So, as most of you know…even though I work on the Windows platform – I’m an Apple fan. As such, I subscribe to one of our mac mailing list to listen in on what other Appleheads at NetApp are doing. The other day, Albert Y., a fellow engineer in RTP ported an iSCSI load generator to the iPhone. He says he “ported it to run on Mac OS X a while back, so it was a matter of cross compiling it to get a native iPhone binary.” He goes on to say it “implements enough of the iSCSI protocol so that it runs completely in user space.” He ran some performance tests on it (over the WiFi network, I assume), and it generated 100 ops/sec to a NetApp FAS940 while playing music. 
Very cool! Albert – you definitely get some nerd points for that.
I am currently at this year’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles, CA. I arrived here yesterday and have had a chance to check out the Expo Hall, attend the keynote presentations by Bill Gates and Craig Mundie, as well as attend a few of the technical break-out sessions.
It’s been very exciting – it’s awesome to see what all of the leaders in the industry are working on. As far as storage – there’s plenty talk about Solid State Disks (SSDs) and Hybrid Disks, which are quite impressive. I’ve still got a couple full days of technical sessions to check out, but here’s some press articles from WinHEC:
Gates to Tout First 100 Days of Vista at WinHEC
New Windows Home Server Hardware and Software Partners
Microsoft Announces Windows Rally Technologies
Vista Sales Near 40 Million, Gates Says At WinHEC
PLX Technology shows off USB Duet-enbled UMPCs
Fujitsu UMPC concept resurfaces at WinHEC, this time with specs
Is it just me, or is the Playstation 3 interface just flat out ugly? Engadget recently posted a video of a complete walkthrough of the Playstation 3 user interface. It looks so 1990ish – especially when compared to the Xbox 360’s user interface.
It’s not all bad though – the picture slideshow looks nice, as does the video clip preview. Read my last post and this one, and it would appear as if I’m biased.
Back in July, I posted my thoughts on HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray. Personally, I’ve chosen to go the HD-DVD route with the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive. I pre-ordered it on Amazon, and it ships this week. I’ve seen many articles comparing the two, and I still see HD-DVD as ruling the format war, at least in the short term. There are four main reasons for that: 1) It’s cheaper – at least until the PS3 rolls around 2) The ability to have HD on one side of a disc and SD on the other really appeals to home users 3) The standards are higher for HD – required ethernet capability, required multiple video streams for Picture-in-Picture, quicker menus, etc. 4) The compression format – again, Blu-ray is using a 10 year old compression algorithm (MPEG-2) hindering its storage capablities. HD-DVD has been using the brand-new VC-1 by Microsoft since day one.
That doesn’t even go into the production process – where Blu-ray media is burned on the top of the disc, and is therefore more prone to damage….Anyway – I’m excited to get my drive in!
At the Tokyo Game Show (TGS), Microsoft announced that the Xbox 360 will include 1080p support with a fall software update. Now, I won’t be able to take advantage of this, because my TV currently only supports 1080i, but I think it’s a very competitive announcement for the Xbox. It will be able to upscale current DVD titles to this new format as well. Also, it appears as if the HD-DVD player will be available in late November for around $180-$200. Very exciting news – I can’t wait to get one of these!
Read: Microsoft Showcases Library of Nearly 110 High-Definition Xbox 360 Games at the Tokyo Game Show
Now, I wasn't fortunate enough to attend Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference 06, but I did watch the video of the keynote. Before I go any further, I'd like to mention that I am both a Mac OS X fan as well as a Windows fan. But, I have to say that I was a litle disappointed in the preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. I mean, I know Mac OS X has some really great features to it that Windows needs to catch up on. I also know that they only gave a small preview of a small subset of the new features in Leopard. But, the entire new feature set included in Windows Vista is ridiculous! I'm very very excited about Windows Vista, and even after seeing the preview of Leopard, I'm kinda "ho hum" about it.
One of the things that really got me was Apple's constant references to Vista. They talked about how much Microsoft "wasted" on Vista R&D, how much copying went on, how they've had feature X for years, etc. One of the presenters even had the audacity to ask what Redmond's been doing all this time? Take a serious look at that list of new features above, then ask that question again. I encourage you all to read the latest post over at the Longhorn Blogs site, "Apple Shows Off Windows Vista Envy At WWDC." Robert McLaws does a pretty good job of summing up my frustrations as well…just a little more stern about it.
