County, Allsing, Bandersnatch

[Robert Bushman]

Here's what I distilled on Jim Allsing.
I will be at Bandersnatch tomorrow by
noon. Will have an 8 port hub and a couple
extra spots in a powerstrip.

Facts & Figures
---------------
Oct 1999
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/netsys/article/0,,11961_616731,00.html
  Jim Allsing is Director of Electronic Business Center
  Intranet Redesign Roughly Annual
  "Agenda Cental"
    - Completed 1998
    - Simple Workflow System
    - Unspecified Platform
    - Massive Cost Savings
  "Electronic Business Center" (EBC)
    - Completed 1999
    - Dynamic Web Pages using MSIE
    - Groupware Built On MS Outlook
    - Paul Allsing is Project Director
    - Uptime Sensitive
    - Uptime Management Investment Implies Instability
    - 30 NT Servers
    - SQL Server 6.5
    - Future is all web based.
Aug 2000
http://www.gcn.com/state/vol6_no8/snapshot/786-1.html
  Jim Allsing is Director of EBC
  11,000 Computers
  Standardized on MSIE, Exchange, and Office
  Standardization is Equated with Interoperability
Oct 2000
http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20001022bwired7.asp
  Jim is primarily concerned with cost efficiency.


Hunches & Intuition
-------------------
- Jim Likes Microsoft
  Jim directed the development of EBC. He did
  it on Microsoft software, has gotten phenomenal
  results, and is now the Deputy CIO as a result.
  Telling him, "only an idiot would use Microsoft"
  will not work.
- Jim is Watching the Budget
  Jim is using MS because he believes it is the
  best way for him to deploy what the user needs
  rapidly, for a reasonable price.
- There have been some downtime problems.
  Looking at the article above from 1999, you can
  see that they've made no small investment in
  heartbeating, notification, and automatic reboots.
  This implies to me that Jim's seen a blue screen
  or two in his time.
- Standardization equals Interoperability
  The big win mentioned in standardizing on MSIE,
  Exchange, Outlook, and Office was interoperability.
- Jim has been indoctrinated by MS.
  He directed a project with 30 NT servers, 11,000
  Windows workstations, 11,000 copies of MS Office,
  .asp pages with dynamic content, and customized
  MS Outlook. You can't get there without having
  talked with a few Microsoft reeducators.
- Jim will spout the party line.
  Expect to hear all the standard lines from Jim.
  We should be virtually capable of quoting the
  entire letter from the Peruvian Congressman, and
  should definately have all the key points down.
http://linuxtoday.com/mailprint.php3?action=pv&ltsn=2002-05-06-012-26-OS-SM-LL

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 "We need commonsense judges who understand that our rights were
 derived from God," - President George W. Bush, 27 June 2002
 http://www.nandotimes.com/politics/story/448758p-3591873c.html
 What if he had said, "our rights are derived from Vishnu?"
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