Google Search is interesting. Over the past 2 months, over 2000 of my posts on this blog have been removed from the index. Not shockingly, it’s hard to tell why. Some of the stuff that got removed were original articles with analysis or opinion, and some of the ones …

If you want a good feel for the advancements in Navigation systems in the last 10 years, you should check out my piece Looking for a Nav system from 2008. The article went through my key issues that lead to my recommendation of the TomTom's in those days. TL;DR …

Rob and I are working on updating our standard environmnent in our data centers. As may be clear already, we're big proponents of SmartOS, which has been working really well for our needs. We've also big proponents of automation (and, in particular, Ansible). Due to a hardware failure this weekend …

I'm generally extremely happy with my 17-year old 2000 Boxster S that I bought new. However, running back and forth between Atlanta means that I've not been driving it as much as I have recently (although quite a bit more than I did in the 2008-2010 period). Last year, I …

For those of us old timers, here's an amusing shootout between a SparcStation 20 and a Raspberry Pi, including both the Pi and the Pi2 (but unfortunately not the Pi0). For those unfamiliar with the SS20, it was a workhorse desktop in the 1990's. Early pizza-box design and pricing out …

Launched just ahead of the first move by the US to switch from first-to-invent to first-to-file, a new site, FirsttoDisclose.org has launched, with the idea of putting your materials in the public view in order to limit other people from attempting to claim patent protection for ideas you are …

For those of you digital photography enthusiasts who use Aperture, here's a little bit of info on how I deal with going out of town with my laptop, but wanting to do the "real work" on my desktop when I get home. It turns out that if you are careful …

Cool piece on Gizmodo about Alton Brown's favorite Kitchen hacks.

I didn't realize the Blendtec guys would do this, but it's a very cute advertisement, especially for a tech-savvy camera, like the new Olympus, which has been getting rave reviews. Watch as fearless blender, Tom Dickson, discovers there's something more to blending than destruction.

Thanks to Amanda for pointing me at this article from author/blogger JA Konrath about the future of publishing and eBooks.

Editor's Note: this piece is quite long in the tooth at this point. I'm leaving it here for historical purposes, but I've got some updated commentary in the follow-on article Looking for a Nav system (revisited: 2018). A friend (Hi, Laura) asked yesterday what Nav system that I would suggest …

It is apparent now, after the airing of New Family (the second installment in Microsoft's new ad campaign), that the object of the ads is to create a more sympathetic, approachable, and perhaps even more "human" Bill Gates. My only guess here is that he's being groomed to be the …

According to an article from PhysOrg.com, MIT researchers have found a way to inexpensively use solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for use later in a fuel cell. This has a lot of promise! Read the details on the MIT site.

So, after reading through all this Vista stuff, I decided that I should blow the virtual dust off of my virtual Vista computer (thanks Parallels!), and make sure I had Service Pack 1 installed. Here are my experiences. Keeping in mind that most of you think of me as a …

Just for the record, I've checked out the Mojave Experiment website (as I said I would in my previous article about it), and my expectations were met. If you look at the feature set for Vista, this is what people are experiencing here... features of the os in a controlled …

If you haven't already heard of the "Mojave" experiment, then you will--likely in the next few days. Microsoft, not please with the reaction so far to Vista, set out to attempt to bolster the new operating system's reputation by offering a "blind taste test" of the OS. What happened? Exactly …

The folks at Revision3 have a detailed article about a Denial of Service (DoS) attack which was perpetrated upon them over Memorial Day weekend 2008. The kicker is that the attack was either intentional or negligent misconfiguration on behalf of a RIAA "watchdog" company named MediaDefender. It's unclear whether appropriate …

Somebody from HEMA (retail site in the Netherlands) put a lot of work into this advertisement It's well worth the click. Thanks to fark for the pointer. Ed Note (2018-11-23) This page appears to be lost to time and Flash.

Stick this one in the extremely shady business practices category. In order to add more revenue to the coffers, a paid upgrade from existing TomTom 910 and 510 maps that currently include locations of Starbucks will result in losing the locations of said Starbucks! Hey, that's darned good service for …

Edward Tufte, one of the preeminent authors and speakers on effective visual communication and design has some things to say about Apple's iPhone. Much of his commentary on the iPhone is complementary, but he has some suggestions, which seem pretty reasonable. If you have a chance, take a look. Thanks …