Hardware

How I once took down a network, including a radio station

Dave Farquhar Hardware, Retro Computing, War Stories , , , , , ,

I met up Monday night with some other security professionals for some emergency networking of the professional kind. One of the attendees, a penetration tester, had a little incident where he took down a production system when he conducted his penetration test. The system owners were a bit arrogant, and, well, they paid for it.

I’ve taken down a network too, but in my case it wasn’t something security-related. No, in my case, I was a 20-year-old desktop support technician working in a college computer lab, making an honest mistake.

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A quick fix for the Insignia NS20EM50A13 monitor’s biggest annoyance

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,

I’ve written about the Insignia NS20EM50A13 monitor before. It’s a reasonably good low-end monitor with the annoying tendency to change the video input back to VGA any time your system goes to sleep or changes from text to graphics mode. I accidentally discovered this week–after using the monitor for months–that if you push the OK button on the front of the monitor, it brings up the input menu, allowing you to quickly flip it back to DVI without fumbling through the menus.

I still wish the monitor would let me set the default to DVI and make it stay that way, but this is an acceptable workaround for the price, at least for me.

Is this a good computer for the money in 2013?

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

My realtor sent me some computer specs this past week and asked for my opinion on it, since I get paid to keep up with this stuff these days and he doesn’t.

I thought my critique of the system might help other people.

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Mark Hurd doesn’t sound like he’s just what Dell needed

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , ,

Word on the street is that Blackstone Group has a plan for turning around Dell: Buy the company, take it private, and install Mark Hurd as CEO. The thinking is that he’s available, has experience, and would have baggage keeping him from being the CEO of a public company.

I just see one glitch. Available != good fit.

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Why Intel can’t quit x86

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , ,
Why Intel can’t quit x86

Here’s a nice perspective on Intel’s non-x86 efforts, and why they failed and x86 marched on, despite its weak points, and why Intel can’t quit x86.

Kudos for remembering that Intel made ARM chips.

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A not-quite-heir to the Model M

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , ,

So today I came across the story of a new Cooler Master keyboard, which claims to be very IBM Model M-like, but with modern styling and conveniences.

The verdict is that this keyboard is even stiffer than the Model M, which raises a question that not many are asking. Maybe I’m showing my age and everyone else is too young. But to me, the obvious question is how the Cooler Master CM Storm and its Cherry MX green key switches compare to the Model M’s predecessor, the IBM Model F? Read more

An SSD data loss issue–and how to prevent it

Dave Farquhar Hardware, security , , , , , , , ,
An SSD data loss issue–and how to prevent it

Longtime reader Dan Bowman–probably my very first reader, come to think of it–sent in this article from Infoworld regarding SSDs and data loss in power failure.

It’s not theoretical. I’ve seen it. I also know how to prevent it.

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Barnes & Noble’s fate is just more evidence that being better isn’t enough on its own

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , ,

There’s news today that B&N’s founder is looking to buy the store’s retail and web business, but not the Nook business, and the Nook business could be spun off or even discontinued, but whatever happens, it’s likely to be de-emphasized.

My family owns two Nook Simple Touch e-readers, and we like them, but they have one very big problem.

I got a $25 Nook gift card for my birthday. I’ve seen a couple of books I wanted in the past 3 months, but nothing available as a Nook book. As I recall, all of those books have been available for Kindle.

The Nook is the better device, and I’m not sure it’s even close. But better hardware and better technology isn’t enough. You have to have something to buy. Especially when the consumption device is break-even or near-break-even. I remember, some 20 years ago, having a conversation with a friend. My Amiga was a much better computer than his unremarkable Dell PC, but he retorted, “None of that matters if you, you know, like having software!”

A year later, Commodore was out of business. Twenty years later, Dell is struggling, but by Commodore standards, Dell’s bad years would have been pretty good.

I’m impressed with the Nook tablet range too, but there again, being locked in to what Barnes & Noble has to sell makes me hesitant to buy one. Will everything I want to run on a tablet be available for it? If I’ve learned one thing over the last 20 years, it’s that when in doubt, you’ll be better off going with an open system over a closed one.

So, with no books to buy, one of our Nooks spends the bulk of its time displaying library books; I loaded the other one up with public domain e-books and other stuff I converted into epub format to keep handy. We’re happy, but neither of these uses makes B&N any money.

HP knows Android

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , ,

HP unveiled its first Android tablet this weekend. They’re not playing in the Polaroid or Archos space, but for $170–neatly between Amazon’s and Google’s prices–you get Android 4.1, a 1024×600 display, and a microSD slot. Read more

SSD write endurance (aka longevity) vindicated

Dave Farquhar Hardware ,

I found this chart earlier this week regarding SSD write endurance. Basically, it plots out how long an SSD would last if you set out to deliberately destroy it by writing to it continuously.

You could expect a mainstream 128-GB drive to last 4.7 years under those conditions, which is longer than a platter hard drive would last if subjected to the same kind of abuse. Other studies have similar results.

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