News Mueslix

Well I missed a post yesterday, but it was for a very good reason. I was kidnapped by aliens and forced to drink Starbucks and then fell into a Sudafed induced sleep. I'm awake but my head is still cloudy. Anyway...

Someone should have watched My Name is Earl

MEDFORD, Oregon (AP) -- A woman bought a winning lottery ticket worth $1 million with a stolen credit card and could wind up with nothing if convicted, police said.
Christina Goodenow, 38, of White City in southern Oregon faced numerous theft-related charges, forgery and possession of methamphetamine, said authorities, who searched her home Thursday. The card belonged to a deceased relative, they said.

If convicted of any of the charges, Goodenow will not be able to collect prize money from the winning ticket, said police Lt. Tim George.

You know Carson Daly wasn't stupid when he invented this thing called Karma. I'm just really upset that Christina won't win any money for actually having the motivation to go and purchase a lotto ticket. I guess even the crackpipe doesn't hinder one's ability to pay the "stupid tax."

Indictments

Scooter Libby has been indicted. Chaney's heart would have skipped a beat today, but since he is not human, he simply just grunted.

A picture is worth a thousand words, when you accidentally delete your digital wedding album and your wife will scream a thousand obscenities

Dell will start to offer a lazy man’s way of data recovery by selling computers with a ghost hard drive. So, if a customer were to delete needed documents they wouldn’t have to deal with messy recovery software, rather just call up Dell and enable the spare hard drive. The hard drive isn’t extra space, just a copy-cat drive.

Enterprise Watch

Fujitsu Ltd. is preparing for an aggressive push into the multicore arena with its SPARC64 processor.

SPARC64 VI will be the Tokyo-based technology company's first dual-core processor, and will first appear in the new systems—called the Advanced Product Line—jointly developed with Sun Microsystems Inc. that are due in mid-2006, according to a presentation given by Takumi Maruyama, manager of enterprise server development at Fujitsu, at the Fall Processor Forum 2005 show, in San Francisco.

Wal-Mart wants to America to pay workers more…just not the sick ones.

An open letter to Wal-Mart:
Your supply-chain and distribution channel amazed me during the recent hurricanes. Your charitable contributions to school aged children affect by the storms was unbelievable. And I applauded the Fortune magazine article that celebrated your achievement that surpassed even the Federal government. But alas, you have failed me again.

Yesterday you said that you want to raise the minimum wage. And, not because you wanted to give your employees more money to buy that little-needed health insurance, but because you didn’t want customers to be struggling paycheck to paycheck.

"The U.S. minimum wage of $5.15 an hour has not been raised in nearly a decade and we believe it is out of date with the times," Scott said. "We can see first-hand at Wal-Mart how many of our customers are struggling to get by. Our customers simply don't have the money to buy basic necessities between pay checks."

And now today, an internal memo was released that details ways you’re trying to cut operating expenses. An internal memo sent to the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. board proposes numerous ways to hold down health care and benefits costs with less harm to the retailer's reputation, including hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from seeking jobs, the New York Times said Wednesday.

I don’t even know to start on this one. But I don’t have to. You feel my pain.

Slow Growth to Blame for Software Consolidation

InformationWeek is reporting on a new Research and Markets paper that states large vendors will delve into other software sectors to make up for falling revenue. Just when you thought software consolidation had to do with a strategic plan to align business and IT, it’s in fact a strategic plan to buy more IT to make the business plan.

The global software market reached a value of $132.2 billion in 2004, demonstrating and compound annual growth rate of 4.1 percent from $112.7 billion in 2000, according to the guide. Western producers dominate the market because clients believe experience and investments make them better prepared than smaller competitors to deliver cutting-edge solutions, the report stated.


Earnings Watch

Amazon reported lower quarterly profit sending the price of its shares down 8%.


It’s a Google world, you just live in it

Google is now going after eBay. This adds another front to their war on Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, VOIP vendors, Wi-Fi vendors and broadcast companies. Google is offically out of control.

I would have had this killer bog, but I lost it. People stopped, children cried and screamed some expletives. Anyway, here’s the news today as I see it.

- IBM is leading an open source group to make storage management software. Remember we discussed that HP was focusing on storage management software, yesterday?

- Nominee for the Federal Reserve is a fan of IT investment. Will discuss how a chargeback SOA can only be realized with a flexible ESB and a heterogeneous software stack with outsourced IT staff.

- Intel is delaying the launch of its dual-core Itanium 2 processor, Montecito. The public will have to wait until January to get these time continuum bending processors. Special thanks to Cody James for that one.

