Talk Rages in Lost Wages

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas—unless I decide to blab about it," cackled the Kitty. The Lucky Lynx was lurking about in Lost Wages to check out CA World and possibly win back some of the coinage hed lost in the city over the years. While CA CEO John Swainson was busy proclaiming he wanted to "talk less about the past and more about the future," El Gato was hoping to hear some tales of fear and loathing at the show.

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Spence chatted with many former CA employees, and only one defended ex-boss Charles Wang, claiming the company co-founder never created a "culture of fear" in Islandia, as the report from CAs special litigation committee stated. Another former associate said Wang would reorganize the company twice a year and humiliate some people by demoting them—and then a year later, they might possibly find redemption and receive a nice fat promotion. Another claimed folks trembled constantly in fear of losing their jobs under Wang. Whether Wang will be pursued for the $500 million that CAs special committee asserts should be wrangled from him will depend on whether the courts accept the report, Swainson told the crowd, when he did gingerly touch on the subject.

The Furball was tickled when a couple of CA folks told him about some product families the company is putting together under the label of Capability Solutions. "Did you guys use a word generator to come up with such a riveting name?" tittered the Tabby.

Suddenly, the KattPhones new ring tone, Gwen Stefanis "Dont Get It Twisted," brought forth a call from a Penguinista pal who said Linux watchers feel theyve found a clue as to which flavor of Linux Dell may soon offer preloaded on its products. A Dell Web site page recently listed all the computers Michael Dell personally uses, including a Dell Precision M90 laptop running Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" Linux. "Talk about scouring your Beatles albums for signs Paul is dead—the list also states that the other four machines he uses are all running Vista Ultimate," groused the Grimalkin, not putting much stock in the speculation.

The pal also told Spence to check out CastTV, a new YouTube challenger that touts Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen as an investor. The pal told Spence to visit CastTV.com to request an invitation to try a beta version of the video search engine when it launches in May.

Bidding the caller adieu, Spence ran into an old security pal on his way to the Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos blackjack tables. The duo headed to the bar to toss back some Jack Daniels and chat. The pal said he heard the buzzword "thumbsucking" used recently to describe the unauthorized downloading of a companys data via a portable USB storage device. The phrase was apparently coined by Senforce Technologies. "Thumbsucking, Podslurping, Bluesnarfing or Sneakernetting—all the terms for small-device data theft sound like Dr. Seuss created them," mused the Mouser.