NetSwamp

Computerworld let Eric Lai cut an article titled: “Microsoft targets Linux, IBM with Windows Server for really small biz“. After reading the article I suspect Microsoft is using a BB Gun.

Essentially the article reads as though Microsoft has unleashed a killer OS for use by really small businesses called Windows Server 2008 Foundation. [...]

At more than 55 million kilometers away (how many miles is that?), NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is having technical difficulties. Apparently the rover rebooted several times last weekend.  Irregularities in communications alerted scientists to the glitch.

Both rovers have greatly exceeded their original mission of 3 months. They’ve been there over 5 years. [...]

Tomorrow, the people of the world have the opportunity to demonstrate their unity. Between 8:30-pm and 9:30pm in each time zone people around the world are planning to turn-off their lights. And, everything else that uses power. This is our opportunity to show the powers-that-be we are united in the effort to change our [...]

Six months, or so, ago I was brow-beaten’ to remove Linux from our community computer (that’s the one everybody else in my house uses) and reinstall Windows. With great reluctance and a warning I complied. The warning; “If it gets infected, someone else in this house is going to learn how to install Windows. I’m done with it!”

I was greeted with a note from my daughter this morning;

Daddy, Would you please fix my computer.

Continue reading Windows: A Festering Wound…

I think everyone can acknowledge, technology itself isn’t always guilty of making our lives complex and/or problematic. In fact, very often it’s the person using the technology that causes self-imposed grief. Towards that end, I found this incredibly funny story you’ve just gotta read…

http://www.mollynoir.com/carolineinparis/2009/03/03/technology-bites/

Okay, locked-out I can see, but locked-in? Technology not [...]

I work creating and maintaining  websites and applications. Seems like everything on the ‘net gets cached at some point. It can be a real P.I.T.A. to keep track of where cache is created, when to clean it and when to leave it alone.

Some of the sites I care for are CMS based. Don’t get me wrong, I think CMS’s are great. They save a lot of time and keep the content separate from the design elements. Which makes life easier. Some however, have caching built-in. And the built-in caching actually works from a performance stand-point. What bites, is the necessity to periodically clean the cache. With tens of thousands of cache files, just getting the cache display page to load takes forever. Deleting the files takes time too and it’s never a single-pass operation.

Continue reading Cache here, cache there, cache everywhere…

Ever wonder how much of your web audience uses dial-up? Want to know what it feels like to use an old 56k modem again? Scarey huh?

I’ve been reading lately about how webmasters have forgotten that there are still people using dial-up and that we proceed to create sites that are slow for dial-up [...]