Vegas Still a Good Bet for Getting News

The sunny, 80-degree weather of the city of lost wages was a nice break for the freezing Frisky One, who bailed the late spring frost of New England last week for N+I. “I love this town, and this town loves me,” meowed the Mouser, as he phoned into the home office from inside the surprisingly not-so-long cab line at McCarran International Airport.

Another IT junkie loves the town even more. The rumor buzzing around the miles of N+I aisles was that Bill Gates, in true Vegas style, had bought an entire floor of a high-brow condo complex being constructed directly across the street from the Las Vegas Convention Center. Apparently the complex, called Turnberry Place, will offer units ranging from $500,000 to $3 million. “Howard Hughes would be proud,” cackled the Kitty. “Whats next, Chairman Bill flying into McCarran in the Spruce Goose?”

The Turnberry isnt the only hot property around. Rumors are swirling about Cambridge, Mass., that IBM is putting the Lotus headquarters building up for sale. The move could serve as the final chapter in Big Lous quest to subsume the groupware subsidiary—and serve as his swan song. Its rumored that Lou plans to resign from Big Blue by next March when his contract is up.

Back in Vegas, neither Spencer nor anyone else could escape the news of the nationwide hack attacks that defaced some sites and crashed others. In addition to the well-publicized Homepage virus, attacks by Chinese hackers and another group known as Fluffi Bunny defaced the sites of many large companies.

Fluffi Bunny took credit for slapping some personal information about an Exodus employee onto the hosting companys site, but according to Exodus, no customers data was compromised. “Fluffi Bunny—isnt that what Puff Daddys calling himself now?” wondered the Whiskered One.

Chinese hackers apparently got onto “duckling processor” Maple Leaf Farms site last week and pasted profanities. Rumor has it that it wasnt necessarily the ducky “processor” the hackers were out to embarrass, but rather its hosting company, AT&T Global Net.

“Nevertheless,” fumed the Feline, “picking on a poor little defenseless duckling processing plant; now, thats just … wait a minute. Never mind.”

Tired of talk of small animals and annoying hacks, Spencer snickered, “Proof before you hit send,” as he read through a new Borland press release.

Eager to get the release about Delphi 6, the companys new RAD Web services development platform, out the door, Borland officials sent it out with an editorial comment disparaging some rivals work.

In a part discussing Delphi 6s support for emerging Web services, including Oracles .Now, the release read: “.Now has been vaporware so far and Oracle has no clear schedule or plan in place ? we will look strange announcing support from something that people are already scratching their hea[ds about].”

When called on it, Borland PR officials thanked the Katt for bringing it to their attention and quickly sent off the new release—which was devoid of any reference to Oracle .Now.

Chalk it up to a “cut and paste” error, the PR person said. “Oh, I will,” cackled the Kitty.