Ports Thoughts

Microsoft have just announced that in July 2008 Bill Gates will step down from being Chief Software Architect to be replaced by Ray Ozzie, the inventor of Lotus Notes, who immediately gets that job title and will spend the next two years working with Gates to transition the role. I guess we now know why Microsoft bought Groove Networks.

IBM sponsors all sort of events. From what I have seen this is mainly golf days. Even though my brother-in-law Stew is a fanatical golphist, I agree with Winston Churchill that golf spoils a nice walk. However , just recently I heard that IBM would have a Suite at the British Grand Prix. Now that is more like it. Unfortunately, a technical monkey like me would normally never get to attend one of these marketing events. However, for reasons I won't go into I managed to blag justify my ticket. Brilliant, I thought, I get to go to the Grand Prix. It doesn't get much better than this. Or so I thought. I then got an email starting with "This is the time for your Helicopter transfer to Silverstone ...". Wahey! Obviously the regular reader of my musings would be aware that from January this year I have move beyond mere helicopters since I had tasted the joy that is a Jetcopter . But I was prepared to swallow my pride and slum it in standard Heilo. Here is the one that I fle...

Cheers!

I'm flying to Munich tomorrow for a very difficult training course and most certainly not to drink vats of Weissebier out of gigantic steins. Oh no. At IBM we have a fantastic system for booking travel. It is called the Online Travel Reservations (or because we are IBM, OTR). You just go to the travel page on our Intranet and using the drop down menus select where you want to fly from and where you want to fly too. It figures out the best airports and the best times for you, works out what class you should use (in my case normally cattle) and books it for you. Of course it will also book hotels, hire cars and just about anything else you need for your trip. However, the one thing it won't give you is a ticket. When you get to the airport you hoof your credit card into the self service ticket machines and it allows you to find your booking, pick your seat, check you in and spits out your boarding pass. Now that is really smart. Virtual service all the way through from booking t...

I like eating out. Whether it is Steak and Ale pie in a local pub or moules and frites at Belgo , Japanese steak at Benihana or a cheeky curry after a couple of ales. However, what I don't like is restaurants which are totally over priced and over hyped because they are affiliated with some TV chef. So it was a little disturbing today to have a post card pushed through the door advertising Barnes Grill, the latest venture from celebrity flump Antony Worrall Thompson. This makes it one of the closest restaurants to our house but do I really want to eat at Chez Flump? Of course we will because the post card entitles two people to a free glass of posh wine each. Yup, that's how shallow I am.

I was out last night at my best mate Matt's birthday bash in a Chinese restaurant off Oxford Street in London. Mainly the group comprised the usual suspects but Matt had also invited 4 super geeks who are studying for an MSc in Information Security with him. It didn't take the geeks very long to notice that I was wearing a T-shirt with IBM on it. "Why are you wearing an IBM T-shirt?" they enquire. "Because he works for IBM" interrupts Matt. "Eeeugh", sneer the geeks, "why would you want to work for a behemoth like that?". "Actually", I explain, "I work for the Lotus bit." "Oooh" nod the geeks with reverence, "Lotus is cool"

There are many folks that have sincere and committed beliefs in a religion. I have absolute respect for these folks and would never ridicule them despite the fact that I don't personally think that organised religions can ever pass common sense, logic or any test of evidence. The reason I respect them is that I understand the concept of faith (which by definition demands a lack of proof) but more to the point have found that in general the religious folks I have met to are really nice people. Obviously I'm talking about proper religions like Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and Scientologists are idiots and deserve to have L.Ron Hubbard read Battlefield Earth to them for eternity. Because of the sensitivity of the subject I would not normally dream of commenting on such things. However, the Da Vinci Code movie has caused me to break my silence because of the unbelievably outrageous demands of the Catholic Church. In the UK, leading Catholics have de...