Category Archives: Technology

Building a box in Malaysia

I ordered a new laptop from Dell (yeah yeah yeah … I said I wasn’t going to buy another Dell).

The estimated ship date for the order is August 27th.

The order went from “Order Accepted” to “Boxing” in about 6 hours … and it’s been sitting in Boxing since then.

Of course I had horid thoughts about the box sitting on a Dell dock for 7 days just so they can meet their shipping estimate.

Turns out the computers are actually built in Malaysia … and when the order status shows ‘Boxing’, the computers are being shipped to the Dell distribution factility in Tennessee. Once in Tennessee it takes another day to be truly ‘Boxed’ up and shipped out.

Hopefully the new machine will be here by the end of next week.

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Windows XP SP2

Well, if you are one of the 5 people in the computer world who doesn’t know yet … Microsoft has released Windows XP Service Pack 2.

I’ve downloaded it … but I’m going to hold off on installing it for a while. Probably 2-3 weeks. For some undefinable reason … I just don’t trust MS to have tested it as well as it should be. Go figure.

Thanks to Mike Wills for pointing out the official download location early yesterday.

Same old same old

ZDNet is running an article titled “IBM overhauls iSeries for the long haul” where it’s discussing how IBM has revamped the iSeries (AS/400 … i5 … name du’jure) for the modern age.

I dunno … I still don’t see a ad’s on the TV touting the iSeries. I think there were some implied iSeries ad’s a few years ago … where the exec was all in tizzy because their server room was empty … except for a single black box (looked like an iSeries) … and a lone tech was walking out the door and said “We consolidated all the servers on the one box” (which is kind-a / sort-a what LPAR allows you to do) … but iSeries was never mentioned … just eServer.

Of course the biggest problem that iSeries faces these days is summed up by this final quote in the article:

You can run a Web server on an iSeries,” Eunice said, “but try to find yourself a Web programmer who has experience in that, or find yourself someone who’s an expert in Microsoft Exchange and also AS/400? Good luck.

Which is, unforunately, quite true.

Computers – then and now

At work, our ITS support person is going to be transplanting our development system from one set of hardware to another (slightly more powerful).

He sent out an email annoucing that he would be doing a full system backup tonight (always a good idea when doing a major system change). He indicated that he would be running the backup from home.

I responded …

You wimp … back when I was doing upgrades we had to wait hours for the system to prompt us for the next diskette.
Of course, trying to lift a 200mb hard drive would give you a hernia … instead of having to worry having about it getting lost in your pocket change 🙂

That got a laugh.

Darl McBride is a Maniac

Not my words … my friend Jim’s.

He pointed me to an article in TechWorld where they obviously omitted a small part of Darl’s statement (the obvious omission is in brackets) …

When people say SCO is just a litigation company, it really bugs me, [and I’ll sue the pants off of anyone who disagrees with me!]
– Darl McBride, CEO of SCO

Of course, the statement that got me was:

McBride also made clear his overriding goal – the destruction of the free software movement: “Wait until the SCO battles are over and let’s see if it’s free or not.” McBride has repeatedly said in the past that free software stifles innovation and harms the IT industry because companies can’t produce great products without any financial return. He continued to rant: “Keep your eye on the [court] filings. Over the coming year, one of the things that you’re going to see is that Big Blue has got big problems.”

Jim comment “that means destruction of the constitutional right of freedom of assembly” … and my only thought was that “People like McBride are against concepts of freedom … they want all the power themselves.”.

I guess McBride (and SCO) is a ‘corporate darwinist’ … he belives in survival of the fittest … ‘course cockroaches have survived for millions of years too.

Cookout and Archives

Today was a somewhat busy day … went to the annual Broadband Reports Chicago / SBC – Ameritech Midwest Cookout held at kcazzie‘s house.

It was enjoyable … lots of yaking about geeky stuff.

When I got home I started working on implementing a requested feature for the mailing list archives so that the number of results / page could be selected and remembered. Took a few hours to code and test, but it appears to be working well.

I also used the change as an opportunity to change the way the list index pages are generated … now I’m using Jamon … which is a nice templating engine for Java. I’m not using nearly all the capabilities of the package, but I’m pleased with the results.

iSeries Blogger Button

Ok iSeries Bloggers … now WE have a button!

I would suggest you reference it like this:
<a href="http://www.iseries.ibm.com" title="IBM iSeries -- For when you can't afford to be out of business"><img src="/images/iseries-button.png" alt="IBM iSeries"/></a>

Feel free to use the button graphic on your site … but, please, copy it to your own server instead of referencing mine 🙂

If you do decide to use the image … trackback to this post. Maybe I’ll setup an iSeries blog agregator sometime.

Case in point: Electronic voting

MIAMI, July 27 – Almost all the electronic records from the first widespread use of touch-screen voting in Miami-Dade County have been lost, stoking concerns that the machines are unreliable as the presidential election draws near.
– The New York Times

Ok, I think the people who are all for electronic voting without the need for a paper trail have proven the case against electronic voting.

Sheesh … the only case for not having a paper trail is so the results can be manipulated without anyone being aware of it. That’s why criminals don’t like checks.