Something odd is due to happen at the Microsoft Tech-Ed customer conference in Amsterdam next month, of that much Sneak can be quite sure. Exactly how odd remains to be seen. The Tech-Ed web site urges delegates to "Get inside and feel the rhythm", adding only that the opening keynote will "kick off with a unique experience". Sneak, of course, has further information to impart. Apparently the "unique" bit will involve both a world record attempt and some bongos. Yes, bongos. Sneak suspects that the 6,000-odd keynote attendees will each be handed a cheap drum and then be urged - in that whoopin' and hollerin' way that goes down so well in the US and so badly in Europe - to bash said drum in order to become part of the world's largest ever bongo band. Or perhaps the world's least musical bongo band. Sneak also suspects that someone in the organising team may have taken an instruction that the keynote must 'drum up some enthusiasm' a little too literally.

May 28, 2004 Travel | Permalink | Comments (1)

Microsoft is preparing a second edition of Windows Server 2003, to lumber in and fill the increasingly yawing void between now and when Longhorn might finally coast into view. The updated software's codename, R2, seemed innocuous enough until Sneak learned that the upcoming desktop gap-filler is no longer called Windows XP Reloaded but is now labelled D2. The combined desktop-server offering, R2-D2, will please the web's legions of Star Wars fans (who even after Send in the Clones must still outnumber those feigning an ongoing interest in the wobbly Matrix trilogy). But Sneak does worry that Microsoft might be tempting fate. After all the problems it has had with Longhorn's schedule, why would the firm name two vital interim products after a wayward and incomprehensible mobile swing-bin? Unless, of course, it's an unconscious admission that they're rubbish.

May 28, 2004 Film | Permalink | Comments (0)

Liberal-minded Apple Mac fans may believe that the various versions of Mac OS X - Jaguar, Panther and most recently Tiger - have simply been named after bloodthirsty predators. But that assumption may be wrong. The very same feline nouns have also memorably been applied to another type of artefact altogether: German panzers. Only time will tell if Sneak's armour-plated theory is sound. If the next OS X release is codenamed, say, Tabby, it will be clear that Apple simply has fur, teeth and claws in mind. If it chooses Leopard, the jury will still be out. But Sneak will be watching for the feline cycle to be broken by a revealing excursion into a wider menagerie with, say, Mouse or Elephant. Natural enemies the pachyderm and rodent may be, but both have donated their names to Teutonic tanks, and their adoption would provide conclusive proof of Apple's hidden plans for world domination.

May 28, 2004 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Want pizza but too busy to pick up the phone? Are you put off your food by the eye-watering designs of the average e-pizza web site? Fear not, the open source community has an answer to absolutely every problem, even problems that aren't even real problems. In this case the solution is Pizza Party, a free text-based software utility for ordering pizza online. Yes, text-based. Being a command-line program means that Pizza Party: "can order pizza with only a few keystrokes; uses batch files for ordering many pizzas; supports unattended/background operation; runs on most Unix-like operating systems; and supports most currently popular toppings like mushrooms and pepperoni!" Sneak cautions against using early versions, which may not include adequate bounds-checking. It would not be wise to accidentally leave something resting on the keyboard, say, and 30 minutes later find 300,000 pizza delivery guys waiting for payment in reception..
www.tinyurl.com/3468g

May 26, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

In a recent item about out-of-synch pips on Radio 4, Sneak implied that the notable delay between FM and digital broadcasts was of fixed length. Not so, as reader Geoff Lewis points out: "I have an analogue transistor radio in the kitchen, a Nokia 221 MediaMaster in the living room, an old Nokia On Digital box in the study and a brand new Bush cr2003 digital alarm/radio in the bedroom. All four devices process the signal at different speeds. When I move in one direction I get a feeling of deja-vu, in the opposite direction I get the feeling I'm missing out on something. And if I stand still in the hallway I get a 'dub' version of Radio 4 - and those pips seem to last forever..."

May 26, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sneak was concerned to learn that Intel's latest Dothan processor, which updates the firm's Centrino brand for laptops, contains "strained silicon". Sneak worries that perhaps Intel is trying to push clock speeds too high, risking a nervous breakdown on the part of the stressed-out substrate. But then strain is a particularly versatile word, so perhaps the silicon has been purified with the aid of a sieve, or over-stretched like a strained muscle?

Sneak may still have grasped the wrong end of this peculiar stick, however. After all, one excitable colleague of Sneak's leapt to entirely the wrong conclusion, on hearing mutterings about strained silicon. So to be clear; this item has nothing to do with the bulging assets of topless glamour models. Unless Intel's secret fabrication processes are even stranger than they seem...

May 26, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0)