Swifts
So I look up from my toils last Saturday (wife commanded the balcony cleaned!) into a cloudy sky. SWIFTS. Yep those ... Only in England. The choice was a bloke from a failing party whose main attribute was telling everyone that he is ... Had a meeting the other day with three managers of Big-vendor Inc. You know the type, £80-100-150K, share ... It was HP PPP time again, PPP for the great unwashed is HP Preferred Partner Program and for the VERY unwashed HP is ... So I get this new AV manipulation software, I’ll soon be managing everything domestic from my PC – the power! What’s he going on about now? Well I am going on about why not many of you use technology to implement, manage, investigate and control production technology? Just how predictable is that? Facts or press driven hysteria – you choose. The CEO of Cisco is now part of a big on-line initiative about making IT more green. Is it me? Are we not all a bit p*ssed off with EVERY IT company blurbing on about Green issues. It’s obvious that their ... Clone Cisco carries Malware that is a threat to the civilisation in the West. Can you believe that? Well that’s what has been put out!! Those poor sods who stumped up thousands for their predictions, what did they get for all their money? Well a bloody insult is as close as I can get, I mean, look at their Key Findings. I went to a evening council meeting about planning permission to convert the local public bog into a cafe. We won, it’s still a bog! Scoop time. Well OK Citrix have known for weeks but the rest of us have not. Normal stuff, their business partners kept in the dark till something happens, guaranteed to make us look like dumb wits. OK, OK you ... Well OK, OK not a complete rainforest but a shed load of paper none-the-less. On my desk, THUMP. Big jiffy bag full of paper, which I measured as almost 8cm thick!! Now this is from one of the two biggest IT companies on the planet! A ... These new servers/printers/routers/storage arrays/whatevers consume 30% less power as part of HP/IBM/Sun/Cisco/whoever’s industry leading contribution in the fight against Global warming. MORE b*ll*cks of course; but really harmful because ... I have been invited personally by the President of one of the BIG IT companies to be a member of one session of this. Personally, yeah he took a couple of days off from $100m a year mega-job to research who in the UK could add something to ... Yet another raft of new products, new companies, new upgrades and so forth and of course everyone is “Industry Leading”, “Unique”, the “final answer”. LOADS of pictures of people on beaches/golf ... What’s all this about then? It’s a Repton Rip-Off! Actually no it's not. We have loads of demo kit here, about $2M actually!! There's Windows, Linux, every flavour of Unix, Blades, conventional servers, datacenter class ... Not £170,000, yet alone £170M. Well at our Christmas bash (Christmas, not “Seasonal Bash” you note, but it is Christmas not some PC dismembered junk), at Pinewood Studios, we were invaded by a group of dis-affected KGB. ... An extra 20% for orders before 12 o’clock on 23rd December. Midday on Sunday before Christmas! Not before 2008. Not by the end of the month (yeah yeah its the same thing but another phrase!). Not before lunch on a SUNDAY. Well ... Well it’s not looking out and it’s not looking in! In fact it’s not bleeding looking at all. How awesomely useless do we feel nowadays when the email fails? After a couple of weeks working well, a minor issue arrives, like no ... The manufacturers all throw bashes for their partners at Christmas. So we turn up at the Restaurant/Bar/Club/Boat/Novelty-Venue. We meet the same set of people who were at the last one and you will never believe it, but yes they will be at the ... Thump. A report lands on my desk that I did not ask for. It's eight pages long. Is it useful? Does it change Repton’s life? Does it affect my life/thoughts/sleep-pattern? Of course not. It's marketing b*ll*cks !! It tells me that ... “What’s the delivery on that?” Of course this product/service/stuff is brilliant, just look at the packaging! Well you have to as its all you can bloody well see most of the time. Do we get a web-link? No we get a DVD/CD I think. Do we get a small CD holder with a concise ... Have you noticed how everyone has products for these and more. Like they are totally separate requirements. Well hello, its about your data. Well yes our data too! So why all the hype, because it sells stuff, obviously. But when will the bigger ... So Greg’s a lush! Finally lost it! Allowing pleasure to cloud his mind, well his Blog! No, I say no. Apparently its true! New Zealand scientists (that is scientist not misspelt p*ss-heads) have worked on some lucky group of rats to prove ... So Repton does $75M business a year and makes a profit. Honest! But we are not moving with the big boys like Equalogic {check name}; who? never heard of them? Well they make storage – iSCSI stuff that appears to work OK but hardly any earth ... So its going to be blowing today with “winds gusting to 53 mph”. 53! 53! Not 52 or 54 you notice but 53! Like we can all tell the difference between 55 and 50?? Permalink | Add Comment
