The VAR Guy

Forget rising gas prices. The VAR Guy’s biggest expense continues to be his excessive spending on all things related to Steve Jobs. And this weekend, he’ll likely spend another $100 on something that Steve Jobs helped to create. (Hint: It isn’t from Apple.)

This time, The VAR Guy is walking right by The Apple Store and heading to the movie theater. Wall-E, opening June 27, sounds like another certified hit from Pixar — the digital animation studio that Jobs helped to build. (Pixar is now owned by Disney.)

And as The VAR Guy noted last year, Pixar is the most bankable movie production team in the world.

The VAR Guy’s family of five will likely line up for opening night tickets. Throw in some popcorn and colas, and it should be a $100 evening.

The VAR Guy didn’t always agree with George Carlin. But he loved him.

The VAR Guy quit his day job in December 2007, and called in a few favors to launch this Web site in January 2008. He’s been dressing down and blogging from his so-called home office (tucked away on Long Island’s Gold Coast) ever since. By eliminating his daily commute, you won’t believe how much money The VAR Guy has saved this year.

Let’s start with some quick stats.

• Weekly Commute: In 2007, The VAR Guy’s daily commute to (and from) the office was roughly a 45-mile round trip — or about 225 miles worth of driving a week.
• Weekly Gas Consumption: His late model Maxima sips (or chugs) a gallon of gas every 20 miles or so, meaning that our resident blogger used to consume about 11.25 gallons of gas per week. (225 miles divided by 20 MPG = 11.25 gallons used.)
• Weekly Gas Costs: Gas now costs well over $4.50 a gallon in The VAR Guy’s neighborhood, but let’s be conservative and say gas has averaged roughly $3.75 a gallon this year. That’s $42.19 per week in potential gas expenses.
• Total Telecommute Gas Savings: We’re roughly 24 weeks into 2008, meaning The VAR Guy has saved about $1012.50 so far on gas expenses ($42.19 per week X 24 weeks = $1012.50).

Telecommuting rules. Especially when your bosses don’t know your home address.

The VAR Guy is trying his best to attend both OSCON (July 21-25, Portland, Oregon) and LinuxWorld Expo (August 4-7, San Francisco). In particular, he wants to learn more about the emerging Ubuntu Linux community. But if he only had the time and money to attend one of the events, which should it be?

OSCON is compelling to our resident blogger, because Canonical Founder Mark Shuttleworth is set to keynote the event, and OSCON has been a gathering place for the growing Ubuntu Linux community. Colleges around Oregon have been known to send their top IT managers and professors, who describe how Ubuntu is finding its way into IT infrastructure as well as classroom curriculum.

Still, LinuxWorld Expo will have plenty of Ubuntu-driven activity as well. One of the key pieces of the event is  Ubucon, scheduled August 7. Ubucon is a community driven, community organized event that is all about Ubuntu Linux. 

The VAR Guy has quit his daily designer coffee habit, and hopes to save enough money to attend both events. But if he had to select only one, which should it be?

The VAR Guy’s heart has a soft spot for dead companies. During the 1990s, he covered dozens of high-tech firms that died and/or had their organs donated to other needy tech companies. But here’s the one former company he misses most.

The name: Cabletron Systems Inc. The New Hampshire-based company was colorful, controversial, and always looking to trade blows with rivals. Co-founders S. Robert Levine and Craig Benson were the bad boys of the 1990s networking industry. And The VAR Guy loved writing about the duo.

Levine pumped iron in his office, gutted a rival’s networking hub (from SynOptics Communications) and transformed it into a fish tank, and dressed as Rambo to rally Cabletron’s direct sales force.

Benson played the straight man, though he whipped up controversy, too. When a bank decided to purchase networking gear from a Cabletron rival, Benson had the bank’s ATM machines ripped out of Cabletron’s headquarters — or so the urband legend goes.

The Ultimate Vow

In the early 1990s, The VAR Guy asked Benson if Cabletron would ever introduce a channel partner program. Benson’s reply was something like: “Selling direct and indirect at the same time is like dating when you have a wife. I don’t believe in that.”

Benson later had a change of heart (at least when it came to channel sales) and introduced a partner program at Cabletron.

When you walked around Cabletron’s offices, great story hooks lurked around every corner. Much of Cabletron’s office furniture, for instance, was purchased for pennies on the dollar. How? The furniture was used equipment purchased from deceased or downsizing New England technology companies.

Alas, those money-saving moves didn’t save Cabletron from Cisco’s competitive onslaught (and Cabletron’s own internal management struggles). The company had 6,600 employees by the mid-1990s, but ultimately imploded.

