OK, it’s a blog by a rabid Notes/Domino fan….but interesting nonetheless :
I guess it really reinforces the absolute commitment to MS software you need to have if you are going to run Exchange, or presumably most of their other server-side software. So much for open standards 
If you’re of a certain age then you will probably have seen, and may even have owned, one of these calculators…a Sharp EL-508A. Back in my schooldays in Ireland, they were very popular. And after I met my wife and we moved in together I was pleasantly surprised to see she not only had been the owner of the calculator pictured above, but still had it and used it pretty frequently. In fact, she originally got the calculator in Year 4, so she would probably have been 9 years old, and at the time we met the calculator would have been about 13 year old. Well, that was about 15 years ago, and in the intervening years the calculator has been used pretty regularly.
Until, that is, a couple of months ago when the gradually fading display refused to fire up any more. The general consensus was that it had given up the ghost, it was an ex-calculator. It isn’t the only calculator in the house so there was no overriding need to replace it immediately, and so since then we have left it lying around, loathe to discard it after 28 years of sterling service. Today I picked it up and, being the curious soul that I am, decided to have a peek inside. A bit of a post-mortem, I guess. So I opened it and saw that it was powered by two AA batteries. “Hmmm, I wonder” said a little voice, and so I put a couple of new batteries in, closed the cover, and lo and behold it started working again. Amazing!
I wonder if we’ll get another 28 years out of it? It might become a family heirloom at this rate.
Whilst working in the home office one day last week, I had someone from a well-known widows and door replacement company knock on the door. You know the spiel “…not trying to sell you anything, but in the new year we’ll be having huge discounts on our range…have you considered replacing….”. Now, apart from the usual issue you’d expect me to have with this, I stopped the guy in mid-rant and asked if he had noticed the ‘No cold calling are’ notice at the top of the road. Rather than apologise he then tried to engage me in discussion over why people should object to double-glazing salesmen knocking on their door. I figured shutting the dor in his face was marginally less rude that laughing hysterically at him. Maybe I should have done both ?
Anyway, having had that experience, I then came across this in my RSS reader. You’ll need sound to get the full benefit, and believe me it’s worth it !
I wonder what it would take to pull such a prank on a door-to-door salesman ?
