ReadyNAS Duo up and running

Just a quick note to say I have finally got my network storage backup up and running! I bought the ReadyNAS Duo diskless version for a client because I found a great deal on it (only $190) and then bought the appropriate sized-hard drives for a redundant RAID array (500GB drives for my client, 1TB drives for me at home).

This thing was so easy to setup - plug it in, set an IP address (if you want, it will find an automatic address on it's own but I assigned one as the automatic address can change which could affect backup schedules) and you are good to go.

At home I have an iMac, a Vista Ultimate machine, an XP laptop and a Vista Home laptop - all found the drive and could read/write to it with no problems! All in all - I can't believe I waited this long to get a NAS device for the home, but it finally was affordable. I highly recommend it if you have been on the fence or have been considering a USB drive for backup purposes - this beats a normal external drive hands-down!

Facebook changes enough to make users leave?

Have to get my thoughts down on this one - why did Facebook make itself crappy enough to make me want to leave it like I left MySpace?

Facebook was stealing users from MySpace and MySpace was trying to make itself become more like Facebook for that reason. So why did Facebook try to make itself like another site, Twitter? Twitter already exists so there was no reason for FB to make itself look like Twitter, but they did it anyway.

I know there are more important things to worry about, but one of the great things I loved about Facebook when it first opened up to everyone outside of the college ranks was the clean layout and ease of use. You could easily find people, keep things updated and read updates, profiles - you name it - clearly, because people couldn't 'theme' their page like on MySpace which made most profiles unreadable or took forever to load with audio and video clips.

The profiles are still easy to read, but with their latest design change it is harder than ever to follow anything that is going on. You used to get a nice smattering of pertinent updates from people in your friend list that mattered. Now you get EVERY single thing that ANYone posts or does and it creates a cluster that is impossible to follow or keep up with. They have also hidden updates in the ads on the side of the page, so now you might click on something that is relevant and you want to see or you might end up on another site that lovingly made their ad look like something relevant.

And reading through the news lately Facebook employees hate new look, Facebook employees and end users all hate the new design, but the owner doesn't care. It is his right as owner not to care, but when you have people start leaving your site because of a simple thing like a design change that you refuse to revert, well - that just isn't smart. IMHO of course - I mean, who am I to say?

Sorry for the rant, and I will step off my soapbox now. :)