Blog Entries

A Tsunami of Global Disaster Communications through Citizen Journalism

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0100

The news started hitting California early Saturday morning with an SMS alarm on my mobile phone - a major earthquake struck Chile, and there was a potential of tsunami activity in California and Hawaii (as well as the rest of the Pacific). First stop - CNN. The news source was right on the story, [...]

Developing Disaster Recovery Models with Cloud Computing

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

How does a small or medium business ensure it can meet the basic needs for disaster recovery and business continuity? Whether it be Internet-facing applications, or Enterprise-facing applications and data, one of the most important issues faced by small companies is the potential loss of information and applications needed to run their operations.

Disaster Recovery Point and Time Objectives (from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Great Quotations: “My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.” - George Washington.
-And thanks to David Mott for bringing this quote to our attention.

Generalists, according to the old joke, know nothing about everything, as opp [...]

Hawaii Broadband - Deferred till 2010? 2011? 2012?

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

What is the common verbiage of Hawaii's broadband initiatives set in senate and house bills SB895, HB984, and HB1077?

Easy, "Carried over to 2010 Regular Session."

SB895 - 2/10/2009 Establishes the Hawaii Communications Commission (HCC), The committee(s) recommends that the measure be deferred. Carried over to 2010 Regular Session.HB984 - 5/11/2009 Implements key recommendations of the Hawaii broadband task force by establishing the Hawaii broadband commissioner (HBC). [...]

Is Hawaii a Candidate for International ICT Assistance?

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

Try a search engine query on "Hawaii CIO," or "Hawaii Chief Information Officer." You might get a couple corporate links pop up, or possibly the University of Hawaii's CIO link, but the only state agency within the first two pages of links is for the Information and Communications Services Division of the Department of Accounting and General Services (DAGS). The first impression, once hitting the Hawaii Information and Communications Services Division (ICSD) landing pa [...]

Chasing the what?

rdlewis@itcatalysts.com — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: The company wants the analyst's report this way.
Translation: The CEO wants the report to support the decision he's already made.
-This week's anonymous contributor wanted the translation this way.

To operate a computer, you point, click, double-click, or right-click. To operate a car you push on the gas, stomp on the brake, or crank the steering wheel.

Which is why you hav [...]

Martin Levy Looks into the Future of Hurricane Electric and the Internet

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

This is the third part in an interview series with Martin Levy, Director of IPv6 Strategy at Hurricane Electric. In this segment Martin discusses the future of Hurricane Electric, IPv6, bandwidth, and global Internet development.

_____________________________________

Pacific-Tier: Can you cite one defining moment that really makes Hurricane Electric stand out as a company within the Internet industry?

Martin Levy: There are a couple of different moments.

From an [...]

Martin Levy Explains Hurricane Electric's Success in a Tough Economy

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

This is part two in a series of interviews with Martin Levy, Director of IPv6 Strategy at Hurricane Electric

Hurricane Electric is one of those rare companies that have survived, and grown in the past two years. A private company, Hurricane Electric has become one of the largest Internet Service Providers in the world, and is a leader in IPv6 deployment. In this article Martin Levy shares a few ideas on how Hurricane Electric approaches their business and continued growth.

YouTube worth watching

mark.gibbs@gmail.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

As if the whole John Edwards farce couldn't get any more ridiculous, now one of his ex-aides, Andrew Young, who also happens to be touting his tell-all book about Edwards, has announced that he 'found' a video tape of, shall we say, a highly personal nature featuring Edwards and Rielle Hunter, Edwards' infamous and now presumably ex-mistress and mother of one of his children.

Young, who Edwards at one time persuaded to publicly claim to be the child's father, [...]

What your browser says about you

mark.gibbs@gmail.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

Online privacy is a hot topic and the accuracy and detail with which you can be tracked as you bounce from Web site to Web site should be an issue of great concern to both consumers and corporate IT.

Many people say they don't really care about being tracked, arguing that they have nothing to hide about where they browse and with whom they communicate, so nothing needs to be kept private.