Posted on November 1st, 2007 at 11:38 So Larry is cruising in his Bugatti/Ferrari/Lambo, off for his botox fix before his date with his latest 17 year old blond bimbette. Mobile/Blackberry/iPhone goes off and SAP has bought Business Objects and the press says “sensible, logical ... No wonder “Liar Blair” held on so long, the competition was crap!. Gordon Mr. Indecisive Brown commits cock-up from re-election certainty and Mr Darlng has snatched the “Liar” mantle from Blair – the IHT stuff was ... So at 12.35 AM some geezers get out of their car with an angle grinder and cut through the bars of our warehouse. The burglar alarm goes off and a minute later the smoke from the angle grinder sets off the fire alarm. God almighty racket, poor ... So Elliott is the name of a new iPod; no. So Elliott is what I call my iPod; no. Elliott is, ……..well a bit later. Apple has moved most of their range away from disks to Flash memory. OK the 160Gig still uses rotating ... A few weeks ago I moaned about change for changes sake inside Vista which is on my new home PC. Now I am just plain moaning. Suddenly Explorer started crashing and re-starting itself every 20 seconds or so, making the PC un-usable. Initially I ... Just what the sh*t is this all about. Change for change sake or what? All the commands and controls have been totally re-organised; WHY?Every action needed has to have its command location figured out, because its in a more logical and easier to ... So I am not a wise judge, nor Danish, nor paid by the European Taxation rip-off (think I sound a bit biased here?). But just how dumb can these guys be? I am sounding off about the Euro decision to fine Microsoft for anti-competitive behaviour ... Well we didn't really as we are not allowed to win our own event. However we did score the most points and as we all know its only boy's bodies that grow up!! Great event this year, best ever I would think, even if it is our event. So if you are ... Turnover down £40M in a "successful" year! Well you know by now how I just love some bull***t. In their financial year end bulletin, that unfashionable entity called truth can been seen to seep out. ".... reflects our ... Do I care? Well enough to bash this out, and it makes life simpler if things are more right than wrong, let alone plain daft. Now when there is a physical server running the code, then a licence for that makes sense? The bigger the server the ... It was in the papers so it MUST be true! Trees don't work! They absorb more carbon dioxide than they emit till they are mature, when its even. When they die they rot and emit 90% of the carbon dioxide they have absorbed! Worse still is that ...
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Posted on May 7th, 2008 at 17:14
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Posted on April 30th, 2008 at 09:31
Go to site and download the software, easy peasy. Go to email and copy the key. Open new software and it comes up ...
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Posted on April 4th, 2008 at 11:48
Something had to happen one day and finally BT waived their cheque book to an extent we could not refuse with totally irresistible numbers. Its great as we will be their spearhead into alien enterprises, no not Star Wars, get a grip, enterprises not ...
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Posted on March 31st, 2008 at 10:16
Why are you all Luddites?
Everyone uses software to do more and more clever things and then they ...
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Posted on March 18th, 2008 at 15:36
520d BMW with air-con running and radio playing from London to Geneva in convoy with Toyota Prius with air-con and radio switched off and guess which used ...
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Posted on March 17th, 2008 at 09:25
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Posted on March 12th, 2008 at 13:36
Are the clone guys dastardly engineers that reverse engineer ...
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Posted on March 7th, 2008 at 15:37
Environmental ...
