Technology

SATA RAID?

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Not all RAID cards are made the same. This is especially true for SATA raid. I have deployed over 2 dozen SATA & IDE RAID servers in recent history (mainly SATA, but a few IDE box’s). My recent opinion of them is that they work great until the break. When they break they break hard. You begin to wonder if RAID ever worked right when dealing with SATA RAID. Then you go back to an HP (or even Dell) SCSI RAID server and after 10 minutes of using it, you feel like you found religion or something.

I have used Promise & Adaptec 2 & 4 drive SATA Raid cards and both kind of suck. I have used many Adaptec cards on numerous servers and I have had nothing but problems with them. Today marked the 4th 4 drive 2410SA card that has killed a server. Hey Adaptec, when a RAID card capable of RAID5 loses a drive, it is supposed to continue to function. That is the whole idea of RAID5. Not sure if you know that from the performance of your cards. When losing a drive (1 out of 4 btw) the RAID array is supposed to stay up, the server should continue to function, and when you reboot you are not supposed to have a blank configuration on your card.

Also is it written somewhere that I cannot find that says the 1210SA card does not support hot swappable drives? Because if I buy a server that allows for hot swappable drives, I expect my RAID card (even if it is a cheap SATA card, hey it is still RAID) to like rebuild when I put a new drive in a machine. Oh and it would be really nice if the card would rebuild without being told to. I mean Dell, & HP cards do that. Why do I have to invoke a rebuild every time we have a bad drive?

I will be honest I was surprised that I have had such problems with the Adaptec cards since I am generally a fan of their products. I just don’t know if SATA RAID is not fully baked in general? I have been a fan of SATA for a while. it is a great cheap alternative to SCSI, but a RAID system should be reliable. I can understand if you lose drives quicker on a cheaper SATA system, and that happens all the time for me compared to SCSI drive systems, but the problems I have been seeing go beyond just dead drives. So far the only cards I have seen that show signs of progress are the 3Ware 2 drive cards, and some new embedded RAID cards on HP SATA servers. Ironically Jayson tells me the HP cards are in fact Adaptec or Intel. Go figure.

Definitions are thanks to a great little site called Wikipedia!

Back On The Grid

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I would have written about my return to work, but I got back and things were so crazy I was unable to write about anything. I am back now. Things are busy as ever. I need another vacation.

I am back connected. You don’t truly know how reliant you are on some technology until you are without it for a while. Then you don’t realize how much you may want to do without some technology until you return to it and find it more of a nuisance than helpful. For me I am less of a fan of IM than I was before I was disconnected. I like IM, but it gets really annoying when anyone can interrupt your thought process when writing something by popping up on your screen. There are several people I know who know no IM etiquette. Going without my mobile phone was a bit harder. There were a few times I wanted to make a quick call and couldn’t. The first thing I did when I landed on Wednesday was see if I had VM. I only had a manageable 7 of them. Not bad for 6 days. Unfortunately I had like 500 emails when I got home. I could do without email (or some email) for a while, but it is still something that I use and is helpful more than harmful.

Now that I am back online, I hope to get some more writing done.

Replacing Outlook Update

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I have not been 100% successful at getting rid of my Microsoft PIM. I am still using Entourage for Calendar and Tasks. Thankfully I am not using outlook for anything anymore. The apple PIM (address, iCal, etc) do not sync categories with my Treo, and all other (non MSFT) alternatives have one draw back or another. So instead of buying another package that will work but still be lacking in one or two key areas I decided to stick with Entourage (i already bought it) and live with its drawbacks for now. I sync address book contacts from entourage and address book via a sync conduit. That lets me keep my Treo updated, and have Mail, Bluephone Elite, and iCal have the latest contact information also.

So far this setup has been working out for the most part. I am also doing 99% of my day to day “office” work on my Mac now. I still use my Thinpad and desktop computers for specific tasks, but my Powerbook is now truly my main computer, and I wouldn’t have it any other way (right now).

Sold A Mini

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Kai bought one of my Mac Mini’s last week. He was eyeing the Mac for a while, and I think me selling Chris my old powerbook sent him over the edge. I got a decent resale price, and Kai got a deal off of what he would have paid in the store. Win Win! From what he says he is already a fan, and doesn’t know why more people don’t use OS X. I agree with him.

