Hunting Down Prairie Dogs and Other Tips

Spencer heard that StorageTek, which makes tape and disk array products, recently paid exterminators about $5,000 to wipe out more than 4,000 prairie dogs that were ravaging its 450-acre campus in Louisville, Colo. Employees who use the companys outdoor day care center and jogging trails were worried about the increasing rodent population, a Katt crony at the company said.

Of course, one mans rodent is another mans endangered species, and prairie dog defenders were enraged by the use of aluminum phosphide gas to dispatch the critters.

The activists anger escalated when protesters appeared at the recent Storage World Conference in San Jose. As StorageTek CEO Pat Martin gave his keynote, protesters outside the conference, including one woman in a prairie dog costume, held signs berating the company for its actions. "Now, theres proof that the tech biz hasnt gone to the dogs," laughed the Lynx.

The Furball hears that some admins have issues with Service Pack 3 for Windows 2000. Theyre finding that not all the security patches that were supposed to be in SP 3 are there and that when they try to download the missing ones, Windows wont let them. Apparently, it wont let you go to patches that are pre-SP 3. A friend of the Furball said some people have also found that machines with SP 3 installed arent recognizing certain characters in the password field during log-in.

It appears that Redmond got way more applicants than expected to beta test its new Xbox Live online gaming service. Although only a few thousand Xbox owners were to be invited to participate, reports claim more than 100,000 Xbox owners applied. A pal of the Puss said gamesters are grumbling, with claims that some initial invitation recipients who diligently filled out two required surveys to participate were bypassed in favor of recipients of an additional batch of invites, which were sent out in larger numbers and required only a single survey form to participate. "World peace and a cure for cancer are not expected to arise from this critical debate," mused the Mouser.

Things seem upbeat for MicronPC, which has reported an operating profit for three consecutive quarters and is giving employees profit-sharing bonuses of $400 or more. That must be a shock to former CEO Joel Kocher, who proclaimed the PC biz dead in May and handed Microns PC division, along with $70 million in cash, to Gores Technology Group. Kocher now helms Web hosting company Interland.

Check out this weeks Kattoon: Gateways Move on Apples Territory: The Jobsfather IV.