 Thursday, April 29, 2004
I'm Off the Mail...
I am officially boycotting the US Postal Service after they dropped their sponsorship of Lance Armstrong. Like 5 tours is not enough? I am sure that someone will pony up the money for the greatest team in pro cycling.
Just a few days ago Lance won the Tour of Georgia, a 1,000 km stage race. Next stop, a 6th Tour de France victory in July.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Monday, April 26, 2004
Kilimanjaro Bound
So it is official. I am going to be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania this October.
Kilimanjaro is the tallest mountain (well technically it is a volcano) in Africa.
Crazy enough to join me are two fellow RDs, Paul Sheriff and Richard Campbell. At 19,340 feet, this will edge out my time on Everest as the highest altitude I have been to. We are going to take the Western Breach route, sleep the last night at 18,000 feet and summit on the “real” side. When we come down, we will do a 5 day safari so expect lots of photos.
Thursday, April 22, 2004
Only Five Dollars?
That is what I said to the ticket salesman last night at Shea Stadium as I bought a $5 ticket to the Mets v Expos game. Cheaper than a movie, Linda, Sara and I entered with high expectations. After a $6.50 beer, $2.50 hotdog and $3 popcorn, the Mets did get their money. The game was fun, pitching was good, but the Mets came up short 2-1. We had to shout French curses at the Montreal Expos, it was a hoot.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Big Trouble on Long Island
CA’s Chairman and CEO Sanjay Kumar has stepped down and resigned his position from the board. Enron/WorldCom style accounting scandals have reached our industry. It is a sad day. In a strange move, CA has created a new position for Kumar as chief software architect. Why keep him around at all? Did he do something wrong? If not why did he have to resign then? Investors and customers want to know.
Sanjay is also the co-owner of the New York Islanders NHL team, is there something going on there too? I mean they just lost in the first round of the playoffs.
A sidebar, I have always wondered what it would be like if CA were based in Canada. Their home page would be www.ca.ca
Ha!
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Linux is Free! Linux is Free!
Richard Campbell and I are doing an interoperability session at TechED. We are using RedHat, Oracle, Windows 2003 and SQL Server and showing how they work and play well together. The Oracle 10g database runs on Linux, but Oracle provides support only for Red Hat Linux and SuSE. If you want to run Oracle 10g on any other Linux variant (you know the “free“ ones), you're on your own. It is kind of funny after you pay RedHat and Oracle the total cost it is higher than the Windows/SQL Server version. But Linux is free....I guess only if you don't want to run any business apps or have any support.
Monday, April 19, 2004
Algerian Dreams
Last year at this time the government of Tunisia was using Open Source and was anti-Microsoft. So Microsoft did something unusual in the “battle” and just let their products and technology speak for themselves by putting on the first annual North Africa Developers Conference in Tunis, Tunisia. The event was a smashing success since about 90% of the technical content was delivered by 3rd party developers and was not the typical MS Marketing crap. Microsoft Europe, Africa and Middle East CEO Jean Philippe Courtois delivered a keynote and met with government officials. Us Regional Directors were all over the place giving technical sessions, presenting case studies, and doing ask the experts booths.
So this year the conference was held in the logical location of Casablanca, Morocco. Microsoft has been in Morocco for 10 years and is the headquarters of the sub. There is lots of development going on in Morocco so the attendees were top notch.
So there is debate over where to have the NDC next year. Many at Microsoft North Africa think Algeria is the place to have it, but may be worried that attendance might not be as strong as in the past two years. But those who argue for Algeria think that Microsoft has another great opportunity to lets its technology speak for itself in a newly emerging market. Hope it is held there!
|