P. J. Connolly

I’m taking a look at a cloud-based enhancement to the Time Machine backup feature in Mac OS X. It’s called Dolly Drive, a nod to the sheep that made headlines fifteen years ago by being the first mammal cloned somatic cell nuclear transfer. [WP_IMAGE] Dolly Drive, from Cirrus Thinking, offers backup plans that provide up […]

(This is continued from yesterday.) Labeling patch cords is a must, even in a multicolored wiring scheme. In our old building, where we shared the patch closet with other organizations, we had a hot mess of gray cords and you couldn’t find your way from the panel to the switch if your life depended on […]

As surprising as it may seem to anyone who has visited my flat, I can be obsessed with tidiness, at least when it comes to patch panels and server racks. I like patch cords dressed and tucked out of the way, and I have been known to slap a label on anything that stays in […]

While I was out of town earlier this month, my colleague Cameron Sturdevant wrote a rather interesting post on the subject of identities personal and professional. To borrow a phrase from the courts, I concur in part and dissent in part, for reasons that have as much to do with my own experiences as they […]

I’m sure that many of you have at least heard of the case of Terry Childs, even if you don’t know the name. He’s the former network administrator for the City and County of San Francisco who balked at his bosses’ demands for the passwords for the networks that Childs maintained for the City, got […]

Cisco could be turning into the General Motors of Silicon Valley at the rate things are going, and despite my love for Detroit-based automakers, I don’t mean that in a good way. A few weeks after Cisco announced that it was killing the Flip line of cameras, rumors surfaced earlier this week that claimed the […]

Reuters reports that the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is working on a proposal from Apple for an even smaller SIM card than those currently available, but I have to wonder to what end. Sure, a “nano-SIM” would be convenient for devices that are too small to accept the micro-SIM that’s used in the company’s […]

(Part 1 of however many posts I can justify.) The latest rumor to make the rounds is that the fifth-generation iPhone will be dubbed the “iPhone 4S” because, in many respects, it’s expected to be a somewhat minor upgrade to the product. I’m not sure who it is who makes up these stories, because from […]

Although EMC and Silver Peak Systems have been playing pat-a-cake for a couple of years now, with the latter making its WAN optimization appliances – physical and virtual – and management tools available through EMC’s Select information infrastructure program, the companies took things a step further today by announcing the integration of Silver Peak’s technology […]

Microsoft’s offer of $8.5 billion – cash – for Skype raises the age-old question of “Why?” Well, it seems pretty simple to me: Microsoft’s unified communications (UC) services, packaged as Lync, lack a VOIP component; Skype fills that hole rather gracefully. Skype’s UC business package is a Windows-only offering, and it would fit rather neatly […]

Starting from Home Office 365’s home page gives users access to Lync, Outlook and SharePoint, and provides a download link for Office Professional Plus. Policy-Based Management Setting up ActiveSync policies for mobile devices that connect to Exchange Online is as easy as it is on an in-house server. SharePoint Online Collaboration Collaboration is made easier […]

Her Majesty is getting an iPad. Lest any of my friends think I’m speaking disrespectfully of my mother, that’s a reference to Queen Elizabeth II, who is said* to be so taken with the Apple tablet that she’s buying one for herself. It seems that Princes William and Harry have recently let their grandmother borrow […]