blog

Apple Beware

“Please send me that screenshot, I want to beat the snow”. I’ve come to a small coffee shop ten minutes from home to connect and wait for confirmation of legitimacy almost as clandestine as “proof of life”. A gray market seller of an Apple laptop is making the aforementioned computer available, sealed in the box […]

blog

Three Books I Enjoyed in 2018

The coming end of this year usually brings ponderings of the past and predictions for an unknown future, but screw that. Books are where it’s at. I love to read. As a fellow reader, you’re probably looking for books to add to the “want to read” bookshelf. I’m here to recommend three more that you […]

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What about the food?

As a person who’s been in the technology field for more years than anyone should be, I’ve seen my fair share of dark places. These forlorn, apocalyptic and forgotten corners of buildings aren’t shooting locations of the next horror movie but where those of our ilk work day in an day out. Often these spaces will be small, will contain nothing even resembling creature comforts like tables and chairs, and will feature the incessant humming of today’s computerization. You office workers have it so easy with you Steelcase chairs and cubicle walls. Despite the pains of this work (I know there are far worse places to work), I have come to wonder about the food we eat.

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Book Writing

Adding “Writer” To The Stack

Last month I attended a very informal “Meet the Writer” event at my local library. Speaking there was Susanna Kearsley, an author of a number of great fiction books and bestsellers at that. I thought it would be amazing to meet an honest-to-goodness writer and see what she might offer about the writing process, getting published, […]

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A problem like Gary Vaynerchuk

If I hadn’t gotten into this more deeply, I wouldn’t have even pondered it at all. I’d have continued to build the business I still run now, 20 years later. Yes, I know something about starting a business, and I know this from a time before it was as cool and sexy as it is today. Then, I was just like many of the eager young people I see in Gary’s videos – looking for something – an answer, an idea, a vision, some direction that makes this stuff make sense. I was that 20-something year old too. Listless and and looking for anything that takes me to the next level. Hell, if there was a Gary Vaynerchuk back then, I’d have probably watch all of his videos like my niece watches “Graveyard Girl” videos on Youtube.

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A Closer Look at SMS Text Message SPAM

Phishing is the most common way bad guys steal your passwords and hook viruses into your machine. This is routinely done via email, but this practice is becoming more popular in SMS messages in a practice Forbes has called Smishing. Today, I received one such message and thought I’d go deeper and get to the heart of this malicious phenomenon.

how-to
IPv4-Address

Basics: How To Find Your IP Address

Internet Protocol (IP) is the general basis for all communications on local and Internet networks. These communications rely on some basic numbers that identify you to other computers on the local network, and to the world. Those numbers put together are what’s commonly called an IP Address. On occasion, someone in you IT department or support might ask you to provide this number format, and  I’ll show you how to find it.

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Dell 8TB

The Strange Case of Dell VRTX Hard Disk Compatibility [Solved]

Early June of this year, I ordered five more drives for a client’s Dell PowerEdge VRTX server enclosure, This in addition to the currently installed seven 2TB drives that were humming along just fine. My only request from Dell is that these drives be the biggest we can get, and that they be compatible with the VRTX enclosure. Simple, right? So we ordered the $8,000 in hard drives, and waited. The drives themselves would kick of a strange saga of failure and support that I can’t recall since working on another blade system, one made by IBM.

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