He wont admit it, but his mini is now his primary home computer. Next up is converting Jayson. Converting Danny may be a lost cause!

Addicted To Outlook No More

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If Microsoft Outlook was a drug, for me I think it would be crack. When it came out in 96/97 (i can’t remember exactly when) I was addicted after about a day or two. It was by far better than anything else out there at the time. I went to great lengths to use it. When I was at BM in 1997 we used CC Mail. I went extraordinary measures to get outlook to work while still using the CC Mail system. Our mail admin (a friend of mine at the time) almost had kittens when she realized I was using a MAPI conduit getting CC Mail into Outlook. I had to promise never to tell anyone else that it was possible.

When I couldn’t use an exchange server somewhere (i don’t remember what job) I ended up building my own so I could have outlook with all my contacts and stuff both at home and at work.

Back in the day (meaning 2000 or so for this conversation) it was great. I would use it daily. it would be my central program no matter where I was or what I was doing. Email being a lifeline when I traveled and a necessity in every other job I have had.

Over the past 3 years (wow it has been exactly 3 years this month) I have gone from a curious interest in Mac’s to using one as virtually my primary machine at work, and almost exclusively at home. One problem I had was no outlook. First I used OS 9 classic outlook. it was a poor replacement for the real thing. My addiction stuck and I always went back to my PC for good old comfy outlook. The problem was around the time I started getting really into Mac’s I found that Outlook was not the great program it used to be. I was still stuck on it, but it would crash, perform slowly, etc. From XP to 2003 was a great improvement in looks, but everything else was horrible. yet I was addicted to using 2003. It sucked, and I knew it yet I still used it.

Late last year I bought Office 2004 for the mac. Entourage then became my poor alternative for Outlook. When I was on my Mac I would use it, but I still always went back to Outlook. My Treo (or any other Palm or Pocket PC I had) would sync with outlook. Whatever computer had my primary outlook PST file on it became my “main PC”.

Then Mac OS 10.4 came out. That along with the missing sync and a few other utilities allowed me to start weaning off of Outlook, and by extension Windows in general. First I moved everything into Entourage, but that became a similar drug like Outlook. It was bad, and yet I found I had no choice to use it, so I was stuck on it. I found some utilities that would sync apple’s iCal and Address book to Entourage and used that for the past 3 weeks. I have had so much data corruption because of the syncing I gave up on that idea.

I stopped using Entourage for my email last week, and moved over to Apple Mail. Integration makes me move programs. the integration between mail, address book, and ichat is amazing. All that was left was the PIN functionality I used in Outlook and more recently Entourage.

So today I start what I consider my final rehab. I backed up entourage and did one last synch to iCal and Address book. I then took my Treo and did a sync to those programs instead of Entourage. I hope this is the first day of my long future of not using Microsoft PIM’s. Even if my company goes to Exchange I can still use iCal. This solution isn’t without some trade offs. Some of them I haven’t even addressed yet, but I hope it is better than what I was doing before.

I haven’t done a sync to outlook in weeks. I only use it for IMAP mail when I am on a windows box. My PST files do contain email archives and contact archives going back to 1997, but I am using other programs to export that data to other formats that are less proprietary.

For now I am happy with my “rehab” of address book and ical. We shall see if I break down and go back, but I am hopeful I don’t.

Presence Aware Software

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I wrote about Bluephone Elite a few weeks ago. It has a few quirks, but I am still amazed at how simple and yet amazing this software is. Besides extending your phone to your computer by using caller id, Address book integration, SMS via a real keyboard, etc. one of the most amazing features is very subtle. For me this software is the first presence aware pieces of software. What do I mean? The phone I use has bluetooth in it. it is paired with my computer. That is how this software works. Bluephone Elite (via bluetooth) knows when you are on a call. It will pause itunes, or a DVD movie for you when you are on the phone. But it goes a step further. It knows when you are not around. Bluetooth has a 30 foot limit. When the software cannot see your phone it will think that you are out of range of the computer along with your phone. Once it knows that, it will pause any movies and music again. it will also mark your iChat as “on the phone…”. When you return into range you can have everything start up again, or have the software ask you if you want to return and bring chats back online.

Instead of RFID, this software knows where you are by a device (your phone) that it (rightfully so) assumes will be with you most of the time. Think of the other applications of this type of setup? I don’t know why there is not Windows software that can do this?

Needless to say once the trial period of this software ran out, I went out and bought the full license.

