Why I like my Kindle 3

August 27, 2010 Dave Ohara

I have the first generation Kindle and just received the Kindle 3 wifi only. For $139 it was time for an upgrade.

Reading on the Kindle 3 is much closer to a book. And, I enjoy a book to focus on learning a new topic. Reading on the computer or iPhone or other multi-purpose devices is convenient, but many times it is too easy to lose focus as you are hold a computer. A Kindle is a reading device.

The first book I am diving into on the Kindle is Time and the Soul with a foreword by John Cleese.

This book is addressed to everyone who is starved for time, i.e. everyone. We are all living in a culture that traps us into doing too many things, taking on too many responsibilities, facing too many choices and saying yes to too many opportunities. Nearing the end of over a century of inventions designed to save time, we find ourselves bereft of time itself.

What used to be considered a sign of success--being busy, having many responsibilities, being involved in many projects or activities--is now being felt as an affliction. It is leading us nowhere. More and more it is being experienced as meaningless.

This is the real significance of our problem with time. It is a crisis of meaning. What has disappeared is meaningful time. It is not technology or the accelerating influence of money; it is not global capitalism that is responsible for the time famine. The root of our modern problem with time is neither technological, sociological, economic nor psychological. It is metaphysical. It is a question of the meaning of human life itself.

I should finish the book in a day which I rarely do anymore, but today is a day of thinking and meditating after 3 days in SJ meeting lots of cool data center people.

One of the first things I noticed is how much easier it is to read on the Kindle 3. Then I noticed the "fi" ligatures. From my early days at Apple, I was obsessed to use the right fonts, and hated font remapping when you print. I used Word 1.0 while everyone else was using MacWrite. And my font obsession led me to The fact that the Kindle 3 has ligature support shows how far they are pushing the typography on the device.

Here are fi and fl ligatures.

If you are a book lover, then the Kindle 3 may be the one to get you switch.

Going Green in the data center with Biodiesel introduces risks

August 24, 2010 Dave Ohara

Matt Stansberry with SearchDataCenter reports on problems with Biodiesel use in data centers.

Biodiesel mandates cause backup generator problems

By Matt Stansberry, Executive Editor
20 Aug 2010 | SearchDataCenter.com

Soybean-based fuels are fouling up the best-laid backup plans of some data center pros.

Today, some data center managers wrestle with state government legislation that mandates the use of biodiesel over traditional petro-diesel -- mandates that are designed to wean states off petrol dependence and move toward more environmentally sustainable fuels.

But these alternatives pose risks. Derived from vegetable oils or animal fat instead of petroleum, biofuel blends can increase water and biological contaminants in fuel supplies. If handled improperly, biodiesel fuels can stop a data center's backup systems cold, according to a recent report from the Uptime Institute.

With biodiesel, the water tends to stay in suspension, and it makes the fuel look cloudy.
Lamont Fortune, lead mechanical engineer of data center facilities at UnitedHealth Group

As many of has said government regulation is what will drive green data center action for many and requiring biodiesel, a green fuel compared to petro-based diesel is relatively easy for a government group to mandate.

Minnesota, Washington and Oregon have biodiesel mandates. Minnesota mandates the use of B5 and will switch to B20 by 2015. Oregon and Washington currently mandate the use of B2. Biodiesel legislation is pending in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Louisiana and Massachusetts.

Biodiesel backs up data center systems
Lamont Fortune, the lead mechanical engineer of data center facilities at insurance company UnitedHealth Group in Minnesota, knows firsthand how biodiesel can cause trouble for data center facilities. He was the driving force behind the Uptime Institute's biodiesel technical paper and co-authored it with Uptime VP Rick Schuknecht and other data center operators.

Container Data Center Buyers Guide coming soon

August 24, 2010 Dave Ohara

DataCenterKnowledege reports on Mark Bramfitt's latest project.

Feds Prep Buying Guide for Modular Data Centers
August 24th, 2010 : Rich Miller

Another view of the a data center built by Colt using its new modular design.

In another sign of the momentum for modular data center designs, the federal government is developing a guide to help agencies choose among the growing number of container-based offerings. Industry consultant Mark Bramfitt says he is working with the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to develop a guide to evaluating container data centers and next-generation modular designs

Here is Mark's blog post.

