News, analysis and context on enterprise technology for the CTO
For many of you Android fans, Aldiko (the free epub/pdf/ebook reader) is an app that you use daily. One of my favorite things about Aldiko is that it is easy to use. I can find epubs all over the place, send them to my Dropbox and easily open them on any Android device. This is great, if you only use one device, or only read one book per device. But if you're like me, and have too many devices, this doesn't work. That's why there is Aldiko Sync. … [Read more...]
As you watch the video below you can form your own conclusions about this natural evolution of robotics. But I'll give you some of my opinions below the video: http://youtu.be/YQIMGV5vtd4 Now some context: As a technologist I would like to remind you all that every future use case for incredibly capable systems like this will involve IT with moving parts, and all IT with moving parts requires IT guys to fix them when they break. So guess … [Read more...]
The Navy Marine Corps Intranet is the largest individual network in the world. The only larger network is the Internet. This huge network sprawl requires a great deal of strategy, concern and planning. Over 700,000 users rely on the intranet to receive IT services. This is a huge network, and the NMCI cannot afford to take risks lightly, nor can they afford to be behind the eight-ball. NMCI uses VMware Infrastructure for a few different reasons. The … [Read more...]
Last week I attended a Carahsoft webinar with Virtual Instruments' Doug Norton and our very own Bob Gourley. The topic was the Federal Data Center Consolidation Initiative, and what Virtual Instruments can do to help prepare your agency for consolidation. The key capability that Virtual Instruments brings to the table is the ability to identify and create real metrics for your data center and across the SAN. VI uses fibre channel technologies to copy … [Read more...]
At Cloudera Day, Cloudera software engineed Todd Lipcon Delivered a Deep Dive on the Core of Cloudera's Distribution including Apache Hadoop (CDH), detailing tweaks and planned improvements to the Hadoop core. Just a few days later, some of these planned improvements were implemented when Cloudera released CDH3, Update 3, and more will be made for the upcoming CDH4. Many tweaks need to be configured by the user, so if you want your cluster running … [Read more...]
While Apple recorded their best quarter ever, Samsung and Google released the most impressive smartphone to date. Appearing on the Verizon network with LTE radios in the US, as well GSM w/ HSDPA+ radios internationally, the Galaxy Nexus is the most groundbreaking phone available. The mix of 32GB internal storage, a dual-core TI OMAP processor, Android 4.0, a beautiful 720p 4.65" screen and high-speed 4G networks make it the phone to measure to. … [Read more...]
Carahsoft hosted a Cloudera Day in the DC area on 26 January 2012. Cloudera executives speaking at the event included their CEO Mike Olson, CTO Amr Awadallah, VP of Product Charles Zedlewski, VP of Customer Solutions Omer Trajman, and Cloudera's Architect Doug Cutting. Doug is known as the founder of many successful open source projects including Lucene, Nutch, and Hadoop. The event was heavily attended by government and private sector … [Read more...]
Special Operations Command (SOCOM) recently released a Broad Agency Announcement soliciting proposals for several types of technologies that they are looking for in cooperation with the private sector. We are interested in all forms of disrupting technologies at Crucial Point LLC and after looking this wish list from SOCOM it is pretty clear they are looking for disruptive technologies as well. Below is a breakdown of what they are looking for. If … [Read more...]
Apple Inc just had their first $40B quarter ever - to the tune of $46B dollars in revenue. They sold 37M iPhones, 15M iPads and 15M iPods. Additionally, they sold 5M Mac computers. These numbers are ridiculous. Right now Apple is stacking away a ton of cash - so much so that it makes the $100M they wasted on a spurious lawsuit against HTC merely a drop in the bucket. These numbers are astounding - but are actually not surprising. In this quarter, … [Read more...]
The technology writer Langdon Winner wrote an interesting book 30 years ago that has a lot of relevance to technologists today--especially when thinking about enterprise security. His core idea is one of technological autonomy. As the good folks at Cyborgology define it: Technological autonomy is a shorthand way of expressing the idea that our technologies and technological systems have become so ubiquitous, so intertwined, and so powerful that they are … [Read more...]