Random Thoughts....

Does anyone else smile when they think about about TSA losing it's employee's private data?  It only included name, date of birth, social security number, payroll information, bank account, and routing numbers - which is a super added bonus and really makes stealing those identities a breeze.   I guess I shouldn't be happy about it, even though I swear those folks go out of their way to make sure my airport security experience is as painful, unorganized, and annoying as possible.  A public cavity probe in the middle of the Mall of America would have been more appropriate.  The fact that our own government is stupid enough to allow non-encrypted data of such magnitude to even exist, let alone float around willy nilly, is astounding.  So much for hoping for legislation to make people use common sense.

Iron Mountain quietly bought the assets of startup Avalere, who had some pretty big and interesting plans in the area of data categorization and classification.  Those ideas turned out to be much bigger than their funding source, however.

Don't be surprised to see all the big guys enter the service provider market, either directly or indirectly, within the next year.  From Microsoft to EMC, it will happen.

Maybe the coolest gizmo I've ever seen in storage is the new Drobo box from Data Robotics.  I am not supposed to talk about it yet, but if it lives up to what I've seen in the first 24 hours, there will be a lot to tell.

I'm tired.  Tuesday of this week I acted half my age and went with some pals to see Elvis Costello at a small venue in Boston.  I love Elvis, and he was great as usual.  I drank a bit, and got home a bit late, only to face the awful truth of 6:30AM, at which point I had to go back to Boston to catch a flight to Chicago to give a pitch at Storage Decisions (which again was stocked to the gills with storage folks).  It will be interesting to hear the feedback, as I have limited recollection of even being on stage.  I had to sprint out of there to catch my return flight, which in Chicago means you sit in traffic for an hour or so.  I made the plane by 9 minutes.  Good for me?  Au contraire.  After about 8 years of being either Platinum or Executive Platinum on American (which gives you the right to pay more money to upgrade your seat to a barely tolerable state), I didn't fly enough last year.  You would think I had personally offended the CEO's wife by how fast they downgraded me to "slug" status.  I still have dozens of "upgrades", which I paid for, that I apparently no longer have the right to use.  Better yet, the plane was mobbed, and a very nice 400 plus pound woman occupied the seat next to me, and most of mine - but we left on time.  Then we promptly sat on the tarmac for 3 hours.  I got home at 2AM, only to arise at 6:30 again - this time because my 3-year old daughter decided that's was a good time to tell me that her brother called her a name.  I haven't recovered.

I've been playing with Media Center in Vista for about 5 months - and am waiting on AMD to ship the cable cards they have been promising for a year or so to build my mongo centralized home media center.  I may end up spending 20 grand to save one hundred bucks a month from the cable company, but I will figure this out.  Between AMD and Microsoft, it can be an infuriating experience.  Once I master it I'll either publish a best practice - or I'll fund a company to make this stuff actually work. I can't be the only idiot who wants to control my own home content distribution system. Joost is going to be way cool, fyi.

Cheers