Recently in Computers Category

Update: I'm been taken to task for unfairly maligning Windows 7, the final version of which is far superior to the beta version depicted below. In the final version, Hitler's mustache also jiggles.

Via xkcd:

I can remember when an 80 megabyte hard drive was an extravagant, four-figure upgrade to a computer. I remember being blown away in 1998 when I learned that Microsoft's TerraServer project contained one terabyte of data.

Today, I've got three terabytes (that's ~3,000 gigabytes) of storage scattered among a handful of internal and external drives, and that's starting to feel a bit cramped. So, where do you go when terabytes are insufficient?

If you're BackBlaze, a company that provides "unlimited" online backup space for $5 per month, the next step is measured in petabytes (~1,000 terabytes or 4 quadrillion bytes, numbers that make even the US Congress look like an underachiever). BackBlaze has built and, presumably, continues to build its storage system in components that they refer to as "pods," each of which contains 45 1.5 terabyte Seagate hard drives, totaling 67 terabytes. Total cost of each pod: just $7,867. And if you want to build one for yourself, BackBlaze has helpfully provided detailed instructions. It really is a DIY project, albeit a bit more technically challenging than painting the guest bedroom.

BackBlaze has managed to get the cost of a petabyte of storage down to $117,000, or around 150% of the cost of the raw hard drives. This is a pretty amazing feat, especially considering that some of the currently available turnkey storage solutions run north of $2 million.

H/T: TechBlips via Twitter

Correction: As soon as I posted this, I realized that the list provided by Schneier is not his list; he's just linking to it. Sorry for the confusion.

Security expert Bruce Schneier shares a list of do's and don't's for passwords (and in a show of refreshing honesty, admits that he regularly breaks seven of his own the rules; that's pretty extreme given that the list contains only ten items).

I routinely break four or five of the rules, but I won't tell you which ones. I assume that I get bonus points for that. I thought about password-protecting this post to increase my security score, but, to be honest, I don't know how to do that.

I will tell you that I use a password manager application called Passwords Plus (created by DataViz). It's not perfect - there's no iPhone version, for example, and its password generation feature is limited to a maximum of eight characters - but it's served me well over the years. I have to keep track of around 300 passwords for myself and my clients, and an app like this is absolutely essential for me.

Although, now that I think about it, I really should be able to remember all of them without assistance, since I use nothing other than "mypassword." ;-)

I was visiting with a fellow in Bible Life Group* this morning, getting caught up with him and his family. They lived in Midland years ago, and moved to the Bay Area of California to be closer to family. He's back in Midland for a few months, working with his brother who owns a roofing company and thus is extremely busy following the terrible hailstorm earlier this year.

In the course of the conversation, I asked about his wife, specifically where she was working. His reply went something like this: She's a nanny, and works for a family that's pretty well off. Johnny Ive and his wife have twins and...

I interrupted him, making a huge leap of logic: Johnny Ive...as in Jonathan Ive? Apple's chief designer?!

Yes, that's the fellow.

Excuse me for being an Apple Fanboy, but I think it's pretty dang cool that I know someone who knows the guy who created the iPod, the iPhone, and the iMac, among many award-winning designs.

*Bible Life Group is our church's new-fangled name for Sunday School. I guess the latter term sounds too old-fashioned.