The nihilistic political campaign against the Chevy Volt…and against American industry - Renewable Energy Magazine, at the heart of clean energy journalism

The nihilistic political campaign against the Chevy Volt…and against American industry - Renewable Energy Magazine, at the heart of clean energy journalism

...great read, sums up how I feel better than any other article I've read to date.

Microsoft Office Live doesn't support Chrome? Really?

Sad to see Microsoft is still struggling to play well with others.

Considering Chrome has upwards of a 26% market share, this is just silly.

Found Treasure, Part 2

I finally asked the writer if he would consider returning a few of my Dad's signed comic book covers -- but he should keep his favorites.  I explained I would pay him if he asked.  His reaction was expected -- a bit surprised; taken back.  He wrote he cherished all comic book collecting -- and this would be hard for him to do.  But he would consider my request.  I waited.


Only days later, I received a stiff package in the mail -- with ALL of the covers!!!  I was ecstatic.  I wrote the writer back to thank him and he explained that my appeal had touched his heart -- especially considering my father had passed.  I thanked him profusely (and sent an Amazon gift card - ;-).



Next I set out to display the comics prominently - preferably with full bibliographic information (yes, even comics have bibliographic information!).


The writer's information the comics was sparse.  So I sought additional online resources, ultimately finding the Grand Comics Database, an excellent, community-maintained site.


So here the covers, with all of the data I mined from the database:

Sabres Up!  Wings Comics #116 (1952).  Fiction House (1940 Series).  Pencils & Inks by Bill Discount [as Dee].

Square It For Barney.  War Birds #3 (Winter 1953).  Fiction House (1952 Series).  Pencils & Inks by Bill Discount.

Ploesti Raid!  Jet Aces #4 (1953).  Fiction House (1952 Series).  Pencils & Inks by Bill Discount.

Silence From Planetoid X.  Planet Comics #71 (Summer 1953).  Fiction House (1940 Series).  Pencils & Inks by Bill Discount.

Kill the Tiger.  Danger #11 (August 1954).  Comic Media (1953 Series).  Pencils & Inks by Bill Discount.

And here is the finished project -- two beautiful frames now hung in "our bar" -- downstairs in the rec room: 

Kelly & I are very proud of them.

Found Treasure, Part 1

Recently, I was contacted by a writer for the online magazine Alter Ego.  The writer was trying to track down my Dad, William, who was a comic book artist briefly in the 1950s.  Apparently, my Dad had sent this gentleman several signed covers of comic books he had illustrated (pencils & ink).  This gentleman wanted to write a story on my Dad's experiences for the online magazine.  Not knowing that my Dad had passed away, he had found me online (no, there are not many Discounts out there!)


So I began a correspondence with this gentleman over e-mail.  I answered his questions about my Dad and his career as best as I could -- after all, my Dad's comic book artist career was 20 years before I was born!  I was almost immediately interested in retrieving these authentic artifacts of my Dad.  I have a hunger for truly authentic pieces such as these.  My mother has an original cover of the Saturday Evening Post -- a famous Norman Rockwell painting -- "Do Unto Others..."

It is signed by Rockwell to my grandfather Lowell.  My mother has it framed in her home.  I've told my mother there aren't a lot of family heirlooms I am interested in -- but that is the top of the list -- by far.


And so as I corresponded with this writer I wondered how I might get my father's signed comic books back.  I thought about how much it might be worth to me.  After all, my father worked in comics only briefly -- and he never worked on any major books.  Would I pay?  How much?  $50?  $100?  $500?!?!


I would be completely surprised at his response...

Recorded on iPhone, edited on iPad!

Kelly recorded two Quarter Mexican performances this summer on her iPhone and I edited them together into this music video using iMovie on the iPad.

It helped pass the time on two cross-country flights!

My New NAS: The Thrilling Conclusion

Finally... we're done.  Here are the fruits of my search for a new home NAS solution.

The Results

I awarded 4 points for each Gold medal, 3 for each Silver and 1 point for each Bronze medal.  

I further weighted my "Most Important" criteria by a factor of 3, my "Important" critera by a factor of 2, and my "Nice-to-Haves" with a factor of 1.

Requirement	Drobo	ReadyNAS	WHS
Basic File Sharing	Gold	Gold	Gold
Advanced Media Sharing	Bronze	Gold	Silver
Storage Technology & Expandability	Gold	Gold	Bronze
Direct Backup to the Cloud	n/a	Silver	Gold
UPS Protection	n/a	Gold	Gold
Remote Access	Bronze	Gold	Gold
Automated PC Image Backup	n/a	n/a	Gold
Applications	Bronze	Silver	Gold
Flickr Synchronization	n/a	n/a	Bronze
Un-weighted points	11	24	28
Weighted points	30	58	54

Un-weighted points results favor WHS slightly -- because it's at least got a story for each of my criteria.  But when weighting gets introduced, ReadyNAS pulls ahead by a hair!

