Archives for March 2013

Collection of useful, relevant or just fun places on the Internets for 24th March 2013 and a bit commentary about what I’ve found interesting about them:

Top 20 OS X command-line secrets for power users –

But OS X brings its unique capabilities to the command-line table, in the form of utilities that leverage OS X’s user interface, file system, and security capabilities. I’ve scoured the Internet for the best of the best of these utilities. Some you may already know, but others are sure to make you sit up and exclaim, “Sweet!”

Sweet!

Dear Hiring Manager: I’m A Hopeless Victim | Thought Catalog – Sound like a number of young people I met.

Sure you can pay an institution your whole life to take classes in subjects you love, but that will not guarantee you a livelihood. What I wish someone would have told me was “try to love math” or “focus on what will make you money.” Instead I got the “follow your dreams” speech, and now I have been graduated for fifteen months and I am an assistant with no foreseeable future. I have applied to countless “entry level” jobs that I never hear back from. I have applied for an internship, which I did not get. I have given up on getting my “dream job.” Every day is filled with constant disappointment and depression as I realize that making great grades and graduating early and doing everything right meant nothing. The “right” choice would have been if I had chosen a major in the medical field or accounting. The “right” choice would have been for me to lead a miserable adult life so that I could make money and eventually retire. My whole life I promised myself that I was never going to have a job that I hate, like so many people I know, but now I know that that is not an option.

BrandonTek » Blog Archive » Stacking Cisco 2960-S switches – A very detailed and informative guide to stacking Cisco 2960S switches.

As an aside, I note that Cisco’s has fully adopted switch stacking. After a decade of pretending that stacking isn’t “good technology” and causes problems, all Cisco low-end switches now support stacking – although grudgingly and, usually, badly.

Oracle woes add up to more than a slacker salesforce — Tech News and Analysis – When a company publicly blames it’s salesforce for missing the numbers, I think that is a sign that there is real trouble.

For the period ending February 28, Oracle reported earnings of 65 cents per share on revenue of $9 billion, just short of the 66 cents on $9.4 billion in revenue that analysts had expected. Oracle co-president Safra Catz said sales were likely hurt by the prospect of government spending cuts.

Oracle based it’s business on aggressive sales methods with high licensing fees for limited return. In my experence, organisations are turning away from Oracle by diverting new projects into other products. Oracle isn’t being “replaced”, just getting less growth as new opportunities don’t use Oracle technology. Lets face it, Oracle is hugely expensive and that matters right now.

Google Keep? It’ll probably be with us until March 2017 – on average | Technology | guardian.co.uk – Most google products last less than 4 years. Longer than a startup but less than what you want. I still avoid web services as a rule because I cannot control what happens when vendors kill them off – at least I can delay switching until I’m ready.

When is that likely to happen? According to data I’ve gathered on 39 Google services and APIs – ranging from the short-lived “Google Lively” (a 3D animated chat introduced on 9 July 2008 and euthanised just 175 days later, on 31 December) to the surprisingly long-lived iGoogle (a personalised Google homepage, to which you could add RSS feeds and data, introduced in May 2005 and due for the chop in November after 3.106 days) – the average lifespan of products that don’t make the cut is 1,459 days. That’s just two days short of four years. For those keen on statistics, the standard deviation is 689 days; bar one item (iGoogle) all the group members lie within two standard deviations of the mean.

MagSafe Adapter Key Ring by jbobrow on Shapeways –

Have a new MacBook? Here’s a little tool to help you keep a MagSafe adapter on you at all times