After more than 2 years, lost in the back-water and darkness of the Internet, NetSwamp re-emerges.
|
||||||
|
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. The product permits up to 15 users and comes without additional software. So, if you want to use it, you’ll need to buy a little bit more software to create your solution. Still chuckling… My favorite part was;
Bilal hit it right on the head. This is a ploy to increase MS’s bottom -line. The reality is, they’ve ignored small (really small) businesses for a very long time. This has allowed Linux to squeeze into the small business space by necessity (the mother of invention) and lack of support. I have to believe that MS will lose this battle. For most people that have made the switch to Linux, once they have a “handle on it” they won’t go back. Really who wants to use a stripped-down Windows Server limited to 15 users, when Linux is a free – enterprise quality OS that has no such limitation? Perhaps MS should explore other areas they once deemed unprofitable for additional revenue sources. 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. That’s pretty amazing considering communication delays over distance, adverse environmental conditions, and Murphy’s Law. What we have here… Is a failure to communicate! Prior planning, obviously based on their knowledge of the reliability of our technology, NASA installed multiple methods for the rovers to communicate with earth. They have a high-gain dish, a low-gain antenna and a UHF transceiver. NASA deserves credit for planning multiple backup systems and a big pat on the back for the missions themselves. But, is it a communications problem or something else? One can either take what the media provides as gospel or speculate. I’m sure it’s a bummer for the scientists at NASA. It’s not like they can send a technician on a house call. We’ll never truly know what happened unless it can be brought back and put on a tech bench for diagnosis. Until then, it becomes Martian litter when it dies. Ain’t technology great? Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. A headline I found from April 11th reads; Danish hackers meld lawn mower with Nintendo Wii.
Somethings just shouldn’t be. I can imagine the results being fun to play with, but you still have to follow it around the yard to steer. Not to mention there’s still gonna be areas it can’t go that still need to be trimmed. I envision this, at it’s worst , running over a child and doing serious harm. In this case, someone just created another way to use technology with out asking, “Is this really a good idea”?
You gotta love the way this article starts; “Sometimes, technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” An Oshkosh woman was attempting to travel to Laona from the White Lake area when her GPS gave her what it thought was the best route. Instead, it triggered a series of misfortunes which left her stranded on a snowmobile trail, a good four or five miles into the woods. It wasn’t just a matter of getting lost, but she eventually was stuck in the snow. And it only gets worse. The tow truck drivers sent to help her had to turn back as her tracks were covered by the snow and rain. A local sheriff’s deputy was dispatched to locate her. The deputy did find her, but the deputies car promptly got stuck in the snow too. If that’s not enough, the woman’s battery died and her transmission got stuck in park so it couldn’t be moved. Several local organizations were called including the Department of Natural Resources. That combined with some heavy equipment her vehicle was eventually freed. It simply proves, blind-faith and technology make a bad cocktail! While reading articles via Google news, as I’m prone to do, I clicked on an article titled: Microsoft targets Linux, IBM with Windows Server for really small biz. My opinion of the article will be noted in my next article. It’s not so much the article itself, but computerworld.com that rubbed me wrong. One tenant of designing web sites is not to muck around with the user’s computer. In the case of computerworld.com they seem to have forgotten that messing with the user’s desktop pisses them (ok me ) off! It’s bad enough computerworld.com tries to throw-up a pop-up with each visit, but they change the size of my browser window too. Pop-up’s I tolerate, resizing my window is a no no. Needless to say, it’ll be a while before I return to computerworld.com. 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 ways in order to save our planet. From the Earth Hour web site;
Technology can’t bite if power isn’t applied. Please participate, enjoy the hour, and reflect on the “old days” before technology ruled our lives! 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;
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 only sucks, but it’s taking prisoners! 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… |
 Orlando Ex. Arpt, FL88 °F (87 °F) |
|||||
|
Copyright © 2012 NetSwamp - All Rights Reserved |
||||||