tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-255693442009-02-20T20:59:13.997-08:00Personal tech and fictionMarcnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-88804669210053103372008-11-25T18:32:00.000-08:002008-11-25T18:42:42.761-08:00

Had problems installing Sony Media Manager - for ACID 7 and Vegas 8. The help from Sony was pretty paltry - it was a long convoluted process that involved manually removing certain directories - real low-brow software engineering with an end user process that was much more like virus removal than software installation. It always bombed on the install of SQL Server Express, so I started looking

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-47068437307897124842008-11-25T18:24:00.000-08:002008-11-25T18:31:51.896-08:00

I had a virtumonde spyware infection - it also showed up as Vundo. I tried all kinds of scanners to get rid of it, but it always came back after rebooting. Lots of people end up reformatting their hard drives and re-installing to get rid of this thing.Turns out it was residing inside my Java runtime environment. I think it was pretty disappointing that the spyware scanning sites didn't talk

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-6548251154399111412008-05-12T00:58:00.000-07:002008-05-12T02:59:20.113-07:00

I stopped writing this blog when I started up Storage@work at EqualLogic. That one is still going, but I've been spending more energy lately getting InsideIT off the ground at Dell.Whatever, I feel like reviving this blog to write about stuff that involves technology or business, but that might not necessarily fit into either of my corporate blogs.At any rate, I'm hosting the blog now on

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-18134415232456361172006-12-16T17:40:00.000-08:002006-12-16T18:53:04.835-08:00

Al Shugart died this week - one of the brightest stars in the storage universe. Mike Cassidy's blog for the Mercury News does a nice job remembering him. Here's the url (link):http://www.mercextra.com/blogs/cassidy/2006/12/13/al-shugart-dies-well-miss-the-genuine-article/Shugart was replaced by Steve Luczo at Seagate in one of those cruel business turnabouts. Shugart brought Luczo in to help

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-67498699558980872182006-12-16T16:56:00.000-08:002006-12-16T18:54:33.045-08:00

On the east coast for a business trip last week, I got a call from my despondent son. "Dad, the cat ate the wire from the sensor bar on my Wii."That really sucked, because the wire is super thin and although I told him I could fix it, I had my doubts about being able to solder the skinny little things together without screwing up the impedance and signal integrity in the wire. Considering how

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-29968917039159304052006-11-29T22:53:00.000-08:002006-11-30T02:19:43.989-08:00

On black Friday, I got up at 4:45 AM and met my 12 year old son in the dark hallway of a house in Medford Oregon. 30 minutes later we were bleary-eyed and 5th in line at the local EB Games store waiting to spend my son's nest egg on the new Nintendo Wii (pronounced "we") game console. As I was standing there with other parents and their kids I couldn't help but think that we were all there to

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-31995793955407601662006-11-12T07:44:00.000-08:002006-11-15T18:04:18.821-08:00

So now that I've had a chance to digest what I took in at VMWorld last week, I now see a much different future for IT organizations than I've seen before. The thing I like about it, is that this new vision didn't come from industry observers and pundits, but from customers who are taking sizable risks and accomplishing amazing things.System virtualization really is the greatest thing since sliced

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1163001756434238062006-11-08T07:44:00.000-08:002006-11-11T21:01:10.258-08:00

I hate to admit it, but I've been a slacker when it comes to VMWare. I knew it was a big deal, but I never got that close to it before to do a deep dive and try to figure it out.So after joing EqualLogic with my new mission to "Go forth and engage customers" I was directed to VMWorld in Los Angeles (Nov 6-9). I arrived in LA on a day when the temperature downtown was a record 97 degrees and I

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1162688377170469502006-11-04T16:15:00.000-08:002006-11-11T21:01:10.067-08:00

Confusion and mystery are good things for vendors and bad things for consumers. Secret sauces are expensive. The storage industry has many examples of amazing profits borne on the back of opportunistic proprietary inventions.The distinction between storage and data can be more difficult to ascertain than one might think. The concept of CAS (content addressable storage) is an example of how

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1162292627015498702006-10-31T02:06:00.000-08:002006-11-11T21:01:09.823-08:00

So, I've done the unthinkable - I've decided to go to work for a company again. This time its EqualLogic, the storage manufacturer from Nashua NH that is best known as an iSCSI company, but their (our) technology goes too far beyond iSCSI to be limited by the assumptions that usually go along with iSCSI. Enough on that topic for now, there will probably be lots more on this topic in the months

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1160519854544212112006-10-10T15:36:00.000-07:002006-11-11T21:01:09.498-08:00

As much as I hate to admit it, not long ago I didn’t even know what You Tube was. A friend of mine in the media business pointed me in their direction last Spring, telling me that this was a company that had the potential to shake the media world off it’s hinges. You Tube’s platform for personal expression is immediate and engaging. Based on the numbers and my own personal experience, the You

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1149175848291498522006-06-01T06:41:00.000-07:002006-11-11T21:01:09.297-08:00

SUN announced that it is going to layoff 5000 employees this summer. This of course is no great surprise. If you become an ex-SUN employee in the coming months you will need to decide what to do with any stock you might have. My advice is to sell, and invest elsewhere. It's possible that you might regret it, but it's equally possible that it might be a good move.It's not Schwartz's fault that

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1149169176524196842006-05-31T23:09:00.000-07:002006-11-11T21:01:09.078-08:00

A couple months ago at Storage Networking World I saw a new storage product with great potential, but I couldn't talk about it because it was not announced yet. Prostor, a startup in Boulder with a team of industry veterans has developed the ultimate tape replacement product - a removable disk cartridge that operates like a tape. In other words, it is a virtual tape cartridge that looks and feels

Marcnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25569344.post-1146006230994074532006-04-25T07:18:00.000-07:002006-11-11T21:01:08.848-08:00

If you believe that the storage industry benefits from strong management with the desire to compete, Scott McNealy's decision to step aside at Sun last week was long overdue. Despite any sales claims Sun might offer, the storage business at Sun has been the laughingstock of the industry for many years. With the changing of the guard at Sun, one might think that Sun would try to create new growth

Marcnoreply@blogger.com