August 7th, 2007
What the hell is a Drobo, you ask ? Drobo is a little box that connects to your computer via USB, and houses from one to four hard drives. It does RAID-like things to protect your files from disk failure, and presents itself as a very simple, easy-to-use gadget.
And it costs $500, that’s not including hard drives!
Now I’m extremely biased because
- 1. I’m a super geek
- 2. I’m a storage freak and
- 3. I’m a cynical bastard
But even after considering the non-technical users I still can’t justify the price tag on this thing. All it does is operate a proprietary imitation of RAID-5 on a cheap embedded processor and board, with a cute little web interface and a USB cable. It’s nothing revolutionary, and it’s something that anyone with even basic technical knowledge can build out of an old PC and free software like Openfiler, FreeNAS or the commercial (but inexpensive) NASLite. Sure, a FreeNAS system won’t plug over USB, and won’t look as cute on your desk, but who the hell cares ? Dig out an old Pentium-2, find a bunch of cheap hot-swap drive trays on eBay and knock your thrifty self out!
And spend the remaining $460 on hard drives, hookers and booze!
June 18th, 2007
How to Stop Warez Pirates: Ask Them Nicely | TorrentFreak
It’s all in the headline, folks! It’s an article about an independent software developer who simply asked a warez group to stop pirating his software. Not surprisingly, they immediately complied with his request. You see, the “real” pirates don’t do it for profit, they do it just for the hell of it, because there is a huge demand for warez and cracks and all that fun stuff. This guy wrote a really cool program to do light shows and real-time video effects (sounds familiar ?), so it’s just natural that someone noticed and decided to share this very neat thing with everyone… Read the rest of this entry »
June 4th, 2007
Disclaimer: I’m a prick. No, really! I complain all the time.
Today, I’m going to complain about Linux, A-GAIN! Actually my gripe isn’t so much with the Linux kernel or community, I’m specifically irritated at Redhat, Fedora, CentOS and any other RPM-based distro that relies on “yum” for installing and updating packages… Read the rest of this entry »
May 22nd, 2007
The Market Function of Piracy, by Jerry Kirkpatrick, professor of international business and marketing at California State Polytechnic University.
Prof. Kirkpatrick explains in his article how software piracy can have a positive effect on sales. He likens it to handing free samples to everyone, which is well known to be a costly yet highly effective marketing strategy, and argues that pirated software can serve as free advertising… Read the rest of this entry »
May 19th, 2007
For those of you who are too young to remember Starcraft, GET OFF MY INTERTUBES! Er, actually you can read up about the bestselling 1998 game, maybe google it real quick. Starcraft is huge, even 9 years after its release it is still played by millions of people worldwide… Read the rest of this entry »
May 15th, 2007
I’m always bitching about bad programmers and how they should be murdered and raped (in that specific order), but I can certainly acknowledge talent when I see it. Today’s example of excellent software is the awesome µTorrent, possibly the best BitTorrent client for Windows… Read the rest of this entry »
May 14th, 2007
Sometimes I wonder if I’m getting “old”. What is “old” anyway ? When does one cease to be young and cross over into this fuzzy concept known as old age ?
Allow me to give an example: Ruby. It’s the big fad on the net, a high-level programming language… Read the rest of this entry »
May 11th, 2007
As a long-time hacker (the good kind), I’ve dealt with a staggering assortment of operating systems over the years, on many different platforms. In the last few years, I’ve been growing ever more irritated by the blurring distinction between operating systems and applications, and the nasty problems that commingling has created… Read the rest of this entry »
May 7th, 2007
Hi kids! Did you miss me ?
I experienced a few hours of downtime last night, as a result of some minor tweaking on my server. Actually I just added a 2nd IP address, simple right ? Well how is it that a friggin’ wizard like me, can crash a server with something trivial like adding an IP address ? Red Hat Linux, that’s how… Read the rest of this entry »
May 2nd, 2007
Dell, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, finally confirmed the rumours: Ubuntu Linux will be available on new Dell systems as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. Fuck Ballmer! :)… Read the rest of this entry »
