Western Digital Releases WD TV in the Philippines

I think I've seen one of these in Greenhills a couple of years ago and I know there have been multiple upgrades and advancements in these boxes especially since it is WD TV. I've worked with other brands and cable corporations who have something similar to this but still, WDTV presents more premium functions and features that you won't normally see in other media players. Now, Western Digital just announced the release of the WDTV Personal Edition. This means that any other media whether you have it on your PC, Laptop or USB's. the WDTV Personal Edition would be able to play it as long as you have it on your network. This is also Wifi enabled so you don't need to be connected via ethernet or directly wired to the box itself. For me, that's totally convenient.

Mr. Jim Welsh the Executive Vice President for WD Content Solutions Business and Worldwide Sales says that "The new WDTV Personal Edition would make it seamless for anyone to play in a multitude of screen sizes and get them to play a variety of personal videos, photos and music. The quality will be superb and it can support various video file formats such as MKV, MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV and a whole lot more." You can also use Western Digital's array of external or portable drives like the WD My Cloud - Personal Cloud which I reviewed a few days ago. You can basically take charge with the kind of entertainment you want on your living room, you choose your own applications, you can stream HD videos too via Miracast, Youtube, Hulu Plus, Vudu + a lot more while playing it on your hand held device or HD TV's. 

 

The WD TV is currently sold in the Philippines through its official distributor Iontech Inc and EA Global Supply Chain Solutions Inc. It's suggested retail price is around 4,890 pesos while the WD TV Remote app for smartphones or mobile handsets is free on the App Store and Google Play Store. You should check it out!

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Unboxing The Western Digital My Cloud - Personal Cloud Storage

The WD My Cloud - Personal Cloud Storage

Storage options in this day and age is but of a necessity and we've kept an eye on most brands that carry them in the Philippines. I for one am in the looks for it because I have tons of photos to keep on archives for copyright's sake. The good news is, they're getting smarter and smarter now. Case in point is the WD My Cloud Personal Cloud Storage. This came out perhaps in the late half of 2013. It's given a whole new meaning on what to expect with today's network storage devices in the lines of SOHO servers. Add to that it's capability to get integrated with cloud storage features that would be perfect for mobile devices. This is one unbelievable device and I'll show you how to install it on Windows 7. Here's our attempt to unbox it!  

Now, you don't have to subscribe to major service providers to get that cloud capability. You can also have less maintenance since you can have this right in the comforts of your own home. It's also a shared storage so you can assign rights to users to have different access restrictions re: Read/Write capability. 

As long as you have internet connection, you can use WD's free apps to upload and share files from different platforms. It can come from your phone, tablet, phablet, PC or Mac. I tried it on my iPhone and it ran without a hitch. It's like your own virtual dropbox where you can assign and create your own folders and set access to it too. I love that you can also check the drive's status and see how your drive performs while connected to the network. 

Just type in the url WDMyCloud/UI and you'll be taken to this user interface. It's got all the nice little things you need to know about your drive. It also indicates the number of cloud devices connected to it. If there are also some updates on the hardware's firmware, you can choose to do it here as well.

It might be simple to some of you but I like the fact that they thought about having attachments like these on the box. It addresses something so simple but you don't have to go out anymore and buy one off the market because they knew you had this in your home.

It's also autovolt, so whether you are in a country who's got 110V or 220V on their outlet, don't worry because you'll have the adapter doing its thing for you.

You've got enough storage as it's got 3TB of space that's perfect for those HD movies you've stored long ago on your hard drive. Please do yourself a favor and transfer it to the Personal Cloud Storage and get everyone else access to the file. I can even see a movie marathon spurning on your own personal rooms, whenever and wherever you may wish to get it. I watched my favorite Hunter X Hunter series on my phone by transferring the file from the laptop to the drive. I want to have separate access restrictions to my parents because they're used to deleting apps on my tablet already, let alone the drive if they had it. We don't mean to do that.

Up close, it's make is surely sturdy. The base won't budge unless an outside force would be too much to handle. It's got one drive inside, but you know what makes it special? The speed. I think if you compare this to my existing 3 TB hard drive, it's like buying a sportscar and leaving the tractor outside your farm. My photos were transferred only in a few minutes, a couple more faster than my previous one. I haven't tested it though to mirror onto another drive but the backup feature on it from this to another drive on my desktop actually works. Where else can you find easy setup with the network drives to back up on multiple locations? It's something that WD can surely be proud of. The cable seen above can run Gigabit rates. That, in less than 200 hundred dollars. I've seen some around 170 bucks and possibly this could be cheaper in the Philippines less tax and duties.

 

 If you've got to save files and want to have instant access to it, the WD My Cloud Personal Storage would be the perfect network storage drive to have in your home. It's not complicated to set up, the unit looks sleek and classy that it won't look like clutter in your office. Best of all, it's available at Astroplus, DigiHub, Digital Arena, Digital Hub, my favorite store Digital Walker, Heima, iGig, Quicksound and other specialty stores nationwide. You may check out https://www.facebook.com/digitstrading and see specials on other items like these in their stores. I'll give it a 4/5 because it's affordable and has got more features than the regular network drive. If you're already using it, can you tell me what other things you are using this for? I'm so psyched I don't have to use remote desktop anymore if I need files off my home. What cool things have you done with it?

