About Clay

I'm a Data Center Operations Engineer in beautiful Charleston, SC. I'm happily married to my wonderful wife Nan and we have an teenage daughter Lela. I'm a total geek. I got into electronics when I was around 9 or 10 and got hooked on computers shortly thereafter. I also love Sci-Fi, (not fantasy) particularly Star Trek. My favorite outdoor activities include rollerblading, biking and hiking. I'm also a bit of a car guy and amateur racing driver.

Apple finally fixes Leopard with 10.5.3 update

It’s taken a little over 6 months, but Apple has finally fixed some of the nagging issues in their flagship OS. I’ve loved the Leopard experience thus far with one small exception, browsing windows shared folders. So long as you were only browsing folders with a few files, there was no problem. If you’re like me and you tend to archive all your digital photos on one machine and share them over the network this was a real problem. Just attempting to open one subfolder in my digital photo library meant looking at a spinning progress wheel for anywhere up to 20 minutes. Yikes! With 10.5.3, that’s all history. This is great for me because the the new photo browsing features of Leopard are just wonderful. Thank you Apple!

Phoenix lands on Mars, sends first pics

NASA’s Phoenix lander made if safely to the Martian surface and sent back its first images this evening. Since it takes over 10 minutes for the signal to get back to earth, you’re actually watching events that have already taken place. Still it’s pretty amazing just how well the landing went. The first images included some interesting shots of the local landscape. I love that in this connected age, the images were literally up on the Phoenix site minutes after they came down from the spacecraft.

NASA – Phoenix lander to set down Sunday

NASA – Phoenix

NASA’s Phoenix probe is set to land on the surface of Mars on Sunday around 8:00p EST. The lander will be setting down in a polar region. The last probe to attempt that crashed. Let’s hope this one has better luck. The Phoenix mission is somewhat similar to the Viking mission of the 1970’s in that it is a stationary lander designed to sample the soil for signs of life, or the potential to support life. NASA will hold a briefing on NASA TV and online on Saturday and will be streaming video of the event live Sunday evening. I can’t wait!!