Diary of a Wolfeman

Drive home took forever due to the weather. Rain means the highway will be a parking lot, so we took surface streets. That worked out fine until the approach to Hillsdale, where a number of traffic signals were out. Crrraaaawwwwlllll.

At 21st and Broadway, some poor soul had managed to turn their Jeep-thingy shiny-side-down. Hope they’re ok.

But, there’s a light at the end of the street – mine! Power in the house is on, and what’s this? A package from ECS? YAY! My motherboard is here!!

So, out comes the tool kit, and double-yay! I still have thermal compound for the heatsink! Woohoo!

Wait, what’s that? The lights are flickering? SHIT! I don’t dare plug the thing in on a night like this, there’s no telling when the power may go tits-up, and I’ve never gotten around to buying a UPS.

Well, one more night of laptop won’t kill me.

**Update**
Yeah, right – like that was going to happen.

Unfortunately,it appears that the motherboard wasn’t the problem, despite all the symptoms. Next step is to replace the power supply.

Oh, we had some great fun in the office the other day. A couple of Microsoft reps came through the office to talk to us about Sharepoint and a push for a security seminar. We’re a Gold Partner, so this isn’t a rare occasion.

One of the first things they want to talk about though, is whether we are ready and have all the tools we need to push Vista and Office 2007 upon our loyal customers.

You could just smell the desperation dripping off these guys.

Word has come down from on high that every rep needs to pimp Vista and Office 2007 for all they are worth, and these guys have heard a few too many pep talks.

We all looked around the room at each other for a moment, shrugged, looked back at the speaker and said, “Nope.”

It took a few minutes for them to realize that “Nope” also meant we had no plans for pimping Vista for a while yet. Then came the hard question: “Well, why not?” with a huge undertone of ‘You guys are Gold Partners, you should be singing in the choir!’ and, ‘Ye Gods, I don’t want to hear this again!’

The answer: “Because we can only name one software package that is Vista-ready – and that’s Office 2007.

Because there are tales of potential volume-licensing nightmares in the air.

Because the 5 different versions of Vista are a nightmare to decipher, and it looks like the one our customers will need (not want, need) is the most expensive version.

Because we’re afraid if we do install it anywhere as an upgrade to existing hardware, that computer will be just two failed components away from needing a new license – if the existing hardware can even run it.

Because of this, any roll-out would have to be on new hardware, and that hardware is going to be expensive to get the bonus features enabled – now you’re talking tens of thousands of dollars just to get a new OS.”

So no, we’re not pushing Vista yet.