I suppose it depends on how you define protest. But if you look a the numbers, its undeniable that the protests impacted a huge number of eye balls and helped to cause a slow down in action by the feds.
The folks at ubergizmo have the full version of an interesting infographic. The commenters make a good point though, these fights are far from over…
Ten months ago we finally moved into a brand new building here at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. This is a building that had been in planning and construction for years. A building that by design and in practice was to set a tone for a commitment to environmental responsibility. This commitment can be seen from the Gold LEED status of the construction project to the reduction printer waste to the banning of space heaters in offices.
And the big solar array on our roof. (more on that below…)
As for my part in all of this, I had to consider how to ensure that IT was a part of the commitment to sustainability as well. This isn’t always easy, PCs and servers by their nature are typically power hungry and full of toxins and heavy metals that are recycled frequently. They also add to the cost of heating and cooling of the building over all.
To meet this challenge we virtualized our entire environment and managed to drop from 35 old school physical servers to only 4 and a storage array. As for desktops, we eliminated 99% of them and now run over 250 virtual Windows 7 desktops on 4 servers. That’s means we reduced the number of machines from nearly 300 to 8 plus attached storage. All of this equipment now lives in a hot aisle containment system monitored and powered by an APC power management system. (and as an aside, when the power went out in all of San Diego county, we didn’t skip a beat)
What’s cool about this besides the fact that its just plain cool is that we can measure our impact on the environment in energy savings and in the fact that we recycle less equipment and do so less frequently.
Back to the solar array. I just ran some sample numbers yesterday and it would appear that if we add up all of the power consumed by all of the servers, network switches, storage, security equipment, WAPs and phones throughout the building it is essentially a wash when compared to what we generate on the roof.
Talk about being green.
Ain’t that the truth. Watching various hacker/cracker/mayhem groups posting large amounts of personal data over the last few months it is interesting to note how we humans are at fault. The number of passwords released as a result of the data collected during these “hacks” continues to demonstrate that most people fail to follow any kind of strong password policy either personally or at work.
The most common passwords include ‘password’ and ’12345678′. Even sysadmins have been caught using simple passwords.
Since removing humans from the equation is next to impossible, researchers have created a test scenario that uses PCs that supposedly behave like human beings in order to expose problematic human behavior that weaken security. The Economist has an article describing the research a group of cybersecurity experts led by Jim Blythe of the University of Southern California are working on currently.
Good information presented in an unreadable graphic format. An unfortunate distraction from otherwise good content.
At the 2011 WWDC Apple made a point of demonstrating that for many of us, the PC is becoming a secondary device. Additionally, it is clear that we want our content experience to function across all the devices we are using. This doesn’t mean that they have to act the same on a mobile as on a desktop but it does mean one or the other shouldn’t be broken.
Timely then that Ethan Marcotte’s book, Responsive Web Design, was released from the folks at A List Apart / A Book Apart today. I haven’t read it (yet) but I’m sure that the conversations it will continue and or start are worth having.
From A Book Apart:
From mobile browsers to netbooks and tablets, users are visiting your sites from an increasing array of devices and browsers. Are your designs ready? Learn how to think beyond the desktop and craft beautiful designs that anticipate and respond to your users’ needs. Ethan Marcotte will explore CSS techniques and design principles, including fluid grids, flexible images, and media queries, demonstrating how you can deliver a quality experience to your users no matter how large (or small) their display.
I Was excited to be featured as a case study yesterday a the San Diego VMWare User Group Meeting. TJSL’s Brian Graham did a great job telling a compelling story while punctuating it with a few select slides that featured one photo each.
Sadly, the typical PowerPoint presentation seemed to dominate – too much info on the slide, not enough time to digest, and complete distraction from what the speaker was actually saying at the time.
Brian’s presentation worked because he got up on stage to tell a story – a story that emphasized the successes and lessons learned during our own desktop virtualization project. By keeping it human, mixing in a little self depreciating humor, and showing only a few select slides he managed to hold the audience’s attention and get his point across.
Brian got a lot of slaps on the back and recognition for the work he put into the VDI project – nice work Mr. Graham!
Aside from the PPTs it was a great event and I look forwarding to heading back!
Alright, so this may not be an infographic inline with what is popular these days but its pretty darn cool, its a graphic, and it provides information.
1959 Deluxe Kombi/Microbus
Today I read a celebration of the death of the Flip Camera on Gizmodo. While its true that most people do not need one – your smart phone probably records better video with more “cool” options – there is a solid use for the Flip Cam in education and other settings that don’t have a phone option.
As a result of the looming of the death of the VCR I have suggested several times to clients that they replace the old ‘tape and review’ process with a Flip Cam. Instructors and students are able to very quickly record themselves and get feedback on performance without the need for a lot of bulky equipment.
Though there are alternatives to the Flip Cam it was clearly the best option on the market. RIP old friend, RIP.
Details of Cisco restructuring at Yahoo
Pet popularity and pricing according to christineparkdesign:
From Gizmodo
Paris-based photographer Ben Sandler took Alvar Aalto’s Maison Carré house—a beautifully preserved monument-turned-museum—and used it as the backdrop of Tomorrowland, a stylized photo shoot done in ultra-ritzy, retro 60′s Mad Men fashion.
FastCoDesign via Gizmodo
