rant

Overpackaging

I purchased a Sandisk 16Gb USB stick drive (~$10 on Amazon.com) to transfer large files between machines rather than having to burn multiple DVDs.  (Also because I ditched my optical drive to install a second hard disk in my ancient MacBook.)  While shuttling files, the USB stick went into some kind of lock-out mode. The consensus from the

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Fitbit Charge HR review

Since my Fitbit Force was recalled earlier this year, I’d been pining for a simple motivational aid.  Microsoft’s Band looks awesome, but it’s sold out as soon as they get another batch of units.  The Garmin VivoSmart had some interesting features, but lacks stair climbs (important to me because I do so much of that in a

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More Reflections on MOOCs

I was forwarded Owen Youngman’s article in The Atlantic by a friend who wanted me to reflect further on my over-zealous consumption of  Massively Open Online Courses (or MOOCs).  It seems about right: When I took my first in 2011, the concept was very new.  I’d planned to take one, but opted for all three courses, intending

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What Is Your OTT Strategy?

As I was walking through the exhibits of O’Reilly’s “Making Data Work” Conference a few weeks ago, a vendor stepped in my path: Vendor: “What is your organization’s Hadoop strategy?” Having done a metric crap-ton of events as a vendor, I was sympathetic to what he was trying to do.  However, his premise of a tool being the

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Common name on common service

With increasing frequency, I’ll receive email intended for another Jim Carson with an account on gmail.  If it’s from an individual, I’ve had moderate success with providing a gentle, personalized note telling them that they’ve got the wrong email address. I’ve given up with any emails from companies as they’ll either go to great lengths

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Windows Update

Another, big batch (27) of security patches landed on my Windows 7 desktop. Since I’m likely to be running long, data-intensive jobs, I have it not apply them right away. Sensing this large group would necessitate a reboot, I avoided installation until lunch time today. The philosophy is simple: computing should not be about constantly

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