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Infrastructure Matters: IBM's System X

IBM announced today the 6th generation of its enterprise level X-Architecture for System X and PureSystems servers. This sparks a seamless addition to new and improved x86 based systems that would be great for analytics, cloud and large data.

IBM believes that change is inevitable. With a new era of business opportunities and very dynamic data size and sources, it is time to prepare to make use of better structures and framework. Analytics and big data handling is essential to remain competitive. Systems has to have no downtime, faster access and bigger data transfers and having servers that can predict any errors even before it happens without compromising other data uptime. Features like these make the IBM solutions for shared and secured access on a league of its own.

The beauty of it is that every two years they will announce new ones but this will still work. The same concept they are bringing to new ones because you don't need upgrades that much as it won't be cost efficient. This systems are designed for business critical enterprise so that even when you scale up, you won't get compromised and give you about 43% solutions cost. You can host multiple generations of technology in one server so maintenance is extremely easy. IBM's X6 is the fastest, mission critical application deployment in x86 based systems and no hardware vendor can match it. They are the first to do this.

X5 will retire this December. They also said that the Lenovo acquisition will not affect anything but the team that developed this and support for it will be transferred to Lenovo. We'll have to wait for the official announcement on this. With more performance and lower cost plus 4x more memory and higher system availability I couldn't think of any brand yet that could match X6. Will big enterprise use be of a reality soon? We'll have to find out if it applies to the Philippine market so we in turn can reap its benefits.

Note: One of the the local distributors is MSI, and they've assured all else will be okay once the transition starts in transferring x86 to Lenovo.That is reassuring.

The zEnterprise Mainframe Servers: For Larger, Smarter Computing Needs

First off, I would like to congratulate IBM Philippines for having Sang Yoong Yi as the new Country Manager for their Systems and Technology Group.
Welcome to the Philippines!

Robert "Bob" Neidig is the Program Director for Worldwide Sales Systems and Technology Group in IBM. He took quite a number of tough questions from Media and the technology bloggers. It was easy for him though because imagine what 40 years of experience in Mainframe technologies would do.

When we saw the initial release of the zEnterprise Mainframe Servers this year we thought it wasn't going to get better than that! Here goes IBM releasing another IBM zEnterprise System version that's space saving, practically 25% more energy efficient and powerful than it's closest predecessor. The IBM zEnterprise 114 mainframe server which is part of the IBM zEnterprise System line was tailor made for institutions like large banks, insurance companies or government offices that require computing power with large database requirements and mainframe capabilities. For medium enterprise corporations that forecast growth even on the IT resources side this would be a perfect addition to any armament so upgrades and eventual expansion should be a cinch.

It's remarkable that if you also compute the savings tri-annually it could dish out around80% as compared to usual consolidated servers. Those on the other hand would require you a whole football field just for space alone. Imagine how much is packed on these towers and you probably would believe how economics play in this game. Add to that the required power and logistics of having it cooled down because the temperature of that is no joke either.

This new system is quite remarkable as it predecessors; not to mention it's capability to work on a couple of platforms. It can support select System x blades that can run both Linux x86 and Windows applications in the future too. The zEnterprise 114 mainframe server can help simplify most data centers because of its ability to manage workloads across mainframes, POWER7 and System x servers. It would act like a single system eliminating redundancy or wastage in cycles making each routed traffic extremely efficient. With it's zEnterprise Blade Center Extension (zBX) corporations that utilize this can extend the mainframe qualities. It's ability to govern and manage resources and run workloads across multiple platforms can be done without any hitches. That's how efficient this new system is. Did I mention that it can run all the existing zEnterprise Operating system which includes the new z/OS V1.13 too?! It also complies with industry standards plus applies a couple of encryption features worked on by the men and women behind IBM Research and Development. So you are sure you get the best deal plus the power that you require with less overall hassle.

The zEnterprise Mainframe Servers are on a class of its own. We actually asked them a weird question (well I did) because at the level they are playing there are no more competitors and they are actually only making their existing hardware better. They were not worried about eventual profit loss because as they continue to make these enterprise level machines available for up and coming industries they would be able to still work with their existing platforms and take it up a notch. Research and Development in IBM took years and they invested a lot in it. True enough they have steadily seen growth and have lead the market eventually. They have however not stopped improving what they currently have; and that's a nice bit to start their centennial celebration isn't it?!

If you have large corporate expansions in the plans I suggest you take a look at what IBM has to offer and enjoy the joys of having your ROI's realized. The zEnterprise Mainframe Servers will surely deliver what others right now are only dreaming of. IBM also thought about interoperability and made sure corporations save economically and still be environmentally adept. They didn't just think about themselves, they thought about YOU! This is after all, smarter computing.

