R.I.P. Floppy Disk
- Posted by esproul at 00:16:00 // //
Sony has announced that it is ending production of the venerable 3.5” floppy disk. Additional coverage at Ars Technica.
Things like this cause me to wax nostalgic (a sure sign of advancing age, at least in Internet terms,) but I’ll simply recall that my first OS (MS-DOS) came on something like 3-4 floppies. We also thought the boot-sector viruses that often rode around on floppies were a terrible scourge. If only we’d known what was to come.
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Will Accept Smart Grid In Lieu Of Jetpack
- Posted by esproul at 14:57:07 // //
- Monitoring
So, it’s almost 2010 and there’s no sign of my jetpack. That’s fine, it probably wasn’t such a great idea anyway (it would suck to commute in the rain). What I am excited about is smart power grids.
Working in the IT world, I’m accustomed to instrumenting a network with monitoring and trending data to keep tabs on performance and identify trouble spots. If a server’s network port is throwing a lot of errors, I want to know. I also want to know who in the office is running BitTorrent and degrading everyone else’s web browsing. It’s only natural that I’d want to do the same for the power “network” in my house. [Read More…]
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ZFS Nuts and Bolts
- Posted by esproul at 14:17:06 // //
- ZFS
Today I gave a technical presentation at the $DAYJOB about ZFS. ZFS rocks my world. As a sysadmin, I use it literally every day, and have been since it debuted in Solaris 10 more than 2 years ago. It makes data storage simple yet powerful. I wanted to share what I’ve learned, and why I think ZFS is so cool.
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Cyber-this, Cyber-That
- Posted by esproul at 16:07:31 // //
Ed Felten’s latest post on his “Freedom to Tinker” blog, entitled What’s the Cyber in Cyber-Security?, looks at the roots of the prefix “cyber” that has become ubiquitous in the public mind. I love finding out the origins of terms that we all take for granted and about which we don’t usually think in depth. Thanks, Ed.
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Welcome to the Future
- Posted by esproul at 06:22:28 // //
Happy 2008. We’re a little behind, you know. We’re supposed to be going to Jupiter by 2010. As it stands, we might make it to Mars in my lifetime. Apparently we’re too busy with all the other pressing matters before us.
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