- Yummy News: Chipolte will be going public with a $100 million IPO. Wonder if with all that new money they will still charge 75 cents for guacamole?

I’m traveling north today. I’ll be singing 100 bottles of beer, counting yellow Volkswagen Beetles and asking myself if “we’re” there yet.

Count It
Texas is the #1 team in the World…well in the computer world of the BCS. But one day we’ll all be ruled by computers, so this is the future. Hook ‘Em Horns!

Apple’s iPod gets iScratched and Consumers are iSuing
A class-action lawsuit accuses Apple of knowing that its new iPod nano portable music player could be easily damaged by normal use. "Although it was clear that the Nano was defective, with fierce competition in the digital music industry, Apple decided not to delay the release of the defectively designed Nano, but to pass the cost of replacing the defective product along to class members," the lawsuit read. "Moreover, rather than admit the design flaw when consumers began to express widespread complaints about the screen's propensity to scratch easily and excessively (and rather than agreeing to replace them as Apple had done with respect to Nanos with cracked screens), Apple concealed the defect and advised class members that they would need to purchase additional equipment to prevent the screen from scratching excessively."

iOuch.

So, drinking a liter of Dr. Pepper, eating a pound of french fries and three hamburger patties is good for me. Tell me more.
McDonald’s will be launching an ad campaign that will debunk recent attacks on its quality and safety practices of its food. McDonald's on Monday will kick off a two-day media event to tout the quality of its food and combat critics who say its burgers and fries are unhealthy. Ronald & Co. with this new campaign hope to tell America to shut its big fat mouth.

And, now when you’re eating all that healthy saturated fat, you can eat in stylish surroundings. A Scottsdale, Arizona McDonald’s has installed flat-panel tvs and hopes to be "the four-star restaurant of the fast-food arena." Waiter. What wine to you recommend with the McRib?

It’s a Blooooog on a blog, it’s like a frooog on a lilypad. Isn’t it ironic? No. No, it’s not.
Here’s some news about blogs:
Wired -- No Longer Safe for Work: Blogs
Robert Mason (not his real name) would love to spend a few minutes during lunch catching up on blog posts from around the web, but his company doesn't allow it. The financial institution where Mason works as a vice president has security filters set up to block access to -- among other things -- any website that contains the phrase "blog" in the URL.

eWeek -- Industry Giants Press Blogs into Service
NEW YORK—Attracted by the prospect of speaking directly to their customers and appealing to the key people who influence them, corporate marketers are embracing the blogosphere and pressing for ways to leverage "social media" in the enterprise.

This week's meeting probably had the largest attendance EVER. There were so many people in the room the fire marshal busted through the glass doors and counted people. They quickly realized they were supposed to be on the 2nd floor of the building fixing the faulty fire alarms. But, before they left they did say that we had a whole bunch of people in the conference room and they could tell this was a pretty hard-hitting meeting.

As the Biggest Loser competition kicks off, chocolates o'plenty were passed around the table to discuss the following:

Microsoft makes bid at Intelligence
Microsoft announced they have a BI solution. Steve Lohr of the NY Times reports:
Microsoft Office, the familiar toolbox of desktop computing, is a huge and lucrative business, but demand has slowed. In a new bid for growth, the Microsoft Corporation plans to announce today that it is making an ambitious push into the $13 billion-a-year market for business intelligence software. Full article here.

A brief discussion ensued about what implications the news will have for our clients. The consensus was, none. The MS strategy will need present itself further. We should be cautious of how we discuss this news with people. Wouldn't want to re-position anyone because of Gates & Co.

Roker Me Like a Hurricane
A very disturbing trend is blowing through the minds of the media, reporters going outside to chronicle the force and power of hurricanes. MB recalled a GMA doing a segment from Texas Tech during Rita that said when hurricane wind speeds reach 140 mph there is a possibility to remove skin.

NBC weatherman, Al Roker, apparently did not see rival GMA's spot and instead reported from Florida this morning. He was swept away by its power, literally. Wiiilllllmmmmaaaa!!!

Gartner IT Expo
MC reported that the major news coming out of Garter's annual exposition was HP's news of no news. HP continues to anger the media as it keeps to its message that it's going back to basics. No more iPod, no more flashy keynotes, no more Carly.

HP will continue to build its enterprise software business, most notably in the storage software management category. It seems Mark Hurd was reading all those articles and books about the Dell model and, now wants to get him some. More information here.

Other events going on:

• Novell has laid off 20% of its workforce. I've emptied a 40* for my homeys. (*40GB harddrive that is)
• Unisys has said it too will lay off workers. Almost 10%*