My feelings about Richard Dawkins are mixed. On one hand, the British evolutionary biologist is a brilliant scientist, and is credited with popularizing all sorts of concepts from selfish genes to memes. His books on science rank right up there with those from the late Stephen Jay Gould in breadth, scope and readability. On the […]
Oh, this poor person! It’s a good thing that he/she didn’t lose his/her mobile phone or laptop as well. Otherwise, how could he/she send me this heart-rending cry for help? Fortunately, I know that Adobe’s HR department will take this as seriously as I do. Let’s hope the Hotel doesn’t seize his/her bag before someone pays […]
In the domain scam, someone claims to be a domain registrar, warning you that someone is trying to register one of your trademarks overseas, and giving you the “opportunity” to contest it. If you respond, the scammer will either register the domain and then try to sell it to you, or will tell you that […]
Alan’s informal Most Creative Class Titles award goes to … drum roll please … Robin Goldsmith! Robin is a very creative thinker, as well as a top test/QA expert. He’s teaching a full-day tutorial at STPCon (Sept. 24-26 in Boston), as well as six one-hour technical classes. Okay, the title of the Wednesday tutorial is […]
Earlier this week, I wrote that United is experimenting with credit-card-only services on their flights between San Francisco and New York. My colleague Andrew Binstock commented that American Airlines plays that game too. “American Airlines did the credit-card only thing last month, as a trial. This month, I noticed, they took cash and credit cards. […]
The feeding frenzy is in progress, as Parasoft joins Instantiations in offering a migration plan for Agitar users. Two is a crowd, so this will be the last of these marketing programs I’ll blog about. Last week, we discussed Instantiations’ offer of a free license for all Agitar customers. Here’s what Parasoft’s amnesty program offers: […]
Yesterday afternoon, we received word from Agitar’s Jerry Rudisin. Although he’s still listed on the company’s management-team page as CEO and president, he identified himself as the former CEO. He told us, The management team decided in March not to pursue additional venture financing, and as a result decided with the Board to wind down […]
One of the best historical references is Colin McEvedy’s “Atlas of Recent History (Europe since 1815).” The current 2003 edition has a boring cover, but my 1982 first edition edition has a cover showing part of a fascinating historical map. The map is called “Angling in Troubled Waters,” drawn in 1899 by Fred W. Rose. […]
A few posts ago, I commented that United stopped using the slogan, “Fly the friendly skies,” which first appeared in 1965. The new slogan, “It’s time to fly,” was introduced in 2004. According to the company, it “alludes to the obstacles business travelers face and United’s commitment to helping in the pursuit of personal and […]
Why do stick with United? Good question. It’s clear that I’m not happy with the airline, as you can see from my recent posts about their credit-card-only flights, changed frequent flier rules and new baggage limitations. Why do I stay there? It’s not a loyalty thing. I only fly United if the schedule is right […]
I was asked, “How can I get the Time Machine volume off my Leopard desktop?” Since it’s recommended to dedicate that external hard drive to Time Machine, there’s no good reason to keep it on your desktop. It’s a distraction. I don’t know of any way to remove only the Time Machine volume from your […]
I’m sitting here at San Francisco International, getting ready to catch this morning’s United Airline non-stop to New York’s John F. Kennedy airport. There was just an announcement: From May 15 to June 15, on flights between San Francisco and the New York area, United is running a test. You can only use credit cards […]
A story came from WebMD explains that “Too many choices exhaust the brain.” According to the story, Study author Kathleen D. Vohs, PhD, of the University of Minnesota’s marketing department, and researchers from several other universities have determined that making choices, as opposed to just thinking about options, can be mentally draining. Those with too […]
Chances are that more than one-sixth of all the e-mail that you want to receive is being captured by anti-spam filters, whether by the ISP, at the server, or the desktop client. That’s according to Lyris, the company behind ListManager, a popular tool for organizations who manage “opt-in” mailing lists. A study from Lyris says […]
The state of New York now says that if an Internet retailer has an affiliate in New York, the Internet retailer must pay New York sales tax on all its sales in that state.By “affiliate,” New York means having anyone who is able to sell products through your Web site. Companies like Amazon, eBay and […]