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IBM Shows a World of "Smarter Computing"

Imagine a world where computers and servers are no longer required to be updated manually or be environmentally harmful at any given state. One that would be energy efficient, requires less space and had more bang for the buck powerful computing power than ever before. This has been one of IBM's goal since their inception of a world with Smarter Computing. This is one that would literally change the face of information technology by leaps and bounds. They already have achieved remarkable advancements in this field as we learned about it from the IBM Technology Expo 2011 last May 17.

Have you heard of Watson? Nope, not the one with Sherlock Holmes. If not, watch this!

You see, IBM just has shown here how a specialized super computer (that is not connected to the world wide web) and how it would be able to compete with the best minds in the world for this game. Watson can come up with a lot of things which includes a) an answer, b) gauge how confident he is about the answer, c) the capability to learn about it, d) analyze and understand human speech no matter what you want it to mean and e) say the actual words for the answer. The billions of dollars they have spent on research and development has achieved so much in a short amount of time. They even used Power7, a next generation server processor which succeeds the Power6. IBM had several sites in different countries to work and make a "Petascale Supercomputer Architecture" that can do quadrillion rate jobs in a short amount of time. This is possible by doing techniques and strategies in parallel computing. These new generation of Blade Servers are faster, smaller compared to the other big predecessors of the IBM Power Systems.

This is how DeepQA thinks. The power behind Watson.
(Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Mr. Steven Seah, Smart Analytics Leader of the Systems and Technology Group for IBM in ASEAN explained the things WATSON can do. If you think about the possibilities that these servers can do in other applications such as medicine, nuclear management, ATM, file storage and other utilities for enterprise scaled businesses; the outlook is very promising. Imagine the return of investment for many corporations that continue to use bigger racks, space and carbon footprint requirements when they use just a few of these instead. Costing wise and strategy wise this is the way to go. Take a look at what it can eventually do for Cancer research:

With IBM Power 7 Systems it can handle different forms of Analytics, Data Warehousing and increased throughput. It can compare and analyze millions of pages and get almost the same amount of questions for it.

Mr. Eugene Bay, the Power Systems Manager for IBM in ASEAN talked about how they led the market these past few years because of some systems that were not supported by other vendors; like the Oracle Solaris OS for the UNIX platform. They have been able to dominate the market because of these blunders. It still employs the same but improved cooling systems they had with the Power 6 series. They used Chilled water instead of Air in order to get it up to 4000 times more efficient in cooling. It's better for the environment. The noise is not much of a concern and they could probably have things to aesthetically remove that pretty soon too. Insider information seems to indicate there will be Power 8 in the works and that again would have monumental changes in the information technology landscape as IBM has done in the past. Making this and have an OS that would be able to accommodate two architectures or more would take a lot of resources to achieve. Think of what it can do with Mac if it had Power7 on it. That would count around 8 cores a chip then two of these chips per module with two modules and 4 SMT threads a chip it could blow your mind into smithereens just doing the math. They told me never to fear advancements in technologies like these if I think that this would require less manpower requirements because they would just be assigned to other productive tasks later on. Life would be easier and less strenuous for what it's worth.

I'd like to take this bit to thank a few people from IBM for inviting me last May 17, 2011. You made me go back to school again at this day and age ha-ha! Thank you to Country General Manager James Velasquez, Mr. Owen Cammayo and the beautiful ladies from IBM Philippines, IBM ASEAN and External Relations for everything.

Congratulations to IBM for spending a lot on Research and Development on this; you have done well!

L-R IBM Philippine General Manager James Velasquez, Mr. Steven Seah, Smart Analytics Leader of the Systems and Technology Group for IBM in ASEAN and Mr. Eugene Bay, the Power Systems Manager for IBM in ASEAN
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Reliable Server Hosting

As a Computer Engineer and IT Professional for the last 8 years, I've been dealing with technologies that are not on the comprehension of most of my friends and family. I'm not surprised though because even if I have been doing this for a long time nobody would ever thought that I'd be able to manage 4 web sites and 7 forums in the same period. I have been very busy obviously but I am somewhat not worried. I know the benefits of dedicated server hosting and advantages of having one. In this day and age it is pretty much a necessity because the last thing you would want to have in running businesses that have resources on line is downtime. Some hosting companies outsmart users by making it look they can handle the traffic but you later find out that they only do shared servers. The idea of having dedicated servers is like heaven for web administrators like us because we can largely manage what we do while the provider maintains and hosts it. You kind of get an idea how large the return of investments are for large companies that do this for a living because the manpower is less and the maintenance costs are very low.

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If you need one I'll check them out if I were you!

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Virtual Private Servers as we all know costs a lot these days and the maintenance of websites are just the same. We can never alienate the fact that we need virtual dedicated servers so we can control what content we have in our own websites. I was lucky enough that mine had its management done by the hosting site and it costs a little more than the usual. Today, there are better offers that can beat the $10 mark, and they also pitch in a couple of things so you won't just get the freebies but everything including easy to use software that can be used by novices like me.

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