Conclusions

The Drobo is a highly elegant storage solution.  If my requirements were for a USB-based drive sitting on my desk directly connected to my workstation, I would likely buy a Drobo.  Unfortunately, the Drobo falls behind in network and more advanced features. 

I have long been attracted to the WHS platform.  And in this informal survey I was leaning heavily towards WHS.  But I want to run WHS 2011 -- and that presents two significant problems: To date, only one major manufacturer has announced a WHS 2011 box.  Unfortunately, there is no firm release date in sight for the RevoCenter -- and I don't want to wait.  That leaves me with the option of upgrading an existing, end-of-life WHS box (such as the HP MediaSmart Server EX495).  But this is not a simple task, as documented on many blogs and I'm not in the mood for a weekend project of this scale.

The second problem with WHS 2011 is the loss of the Drive Extender feature in 2011.  No one seems to understand why Microsoft did this... but it is a game-changer -- because it means if you want disk redundancy, you're managing RAID on your own.  Having managed a few RAIDs personally & professionally, I can confidently say "No Thanks!"

One of my good friends, Dave Sobel, recommended a home-made WHS 2011 box managing content on a Drobo.  This solves the Drive Extender issue, but I'd still have to build the WHS 2011 box from scratch.  This may be a compelling solution from a technology perspective, but it's also quite a bit more expensive.  And I'd prefer to keep my storage solution to a single box.  But Dave gets an "A" for creativity.

And the winner is... ReadyNAS!

The ReadyNAS is clearly the best match between features and performance.  ReadyNAS satisfies all of my major requirements (and has at least something for my minor requirements).  


So tomorrow, I will place an order for a diskless Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 and 4 Western Digital Caviar Black hard drives.


I'll let you know how it goes!

I need a new NAS Part IV

The Nice-to-Haves and Pricing...

In my previous two posts, I've described my most critical criteria for selecting a new NAS -- as well is the "next most important" criteria.  Here, we'll talk about "nice-to-haves" and wrap-up with a pricing comparison.

Automated PC Image Backup

One of the really nice features of WHS is the tight integration with Windows clients -- enabling a number of scenarios, including direct PC imaging and backup.  

Today, I accomplish this by running Acronis TrueImage Home from my laptop; I do not run it from my wife's laptop (too expensive; too much work to set up).  


For my laptop, Acronis creates an image locally and copies it to the fileshare on the NAS.  

However, just like the ability to backup directly to the cloud, I admire the elegance of a centrally managed solution.  WHS is the clear winner.

Applications

WHS is a clear winner here, with over 100 apps written specifically for the platform by an active and engaged community and professionals.  And the Windows Server heritage means it can run a lot more.  

Even though the Drobo has an app community, the ReadyNAS slips ahead with a Silver medal due to the larger community and app base.  

Although I don't think I'll run a great many third party apps, I liked the interest placed by the community.

Winner: WHS, Silver Medal: ReadyNAS

Flickr Synchronization

I've long used Flickr to manage my photos online .  The hardest part is finding the time to upload & curate my collection.   An app on the WHS platform offers  fix for this problem, syncing photos between the WHS folders and Flickr: Photosync.  That said, this is a user-provided app, and does not appear to be trouble-free. 

ReadyNAS offers an interesting alternative --  Photos II, an officially supported add-in allowing you to host your own photo site from the ReadyNAS.  That said, I've tired of the concept of hosting my own web services out of the house.  I think communities such as Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly even Facebook have rendered the "do-it-yourself" photo site concept obsolete.  But this is still a cool app I wouldn't mind trying.

No published functionality for Drobo related to Flickr (or other photo sites).  There are no real winners here, so I'm giving WHS a Bronze (nothing for ReadyNAS or Drobo).

Pricing

I performed a fairly extensive comparison of pricing across the three platforms, including the cost of additional drives: I wanted latest/greatest technology - little or no compromises.  I settled on the Western Digital Caviar Black line -- Western Digital's top performer in the prosumer internal hard drive space.  Drive specs are:

• 1TB
• SATA III
• 7200 RPM
• 64MB Cache

These drives come in under $200 each on Amazon.com.  


So I developed pricing based on 4 of these drives per machine.  The WHS box -- the HP MediaSmart Server -- is the only box I compared that included a hard drive (1).  The Drobo FS and Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 4 Plus are both typically sold "drive-less".  So for purposes of pricing comparison, 3 additional drives were priced for the WHS box and 4 drives each for the Drobo and ReadyNAS.

The result is pretty much a push:

• Drobo FS: $1,372.94
• Netgear ReadyNas Ultra 4 Plus: $1,401.33
• HP MediaSmart Server EX495 (WHS): $1,393.97

In the next & final post, results will be announced!