I am a huge fan of Dunkin’ Donuts. The worst thing about moving from the East Coast to the Bay Area is losing access to my favorite coffee chain. Starbucks and Peets don’t measure up, imho, to Dunkin’ Donuts. (Thanks to mail-order beans, we serve Dunkin’ Donuts coffee exclusively here at BZ Media West.) Dunkin’ […]
The special report in the May 15, 2008, issue of SD Times is entitled “Virtualization 3.0: Forget server consolidation; virtualization has the buzz and new benefits for developers and QA teams.” Virtualization 3.0 is a brand-new buzzword that we use at SD Times to indicate, naturally enough, a third wave of virtualization. The first wave […]
Nominations are open for the fifth annual Testers Choice Awards, given out by Software Test & Performance Magazine. The award comprises categories encompassing the range of tools designed to improve software quality. The arbiters of excellence are Software Test & Performance subscribers, who vote on products in specific categories. The Testers Choice awards will consist […]
As reported on Monday, it appears like Agitar is winding down their business. At least, that’s what their message to creditors states. One company’s misfortune is another’s opportunity. Instantiations is the first test-tool maker I’ve seen to directly address the uncertainty that Agitar’s customers must be feeling, and so today they’re offering a trade-in program. […]
I’m delighted to unveil the SD Times Job Board, the newest feature of SDTimes.com. • It’s difficult for companies to locate the right software developers and development managers. • It’s hard for job-seekers to find the best opportunity to use their talents while leveraging their experience. The new SD Times Job Board connects employers and […]
For the past year, I’ve been inundated by emails from people claiming to be foreign domain-name registrars. They’ve been working me, in increasingly dire language, that my brand is in danger. To quote from one of them: We are Asia Domain Name Registration Limited, which is the domain name registrar centre in Asia. We have […]
We still have some users on Microsoft Office 2004 for the Mac. From time to time — generally after a restart or a fresh login — there’s a huge delay when launching Word. The message that Word displays, in the splash graphic, is “Optimizing font menu performance…” Depending on the speed of your machine’s processor, […]
Yesterday, Microsoft released a series of patches to Microsoft Office — for both Windows and Macintosh — that plugged a serious Remote Code Execution flaw in Word and Outlook. As detailed in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-026, which is rated as “critical”: This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word that could allow […]
Have you noticed that United Airlines doesn’t use the “Friendly Skies” slogan any more? No wonder. The company does a lot of things now that aren’t great for customers. For example, now you have to pay to get a seat with an extra couple of inches of legroom… at rates ranging from $14 to $109 […]
Just passing this message along from Sourceforge’s publicist. I have no involvement in these awards, or with Sourceforge.net. Today (Wed., May 14), nominations are officially open for the 3rd annual Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards. This year, for the first time, the awards will be open to ALL open source projects, not just those that count […]
XBRL is one of the most interesting XML schemas, and the use of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language is probably going to become required by publicly traded companies. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is meeting today to discuss whether to mandate the use of XBRL to file their financial disclosures. This program has been […]
My colleague Edward J. Correia — editor of Software Test & Performance Magazine, and conference chair of STPCon — has his own blog now. Cleverly named “EddieC’s News & Views,” you can read the blog here, and subscribe to the RSS feed here. Enjoy! Z Trek Copyright (c) Alan Zeichick
As discussed yesterday (“HP may be buying EDS“), Hewlett-Packard has indeed entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Electronic Data Systems for $25/share, or $13.9 billion. To quote from the official release, HP intends to establish a new business group, to be branded EDS – an HP company, which will be headquartered at EDS’s existing […]
One day in late 1987, Computer Language magazine editor JD Hildebrand walked up and down the halls of the Miller Freeman publishing company with a gleam in his eye, saying that we needed to launch a newsletter on embedded programming. JD had been convinced by some of the compiler guys at Intel that embedded programming […]
Big Blue’s biggest weapon has long been its services arm. As the saying goes, when you buy enterprise “solutions” from IBM, the bulk of the sale is the van full of services folks with packed suitcases, ready to move into your office for good. Just hand over your checkbook. Good luck getting rid of the […]