robin harris Resources

Sponsored White Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

Load Testing 2.0 for Web 2.0: Simplifying performance validation for Rich Internet Applications
Live Webcast: Message Security 3.0 - Why today's threats to messaging require a new approach to security
Live Webcast: Reduce Your Costs and Prepare for Tomorrow with BMC CONTROL-M

ZDNet Author Biography: Robin Harris has been selling and marketing data storage for over 20 years in companies large and small. He has introduced a couple of multi-billion dollar storage products (DLT, the first Fibre Channel array) to market, as well as a couple of dozen smaller ones. He also spent 10 years...; more about Robin Harris »

ZDNet Resources

Apple's coming notebook transition: Apple is readying a major product transition. We know because they told us so. In the quarterly financial crime call chief financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer referred several times to a "...future product transition which I can't discuss today". That was interesting for two reasons. First, the...; Tags: Notebook, Apple Macintosh, Apple Inc., Blu-ray, Product Transition, Portable Growth, Desktops, Hardware, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-24
Super flash, hyper flash: Samsung has announced a new SLC flash part with 5x the write/erase cycle spec over standard single-level cell SLC NAND flash. They call it server grade flash. Is this the flash promised land or marketing hype? 5x what? The press release doesn't mention any numbers, but...; Tags: Sun Microsystems Inc., Storage Pyramid, Marketing Research, Storage, Marketing, Hardware, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-17
The edge-centric Internet: Why isn't the edge of the network the center? More computes and storage gets shipped to consumers than to Internet data centers, so consumers should help power the Internet. And get paid for it. P2P vs Internet data centers A new project, spearheaded by National ICT...; Tags: Consumer, Internet Data Center, Data Center, Internet, Data Centers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-16
FTP: untrustworthy file transfer: FTP - file transfer protocol - is the most commonly used method for moving files around Web. Now Steve Frank, a founder and developer for Mac software company Panic, has come out and recommended that people stop using FTP. I wrote about this (see If hackers don't...; Tags: FTP, SFTP, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-14
Attacking phishing at the source: Good news on the phishing front. Google reports that they are now authenticating all e-mail that purports to come from eBay and PayPal. Using e-mail authentication standards including DomainKeys and Domain Keys identified Mail, and working with PayPal and eBay, Google's Gmail now verifies every e-mail...; Tags: Bank, E-mail Authentication, PayPal, eBay Inc., E-mail, Phishing, Financial Services, Online Communications, Security, Spam And Phishing, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-09

