Today Adobe released updates to their Lightroom product (2.4) and Adobe Camera Raw (5.4). This included camera raw support for the Canon T1i (500D). This is usually a quarterly update that is made to support new hardware that has been released. Apple updated their camera raw support about two weeks ago for the same camera as well as some others. This finally means I will be able to shoot raw without worries.
Updates are available here.
A few posts ago I shared with you the latest storage technology called Drobo that acts like a Raid 5 drive array without the set-up hassle. Data Robotics, Inc. the makers of Drobo have introduced an add-on to Drobo, DroboShare.
DroboShare is an interface in-between the Drobo and your network, making your Drobo a Networked Attached Storage Device (NAS). Yes you could rig the Drobo on a Windows and or MAC and share it via software, but if you turned off the machine that the Drobo was attached to you lost your connection. DroboShare attaches to your router and offers a fast Gigabit connection to all of your files!
Take a look at the new DroboShare at www.drobo.com. It is $199 ($US) not including the Drobo unit which goes for $499 ($US) sans the SATA drives.
Ever wonder if your multi-core processor computer is really being put to good use? A few months ago, I wondered that myself, and decided to donate my cores to some good use. Since much of the time, two or more cores of my quad-core PC are idle, I use Folding@Home software from the genius’ at Stanford University. This ingenuous software gets installed onto your computer, and them when a processor is idle, it uses it to help Standford scientists Fold protein chains virtually.
Now I am not a scientist, but the idea of this is to simulate protein folding, which when gone array, makes for some diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, cystic fibrosis, BSE (Mad Cow disease). Labs all over are using the data our computers simulate to “unfold” the mysteries of these diseases in hopes of finding a cure.
The program is available for download on PC’s, MAC, LINUX, and included on the PS3 game console. I must say some versions are easier to install than others, and wished the MAC version was simple, but since it was not, I installed it on my PC. Currently, there is somewhere in the range of 250,000 individual processors computing at any one time. Imagine if we could take all of the idle office computers at night and have Folding@Home run until the next morning.
Take a look and donate your computer’s downtime to some scientific research that is good for all of humanity!
Learn more about Folding@Home (Folding at Home) at folding.stanford.edu
Also, view this clip about Folding@Home that was on DL.TV
Data on a hard drive is a designers life blood. Loosing time because a drive has died and the data went with it is not an option. Even for those of us that have hundreds to thousands of dollars invested in music downloads and thousands of photos from out digital cameras, loosing that special picture because a drive died is heart-wrenching. Enter into your life: Drobo, “The world’s first storage robot.”
Let’s face it, most if all of us are not IT specialists. Most of us just want data storage solutions that are plug and play. US/Firewire hard drives are great and have enabled us to store more and more, but data redundancy is not achieved by just plugging in a new hard drive. Drobo solves that problem by automating the data redundancy with Raid 5 like design, which is very common in larger corporations. The beauty of Drobo unlike Raid 5 is that it is truly a set-it and forget-it solution. Like a Raid 5, if one drive fails, replace it and Drobo will regenerate the data that was on the lost drive!
Drobo hooks-up to your MAC or PC with USB 2.0, and will take up-to 4 SATA I or II drives of any size. There is Raid Administration and it comes with a utility for monitoring your Drobo. You can use the Drobolator utility on the website to see what storage capacities you get with different drive sizes.
Remember, Drobo is just one part of your storage solution. It is important to also make multiple back-up’s of your information and store it off-site whenever possible.
Drobo costs $499 and comes with a power cord, USB 2.0 cord and the software utility. No drives are included! With the purchase of some SATA drives the total cost of the unit is at least $600-700, which is a bit pricey for the average consumer. In hopes of competition helping bring the prices down, I will wait-off on purchasing one for personal use, but for a business, this is a great scalable design.
Find out more at:
www.drobo.com
The Triple B 