The Day the Blackberry Network Died

Much has been made about the most recent Blackberry outage. Some have claimed that this is the end of  the Blackberry. Others said it reduced traffic accidents.

For me, message delivery ceased around 2AM Pacific. Not a single message was delivered the entire working day. Around 8:30 PM, everything essentially delivered at once. After that, I haven't seen any issues. After all the press bruhaha, I thought it was worthwhile to look back at that 18 hour period.

My own personal productivity was certainly affected by this. I held meetings away from my desk that resulted in a focused discussions with fewer interruptions. All of the same, or more, work got done and it was probably of a higher quality.

Our users - even remote workers - were, surprisingly, relatively unconcerned. The important work also got done via phone and traditional email. Stuff was sold, orders were processed, customers were helped.

Don't get me wrong. The Blackberry is a wonderful convenience. It is very secure, has a physical keyboard to type on (most of the time) and is extremely manageable from an IT perspective. It is especially valuable during travel, crises events, etc.

But, I think that it is important to realize that the device in our hand isn't as important as those around us. Work still gets done as long as we effectively communicate with every one else - no matter what the channel.

Bringing Sexy Back

As I posted last week, I had selected the Drobo as my new storage mechanism at home. However, all of my data was still (hopefully) imprisoned on the no longer sentient server. Windows Home Server uses a custom RAID like software setup to duplicate information across multiple drives.

It is simple stupid in usage. But, when I attempted to boot those drives in another machine I had no success.

Drobo to the Rescue

A cost-effective replacement for my late, great HP MediaSmart server was simply not to be found. I just wasn't able to locate an appropriate solution in the Windows Home Server family. So with reluctance I have moved on.

Welcome to the Drobolicious future! My better half has had one of the original Drobo's for quite some time. Other than a terrible mishap with a 3TB drive, it has served her well. It's not surprising then, that it was tops on my list for consideration to be the new brain in the household. This device is not cheap, but it does feature some great simplicity, improved storage capacity options, direct network access and Apps.

Goodbye Steve Jobs

The loss of a famous person rarely affects beyond making a mental note of their passing. Yesterday after I heard that Steve Jobs had died, an image came to me. I saw Steve Jobs passing into the Great Beyond. As he did, he turned around to hand the baton to his successor.

There was no one there.

Steve Jobs has profoundly affected my life. My very first computer was an Apple II that my parents somehow were able to afford even as they raised 6 children. That computer took me through a lot of school, a lot of projects and forever cemented me as a technophile. Apple and I broke up for a long while after that only to be reunited via a device rather than a computer. The iPhone rekindled my relationship with Apple and Mr. Jobs.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Say it ain't so! The MediaSmart is dead...

After over two years of faithful service my beloved HP MediaSmart server called it quits. As a quick reminder, this is the system that has provided backup, media streaming and some remote access to my data for all this time. It has been a small, silent media powerhouse for that time. The power supply appeared to have died. That rendered it still small, even more silent and not much of a powerhouse at all.

Clearly, I've been quite happy with it so I set about trying to find some replacement hardware. The power supplies for that system were quite expensive. Not surprising since "service" parts for older equipment tend to sell at a premium. What made it even more challenging is that some time ago, HP announced that they were exiting the MediaSmart server business - At least the one powered by Microsoft, anyway.

As a result, hardware was difficult to come by in any shape or form. The few systems I found that were used on eBay were selling for retail prices. The few retailers that still have them were selling them above MSRP! Clearly, I will have some work ahead of me to locate a suitable replacement. wish me luck.