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Marketing
Dells new dude?
A video file is being passed around on the Web that depicts Dell computers being sold on TV shopping channel QVC, and it could give Dell another pitchman almost as popular as the “Dude” guy. So long, Dude; hello, Randy? Heres a transcript of Randy and his Dell love interest:
Hosts: Youre live on QVC. Whats your name, and where are you calling from?
Caller: Randy.
Hosts: Hi, Randy. How you doing?
Caller: Im good. How about you guys?
Hosts: Were all right. Where you calling from, Randy?
Caller: Im in Dover, Delaware.
Hosts: Oh. Then its almost 2 oclock in the morning where you are.
Caller: Its the only time alone I have with my new Dell, and I love it.
Hosts: What kind of things are you using your Dell for, Randy?
Caller: Mostly personal use, things like porno. Yup, I love porno. These things are great for porno.
Disaster Recovery 101
Back up everything—even your trucks
When relocating your disaster recovery site, make sure you back up your moving trucks, too.
Thats the big lesson from Lisa Sciarrino, managing director at HypoVereinsbank, or HVB. Speaking at the Business Continuity & Corporate Security show and conference in New York on March 21, Sciarrino detailed how HVB moved its SunGard disaster recovery site from Long Island City, N.Y., to Carlstadt, N.J.
Months of planning culminated in a July 2005 move, and Sciarrino lined up a moving truck to tote HVBs servers, files and other infrastructure across the river to New Jersey. The one problem: Sciarrinos boss insisted on using two trucks just to be safe in case a robbery or accident resulted in HVB losing all its technology. That necessity put off the move a few weeks. “I didnt think we needed two trucks,” said Sciarrino, who ordered another truck at the behest of her superiors. Paranoia? Sure, but pretty prescient nevertheless.
Sure enough, one truck was broken into, and some gear was stolen on moving day. But since the other truck had equipment, the whole infrastructure kitty wasnt lost. The lesson: Back up everything—including the moving trucks.
Google Finance
Blog watch
Google finance, a site targeted to upend MSN Money and Yahoo Finance, launched with a lot of fanfare, and the blogosphere was decidedly mixed on the effort. One of the more interesting items came from Yahoo employee Jeremy Zawodny (jeremy.zawodny.com), an engineer who used to work on Yahoo Finance. His take:
“So why does [Google Finance] make Jeremy sad? It makes me sad because I end up thinking about how Yahoo Finance has stagnated for a long time. It never really recovered from the pain of the dotcom crash. So many of my old Finance co-workers have either left the company or moved on to other groups (several moved into Search last year). Heck, I encouraged many of them to get out!
“There was a lack of leadership and, even more importantly, a serious LACK OF VISION. It really disappointed me. It makes me sad because virtually all of the new/innovative/cool features in Google Finance are things we talked about YEARS ago. Many of them Id lobbied for repeatedly. Some were even prototyped.”
CORRECTION
In the March 13 Buzz, eWEEK RE-ported incorrectly that the Census Bureau is designing the FDCA (Field Data Collection Automation) system and hasnt awarded the contract for the DRIS (Decennial Response Integration System). In fact, the DRIS contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin. The FDCA system contract has yet to be awarded. We regret the error.