Douglas Alger

When I was a kid, about two weeks before each school year started, my parents would take me shopping for clothes and school supplies. As a pre-teen I wasn’t exactly enthused about these trips, but one shop – a shoe store – always had my undivided attention at checkout time. The store’s cash register…

It’s 25 years ago and I’m in the midst of my original career, as a newspaper reporter. I live and work in northern Los Angeles County, and the region has recently been rocked by the Northridge Earthquake. Caught in the widespread damage are my apartment and the City Hall building containing my offic…

Major movie theaters in my area have been offering reserved seating for quite a while. Customers can order tickets and choose their seats weeks in advance, either online or directly at the theater.  With a little forethought, a person can watch a new movie as soon as it comes out without worrying ab…

Will the last person to leave the computer room please turn off the equipment? That’s not a phrase that tends to be uttered around business critical Data Centers or computer labs.  Shut down electronic devices that have been running for long periods of time and there’s a chance they won’t come back…

Say you’re working for a large company and there’s a proposal to shut down dozens of buildings for several days near the end of the calendar year.  A lot of people – employees and customers both – are already taking time off for holidays, so it’s a relatively painless way to save energy, lower opera…

I’m a backstage, behind-the-scenes kind of person. I find it fascinating to observe things from somewhere other than where the audience normally sits.  Watching from the side of the stage or perhaps seeing a rehearsal often reveals something unexpected or amusing. Years ago I was at a professional v…

I was at a movie theater recently, seated comfortably and waiting to see the latest chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, when I overheard a friendly debate among three young men in the row ahead of me. “If you could have one superpower, what would you want?”  It’s impolite to eavesdrop, but I h…

If you share your secret sauce recipe with a lot of people, is it still secret sauce? I recently co-hosted a televised Data Center tour alongside Cisco IT distinguished engineer Jon Woolwine. A camera crew shadowed us as we walked the company’s Data Center in Allen, Texas and discussed the site’s in…

Cisco IT has, as you may have heard, been shutting down some of its Data Centers. We’ve closed dozens of older facilities – some large, many small – in the past 10 years, consolidating into purpose-built rooms that better enable our business. The latest to close was the company’s longest-running De…