Cantabridgian Capers

From: spencer_katt@ziffdavis.com

Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 12:47 AM

To: eWEEK readers

Subject: Longhorn has Monad removed; empty iPods; funny-smelling acronyms

“Longhorn is looking emptier than Michael Jacksons post-trial bedroom,” Spence snickered, noting the recent news that “Monad,” Microsofts proposed scriptable shell language, was added to the list of features being dropped from the product. The Puss had no time to ponder Longhorn or the Gloved Ones fate, though, as he skatted across the bridge from his Beantown litter box to the Cambridgeside Galleria to catch up with an old and Apple-obsessed Cantabridgian companion. There, the Professor of Prattle had to expel his buddy from the Gallerias Apple store and physically drag him over to the bar at Davios, a restaurant across the street.

After sipping Calvados, the pal told Spence that the buzz among the Mac crowd is that Apple has filed an application to trademark the name “Mactel.” Since Apple has publicly proclaimed Intel its Mac daddy for chips, what it plans to do with the Mactel name is open to speculation. “Maybe The Beatles lawyers might finally stop disputing the Apple name with Steve Jobs if the company starts calling itself Mactel,” cackled the Kitty. The pal also told Spence that some iPod aficionados are miffed over speculation at www.itunesperipod.com. The Web site wonders what folks fill their iPods with, pointing out that Apples sales of more than 2.9 million iPods and estimated 60 million iTunes means the average iPod would contain only about 21 songs purchased from the iTunes store. Turning from his Apple-happy pal, he gazed out the window toward Lotus headquarters and wondered if the whispers that support for DB2 may not be available in the initial offering of Domino 7.0 were true.

A KattPhone call interrupted the Furry Ones reverie. He hoped it was tattle from Brattle, a tip from an informant on the lookout for Oracle boss Larry Ellison, he of the purported $115 million donation to the worlds richest university, not Harvard President Larry Summers, although they have both flummoxed feminists. But no, a systems administrator was on the line, claiming to be happy with the features one gets when upgrading from Microsofts ISA Server 2000 to ISA Server 2004. The caller lamented, however, that the older apps active caching feature disappears upon upgrade. The ability of cached items to update automatically doesnt seem to jell with the firewall functions in ISA Server 2004. Bidding the sys admin adieu, the Puss pondered news that Wal-Mart plans to stop selling VHS tapes by next years first quarter. Many see this as the death notice for the format, which has been on life support since even your granny became a Netflix subscriber.

Spence accompanied his Cambridge compadre to that evenings MIT Enterprise Forum “Battle of the Bad Business Plans.” Past contestants have won with presentations for such fictional firms as “ISoldMySpouse.com.” But, alas, the Kitty sniffed an ill wind among this years attendees when they got a whiff of the possible acronym for this years winner, a faux methane recovery business called “Fuel Asset Recovery Transport System.”