Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

Consumer ISP tirade

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009

Last year sometime, I discovered through my day-job that Qwest DSL was hijacking DNS queries for non-existent domain names, and redirecting them to a search page.  For my day-job, this problem manifests itself as employees being unable to access corporate resources even when connected to VPN.  After about 3 seconds ...

Corporate laptops: Fix or Replace?

Friday, April 24th, 2009

My coworker Peter sent me this link to computerworld. It's about a study conducted about the cost of replacing laptops after 3 years (which is usually the amortization schedule for computer equipment), or stretching their use out to 4 or even 5 years.  It's an interesting article, and makes some ...

Comcast says bloggers keep them honest

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

I'm not a fan of Comcast, and never have been.  Most people I know would rather deal with Comcast than the phone company (Qwest), but not me.  I've been doing telecom long enough to know how to get what I want from Qwest, but Comcast just never can get it ...

Apple making inroads to (my) workplace

Monday, January 21st, 2008

So in the last week or two, several people at my day job have enquired about using a Mac that they purchase themselves for their company workstation.  As I've said, it's no secret that I'm not a fan of Apple, and have made no effort to avoid saying so at work.  I'm ...

Sprint Nextel to cut jobs

Friday, January 18th, 2008

Those who have followed my blog in the past know that I tend to rant about the cellular industry (see this post from Sep-2006, and this followup post from Oct-2006).  Today I ran accross this article from the AP, which says that Sprint/Nextel is planning to cut 4,000 jobs and shutter 125 ...

Ford attacks Black Mustang Club

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Joel sent me this link to an article about Ford sending their legal bulldogs after a club of Ford Mustang owners.  Appearently the club produces a calendar every year, featuring photos taken by the club members themselves of their own vehicles.  Ford doesn't like somebody else publishing photos of their products. It ...

Stupid Idea of the Week: Floating Datacenter

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

Slashdot linked to an article about a startup in the bay area who is building floating datacenters out of decomissioned cargo ships.  The ships will be perminantly moored in various places around the world.  What a stupid idea...  Here's why (offhand): The article states that all they need in order to expand is ...

More Racket…

Tuesday, October 10th, 2006

Follow-up to Cellular Racket... AT&T-BellSouth merger set for vote - MarketWatch I had heard this was coming -- but I didn't believe it until now. Lets break it down: Cingular is a privately held company. They bought out AT&T Wireless for cash -- previous stockholders of AT&T Wireless were issued a check, and ...

How to cement the future of iPod’s

Friday, September 29th, 2006

Computerworld article: Why Microsoft's Zune scares Apple to the core OK, it's no secret (at least around here) that I am not a fan of Apple, or the iPod. Apple just has a really clever marketing department, and they design the exterior of Apple products, and clearly have a large role ...

Cellular industry racket

Monday, September 18th, 2006

OK, this may seem like ranting, but... Well, hell, I'm ranting... Isn't that what bloG's are for? First, a quick history lesson... In the beginning, there were two cellular carriers in every market, and one of them was usually the local phone company. Cellular was very expensive, costing a regular consumer $1 ...