Michael Graves

This author has written 1376 articles

Michael, don’t do this Michael. I can feel my files slipping away.

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Meet HAL9000. That’s what my wife has decided to call our new LaCie NAS. She cites the similarity between the big blue light on the front of the NAS and the vision panels that the famous supercomputer has on-board ship in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

This is a relatively new device to the market and just recently was reviewed by my friends over at Small Net Builder. Tim’s conclusion about matches my experience thus far. It’s not the best performing of its sort, nor is it terribly feature laden, but it is a decent RAID capable NAS. It provides 2.5 TB of raw storage, or in our case 1.86 TB of actual RAID 5  storage based upon 5 x 500 GB SATA-II disks. All for a modest $730 street price.

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HD-DVD Lives On!

On our last trip to Fry's I was shocked and amazed to see a considerable inventory of HD-DVD media still on the shelves. Not only was there a great selection but the prices were good. Apparently this phenomenon is not…

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Are You Experienced?*

Have you had the Karl experience? From the VUC  mailing list this morning. Allison Smith just created a hysterical parody music on hold Parody.  Whatever you were doing, stop, and dial this number to listen to it: 360-519-5689. 2 minutes.…

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Review: Polycom Spectralink 8002 Wireless Telephone

Originally published July 1, 2008 at Small Net Builder
Product Polycom SpectraLink Wireless Telephone (8002)
Summary Wi-Fi SIP phone designed for small business use
Pros • Durable construction
• Supports strong Wi-Fi encryption
• Centrally managed provisioning
• Good voice quality
• Reasonable battery life
• WMM works as promised
Cons • Fiddly initial network configuration
• No support for compressed codecs like G.729
• Relatively expensive

Polycom is a leader in the IP communications space. Not only are their longstanding SoundPoint series of desktop IP phones class leaders, but their voice technology can be found in many products under many names.

Seeing a need to expand their product offering to include cordless mobility, Polycom recently acquired SpectraLink, a leading maker of Wi-Fi-based telephony systems, and Kirk Telecom, a leader in DECT-based cordless telephony systems. These acquisitions, now consolidated under the Polycom name, give the company a comprehensive product suite addressing the mobile IP communications needs of various vertical markets.

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