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...

iPads made an impact this holiday season as sales topped all expectations. And I am now a proud owner as well. Will this fuel creative minds to come up with more new ideas? Will NonStop share in the success? Walking back into my Boulder home this week I was truly appreciative of how fortunate I was to live in Colorado. With an uninterrupted view of Colorado’s front ranges as well as the Continental Divide, with the snow covered 14,000’ Long’s Peak clearly visible beneath a few high clouds, it’s proving quite a spectacle! Readers of the comForte Lounge blog may have caught the most recent post It’s now in our hands! where I wrote of how I came into possession of an iPad over Christmas, and how pleased I am to become completely untethered, free to check magazines, newspapers, and even blogs no matter where my travels take me. The picture above is of me seated in my kitchen nook, checking the cricket scores, of course! I’m not the only one in the family, however, with an iPad. Bef...

There’s many who see the role of social media as a distraction and a nuisance at times, while there are those who believe it will spur innovation. Should we be moving more aggressively to support innovation? Perhaps the highlight of the year for me was the time spent on the Nurburgring circuit, late in September. This circuit used to be the venue for the German Grand Prix and having the opportunity to complete a number of uneventful, and relatively slow, laps driving on Germany’s Grüne Hölle, the world-famous Nordschleife, or North Loop, of the Nürburgring, fulfilled a childhood dream when I imagined I was running wheel to wheel with historic figures from a bygone era as we raced around this highly challenging and extremely dangerous track. For those who may have read the post “Respect the ‘Ring” I made to my social blog, buckle-up-travel.blogspot.com, the track was wet on arrival. There had been heavy rain overnight that had continued into the morning hours and as we drove to the...

ISV’s are pursuing certification; the credentials obtained will sort out whose embracing modern programming models and frameworks and it’s a good start! But it has HP’s full attention! This weekend I paid a quick visit to the vineyards near Los Olivos, just outside of Solvang. Deep in “Sideways” territory that includes a number of the vineyards and restaurants featured in that film. Since the weather wasn’t particularly helpful, after tasting a flight of wines at Fess Parker winery, we selected a bottle of Syrah and enjoyed it with a little cheese we had brought with us. The photo above is of me in the midst of reminiscing on the film and devouring the cheese that included a very good English Stilton. For those who may not recall the specifics of Sideways, two aging former college roommates that had been unsuccessful in their respective careers – one a television actor and the other a writer – elect to just get away from it all and spend the week in the Santa Ynez Valley prior to th...

It was only a few weeks ago when we took our car to the track, for the last time this year. And it was a wet weekend, raining so hard on Saturday that all events were cancelled. It was still a gamble as Sunday morning rolled around as the rain continued to come down, but intrepid drivers were not prepared to give up on the entire weekend. The picture here is of the Corvette on grid, rain easing up just a little, but with me a tad anxious all the same. The season had started with a wet weekend and so it seemed appropriate to end on a similar note. Ending the year at the fabulous (for Corvettes) and very wet Auto Club Speedway, a combination of an infield road course with the wide open banked oval of the NASCAR circuit (and hence the label “roval”) seemed appropriate, if not a little depressing. When there’s water on a track however, all drivers take to the circuit with a measured sense of self preservation. No matter the kind of car on track, there’s not a driver who wants to retu...