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Posted on March 4th, 2008 at 17:25
On the agenda was the major debate about green issues, carbon ...
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Posted on February 26th, 2008 at 09:57
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Posted on February 15th, 2008 at 17:12
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Posted on February 13th, 2008 at 10:15
I have had a couple of interests posted but no email or other way of contacting you. So if you are still reading, please...
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Posted on February 7th, 2008 at 11:06
Green Technology
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Posted on February 7th, 2008 at 10:25
A mate of mine is in advertising ...
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Posted on February 7th, 2008 at 10:23
Convention Time
Ego trip time for the industry. Most of the major vendors impress themselves by holding World-Wide conventions for all their business partners. All the business partners think f***, say “really looking forward to this one”. In reality ...
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Posted on February 6th, 2008 at 15:12
World Council on IT Invite!
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Posted on January 29th, 2008 at 15:12
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Posted on January 29th, 2008 at 09:15
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Posted on January 4th, 2008 at 11:42
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Posted on December 17th, 2007 at 17:07
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Posted on December 17th, 2007 at 17:01
“Well it might be 8 weeks but it may stretch out to 12. Then of course prices might change in January so it will have to go through the re-pricing process for margin control, to Europe ...
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Posted on December 11th, 2007 at 15:09
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Posted on September 25th, 2007 at 16:48
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Posted on September 25th, 2007 at 16:36
Now here's one of those stories you just know has to be true, the second you hear it! In the sullied ranks of security code writers, a scam rolls on and on. 'Well, what's that then?', I hear you cry.
Apparently there are so many millions of lines ...
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Posted on August 28th, 2007 at 10:01
Where has the Linux Momentum gone?
Two years ago every other sentence in IT magazines talked of the mega virtues of Linux. Well, what happened? You tell me. Did that Torval guy lose the plot? (assuming the spelling is OK) or has some wordly weakness of the flesh diverted him? The ...
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Posted on August 28th, 2007 at 09:58
Learning names from the big boys
So you are in one of those big vendors, you know the names, HP, Cisco, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft Sun etc., anyone will do. You are in Marketing and/or Product Development, doesn't matter. You are in the top level, being paid hundreds of thousands of ...
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Posted on August 28th, 2007 at 09:51
Porsche Cayenne
Is that the right spelling for the 4x4?? You know the pig ugly job that had to be one of the ugliest five cars in the world? Well Porsche, aware of those criticisms, have finally reacted and redisigned it. What a triumph! What a transformation, from ...
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Posted on July 30th, 2007 at 09:04
HP Bull
Well its not quite "Carry On" levels of double entendre but I am trying my best, honest. Well HP have bought Bull, formally Honeywell-Bull and French, that have been on the slide for the last 20 years; kept from going pop by the French tax payer of ...
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Posted on July 28th, 2007 at 22:32
DR Doldrums
It has rained a bit lately, did you notice?? Its NOT funny for all people affected, and affected to the point of tatters are many DR plans! Nobody tests the recover, well not often. Okay, okay appologies to the two dilligent readers, but the rest of ...
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Posted on July 28th, 2007 at 22:31
Lets buy a software company
Got a couple of billion sitting in your piggy bank? Well why not buy a software company?? HP? Yeah we'll buy up a few, one of em will fit in. Mostly stick in OpenView as no one understands that anyway! IBM? Yeah we are up for it, buy em all the ...
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Posted on July 25th, 2007 at 15:49
Where is Linux Going?
Well I don't know, but it does look like its stalling a bit. Microsoft desk-top upgrades have secured that for a few more years and high end Linux deployments are rare. What about free Solaris will that move into the datacentre and leak down and ...
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Posted on July 20th, 2007 at 14:26
Gartner Goof
Read Gartner/Dataquest report "Server Purchases in Banking Markets 2006". 21 pages of Gartner speak about what was bought and why. Rivetting stuff! Incisive insights! Are you ready?...
"Key Findings ...."
The very first Key Finding is "...the ...