Container/Modular DC Guidebook Under Dev - Call for Comment

Under the auspices of the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the federal General Services Agency, I am drafting a guidebook that charts a process of choosing from available container-based and modular data center technologies, with a focus on energy efficiency and the provision of supporting infrastructure.

While it would be impossible to stay current with every development in this area, we are interested in providing a clear snapshot of the industry today, with the primary goal of describing a specification and deployment planning process that will be relevant in the future.

There are many who think containers will not work. But, there are many who are also excited about the possibilities.

Will a container-powered cloud computing offering prove to be a compelling cost-cutting strategy for the Obama IT team? It remains to be seen. But the creation of a buying guide for these products suggests that modular data center designs will, as Bramfitt puts it, be “relevant in the future.”

Power IT Down Day - Aug, 27, 2010

August 23, 2010 Dave Ohara

ZDNET has an article on Power IT Down Day.

Can you power down for a day? Intel, HP and Citrix make the case

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan | August 24, 2010, 2:00am PDT

Summary

Power IT Down Day challenges the industry to shut off its IT equipment after work on August 27. If we can do it for one night, we can do it for two. Or 10. Or 365. Right?

Other than restarting my MacBook now and then for software updates, I don’t think I’ve turned it off since 2008.

But while I may be on the green police’s most wanted list, it’s never too late to start good habits. (I’ll be starting mine this week.)

Friday, Aug. 27 is the third annual Power IT Down Day. Last year 5,600 people pledged to turn off their computers, printers and monitors overnight, which saved more than 73,000 kilowatt-hours, which translated into $45,000, which was in turn donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Considering how many of us can survive the night without our hardware, 5,600 seems like a pretty small number. Can’t we do better this year? (To make your own power-down pledge, click here.)

The count of volunteers is at 4850.

Here is one little fact I found.

It’s something everyone can do. “Standby” does not mean off. Lots of people in America seem to think when you put something on standby, it’s all good because it’s not consuming anything. But it’s still consuming 10 percent of the energy. That’s why the European community is outlawing the standby function.

Analytics in Data Centers

August 20, 2010 Dave Ohara

Nokia just bought a mobile analytics company.

Nokia to buy mobile analytics firm

by Lance Whitney

Ovi on Nokia's N96 phone.

(Credit: Nokia)

Nokia announced Friday that it will acquire Motally, a small, privately held mobile analytics firm in San Francisco.

Staffed by a team of only eight people, Motally offers mobile app developers a service for tracking the usage of their software. The goal is to help developers enhance and optimize their apps by understanding how people use them.

Looking to support developers selling apps through Nokia'sOvi Store, Motally's service will be adapted to work with Symbian, MeeGo, Qt, and Java, said Nokia. But support will continue for Motally's current customers.

The mobile analytics is a hot industry.

Analytics in the data center is hidden and being done by companies you wouldn’t normally think of.

Amazon Web Services is one example of analytics being applied. Data Analytics is in Amazon’s DNA.

Google Analytics is another example.

The one advantage Google and Amazon have is to unify the data across the company. Most companies are defined by divisions and fiefdoms. The more data you have the bigger insights you can discover.

A smart guy gave me the tip, Oracle has gained invaluable insights to the database community with their acquisition of MySQL. Some of the smartest people are working on MySQL and Oracle just learned a bunch when treated MySQL as classic A/B testing Oracle vs. MySQL.

Here is a description of the A/B method applied in advertising, but it works in other places too.

What is A/B Testing and how can it help me?

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A/B Testing allows you to compare different versions of advertising content and their effectiveness at referring quality leads and customers.

Often, multiple versions of promotional content link to the same landing page on a web site. A/B Testing provides a way for you to tag each version of the promotional content, even when all versions link to the same landing page, so that you can see which ones are most effective (version A or version B). You can view data on clickthrough rates, new leads, average page depth, visitor loyalty, conversion figures, and revenue for each version of content.

A/B testing uses the variables set in your tracking URLs to compare values. Specifically, A/B testing requires the use of utm_source , utm_medium, andutm_content. (For AdWords campaigns, it is only necessary to add the 'utm_content' variable to your links. The 'source' and 'medium' variables are filled automatically by auto-tagging for AdWords campaigns.)