By matt

In order to adequately catalog my numerous day-to-day frustrations with the shitbox network OS that is Novell I’ve decided to create a new category. I suppose since it’s self-titled it likely qualifies for some sort of ubiquitous launch party with all sorts of fancy celebrity guests, but we’re simply above those folks here at ITFMMB (TM).

While Novell doesn’t write the world’s worst software they are pretty damn close. For those of you that don’t know I’m a sys admin by trade and part of my job is to administer the companies Novell servers. This includes builds, maintenance, and other misk. Do I have any real Novell training? No. Am I qualified for this position? Likely not. Does that really matter? Probobly not.

That brings me nowhere near my first point, but here it is anyway. I hate the idiot that released a service pack that actually BREAKS core software functionality. What good is a file and print serving operating system WHEN THE FILE BIT DOESN’T WORK?

Yes, you heard me correctly. Apparently OES for Linux SP2 has a wonderful undocumented feature, in that if you install file services at the package selection screen at installation time your eDirectory functionality and iManager functionality go away. Not to worry though since finding that only took hours of wasted time on newgroups.

So what it boils down to is if you actually want to use OES for Linux SP2 you can’t install file services. Quick solution? Use SP1.

Novell: 1
Customers: 0

By Ben

Well it’s that time again, National Novel Writing Month is once again upon us.

What be it? The goal is starting midnight, November 1st (only a few hours away), you are tasked to write a 50,000 word novel before midnight, December 1st. There is no points for style, prose, or plot, the only thing that counts here is the word count. You must get to 50K words (not all if’s, ands and buts (hehe) either). Do this before the end of the month and A WINNAR IS YOU!

I participated in 2004 for the first time and I gotta say, it’s as entertaining as it is tedious. You’re averaging around 1700 words per day, and while that doesn’t sound like much, try actually typing it all out!

Why bother? Well, aside from the extremely few that eventually make it’s way out of draft and into publishing, it makes for a nice roller coaster ride from start to finish. Not to mention there’s a great community that you can get involved with along the way. I’m not talking about just online stuffs here. From the first time I did it, there was a dedicated group in my city (which isn’t large to say the least) that gathered together to hammer out their (mis) masterpieces frequently during the month.

Anyhow, while I skipped last year for some inane reason, I’m gonna give her another round this month. I’ve got some ideas going, for better or for worse. We’ll see how she progresses.

…by the way, this post is 250 words long not counting this line, just to give ya an idea

By matt

With Today’s announcement about Google finally assimilating Writely into the collective, I was left wondering if this was truly a good thing. I for one have used Writely for a fairly long time for personal documents and other such things, and from my experience they had a fairly solid interface going.

The new fangled interface that Google introduced after finally pulling the plug on Writely today is pretty terrible in comparison. The colour scheme really doesn’t inspire any confidence and the “Google Blue” is more like “Redmond Blue” if you ask me.

Anyhow, in order to stay competitive I really think that Google needs to spend some of it billions on updating what is a tired UI scheme and concentrate less on buying business that have yet to turn a profit.