Infrequently Noted

Google continues to impress me on an almost daily basis. First, they became the only way to search the web.

Next they made usenet actually useful from a web browser.

Then they became my personal news aggregator of choice.

What's the encore?

Making my christmas shopping that much better.

Back in Winter '00/Spring '01 I was working with a team of friends on a hardened transaction system that relied upon locked-down appliance-type devices as transaction endpoints. In reviewing our options for a host OS for these boxes, we looked at Argus Systems Pitbull product, having heard good things about it. So we inquired via a lead submission form on their site if they might be interested in helping us develop a prototype running on their tools.

This past spring, while in my dejected job search, I received a call from someone at Argus. It took me a couple of minutes to remember who they were and why they might have had my cell phone number. When it finally realized what was going on I just started laughing. A 12 month lead turnaround time.

I explained to the mortified sales rep on the other end of the line that the prototype for the project had been completed almost a year ago and that we'd gone with Linux and OpenBSD instead. (the transaction system has since languished for lack of interest, not technical merit).

Anyway, it seems the jokers at Argus seem to have some systemic problems with follow through.

And to think that just a couple of years ago we were joking about whether or not l'ill GWB would try to start something with Iraq.

A handy list of states to avoid living in.

figured out event setting on Opera, it's just like IE 5 for the mac. Instead of

node.setAttribute("eventName", "some code");

eval("node."+eventName+"=function(){"+somecode+"};");

node.eventName=function(){somecode();}