Adam White

I mentioned that I would post more about the acquisition of PlateSpin by Novell. I’ve been delayed in doing tihs because there isn’t that much to report. We are being told that it’s business as usual and that’s what it’s turning out to be. Novell hasn’t had a strong presence in the development area - although this isn’t true for other areas like sales and professional services (from what I can see). There hasn’t been any fall-out or mass exodus of employees. 

I’ve heard people talk about acquisitions like the exodus is the “norm” either because it’s a technology acquisition and the acquirer doesn’t keep the employees or because they are scared that will happen. There have been little rumors going around about this person or that person leaving but nothing can directly link to the acquisition.

Read the rest…

Alan Page pointed out a page that he found to related to my previous bug. He found this using Live search instead of google. 

The good news -it worked in the sense that the stupid error messages are gone. Interestingly enough 3 feeds that worked previously now don’t work. And I discovered this neat duplicate error message bug.

Read the rest…

Novell announced today that it would be aquiring PlateSpin for a little over $200 Million.

PlateSpin has been around for about 5 years now. It started off as 10 employees, of which I was one, and is now 200+ people.

 I will post more on this later…..just wanted to get the word out

This clip is from a local newspaper I found during one of our trips to Niagara-On-The-Lake. I got such a laugh out of it that I wanted to share it.

Ever wonder what all those advertising terms really mean?

New – Different color from previous design.
All new – parts are not interchangeable with previous design.
Exclusive – imported product.
Unmatched – almost as good as the competition.
Foolproof operation – no provision for adjustments.
Advanced design – the advertising agency doesn’t understand it.
It’s here at last – rush job, nobody knew it was coming.
Field testing – manufacturer lacks test equipment.
High Accuracy – unit on which all parts fit.
Futuristic – no other reason why it looks the way it does.
Re-designed – previous flaws fixed, we hope.
Direct sales only – factory had a big argument with distributor.
Years of development – we finally got one to work.
Breakthrough – we finally figured out a use for it.
Maintenance fee – impossible to fix.
Meets all standards – ours, not yours.
Solid state – heavy.
High Reliability – we made it work long enough to ship it.
Rugged – too heave to lift.
A number of different approaches are being tried – we are still grasping at straws.
Customer satisfaction upon delivery is assured – we are so far behind schedule the customer should be happy just to get it delivered.
Test results were extremely gratifying – we were so surprised that the stupid thing worked.