Linux for housewives. XP for geeks.: The computer proletariat is rising up - and computing will never be the same. Tiny, sub-$500 "netbooks" like the Asus Eee are the hottest thing going in notebooks today. And some surprising things are happening. Like housewives on Linux. Asus is forecasting worldwide shipments of 10 million...; Tags: ASUS, Computing, Microsoft Research, Linux, Microsoft Windows XP, UNIX, Operating Systems, Open Source, Software, Microsoft Windows, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-06
July 4th, 2008: A trip down memory lane: A 1 question civics quiz Today American's celebrate the Declaration of Independence, the legal foundation of the USA and, after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the United States. I revere the Constitution as a magnificent piece of political engineering. But it...; Tags: U.S., President, Storage, Hardware, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-04
Notebook SSDs REDUCE battery life at 50x the cost: Tom's Hardware is reporting test results that show that costly notebook flash drives actually use MORE power than hard drives - shrinking battery life by up to an hour. How could this be? The test Testing 4 SSDs against a 7200 RPM 2.5" drive on a...; Tags: Disk, Battery, USB Flash Drive, Tom, Notebooks, Engineering, Flash Memory, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-02
Why computers fail: Good failure data for PCs is hard to find: who knows how many times PC users are told to reinstall Windows? But in a recent paper, Bianca Schroeder and Garth Gibson of CMU found some surprising results in 10 years of large scale cluster system failures at Los Alamos National...; Tags: Checkpoint, Multiprocessor, Failure, Computer, Desktop Computer, LANL, Desktops, Processors, Hardware, Semiconductors, Components, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-07-01
Microsoft's manycore strategy: The post on Apple's Grand Central multicore support in OS X.vi had some commenters claiming that Microsoft had already solved the multicore software problem. Far from it. And Microsoft knows it Microsoft has a multi-pronged campaign to get in front of multicore. They're hiring smart...; Tags: Strategy, Microsoft Corp., Multi-core, MR, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-25
Apple announces ZFS on Snow Leopard: Finally, a modern file system on a consumer OS As if Grand Central weren't enough bad news for Microsoft, now they have ZFS to contend with. Building a reliable, high-performance file system takes years and Microsoft doesn't have years to respond. The formal announcement is...; Tags: Disk, File System, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sun ZFS, Checksum, RAID, Storage, Hardware, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-19
Apple's Grand Central threat to Microsoft: Apple's quiet preview of OS X.6 - Snow Leopard - promises ". . . unrivaled support for multi-core processors . . . " through a "new set of technologies" named Grand Central. What makes Grand Central so powerful - and how can Microsoft respond? Fresh from Google's...; Tags: Performance, Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Multi-core, Processors, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-16
The 16 TB RAM PC: when?: The next version of Mac OS X will address 16 TB of RAM. Who will ever have 16 TB - 16,000 GB - of RAM on a home computer? If the past is any guide, some of us will be using 16 TB PCs in 2025. ...; Tags: PC, Storage, RAM, Memory, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-12
PS3 chip powers world's fastest computer: Some scoffed at the 8 PS3 supercomputer. But not the scientists at Los Alamos National Labs. They used the idea to build a 1 petaflop computer named Roadrunner - the world's fastest. Here's how. 1,000 trillion floating point operations per second Fine-grained simulation of aging nuclear...; Tags: Sony PlayStation 3, Storage, AMD Opteron, RAM, Computer, Cell, Chip, Roadrunner, PowerXCell, InfiniBand, Processors, Networking, Semiconductors, Hardware, Components, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-10
Intel's tiny new flash drives: Data on your fingertip Disk drives are going to offer the best $/GB ratio for years to come. Flash drives have to offer something else. A case in point: Intel's new flash drives. Tinier than disks How tiny are they? The Z-P140 measures 12 x...; Tags: Disk, Disk Drive, USB Flash Drive, Intel Corp., Z-P140, Flash Memory, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-05
Mac Time Machine: backup for the rest of us?: Time Machine really works. But is it the best backup tool for you? Perhaps not. Here's what you need to know. Easiest backup on the planet One you are running OS X 10.5, setting up Time Machine couldn't be easier. Plug in a USB drive and...; Tags: Apple Macintosh, Disk, Time Machine, TM, System Disk, Backups, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-06-02
Intel & Micron intro 34nm flash chip: Driving fast on the cost curve. Flash prices need to drop about 50% a year to keep volumes growing. Putting more flash on a wafer helps do that. The new process produces 1.6 TB of NAND flash on a 300 mm (12 inch) wafer. ...; Tags: Micron Technology Inc., Storage, USB Flash Drive, Intel Corp., Chip, Semiconductors, Network Technology, Hardware, Networking, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-05-28
Put some IT pros in jail: Is IT a "profession?" Certifications and professional organizations are window dressing. IT won't be a profession until IT people start going to jail. People who shred paper can go to jail. Why not negligent people whose info system design and operation have the same effect? ...; Tags: Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-05-27
High-end disks dead in 2 years: Dave Donatelli, a senior exec at EMC - the largest data storage vendor - predicted that high-end flash drives will replace high-end hard drives in 2 years. Is this the beginning of the end for disk drives? What is a high-end hard drive? Unlike the...; Tags: Notebook, Disk, USB Flash Drive, Chip, PC Board, Notebook Disk, Serial ATA, Storage, Hardware, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-05-20
If hackers don't get you, maybe Google will: Two weeks ago my personal blog StorageMojo was hacked. Turns out that Google can be a bigger problem than the hackers. Here's how it works and tips on protecting yourself. "Don't be evil" is a pretty low bar There's been a lot of blog hacking going...; Tags: Google Inc., Site, Hosting Company, Hacker, StorageMojo, Blogging, Security, Internet, Robin Harris; Blog posts 2008-05-18