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Posted on June 28th, 2007 at 14:28
Giants Predicted to Fail including IT
A professor of Business in Kent State University has produced some interesting statistical analyses. Analysing the companies quoted on the stock markets has produced some financial patterns for failure or takeover. These apply to companies quoted on ...
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Posted on June 28th, 2007 at 13:41
Gartner 2
Did you read it - the blog about Gartner's insight in figuring out that Banking bought servers to run applications and replace older servers! Well they have! Now its mid-week. I have watched The Apprentice and twenty-seven replays of Lewis winning ...
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Posted on June 28th, 2007 at 13:40
Sun in the Pooh??
Three weeks before their year end they announce their "new range". Three weeks, when everybody in the Sun Arena knows that this is the time tio get a deal as Sun massages its year end numbers. Now its blown that, how many people will by a now end of ...
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Posted on June 28th, 2007 at 13:40
Sun ditch leader
Trudy Norris-Grey has gone from the top of Sun UK. Well someone had to carry the can and she was the big cheese there! So from high up in Oracle to Sun UK leadership sounded fantastic, but what next.
Who takes over from Trudy in Sun UK, big ...
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Posted on June 28th, 2007 at 13:39
Managing the management software
Now here's a thing, and every IT manager I have asked agrees. The application delivery systems are large, complicated and comprise of very many different elements. No surprise there then! Most of these elements need managing, one way or another, and ...
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Posted on May 25th, 2007 at 16:18
Unholy alliance
IBM "believe in customer choice". HP "believe in customer choice". So HP and IBM now have an alliance, yeah I know, another one - so what?? Well they do so there and its to make IBM software available, fully supported on HP hardware. Well not all ...
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Posted on May 25th, 2007 at 16:17
Demystifying IT
Now it might not be that smart to whinge on about our own company, but hey-ho! Talking to a couple of customers the other evening - yes I do occasionally socialise with our customers, well the nice ones. And just who decides who the nice ones are - ...
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Posted on May 9th, 2007 at 09:47
NHS Fiasco
Are we surprised? I mean did anyone in the industry really think it would work. Did anyone think it would be remotely on-time. Did anyone think it would meet its functional specifications?? I don't think so! So why do these things go wrong, are they ...
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Posted on April 30th, 2007 at 09:41
Security
So who writes the viruses, trojan et al?? We were told that it was spotty 14 year olds who had personality problems that could only be quelled by them writing endless codes to break into, crash, annoy and destroy other IT users. Now that explanation ...
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Posted on March 26th, 2007 at 09:09
Winning with Integrity
Now here's a coincidence. Both HP and IBM are using the phrase "Winning with Integrity". The HP flavour highlights their Integrity Range of servers, 64bit Intel Itanium based in case it has possibly slipped your mind. And guess what?? They ...
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Posted on March 25th, 2007 at 09:00
SOA (Services Orientated Architecture)
"SOA is a journey not a set of products". Just read that from a manufacturer's bull-sheet, oh sorry brochure. I mean just read it will you. SOA is a journey, great, then lets all go round the travel agent to buy our software shall we, book ...
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Posted on February 27th, 2007 at 09:42
Ice cap growing
Did you get that one in the press?? The east of the south pole has an ice cap that is growing at 7% a year!! So its not getting warmer there then? So how does that fit with global warming and our cars, well it does not. And what about that little ...
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Posted on February 27th, 2007 at 09:38
Supplier Crisis Looming?
The top one hundred IT suppliers are facing a crisis. According to the industry analysts at least 320 IT suppliers are losing money and need to take drastic action, or fail. The choices are limited, expand the business levels, increase the gross ...
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Posted on February 27th, 2007 at 09:16
Everyone goes to UK
On environment that's another little gem. The world gets warmer. The North Pole disappears. There is no cold downflow in the northern oceans as there is no longer any ice. So the Gulf stream is not sucked up to Britain. So Britain loses heat in a ...
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Posted on February 27th, 2007 at 09:07