Real Time View

NonStop servers and Mercedes Benz cars have something in common, and it’s not always visible. No, it has nothing to do with pricing! NonStop is heading towards being a pure software play and it’s all about the “stack” … Last weekend, driving west along California’s highway 101 I passed the local Mercedes Benz dealership, and a quick glance at their showroom had me heading for the exit immediately. A quick U-turn and I was in their parking lot. The picture above captures the sight – a new Mercedes SLS “Gullwing” sports car! Alongside the SLS, a car I hadn’t seen while driving on the highway, was a Mercedes SLR “McLaren”! Both cars obvious works of art, but beneath the metal and carbon fiber skin a full complement of race-bred technology. The picture above captures the two cars, side by side, with their distinctive doors fully extended. For years, I have viewed this marque as the benchmark when it comes to quality engineering in an enjoyable, reliable package. It was in the early ‘8...

“You are either red, or blue – there’s no beige on the mountain!” As the focus of NonStop turns to software, and the news spreads to the rest of HP, how can we not applaud the stories now coming out of Palo Alto? I’ve just come back from the car wash. It’s winter in California, and yet the mercury has climbed past 80 degrees. Coming from Boulder where there’s still a lot of snow on the ground, I’m as much in shock as anyone else from these parts. The picture above was taken as I was getting the SUV out of the garage and about to depart for California. Winter? California? Knocking back a sports drink and looking for shade, the state is finally living up to its moniker! Perhaps it’s a sign of changing economic conditions as the cars at the car wash are a mixture of bright yellows, reds, and blues, of course! For the past year cars have been a lot less colorful with silver and beige predominating. Nothing is more depressing to a car enthusiast than the lack of color – beige? Good g...

Its winter and a time for staying indoors; for frequent visits to the trusty wine cellar, and to just kick back and enjoy the brief time off! But even though the mind may numb from the cold, it’s not hard to miss the subtle changes occurring with NonStop! Working in Boulder across the holiday season has given me time to check out the cellar to just make sure wines I have treasured for so many years are even drinkable. The basis of my concerns centered on a number of really good red wines from Australia that were bottled in 1996 – one of the much better years for wine coming out of Australia. And the picture above is of four such wines pulled from the cellar and opened over the days following the New Year. Readers may recall in the post of August 29th, 2010 “NonStop? Spreading the word ...” of how it was only a couple of years earlier that I had made the terrible mistake of selecting the inexpensive wine after I said to my wife that I am off to get a special treat and of how, for the...