Trying to re-purpose old hardware for can be like trying to resurrect the dead: You might get them them up and running but they'll lurch around slowly and have an insatiable appetite for brains. In the case of hardware the desire for brain *power* can often be more trouble than it's worth. Still if you need a lightweight, expendable box to test and experiment with you can't get off any cheaper than with an out of date system..

The unfortunate downside of using such antiquated hardware is that when it goes down it goes down hard. Don't hold out hope for finding replacement parts and don't spend more than twenty minutes looking for old driver updates. If they are out there you'll need a fine toothed comb to locate them.

The worst part about 3rd party integrations is the helplessness you feel. This past Wednesday we found out that one of our 3rd party vendors didn't relocate their data center as they'd told us. The original move was supposed to happen in the beginning of April and I was on standby should any problems arise. For a moment all seemed well except for the occasional outage thus we assumed that the move went through.

However an email to our director stated that this was not the case and that the new plan was push the data center move until midnight Saturday. I was later informed that I would inherit the job of testing our integration in the wee hours of the morning Sunday. Thankfully my boss convinced the vendor to push our testing out to 4am, which was preferable since it means a very early morning instead of a very late night.

All in all the job was done in about an hour and I was left with not only the satisfaction of a job well done but also a beautiful sunrise. Going back to bed was not an option since the little one had climbed in and taken my place so I fired up the coffee maker and loaded the Nordschleife on GTR2. After turning a few laps the sun began peek out from behind the trees and I relocated to the back porch to enjoy the view and the crisp, clean air.

Despite my enjoyment of the morning I'm sure that I'll be dragging this afternoon. Hopefully I can catch a few Zzzs in a sunny spot.

Are you totally engrossed in social networking and Web 2.0? I can't say that I am, but then again it's been three or four years since sites like Flickr, Digg and MySpace really "wowed" me. So is the entire "2.0" thing winding down or are journalist simply sobering up? Unlike the last dot bomb blowout, the most recent round of web offerings have tended to depart more as a long slow fizzle than in a blaze of glory. Still there might be a few survivors and tech rag Industry Standard is there with its own prediction of winners and losers.

10 'Net services that will succeed, and 10 that will probably fail