computers

Colin Smith writes “TradElect, the Microsoft .Net based trading platform for the London Stock Exchange, was offline for about seven hours, meaning that their 5-nines SLAs are shot for approximately the next 100 years. The TradElect system was launched back in June of 2007 and was designed for increased speed and system capacity.”
Anybody can screw [...]

My company, previously and hitherto referred to as the Twilight Zone<tm>, is not a normal place to work.  Or visit.  Or drive past in a hurry, pretending you don’t notice it.  As a not normal place, it tends to attract not normal employees (as if I wasn’t enough by myself).
Among the weirdities is the moving.  [...]

I’m seriously thinking about one of these mini laptop thingies.  Since I work in a Dell shop, the deal should pretty much be sealed by this point.
It’s not.
Dell has seriously botched this little adventure.  Rumors aside, Michael Dell was spotted a while back with a version of this laptop and the press went mental.  Then [...]

NEW YORK (AP) — As part of its new $300 million marketing campaign and image makeover, Microsoft Corp. plans to deploy its own customer-service representatives at retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City to help people with their PC purchases….
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I was just complaining to my wife that there’s nothing to do around here after a [...]

Morning time is the time I hate most at work.
The trip up the steps and through the main floor is always deceptive.  There are only a few people there already and one can sleepily drift toward one’s desk.  And that’s where the problems start.
No sooner did I sit down then I received an email from [...]

I’d be remiss in my blogging duties if I didn’t put up something with Chrome in the title.
A coworker asked me if I tried it.  I said no.  He described it as not having plugins like Firefox, but stripped down and really speedy.
“You mean like Opera?” I asked.
Ok, so here’s the obligatory Chrome review:
Who cares?  [...]

Ok, I’ll admit it.  When I purchased a Microsoft mouse, I was dying to call and ask MS if they had a linux driver for it.  I somehow managed to put off the urge.
Now that I’m much more mature I can reveal that I also have a Microsoft keyboard, for which I have completely resisted [...]

A two-year investigation has concluded that most Verizon FIOS installations fail to meet national safety standards, and could cause fires or electrocutions.
Copy a Single File to Avoid Re-Activating Windows XP
New York’s Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, is warning consumers after an undercover investigation found that 25% of gas stations are engaging in “deceptive practices,..” (yet he [...]

One of my favorite blogs, Dog Reader, just featured a story about finding a computer virus on the space station.  I highly recommend this blog and always find myself saying THAT’S RIGHT when I read it.
I want to deconstruct the story and the larger issues a bit.   Here are the facts as stated in [...]

A coworker was having some trouble with his Dell computer.  He took it to Best Buy.  They took one look at it and proclaimed he needed a new motherboard.
He was not convinced and had it looked at elsewhere.  Turns out the motherboard was perfectly ok.
It would seem that since Best Buy carries Dell, they won’t [...]