Ran across this error recently in an Ubuntu guest on my VirtualBox install: VBoxClient: (seamless): failed to start, Stage: Setting guest IRQ filter mask Error: VERR_INTERNAL_ERROR Gee, isn’t that a useful message. Fortunately, there was a forums.virtualbox thread on just this error. The upshot is that this error is actually caused because of a failure …
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Category:complaint
browsers should have integrated sharing ability
Mobile browsers can all share pages via whatever is available on your tablet, {{iPad}}, {{Android}}, {{iPhone}}, etc. Why do ‘full’ browsers not offer the same thing without goofy extensions?
on ads
My colleague Sheila wrote a great, short piece on LinkedIn about ads recently. And this is what I commented: I held off for years in installing ad blockers/reducers. But I have finally had to cave – been running Flash in “ask-only” mode for months now, and just added a couple blocker/reducer extensions to Chrome recently …
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sap bapis and hp oo
Couple quick notes: {{SAP}} is not designed for automated / programmatic access – their “{{BAPI}}”, or binary application programming interface, requires additional licensing beyond just the product to use I made the naive assumption that a “BAPI” was like a {{WSDL}} – and it is, but it’s proprietary, not open (and it’s binary, not plaintext {{XML}}) …
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please reply at top
There is a constant war over top-repliers, bottom-repliers, and inline-repliers. If you’re replying to an email, reply at the top. Unless there is some overarching need to reply inline (hint – it is very very rare). Bottom-replying makes me have to reread all the crap that has been left from previous messages before I get to what you …
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charge for carry-on luggage
Airlines over the past several years have begun charging for all kinds of things that used to be “free” (they weren’t ever “free”, they just hid the cost in your ticket price). One of the worst offenders to this list of fees, though, is the inane charge for your first checked bag whereas carry-on baggage …
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who wants an “all-star team” anyway?
A friend sent me this job listing recently, and I see it suffers from a wrong-headed (though well-intentioned) institutional fixation that hiring managers seem to have: that of wanting an “all-star team”. “we are building an all-star team” Sigh. This mentality is promoted by smart, successful people like Joel Spolsky: “You’re going to see three …
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conferences
There need to be coed and/or men-only adoption conferences. All the ones I know of are for women only. For example, my wife went to Created for Care this weekend – a ladies-only event. Maybe I should take her advice and start my own 🙂
pxe works differently in hpsa 10.x
2 years ago I wrote-up how you can change the default choice for the PXE menu in HP Server Automation. Found out this week that those instructions are not valid if you are running 10.0 (release this past summer). HP changed how they present their PXE menu with 10.x, and I have filed an RFE …
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alphabet soup
Don’t ever work with the government – they change the names of agencies every few days. It’s kinda like African countries changing names: have all the letterhead printed and business cards issued? Change the name!
there’s never enough documentation | there’s too much documentation
Documentation is vital. There’s never enough. And there’s always too much. In general, these are the areas I find documentation to fail: Not Enough Too Much/Many why-tos (instead of how-tos) tutorials on things you need architecture explanation design philosophy “how we got here” “why we are here” future plans / roadmaps deltas from standards recording …
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datacenter bandwidth charges can be crazy
Why are colocation bandwidth rates so crazy expensive? In an era of ubiquitous broadband to the home, why are connections in datacenters still so expensive? I see charges on the per-GB-transferred scale, or flat-rate charges per MB of bandwidth. I have yet to figure out why these rates can vary so wildly even in datacenters …
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the 7 habits of highly effective people by stephen r covey
This should have been titled “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective – but incredibly rigid and hard to to please – People” by Stephen Needs Coffee. But it’s not. {{Stephen R Covey}}’s work is extremely well-known, and millions have purchased {{The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People}} since it was released. I’m sure I have …
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don’t implement your scheduler in a pure queue design
Recently came across a seriously funky issue with one of HP’s products (don’t laugh – I know there’s loads of funkiness in HP tools). HP Cloud Service Automation (3.1) allows you to schedule requests in the future. It also allows you schedule end dates for subscriptions. That’s neat. Here’s the problem: if you delete a …
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reference materials
I learned recently that my wonderful wife was never taught how to use a dictionary, thesaurus, almanac, or encyclopedia as a child in school. Not all of that can be because she went to public school whereas I was homeschooled. Nor can it merely be that she grew up in KY and I in NY. …
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more fixes for patents
An addition to my previous post on patents is due. If you are a non-producing entity, ie you have a patent “just to have it” (you’re a company, not a person, and you only have patents to use as legal ammunition), you relinquish rights to sue over infringement. If you are not producing anything the …
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tax day
Tax Day in the US is “late” this year because the 15th of April was a Sunday. I was able to prepare and file my taxes early-ish (January) thanks to a proactive employer who got our W2s out quickly. Every month I look at my pay stub, and am appalled at how much the various …
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why have email confidentiality notices?
Lots of corporations automatically append something like the following to emails sent outside their own servers: CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email communication is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the recipient(s) designated above and may contain information which is subject to Federal and/or State privacy laws. In the event that you are not …
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nj man suing the port authority
From NBC New York, “NJ Man Sues Over Toll Hikes, Claims Bias“. A New Jersey man has filed a federal lawsuit in New York over the Port Authority’s toll increase. Yoel Weisshaus of New Milford claims the increase is an abuse of power and discriminates against him because he is poor. Cash tolls on the …
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staybridge replies – the next week
In follow-up to my post from last week, two members of the Staybridge staff contacted me on Wednesday of this week. Their replies are posted below. Also, a disclaimer: I never asked for anything to be done in recompense for the situation – I just wanted it fixed. Mr. Myers: Please accept my apology for the …
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personal vs professional blogging
A friend of mine recently pointed me at the newspaper-associated blog of a “recent Appalachian State University graduate and now a freelance reporter for The Charlotte Observer”. Ms Penland seems like a nice person – but her writing is not at all what I would expect for a blog associated with a newspaper – it …
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staybridge suites – avoid like the plague
I rarely have good reason to complain about hotels, restaurants, etc. This is one of those rare occasions. And it was made worse because my wife had to go through it, too 🙁 The following is the message I sent to the general manager of the Fishers IN Staybridge Suites location on Tuesday 19 July 2011 …
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