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SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. -- I've owned six portable USB hard drives over the past 10 years, and all six of them have failed unrecoverably. Is it just me, or is there a wider problem out there?

These portable drives of mine were all big-brand drives. They've failed on three operating systems (Windows 95, XP and Vista) and always in the same fashion: Suddenly, the system can no longer recognize the drive.

Monday's launch of iOS 4 seems to have caused some hair-pulling for Ford SYNC users. Yesterday's IT Blogwatch was something of a lightning rod for discussion about the issue. Read on for the solution (hopefully) to this iPhone OS 4.0 issue...

Six hours. Yes, six hours to install FiOS in my home, but the service opened up my Internet bandwidth significantly, and I liked the cable television features.

I love whiz-bang technology. I love it so much that when MP3 players first came out, I bought one as a voice recorder for business interviews when all my reporter counterparts were still buying reel-to-reel mini recorders or digital recorders with a one-tenth the memory and no file-manipulation capabilities. And, I love my cell phone because I can send and receive messages in a meeting, take photos on the fly, shop on it and perform Google searches no matter where I am -- and it was free with my cellular service plan. So why would I ever pay $500 for a cell phone? I don't think I'm alone here.

While you may think the voting issues associated with the elections in 2000 and 2004 have been resolved, you'd be wrong. And, there's a new call to go back to paper.

While not a ground-breaking Linux kernel release, the new Linux kernel, 2.6.27, offers at least five outstanding new features.

Updated (again) with a summary of Jonny's summary: Later today, we'll see what Apple (AAPL) has in store for us at its Worldwide Developer Conference. We think we know that there'll be no release date for the iPhone 5, but new rumors are flying, about new features in iOS5 and iCloud. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers are still hoping for "one more thing." Not to mention: Solo Tourism - Empty London...

I have for many years asked why modern laptops have a PC Card (PCMCIA) and more recently the ExpressCard slots. Years ago, the PC card slot was the only way to add functionality like a WiFi card, and sometimes even basic networking, but today (and for many years) most laptops come stacked with so much built in (networking, modems, Wifi, USB, FireWire, multi-monitor video out) that the inclusion of an expansion slot seems just like a waste of money and space in an environment that has limited space to begin with.

Despite the limited usability of the slot, nearly all laptops continue to come with the ports, even the MacBook Pro includes an ExpressCard/16 slot despite the fact that it has the sort of port connectivity that would make most desktops blush.

Apple's Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion, is now available to download, as predicted; it's $30, or $70, or even free for some users. But while the usual suspects are loving every minute of the new pomaceous operating system, others express some serious reservations. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers fight for the right. Not to mention: Ridiculous pictures of Celine Dion...
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I usually try to avoid chiming in on hot topics which are probably already hashed over too much in the blogosphere, and I've hesitated a couple of weeks now on the topic of iSCSI.  But ever since an inter-blog discussion started a few weeks ago, I've been feeling compelled to contribute, and it even marks a bit of a return to blogging for me from a couple of months hiatus.  While that's a pretty flimsy excuse to rehash a continuing debate that everyone's probably tired of, I'll use it anyway.  So in returning from a blogging hiatus, I should point out, I'm in a new role, and I'll introduce a standard caveat, that writings here are one man's random thoughts only, and don't reflect the opinion of Taneja Group or anyone else.

According to Google, it's Ext4, and that's why they're moving their servers to it.

I am going to write a series of blogs focusing on what I consider well kept secrets in the storage industry that you should know about. The first in the series focuses on a vendor called Avamar. You are probably familiar with the name but not what they really do (and do well). Avamar is a backup and recovery software company. I think its stupid for vendors to shy away from that classification. Backup and recovery are fundamental to every end user customer in the great big world. And for the most part the leading backup and recovery vendors are not the most loved by the IT folks. This space is ripe for innovation. Avamar is a major innovator.

The road to SQL started with Dr. E.F. Codd's paper, "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks", published in Communications of the ACM in June 1970.

Listen to this: it's IT Blogwatch, in which Microsoft launches Zune, to compete with Apple's iPod. Not to mention vital cookie dunking statistics...

Elizabeth Montalbano has the four-one-one:

Microsoft's Zune music player to ship in time for holidays. Rival to iPod features wireless technology, FM tuner ...

...Read more

Toshiba should follow Apple's example and offer rebates or some sort of Toshiba product credit to consumers who are now stranded with useless HD DVD players.