sentinel

WD ships Windows Storage Server-based business NAS

Western Digital announced today the WD Sentinel DX4000 NAS server for business environments.

The new four-bay server runs the Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials operating system on an Intel D525 Dual Core Atom processor.

Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 is superior to the current version of Windows Home Server and offers support for RAID configurations and iSCSI, which allows a portion of the network storage to be used by a computer as if it were a local drive. Because of this, the WD Sentinel DX400 supports RAID 1 and 5.… Read more

Sonim adds three new rugged phones

SAN DIEGO--For those in the know, Sonim is synonymous with rugged phones up to military specifications. The last Sonim phone we saw, the Sonim XP3300 Force, was swathed in rubberized material and impervious to concrete (but not to us.)

Now, the San Mateo, Calif. company adds three new GSM wrld phones to its rough 'n' tumble lineup, including one with NFC, or near field communications, capabilities.

That would be the Sonim XP1301 Core NFC, which (surprise, surprise) has an NFC chip capable of scanning tags that fit into a workplace; the medical field would be a good implementation for this.… Read more

Modern tower defense games for iOS

The tower defense genre started out with Desktop Tower Defense, a Flash game you could play in your Web browser, but once the iTunes App Store opened, developers quickly realized this type of game was a perfect fit for iOS devices. Soon, tower defense games that are now iOS classics emerged, including GeoDefense, Fieldrunners, and the hugely popular Plants vs. Zombies. The touch-screen interface made iOS devices a natural platform for tower defense gaming, allowing you to place units easily with only a few taps of your finger, and the result was the perfect time-waster requiring both quick thinking and a solid strategy.

Those early games are still fun even now, but the modern entries in the Tower Defense genre add even more to the action with 3D graphics, new types of gameplay, and new ways to take advantage of today's more powerful iOS devices. Whether you're a serious tower defense aficionado or new to the genre, you'll like the direction developers have taken with the tower defense games that are now available.

This week's collection of iOS apps are all tower defense games. The first is the latest sequel to a popular franchise in which you take the fight to the alien homeworld for the final showdown. The second offers up crisp 3D graphics as you defend a flock of sheep from an onslaught of enemies. The last is a new game that takes a different angle, challenging you to become the invader against well-defended maps, using units and abilities to keep your assault force alive.… Read more

Sudan under anti-war satellite surveillance

The Satellite Sentinel Project, launched today, will be monitoring Sudan from above and sharing information with the world in near real-time in an effort to deter violence.

The oil-rich southern region of Sudan is poised to hold a referendum on January 9 that could decide whether Sudan remains one country, or becomes politically divided into north and south entities. Many expect that there will be violence leading up to the vote, as well as after it, and that the Sudan could once again descend into chaos as it did during its 20-year war in which an estimated 2 million people … Read more

A Jaguar with nine lives

Safety is always a priority for manufacturers, but Jaguar's XJ Sentinel goes to extremes. The luxury sedan can withstand B7 grade weaponry such as an AK-74 and up to 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of exposives detonated within close proximity.

The bulletproof Sentinel will debut at the 2010 Moscow International Motor Show, but don't expect to be blown away (couldn't resist)--its exterior is indistinguishable from the standard long-wheelbase XJ models. The difference is in the chassis that's been constructed from specialized high-strength steels with Kevlar backing.

The standard XJ has a 3,909-pound curb weight, while … Read more

Disk watcher

Windows' built-in system tools are geared toward casual users and often lack the power or features needed to keep up with the latest hardware. Developers have stepped into the breach with tools such as Hard Disk Sentinel, a free utility for monitoring and analyzing the performance of terabyte-capacity hard-disk drives (HDDs) as well as the latest and fastest solid-state drives (SSDs). With a number of monitoring and reporting options, it can alert you to trouble with your critical storage components before failure becomes an option.

Hard Disk Sentinel's compact interface is a busy affair, packed tight with colorful status … Read more

Keep an eye on hard-disk health

Hard Disk Sentinel monitors and tests the health of your computer's hard disks. Although casual users may find some of the information helpful, this tool is better left to those already familiar with the metrics associated with PC performance.

The application monitors hard disk activity and performance. To do so, it integrates information from disks that use Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART), which measures mechanical failures during such processes as seeking and spin-up/spin-down. Hard Disk Sentinel also provides several tests to run through these processes. Errors are logged, and you can save or e-mail reports. Registered users ($… Read more

MySpace, Facebook spar over family safety

MySpace announced on Tuesday that it has deleted 90,000 accounts owned by registered sex offenders. It's good news for families, for MySpace, and for the state attorney general of Connecticut, who demanded last month that the News Corp.-owned social network turn over a roster of names.

It's especially good news for Sentinel, the security company that MySpace used to track down the accounts. And now Sentinel appears to be trying to take advantage of its success with MySpace into a PR campaign partly aimed at getting Facebook into signing a contract as well.

John Cardillo, the … Read more

Google search reveals plagiarism by columnist and White House aide

His name is Timothy Goeglein, and, as Paul Kiel at Talking Points Memo points out, it is quite ironic that Google should be the cause of his professional demise.

Goeglein is a White House aide and, until today, wrote as a columnist for the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel. He was outed for plagiarism this morning when Nancy Nall, a former employee at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, posted a blog entry detailing an innocent Google search she conducted on one of Goeglein's subjects. The search revealed that his latest column was almost completely lifted from another source (Jeffrey Hart, in this case, in an article for the Dartmouth review).

Since Nall's original posting, her readers and other bloggers have identified multiple instances of plagiarism. Timothy Goeglein has also fessed up. He told the Journal Gazette, "It is true. I am entirely at fault. It was wrong of me. There are no excuses." The News-Sentinel has announced that Goeglein will no longer be writing for the paper and will look into just how many of his columns may have been cribbed.

It's unclear what the fate of his other job will be. Goeglein serves as a Special Assistant to the President and works in the White House's Office of Public Liason. In 2004, the New York Times published a profile on Goeglein's role in the White House. David D. Kirkpatrick suggested Goeglein is an extension of Karl Rove, "even Mr. Rove has his limits -- calls he cannot make, hands he cannot shake and meetings he cannot attend. For those, he has Timothy Goeglein."… Read more