Farewell, Weeds.

September 18, 2012 by ianpaullin
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It’s been 8 seasons, 100 episodes and I found myself enjoying the series finale of Weeds on Showtime this past Sunday. The simple plot from the beginning of the series was intriguing and the seemly random but fortuitous chaos, destruction and disorder to (albeit) temporary bliss and harmony made Weeds a unique and entertaining show. I really enjoyed the cast. I thought they were a great fit for the role they were given. Even cast members who’ve left the show were fantastic. The writers did Continue reading →

The new iPhone is here! The new iPhone is here!

September 13, 2012 by ianpaullin
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Okay so it’s not quite here yet but another iPhone is upon us. As an iPhone owner (3G, 4 and currently 4S), I’m not too keen on sticking with Apple anymore. While the 4″ screen is definitely worth a look and the new camera looks very interesting but somehow, all the glamour has worn off of me and I’m just not that thrilled with Apple these days. A lot of these improvements are from 3rd party manufacturers. I’m not saying the iPhone 5 isn’t worth Continue reading →

Thoughts on RAID article from ExtremeTech

September 7, 2012 by ianpaullin
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Immediately upon posting my opinion about Joel Hruska’s article on ExtremeTech yesterday, I felt regretful. I’ve never had the talent for writing. I always appreciate reading from great writers as they’re able to both entertain and educate simultaneously. I figured maybe I was being too judgmental so I decided to give Joel’s article another chance this morning as perhaps I may have missed something critical. After doing so this morning, I realized I did, in fact, misread (or rather didn’t read) the second page header Continue reading →

RAID is not a backup solution except when it is

September 6, 2012 by ianpaullin
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I’m not sure what Joel Hruska‘s article is pointing out at ExtremeTech. I’m approaching this article from the perspective a home user or an individual who is not running any business systems or infrastructure. According to Joel: RAID is not a backup. RAID is not a backup, ever. Not RAID 1, not RAID 5, not RAID 6. The “R” in RAID refers to redundant, not “backup.” While it’s true that a basic RAID 1 will protect against the sudden failure of a single disk, it’s Continue reading →

Windows Server 2012 has launched!

September 4, 2012 by ianpaullin
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I’ve been using Microsoft’s Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate for my own home media/hyper-v server for several weeks now. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the final release. So far the biggest feature I’ve used is Storage Spaces. I’ve also been using Hyper-V but in a very limited capacity so I can’t comment on it too much at this point. I’ll have a full review on Windows Server 2012 probably by October.

Pair programming article from the Wall Street Journal

September 4, 2012 by ianpaullin
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Last week the Wall Street Journal had an article about pair programming titled Computer Programmers Learn Tough Lesson in Sharing. The article highlights both the positive and negative aspects of pair programming in a balanced manner but ends with an example of an organization who tried pair programming and abandoned it. I’ve done pair programming recently and to some extent, I agree with the statement “you just grunt and point”. When two people are correctly paired, the synchronicity and synergy in terms of shared thought Continue reading →

Seagate hard drive format capacity fix

August 26, 2012 by ianpaullin
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Recently, I’ve just built a nice little media server with loads of storage. Six Seagate Barracuda (7200.11 ST31500341AS) 1.5TB hard drives and one Western Digital Green (WD15EADS) 1.5TB drive as a hot spare. I’ll divulge more information on the media server another time. Unfortunately, one of the Seagate drives was only able to format 465GB, well short of the formatted capacity of a 1.5TB drive. A little googling around lead me to a firmware issue. Seagate makes a nice bootable utility (SeaTools) but I could Continue reading →

Just blog it

August 26, 2012 by ianpaullin
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For too long, I’ve procrastinated about blogging. Scott Hanselman’s post is the kick in the pants I’ve needed for quite some time. Needless to say, I’ll finally start saying something (hopefully of value) within the coming weeks. This is yet another tech blog covering .NET programming and some systems stuff.

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