Office Communicator Hotfixes

Not many people are aware of this. But “Microsoft Office Communicator hotfixes are not part of Windows Update, so it is important to find and deploy them through other means.” (source)

I’m completely baffled on how this happened. In the Mac Messenger version, the update is handled by the standard office update. Someone on the Windows side completely dropped the ball. And I’m willing to bet that there are a _lot_ of admins out there that don’t know that this is the case.

Wii puts 10 in hospital a week

TEN people a week in Britain are hospitalised from playing Wii games.

The growing toll has prompted NHS doctors to warn of the dangers.

Wii-itis sufferers usually have excruciating pain in the right shoulder or knee.

A rheumatology consultant said: “Most are admitted after playing the tennis and running games which involve sudden movements and violent tendon stretching.”

Dr Dev Mukerjee, of Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford, Essex, said: “There has been a 100 per cent increase in patients complaining of Wii-itis.

Good Bye 2008

At lunch the other day, a friend asked everyone at the table what was our favorite part of 2008. I think that I may have offended her a bit when I said that my favorite thing was that it was over. I wasn’t kidding either.

Work has been challenging but stressful. The company was bought, we battled floods, my team helped launch several major products, moved offices, and have continued to add on additional projects that have not been made public knowledge, but have taken up a bunch of time.

NASA’s rovers mark five years on Red Planet

Not too bad for a mission that was only supposed to last 90 days 😉

NASA’s Mars rovers are celebrating their fifth birthday on the Red Planet, exceeding their original life span by four years and nine months, with no end in sight to their history-making work.

The rover Spirit landed January 3, 2004, with Opportunity touching down 21 days later.

NASA said the rovers had made important discoveries about the wet and violent conditions on ancient Mars.

Throwing hardware at the problem

Recently, Jeff Atwood posted the following article talking about throwing hardware at a programming problem.

I have to say, I agree as I’m sure many others do as well.

One thing that you have to realize as a manager is the talent that you have on staff. If you happen to have 3 rookie programmers, there is a good chance that throwing hardware will not fix the issue. It will only disguise it for a while longer until you add enough users on the system that it rears its ugly head again.