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Every once in a while I come across an iPhone app that is just plain essential.  This was the case when I first installed MyPhoneDesktop.  This app brings functionality to the iPhone that Apple should have included in the operating system.

Many iPhone users sit in front of a computer working for hours each day.  While they sit at their Mac working, their iPhone is dutifully at hand waiting to be used.  Need to text a friend?  Grab the iPhone and fire off a message and then its back to the Mac and the work at hand.  But with MyPhoneDesktop, the process becomes infinitely easier.  The app on the phone works with an application on the computer.  If I want to send a text via my cell phone, I can open up the computer-based application, select the message recipient from a list, quickly enter the message to send (via a standard easy to use conventional keyboard), and then tap send.  The desktop app hands the message off to the iPhone.  The iPhone enters the text into your text app and selects the recipient instantly.  All the user must do is tap send on the phone.  The application running my computer makes it much more efficient to compose the message, then hands it off to the phone for sending.
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Google released the official Google Voice iPhone app this week.  Saying that this is a long awaited release is an understatement.  The app comes roughly 18 months after Apple pulled Google’s initial release from the App Store igniting great controversy.  And while it was never clear if it was Apple or AT&T company policy behind the removal of the Google Voice App, it looks like iPhone users can finally put the kerfuffle behind them.

For the purpose of this post, lets assume you understand how Google Voice works.  What I am really interested in at this time, is how the officially supported Google Voice App compares to other 3^rd party apps such as GV Connect and GV Mobile +.

When Apple finally started to show signs of reversing the policies banning Google Voice type applications, apps like GV Connect and GV Mobile + quickly jumped in and filled the void before Google could get back in the game and devote resources to the project once again.  And while Google engineers spooled up to the task, GV Connect and GV Mobile + developers did an admirable job of filling the need to the best of their abilities.  But in my experience, there were key areas where their apps fell short.
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I recently had the opportunity to spend some quality time with the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2.  It’s a drive enclosure that supports up to 4 SATA drives in a variety of RAID configurations.  It is Mac and Windows compatible and offers a wide range of connectivity options including USB 2.0, FireWire 800, and eSATA.  Powerful functionality packed into a sexy brushed aluminum drive chassis.

The first thing I noticed about the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 was the excess of care taken in packing the device for shipping.  The drive chassis was packed in a large heavy-duty cardboard box encased in layers of packing foam.  The foam layers protect the drive bay, but they also encased the 4 2TB SATA hard drives that were included in the version I tested.  The drives were shipped with insulating foam separating each mechanism from the other contents of the box.  All of this added up to a very large shipping container, but one that should easily stand up to the depraved hands at FedEx or UPS.  Clearly no expense was spared when it came to shipping material.  This is a bonus for the customer since the drive case and mechanisms are very well secured.
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I recently had the chance to evaluate a couple of iSCSI solutions for a pair of clients looking for a massive network based storage solution.  Rather than attach large external hard drives to several workstations on the network, we wanted to consider a SAN solution.  In this case, a single drive chassis with at least 4 RAIDed hard drives.  I had previously evaluated the Drobo Elite from Data Robotics Inc.  This time I took a look at the TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS from QNAP.

The TS-509 is a NAS/SAN solution that offers dual gigabit network ports that can be used for iSCSI connectivity.  The device is completely self-contained.  Simply supply it with power and attach it to the network and, once configured, it functions autonomously.  The chassis supports up to 5 SATA 3.5” hard drives.  For my testing, I installed 3 Hitachi Deskstar 2TB SATA drives stripped together in a level 5 RAID. The drives were 7200RPM with 32MB buffers.

My network centers on a 24 port gigabit D-Link switch.  But since this is an unmanaged (consumer quality) switch, I wanted to make sure the fairly low-end switch would not hinder test results.  When I tested the Drobo Elite, I attached each of the two test computers directly to each of the Drobo’s gigabit Ethernet ports.  I wasn’t able to do this with the TS-509, so each of the network ports was connected directly to the switch via a pair of Cat-5e network cables.

The first test computer was a first generation quad core 2.66GHz Mac Pro.  The other connection was to a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo based Unibody MacBook Pro.  Both have onboard gigabit networking.  Both were running OS X 10.6.3.  Both of their network settings were configured manually to 1000baseT, full duplex.  Since the TS-509 does not support jumbo frames, the default MTU was left at 1500.
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The TS-509 Pro Turbo NAS is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device from QNAP.  It also functions as a SAN (Storage Area Network).  The appliance is a hard drive chassis that has bays that will support up to 5 hot-swappable SATA drives, has 5 USB 2.0 ports for expansion and printer sharing, and 2 gigabit network ports than can be load balance or offer failover support.  The TS-509 can function as a NAS offering conventional file sharing, or it can function as a SAN acting as an iSCSI target.

I recently had the chance to review the Drobo Elite, a solution from Data Robotics Inc., which functioned exclusively as an iSCSI SAN.  While a solid iSCSI solution, it also has a hefty price tag.  I took the opportunity to compare the Drobo Elite to the QNAP TS-509 Pro.  In a follow-up post I will evaluate the performance of the device.  But for now I want to take a closer look at the TS-509’s feature set.

