Rants of Christmas Passed

Once again, it's that time of year when everyone throws financial caution to the wind and contributes to supporting China as the world's greatest (and soon to be the only) source of manufacturing.

To get back into the seasonal spirit, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit some of last years rants:

l Can't Draw Bears

How to Escape the Dreaded Office Pot-Luck

Some Random Things That Annoy Me

Why I Despise Christmas

More Tragedy's With Mr. Snowman

Tragic Holidays

Too Political

Snowfall

And while were on the theme of Winter, just a friendly IT related reminder not to leave your consumerist electronic devices out in the cold.

Comments

Free Software for Some, Empty Wallets for Others

As an IT professional (and a cheap bastard), it infuriates me when I see people being roped and lured into spending hard on cash on expensive software solutions when there are a multitude of open source, free alternatives readily available on the internet. Stop throwing your money at greedy corporate executives who certainly don't need yet another fancy chess set (that they don't even know how to use) carved out of some endangered species or another ocean going yacht to add to their fleet. Why spend hundreds of dollars when you can pay nothing at all (most of these software projects accept donations, which I would strongly encourage). You'll feel a lot better donating ten bucks for some fabulous software and keeping the free software revolution going, than lining the pockets of the above mentioned corporate goons. Here's some stuff you'll find useful at home: Gimp : A flexible and comprehensive alternative to throwing hundreds of dollars away for Adobe Photosh...

Christmas Shopping for the Smart

I recently completed my annual July Christmas shopping and a friend noticed the large amount of shopping bags coming out of my car. He casually inquired what it was all for and when I remarked, it was for Christmas, he looked rather puzzled and asked "why now?" Why now indeed? Let's face it, Christmas shopping is an incredible pain in the ass at the best of times... unless you do it in July like the smart, organized people. Let's look at the many benefits of completing the task, six months ahead of schedule. 1. Shopping in shorts, sandals and a t-shirt is a hell of a lot easier than shopping in several layers of clothes, heavy boots, scarves, woolly hat, and heavy fur lined coat. Sure, just like wearing all that crazy winter survival getup, you may get a little warm and uncomfortable lugging all those bags around, but the difference is that I can buy a cool drink, sit out in the shade and relax outside. Relaxing and taking off all that gear just isn't possi...

Bad Ideas of the IT kind

In my profession, over the years I've come across a lot of very bad ideas, and there seems to be no shortage of them. Unfortunately, it seems that people with no discernible technical skills or technical education often offer the most suggestions or "solutions" for technical issues. The less technical knowledge they have, the more opinionated and stubborn they are... and when you've been included in a committee of the non-technically inclined, anytime said ideas are shot down, the more they stick to their potentially ruinous concepts. Here are some of my favourites over the years, some I've personally encountered, others that have become an industry wide push: 1) We should turn the server room into an office and move all that equipment into the closet downstairs. Sounds pretty innocuous right? Well, for the un-technical, let me explain. Computers generate heat. Anyone have a laptop? Lift it up after you've been on it for a while. See how hot it gets un...

Xorton's Rant

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