Outlook Extractor

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I found a program (actually several) that allow me to extract mail from an Outlook PST file to different file formats. We had a need at work to do this, and I also had some uses for it. All the tools worked great, but I chose Outlook Extract 1.3.x. I can pull out entire messages, and attachments into txt and html files, while keeping Outlooks file structure. I can keep the attachments with the email or dump them into a folder someplace. I am now extracting mail out of bloated 2gig PST files. What is funny is that I thought lots of 1kb files would be larger on the disk than the one big PST store, but I was wrong. It looks like the individual messages take up less space on the disk!

The New Razr

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I bought a new Razr (Motorola V3 Razr) last week. After a week of issues with getting it shipped, the place I bought it from on eBay came through and dropped it to me via Fedex Saturday delivery. I guess they had issues getting the phone unlocked like the auction said. After a (minor) fit by me the guy got the new phone to me before my trip. I charged it up yesterday and I am now trying to use it as my main phone. The Treo is not going away just yet. Since I cannot find a palm with a good keyboard the Treo will remain at least as a PDA for a while. I also do find times where I like to put the SIM in it and use it instead of the Razr. I did that with my old Sony Ericsson T-610 for the past week and a half.

First impressions on the Razr is NICE! Besides the address book, I find the phone very nice. Slim, good sound quaility, nice screen, etc. It was trivial to sync with my Powerbook.

Like I said the only issue I have is the address book. I don’t like that it doesn’t have 1 contact for each person, with a sub section for each phone number. Instead it has a different entry for every phone number for every contact.

Setting up the Razr to be a wireless modem for my Powerbook was also simple. I found the scripts for the phone allong with some nice tips off of some guys blog and he was dead on.

Remote Problems

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Tuesday I had to deal with problems while I was 2000+ miles and 3 time zones away. First we are having lingering issues with a mail server. No one can log into it locally but the email services are running. so for now we are in a wait and see state with it. we are making sure we have good backups of everything on the box before we mess with it more. Also Kai and I being away isn’t helping.

A reporting function of Zeacom failed again. The only solution is to reboot the system. This is what the brain trust at Zeacom support tells us. Rebooting that system is not without its own risks. Kai and I are the only ones who have rebooted it before. Brian will do it tonight, but it will be his first time. He has seen Kai do it so hopefully we have no issues.

We also had performance issues with Jabber and some other minor crap. I had to juggle this, Dan complaining of site performance issues and 4 lectures. it was a busy day. The problem with the site performance issues is we see nothing wrong on our end. Dan is just frustrated. Not sure what else we can do (from my end) right now. it is not like the local director is acting up again (thank goodness), that I can make a change and magically it is all better. that is what he is hoping for.

Why Don’t They Make This Stuff On The PC?

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So if you have been reading this site recently you will have noticed that I am on a “Mac is great” kick. I am becoming one of those people. Yup. There is a reason though. Some of this software that integrates on the Mac is fantastic. either there is nothing like it on the PC, or it is just easier (allot easier). For example I found a Bluetooth product called BluePhoneElite. It takes your bluetooth phone and uses your mac to do some crazy stuff. It flashes caller id on the mac screen when the phone rings, then when you answer it the software pauses any dvd’s or itunes you may have playing. Once you are done with your call it turns everything back on. How cool (and actually useful) is that? You can also dial numbers and send SMS mail from the program, see signal and battery strength, and more. It even changes your iChat status to away when you walk out of range with the phone and changes it back when you return. Why can’t I fund useful software like that for the PC that actually works? Another reason why I use my powerbook more and more each day.

I also just got Merlin. It is a MS Project like program for the Mac. It is half the price, and writes to Project files or Project XML files. I did a test and it imported and exported a 200 line project file I did in no time. The integration into the mac iCal and Address book was also very useful. I use project on my PC, but this just seemed to work better. Maybe I am just caught up in the whole coolness factor, but I felt this product was just simpler and more powerful to use than MS Project. Another program that I don’t need windows for!

Jayson and I are spending more of our spare time recently finding replacements to our old standard Windows programs. He is happy working on his thinkpad with a dual boot of Suse 9.3 and Windows XP. He almost never uses XP anymore. He is using more open source software than I. He has to since he is using Suse, and I am on my Mac. I am going to dual boot my thinkpad when I get back from my trip.