A few weeks ago I was looking for a Network Attached Storage device. My search criteria was pretty basic: 1TB or better storage cost less than $150 works with Windows works with Macs Initially the NAS 110 seemed to fit the bill until I tried to use it in practice.  After some trial and error I resolved the issues and now have a usable backup system. Some gotchas I hadn’t thought about before. Compatibility with Mac’s Time Machine software. I found this article on how to convince TimeMachine to use the NAS drive - how to enable time machine on unsupported volumes. After...

If you need to practice on a Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution but don’t have the cash to play with an official Red Hat version, what are you going to do?  You’re going to look for an affordable (FREE) alternative solution.  The solution is CentOS, a distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS stands for Community Enterprise Operating System.  To find a quick overview of CentOS, visit the wikipedia CentOS site. The official CentOS website is http://www.centos.org. My initial experience with installation and configuration was very positive. The user interface was...

It has been 90 days since I first bought my iPhone and the Otter Box to protect it.  I wrote a post about it in January, iPhone insurance aka OtterBox Defender. During this time I have probably dropped my phone more than 30 times.  I have never dropped my cell phone so many times in my whole life.  It must be related to one of Murphy’s Laws; the chance of dropping something increases with the cost of replacing it or something like that.  Here are a few of my thoughts about the Otter Box now that I’ve been living with it for a while? Questions and Answers: Would you buy an...

Today I learned about an application called Evernote.  It’s a note-taking program that helps people keep track of things like pictures, notes, voice recordings, etc.  There have been many apps that keep notes, but Evernote also records geo-positioning information, so you can remember where you were when you had that epiphany.  Another amazing thing about this application is that it is not limited to one or two platforms.  It has been developed to share data across most desktop and mobile platforms.  It can share data across OS’s like Windows, Mac OS and most...

I am planning a trip to MacWorld Expo at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.  In the past, I’ve always driven into the city, paid the bridge toll, then paid for parking there.  This year, I’m planning on taking the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the Dublin/Pleansanton station to the Powell Street station in San Francisco. Some of my concerns when taking mass transit are the schedules, station locations and travel times between stations.  This is where iBART comes into play.  iBART is an iPhone application.  Its purpose is to be helpful to anyone who...