R. Fink | Vista's rollout invites a skeptical view
The Rat suspects that Microsoft is going to have a long wait before Vista really starts to roll.
R. Fink | The Packet Rat: Hammer time for electronic IDs
The difference between being a financially secure, contributing member of society and a pauper terrorist is increasingly measured by a thin piece of plastic.
R. Fink | If this doesn't fly, it's back to the runway
IBM ran a virtual version of Lotusphere as part of its attempt to transform the Lotus brand into something new, cool and 'Web 2.0'-friendly.
R. Fink | Meet the New Year, same as the old year?
As the Rat prepared to hit the town with his spouse for New Year's Eve, he started to wonder if there would be anything actually new about the new year'or if it would seem more like 2007 was skipped entirely.
R. Fink | The Packet Rat: At Disney, getting a line on supply and demand
Disney has turned to biometrics to eliminate the gray market in park tickets, and the revenue the company lost to it.
R. Fink | Vista foreshadows help-ticket trouble
The announcement of Microsoft Windows Vista's release to manufacturing came as something of a shock to the Rat, but not as much as the announcement of the new 'strategic partnership' between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. involving ... Linux.
R. Fink | The Packet Rat: Politicians getting the worst of their new media experiences
Every now and then, the worlds of pop culture, technology and politics combine to create a perfect storm of stupidity.
The Packet Rat | In data theft stories, something is missing
The Rat and his crew in the agency IT command bunker spend a lot of time with numbers'number of lost packets, number of trouble tickets, and the like. But in a lull between software patches, the Rat sank his unforgiving fangs into numbers of a different sort.
R. Fink | Packet Rat: LonelyRat ready to catch wave of unreality
The great thing about having a teenager is that, if you keep a close eye on what they do, you'll never get caught off-guard by any emerging pop culture phenomenon.
The Packet Rat | Today's lesson: Do as I say, not as they do
It's hard to teach kids to be honest, upstanding citizens when the most obviously successful people in the world are duplicitous, deceitful and dirty.
The Packet Rat | A Swiftian plan for security
OMB's push for agencies to adopt Lines of Business and shared-services centers is gathering additional steam, and it looks like the efforts to create a Security LOB are off the back burner once again.
Snakes on a LAN, Laptops on a Plane, Laptops in Flames
If there's one thing we have plenty of these days, it's things to be nervous about.
The Packet Rat | Black Hat doings fill the Rat's paranoia to the brim
Black Hat conferences are always good times for the Rat. The cyberrodent enjoys having his inborn paranoia fed with tangible examples, and nothing feeds that paranoia like watching someone hack a WiFi-connected computer to root, or clone and alter, data from an e-Passport RFID chip.
The Packet Rat | Commuters can't escape heat of Intel-AMD battle
With the heat index off the charts, the Rat abandoned his usual urban-assault cycling commute for the slightly cooler confines of the Wasington Metro system.
Some of these summertime ideas just aren't so hot
It all started as a typical summer week for the Rat: cooling systems failing, racks overheating, systems tripping offline, wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that was just at home.
The Packet Rat | Net neutrality doesn't get Google's first-class treatment
'No wonder the Google boys were so far out of the loop on their net neutrality lobbying effort,' the Rat remarked to his minions over the top of his hard-copy Wall Street Journal.
Packet Rat | When hot dogs drain life from WiFi networks
If there's one thing that drives the Rat batty, it's a lack of connectivity. Nothing can drop bandwidth faster on a WiFi network'especially one running on one of the higher channels'than a running microwave, especially one six inches from the wireless router.
The Packet Rat | Will another shoe drop
Word had been circulating that a big change was going to be announced in the wake of the recent Microsoft TechEd conference. The Rat tuned in to the webcast just in time to hear that Bill Gates is leaving ... in 2008.
The Packet Rat | Once more, unto the breach
The Rat has finally found a silver lining in the recent loss of veterans' data in the laptop theft that has disgraced the Veterans Affairs Department.
The Packet Rat | AJAX Craze Could Lead to Dirty Business
'It's like a bad horror-movie monster,' The Rat recently ranted as he reviewedrequirements for another application development project. 'Just when you think you've killed it, it comes back again!' 'What, 'American Idol'?' asked his wife. 'No, no ... though that's true, too,' he replied. 'No, I'm talking about this dynamic HTML offalthey're calling AJAX."
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