This is hilarious. A few years ago when I started at IBM, I knew a guy who worked for Inrange. A few months later, he worked for CNT after CNT acquired Inrange for $190 million. I went back to school, and when I came back, he then worked for McDATA when they acquired CNT for $235 million. Now, it appears as if Brocade Communications is acquiring McDATA for $735 million. It looks like they want to be more competitive with Cisco Systems. So, just to recap Inrange -> CNT -> McDATA -> Brocade. A few years ago, that would've been all of the major fibre channel switch vendors — now all under the Brocade name.
View: BROCADE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS, INC. TO ACQUIRE MCDATA CORPORATION
Yesterday, I went into the local Best Buy and saw the new HD-DVD and Blu-ray players on display. On the HD-DVD side, I saw the Toshiba HD-A1. On the Blu-ray side, I saw the Samsung P1000. These both produce phenomenal results! I've been dying to move up to hi-def DVD — just being able to play movies at true 1080i (I don't have a 1080p TV) and upscale my current DVD's (in standard def) would be awesome. Part of me wants to wait for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player…but it's so difficult when you walk into Best Buy and see these two units! Anyway…today, I get to work and notice Major Nelson had a podcast Show #183 The one about HD-DVD. I learned a LOT about the two. I highly recommend this podcast. I also didn't realize how strongly people feel for one or the other…check out the comments to Robert Scoble's post about "Grassroots picking HD-DVD over BlueRay?"
Here's my thoughts: Both are awesome! I tend to lean toward HD-DVD just because I hate Sony's attempt to rule the world with Blu-ray…but realistically they're both great! Right now, I think HD-DVD is a better solution. My understanding is that HD-DVD is currently releasing 30GB media, whereas Blu-ray is releasing 25GB (capable of much more). For movies, HD-DVD is also using VC-1, whereas Blu-ray is (currently) using old MPEG-2. What's this mean? Not only is HD-DVD using a much more efficient codec, but it also currently has more storage available…therefore the movies produced are capable of better quality pictures. But — this will change — both Blu-ray and HD-DVD support VC-1. Both are great — and it'll only be a matter of time before we have players that play CD/DVD/BD/HD-DVD for less than $1000.
In relation to my previous post, I’d like to talk a little about online fraud. So, I listed my Gateway Convertible on eBay only to find out that the one who used “Buy It Now” was a scammer. He tried rushing me through the process and I just didn’t feel comfortable selling to this guy. First of all, his feedback rating was 0 – but I do understand that there are new people to eBay who can be trustworthy. Well, he ended up sending me a (an obvious) fake PayPal notification of payment. There were some English grammar mistakes that just seemed odd, and the note said that the funds were being held until I provided him with a tracking number. I confirmed with PayPal that it was fraudulent and he immediately deleted his eBay account and left. This transaction was for $1500, so it’s not like I was just going to ship it off to Nigeria and hope I get the money.
Shortly thereafter, in the random junk mail I get, I noticed a spam message from what appeared to be my bank. My girlfriend was amazed that I knew it was spam. So, this brings me to my point. NEVER click on a link in an email and fill in your personal information…no matter how legitimate it may seem. I highly recommend opening up a separate browser window and visiting the site directly. It’s easy to steal graphics and make a simple page that may appear to be your financial institution in an effort to get all of your personal information.
This is a little old, but with my lack of updates last week it’s better late than never. A while back, I mentioned that I was part of the alpha testing of Riya. Riya is a face detection and recognition service – you upload your photos to their website and once you train it, it’s able to (pretty accurately) recognize those people in other photos that your friends and family have uploaded. It is still in very active development, but it works beautifully. Good news is that they’re coming up on their public Beta. Visit riya.com to get more details.
Riya appeared at DEMO ‘06, and they ended up winning a Demo God award. The presentation, given by the Ojos, Inc. CEO Munjal Shah can be found here.
View Riya DEMO presentation
You can also find great things about Riya by visiting the blogs of Tara Hunt and Munjal Shah.