The TS-509 is something of a jack-of-all-trades.  At its core it is a RAID solution with 5 hot-swappable SATA drive bays.  RAID 0, 1, 5, 5 with hot spare, 6, and JBOD are all supported offering a great deal of flexibility.  The box offers file server support for Macintosh, Windows, and Linux/UNIX based operating systems.  File services appear in a Windows based network via an internal Windows networking service, and are available to Macintosh based systems via the included Bonjour network service.  And the device is managed via a web-based interface that is both easy to use and powerful.
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Amazon.com jumpstarted the stagnated ebook market with the release of the Kindle.  Though at a glance the device comes off as a simple e-reader, it boasts a feature set that make the device as powerful as it is comfortable to read.  A built in QWERTY keyboard makes it easy to annotate text, highlight passages, and leave notes beyond what would have normally fit in the magian of a conventional book.  All without doing physical damage to the book in the process.

I really wanted to take my time with the Kindle before putting together a review.  To that end, I have spent that last 5 months reading.  In that time I have completed 21 Kindle based novels and 4 hard cover versions.  More than enough time, I believe, to evaluate the content consumption device.
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I have had two clients ask me about the Drobo Elite, an 8 bay BeyondRAID SAN solution from Data Robotic Inc.  I’m already a fan of the 4 bay Drobo for USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 equipped machines, so I started reading up on the Drobo Elite.  My first interest was in the disk speeds.  I wanted to know what kind of data access speeds workstations could expect when connecting to the Drobo Elite via iSCSI.  To my surprise, no benchmarks were available online.  So when I had the chance to evaluate the Elite first hand, I ran some tests and put it through the paces.

My network centers around a 24 port gigabit D-Link switch.  But since this is an unmanaged (consumer quality) switch, I wanted to make sure the fairly low end switch would not hinder test results.  To remove the switch from the equation, I simply attached a Macintosh to each of the Drobo Elite’s gigabit network ports directly via the Cat-5e network cables included with the Drobo.  In the end, the tests I ran via a connection through the D-Link switch were directly comparable to the direct connection to the Drobo, but the following benchmarks were conducted via direct connection.

One Mac was a first generation quad core 2.66GHz Mac Pro.  The other connection was to a 2.53GHz Unibody MacBook Pro.  Both have onboard gigabit networking.  Both were running OS X 10.6.3.  Both of their network settings were configured manually  to 1000baseT, full-duplex, and with a Jumbo MTU of 9000.  Though directly connected, the machines were assigned static IP addresses on the same subnet as the Drobo.  Since some auto negotiating switches sometimes flip out in odd situations while trying to re-negotiate a connection in the fly, I wanted to make sure a similar situation would not sacrifice speed in the set situation.
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I recently had an opportunity to review the latest Drobo enterprise solution, the Drobo Elite.  It boasts 8 SATA drive bays and can be configured for either single or dual drive redundancy.  The Drobo Elite, like the rest of Drobo’s product line is RAID made easy.  In truth, its RAID maid drop dead easy.  And with the iSCSI support built into this product, the folks at Data Robotic Inc. (makers of Drobo) have made iSCSI equally easy.

Those familiar with Drobo know that the company has forsaken the traditional RAID paradigm for what it has branded BeyondRAID.  Its not just RAID with a clever little name for marketing reasons.  Its RAID done right.  Its RAID made simple.  While traditional RAID configurations technically allow the mixing of different capacity drives in the array, they do it by sacrificing disk space.  The smallest drive in the array becomes the usable capacity of every drive in the array.  So, with an array made up of one 1TB drive and three 2TB drives, the capacity of each drive becomes 1TB in the eyes of the RAID controller.

Drobo’s BeyondRAID is really RAID re-envisioned.  Its what happens when engineers start from scratch and remake the rules the right way.  BeyondRAID allows the use of mixed drive capacities but it doesn’t resort to the lowest common denominator in order to make the drives usable.  Mixing one 1TB drive with tree 2TB drives is no problem.  The Drobo knows how to access the full capacity of each and allocates space for redundancy to compensate.
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I have a small stack of Visa check cards that have been collecting on my desk over the last year an a half.  I buy a fair amount of tech gear online throughout the year.  I get hardware when I find a good deal, and in many cases that involves a rebate from the manufacturer.  But recent trends have the rebates coming back in the form of Visa check cards.  No more rebate checks.  Everyone issues the rebate on a check/debit card.  I’m not sure of the upside for the company issuing the rebate, but when you want to redeem the gift card it can be a pain in the ass.

For example, say you want to use the gift card to pay for a meal.  If its a $20 gift card, you can’t actually spent the $20 on the meal.  15% or more is held back from the available limit to allow room for gratuity on the purchase.  On top of that, the total for the bill will never equal that of the check card, so you either split the payment between the check card and a credit card, or you make up the difference in cash.  And not knowing if the gratuity hold back is 15%, 20% or 25%, its impossible to spend the balance of the card without a lot of screwing around and hassling the already overworked waiter/waitress.  Using a gift card for payment at a restaurant is a fail.
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