5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me

I have been tagged by Rich Miller at Data Center Knowlege to respond to the "5 things you probably didn't know about me" thread. While it is an honor to be tagged by Rich I am really in awe that the tag list (via Isabel's blog entry) goes back to Jeff Pulver. I have read Jeff's blog for some time and am a huge fan of his work.

Here are 5 things you probably don't know about me:

1. I am a HUGE fan of the TV show 24. My wife and I only discovered it two seasons ago and have been hooked ever since. This last week Best Buy put the normally $57 box sets on sale for $20 and we jumped all over that. Only 16 days until the new season premiere!!

2. I am married with 3 kids. I absolutely adore my kids and will usually do everything I can to show them off. To show grand parents and relatives pictures that we take I have a web site that is devoted to just that. It was originally intended to show case other interests, but we basically just use it to show off pictures of the kids. Check it out at www.rath-family.com

3. I am a Google Earth fanatic. Ever since it came out I have spent countless hours just surfing the globe. Geography was my worst subject in school....if I would have had this though, I think I would have done MUCH better.

4. I am a packrat. As I have been a computer geek since 7th grade I have a few antique computers. I was an Apple fan, so the basement holds an Apple IIe, IIc, IIgs (Woz limited edition), Mac, Mac+ and several Mac Performa models. I also have some PC relics, but nothing noteworthy. I also have a beautiful SGI Indy. For some reason I still have my 300 baud modem that I used in the the Apple IIgs (anyone remember the BBS?). For any other old Apple game fans, I highly recommend http://www.virtualapple.org/


5. I've mentioned this in a blog post before, but in this case it is worth mentioning again. I am a St. Louis Cardinals fan!! For the sake of mentioning it..... they are the 2006 WORLD CHAMPIONS! It was quite a year and I was very happy to be able to go to a game at the new Busch stadium. My son's hero, Scott Rolen hit a home run and they won the game.

I don't have a lot of fellow bloggers, but I'll tag Ben Stineman and Leo Laporte (I do not know Leo, but am a BIG fan of the TWiT podcasts.

Internap Stock

I've always wanted to dabble a little in buying stocks, but have just never had 'that' much money that I was not bothered with throwing it away. The best advice for investing in stocks is to only put in what you can afford to loose. :) I would always want to invest in the tech companies that I knew a little about. I really wanted to buy SGI stock when it was 38 cents ( I didn't), and then they declared bankruptcy.

Anyway, I have another tech company that I sure think would be a good investment and it is one that I am familiar with and use! It was nice to see this report at Envoy Global that backed up my thoughts on Internap.

Christmas Surfing

I've found several good things while surfing today that I thought I would share:

1. Motley Fool has an interesting article from a financial perspective on Equinix and their similarities to the old Exodus.

2. Chuck Hollis has an interesting blog article on Netapp. I've always liked the Netapp products, but have recently had an un-easy feeling about them for reasons unknown. I think his blog post might have brought those unknowns to light. I thought it was a very good post and worth the read. Please note that Chuck is an EMC employee, but for the most part keeps a pretty good perspective on the post.

3. While on the topic of storage -- I've run across a company (new to me) that I like. I haven't researched them a lot, but plan on doing so. They have a pretty unique approach to storage and storage solutions. The company is Compellent.

4. Elk River Minnesota started the "energy pitch" back in 1997. It's an attractive place for companies needing cheap or alternative power to consider relocating to (i.e.: Data Centers :)

5. I don't think this is anything 'brand new', but I was reading a good article at ZD Net blogs on HP's Dynamic Smart Cooling. It is a good read with a link out to a HP video.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!

Google's Magic

I'm a sucker for any post on Google, their data center automation or the petabytes of information they manage. While this post isn't necessarily anything new, I found it to be a very interesting read.
Check it out here.

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S !

Grid Technologies

Grid technologies have been a side interest of mine for some time. I am not actively involved in any projects, but really enjoy reading about what people are doing with it and the potential it has. I have a product offering in my head wrapped around the DataSynapse products, but just can't get it on to paper. DataSynapse makes very cool software and seems to have a very balanced suite of applications.

While surfing around today I ran across this article at WHIR. It is worth a read as it explains how hosting companies are starting to utilize grid technology. It also has several good links to technologies and companies.

White House Data Center

As a fan of the TV show 24 it is fun to imagine what the White House situation room must be like. According to Cnet the overhauled information hub is due to open up December 27th. Check out the article and photo gallery here.

Another Google Mega Data Center?

With the words "Google" and "secret facility" in the title, I couldn't pass up this post on Digg.com.

The WebProNews article is here. It looks as though Google may be planning a data center in Goose Creek South Carolina (map here).

$980M , 470k sq.ft Data Center!

Wow! The DC deals keep pouring in for Texas. While declining to give any details, Microsoft confirmed they are looking at San Antonio for a new data center. This would be next to the $68M Lowe's data center. Here is the link to the MySA.com article.

DC Powered United Airlines Data Center

Here is a link to yet another good article over at Tech Target. I like it because data centers that use DC power intriuge me and there is a link to a nice power calculator. Very much worth a read!

Gartner DC Conference

Just a quick link over to a Matt Stansberry article on his notes from the Garnter Data Center conference. He goes over the details of the trends that emerged at the conference.

Netapp - Topio Acquisition

I don't normally link to stories on infrastructure, but I am a particular fan of Netapp. This article at Eweek discusses the recent acquisition of Topio and what it means for them.

India Data Center Market Worth $100M

Although it seems like more of an ad for Symantec, here is a brief article claiming that the India Data Center market is worth $100M and could reach $200M by 2009.

Hosting Provider Aplus Acquired

I thought it was interesting that hosting provider Aplus recently announced that they were being acquired by Catalyst Investors. The line in the release that caught my eye was:
"Catalyst was advised by Daniels & Associates, of Denver and New York, on the acquisition and debt financing of the transaction"

I think it is both a good and bad thing. It's good because they are a strong enough company to come out of this, restructured and financed to take another shot at competing with Godaddy.com and 1 and 1. I think it is bad because I kind of wonder what direction the investment group will take them. I've used their billing software and registrar services extensively over the years.

Just have to keep an eye on them over the next few months to see how/if things change.

1000 IBM Bladecenter Servers

I haven't had a lot of experience with using blades yet, but their power and cooling requirements have sure kept the news headlines full. This story outlines a deal where OSGI selects 365 Main to deploy more than 1000 IBM Blade Center servers in San Francisco. It should be interesting to see how those work out and what power and environmental solutions were used to support this infrastructure.

Heat in the Data Center

After reading Data Center Knowledge's article, Heat or Hype I continued my normal surfing. I just so happened to stumble upon an equally interesting article. It's a story on HP, their cooling experiences and knowledge on the subject. I sat in on a session at Data Center World last September given by a senior VP at HP. He was the one responsible for consolidating all of the HP data centers in to half a dozen or so. As the article and the presenter explained, they intend to use themselves as a test case for how various technologies work out in the enterprise data center.

This article talks about a HP product offering due out summer of 2007 that that the company claims will offer 20- to 45-percent energy cost savings. Beyond this they discuss CFD and some general thoughts on cooling. I found it to be a very interesting article.