But here's the problem: The tracking that can now be done by paying attenti [...]

Aliph Jawbone Icon, a new kind of headset

mark.gibbs@gmail.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

If you had to pick a technology, excluding software, that has caused the biggest transformation of personal productivity, what would you select?

Microsoft Office? Nope, I said not software … come on people!

Laptops? Possibly. Definitely a leading transformer for freeing us from being desk-bound, but the leading one? I think not.

OK, how about GPS? Nope, definitely huge but not the biggest. Pad- or tablet-style computers? Too soon to tell.

It [...]

Martin Levy Discusses the Global Urgency to Deploy IPv6

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

I met Martin Levy for the first time in Honolulu at the Pacific Telecommunications Council '2007 conference. After several coffees at the Kalia Tower, and an hour or so discussions on data centers, networks, and IPv6, I knew I had found a true evangelist in the Internet industry. Several more conference coffees in different locations around the world, and I became one of his IPv6 disciples.

As a senior member of the Hurricane Electric team, Martin enthusiastically spr [...]

The Need for Speed - and Big, Fat, Dumb Pipes

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

The Europeans mock us. The Koreans boast a claim they are the world's most wired country. Finland is bringing broadband to reindeer. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published in their 2009 statistics the U.S. now ranks 15th among the group's 30 member countries for broadband subscriptions. This is down from 12th in their previous study. No way!

Is the United States actually that far behind the world in broadband deployment? Should the home of Cis [...]

Red rover, red rover, let NASA come over!

rdlewis@itcatalysts.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: It looks like you’ve thought of everything.
Translation: I have no ownership in this idea, and no reason to care about it. Good thing you won’t need my help.
-This week’s anonymous contributor might not have thought of everything, but he did think of an excellent translation.

BIG/GAS stands for "Business Is Great/Government and Academics are Stupid."

It&rsq [...]

Third Axle Alternative

rdlewis@itcatalysts.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

(from Keep the Joint Running blog )

Management Speak: Good corporate citizen.
Translation: Chump.
-Anonymous KJR citizen.

Ever wonder where ISO 9000 got its name?

Not long ago I was approved as a vendor for a company whose name you’d instantly recognize were I dopey enough to make snide comments about a new client. My new client outsourced its vendor approval process to a company proud of its ISO 9000 certification.

The p [...]

Rights of a Sovereign Nation or Invasion of an Open Internet?

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

The headlines are no surprise to those in the Internet business. "Police in Central China have shut down a hacker training operation that openly recruited thousands of members online..." (AP) We've know China, Russia, and several of the former Soviet block countries are the source of s [...]

Not So Green Hawaii

savageau@pacific-tier.com — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has evangelized the simplicity of painting rooftops white to save energy. We believe a simple thing like painting a rooftop with solar reflective materials can reduce carbon dioxide production on a scale of billions of tons.

Think Green Hawaii, a local website highlighting local green i [...]

You'll never guess what this week's topic is...

mark.gibbs@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

What should I be writing about this week? The death, at 91, of legendary author J.D. Salinger? The continuing assault on net neutrality legislation by the RIAA and the MPAA? What the FCC should be doing about a national broadband strategy? The issue of the FBI's Communications Analysis Unit using sticky notes to replace legal process when they wanted to examine phone records? Google standing up to China's government (at last)? Nope, none of the above.

No, the hottest topic de j [...]

Annoyed AND Disappointed

mark.gibbs@gmail.com — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:00:00 +0100

A few weeks ago I discussed drawing tools and reviewed SmartDraw 2010 Professional . At the time I wrote that the only significant problems I had with SmartDraw were that it was fussy about where it allowed you to install it, and that to import Visio diagrams, Visio had to be installed. I awarded SmartDraw a rating of 4.5 out of 5 but I hereby reduce that to a rating of 4.

The reason for this is, as with so many products, it's not until you really beat them up that you start to fin [...]