Turn Off

Turn Off published on 7 Comments on Turn Off

Poor R2D2 is never going to build up his frequent-flyer points by flying commercial airlines.

Anyone who has flown has been through the experience of having to turn off their phone or iPod during Takeoff and Landings.
Despite what many people think, this is not really due to the devices interfering with the aircraft’s instruments.
Actually, the main reason is so that you will pay attention when the flight attendants give their safety announcement.

Modern aircraft have all been updated to be able to handle the impact of other electronic devices being active on board, these days.
So, for the most part, leaving your smartphone on will not cause the plane to crash.
Although, it COULD still happen, so why risk it?

What I don’t get is why the flight attendants ask you to raise the window shades before landing.
Why?  Does the pilot need to be able to see out the windows to land the plane?
If so, then I am seriously misinformed about how pilots fly aircraft.

Dangerous Clouds

Dangerous Clouds published on 1 Comment on Dangerous Clouds

The practice of cloud computing is here to stay.
Like it or not, you will be storing or accessing items in ‘the cloud’ for many years to come.

Already, the term ‘the cloud’ is not completly accurate, as there are now many different ‘clouds’ out there.
Think of it as a ‘Cloudscape’, if you will.
It is made of some very large cloud locations, such as the Amazon cloud, Microsoft cloud, the Sony PSN cloud and the Google cloud. Of course, there are many other smaller clouds as well. (Geez – I am sick of writing the word cloud already).

This shared cyberspace is already very splintered, so it is best to think of it in terms of what these different clouds offer, from a service point of view. It breaks down into 5 basic  “cloud services” markets.

These are:

– web-based services (eg: Google & Flickr)
– software-as-a-service (SAAS) offerings (eg: Box.net & Microsoft Exchange online)
– app-components-as-a-service  (eg: Google APIs & MSalesforce App Exchange)
– software-platform-as-a-service (eg: salesforce.com & Netsuite)
– virtual-infrastructure-as-a-service (eg: Akami)

For many, this all means pretty much nothing and the bottom line here is that pretty much every man & his dog is in the cloud now.
So, you need to unclench and just embrace it.

You should even start to learn some of the cloud computing terminology that comes with the territory.
Then, when people discuss it with you, you won’t seem to be in such of a fog.