durham. I just advised and assisted: this is her creation. She’ll be 14 on Monday, so I’m pretty darn proud of her work!

TechShop has been a great influence on Ariel. She’s now talking about studying robotics at MIT. Anyone want to contribute to a scholarship fund?

(i.e.: make it out of cardboard first)

I’m planning to use the ShopBot and a sheet of 3/4-inch MDF to make a cocktail table (that sounds so much more glamorous and retro than “coffee table”, don’t you think?) for our living room. I’m designing the whole thing in PartWorks then I’ll feed the plan and the sheet of MDF into the ShopBot at TechShop Durham: ten minutes later I’ll have all the parts I need for a table accurately cut to thousandths of an inch. A couple of screws, a touch of sanding and a coat of paint and I’ll have a first class table for about $50.

We live in an Age of Magic in the most real sense possible.

Ah… the joys of growing older but not up!

Here I sit in my recently acquired reading glasses — which Ariel insisted must be similar to those of David Tennant’s version of Dr. Who.

A glass of wine. A plate of cheese. A load of laundry. Entertainment at it’s finest!

Our old washer (14 years old) finally broke again, so we bit the bullet and bought one a new washer and dryer (old dryer was 20!). High efficiency front-loader. Wow — estimated annual energy cost on the washer is $11!. Better for us, though, is the tiny amount of water it uses.

In any case, it was fun to watch while we sipped our wine and discussed our days. I don’t think it will be a regular evening event, though…

We returned from Ireland a few days ago — I do believe it would be a nice place to live for a while. The Irish are incredibly helpful, friendly, and people-focused. It’s an amazingly cool place.

What wasn’t so cool was the horrific stomach flu we caught. We’re still recovering a week later! Here’s my question:

Did we catch it from the Blarney Stone or deposit it there?