In fact, Cabletron may have the most confusing corporate obituary The VAR Guy has ever read. Here it is, as posted on WikiPedia:

In 2000 [Cabletron] reorganized as a holding company for networking firms: Enterasys Networks of Andover, Massachusetts (which went public in 2001 and was taken private in 2006 by The Gores Group, owned by Alec Gores); Riverstone Networks of Santa Clara, California (acquired by Lucent Technologies, which was subsequently merged with Alcatel Networks, resulting in the wind-down and Chapter 11 liquidation of Riverstone assets); Aprisma Management Technologies of Durham, New Hampshire (subsequently acquired by Concord Communications which in turn was acquired for $350M by Computer Associates, now renamed CA, Inc.); and Global Network Technology Services (also known as GNTS) of The Woodlands, Texas (this company no longer exists).

Rest in peace, Cabletron. You’ve been gone for eight years, but The VAR Guy still misses you, and the corporate personalities who walked your halls.

There’s nothing like a good, fake cuss word to get you through the day — and help you avoid censorship. Battlestar Galactic had “Frak.” But The VAR Guy prefers his own, home-grown cuss: Frag. It’s inspired by Diskeeper Corp. Here’s why.

The next time you’re working a help desk, and your users or customers call to complain about sluggish boot times or pathetic server performance, just say: “What the Frag is wrong?” Actually, frag — or a fragmented hard drive — may be the problem.

In fact, a new server management study — sent to The VAR Guy by Diskeeper — suggests that defrag and antivirus software are now considered equally important by network managers. When asked, “what software do you consider vital to have on your servers?”:

• 48 percent of network administrators said “Antivirus/Symantec”
• 45 percent said “Defrag/Diskeeper”

The VAR Guy doesn’t know who sponsored the research, nor is he particularly concerned about it. He was just looking for an excuse to throw his personal cuss word — Frag — around the Web a bit. He hopes Frag goes viral, like this blog.

Generally speaking, The VAR Guy is a classic rock fanatic. His iPhone is loaded with tunes from Pink Floyd, Rush … and more Pink Floyd. But tonight, during a business trip in Las Vegas, he may sneak away from his hotel room to see the most unlikely of bands.

Alas, The VAR Guy has always been a big Prince fan. Sure, you know about Purple Rain. But our resident blogger even likes the Prince albums and tunes that never got radio time (Ronnie Talk to Russia, Christopher Tracy’s Parade and dozens more). And tonight, a Prince cover band called Purple Reign (how original…) is playing at the House of Blues — which is located in The VAR Guy’s Las Vegas hotel.

So, you won’t catch The VAR Guy cruising on the Las Vegas strip tonight. But that doesn’t mean he’s turning in early.

Yes, The VAR Guy is heading to Las Vegas on June 1 for the Kaseya User Conference. It should be an educational event for managed service providers and IT leaders. But can our resident blogger focus on the job at hand with so many temptations around him? Here are five fatal distractions — all rated PG — The VAR Guy will need to avoid in Sin City.

1. The New York, New York Hotel and Casino Roller Coaster: Still the best distraction in Vegas. Stick with this video to hear The VAR Guy’s tech support interns crying like babies on this massive roller coaster:

2. Las Vegas Stratosphere Insanity Ride: And you’re worried about your margins falling? What about the rest of your personal assets?

3. Poker Tournament with Craigslist Founder Craig Newmark: Um, The VAR Guy knows what’s in his wallet — and it ain’t much. Can he bluff his way into some big earnings during a poker tournament featuring Newmark on June 2?

4. Star Trek: The Experience: The VAR Guy always preferred Luke and Leia over Kirk and Spock. And during a dozen trips to Vegas, he has failed to visit Star Trek: The Experience, located in the Hilton Hotel. Perhaps he’ll finally beam aboard this time around.

5. Anybody’s Buffet: Craving some king crab legs at 6am? Or how about pancakes at midnight? Like a good New York diner, Las Vegas buffets will fill you up — with anything and everything.

Tune in June 1, when The VAR Guy’s journey through Vegas begins.

Forgive The VAR Guy for his sarcasm. But American Airlines’ decision to charge passengers $15 to check a bag is a joke. The VAR Guy never checks his bags because airlines LOSE bags. Now, there’s a $15 surcharge for such lousy service? Wonderful. Perhaps it’s time for The VAR Guy to really open his wallet and embrace TelePresence videoconferencing as an alternative to expensive travel on antiquated airlines.

Has anybody else noticed that American’s planes are old? Really old? Why wasn’t American updating its fleet when times were good? Now, times are bad — and high fuel prices coupled with high labor costs trigger high stress for everyone — shareholders, travelers and employees alike.

OK, things aren’t all bad. The VAR Guy flew American a few weeks ago, during a trip from New York to Minneapolis. The service was great, but that’s because the flight was booked at about 10 percent of capacity. An American employee told The VAR Guy that flights have to be at least 85 percent full to break even. Anything below that is a money-losing trip for the airline. Ouch.

The VAR Guy fears the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. But even if things turn bleak, The VAR Guy will still have the clothes on his back — and carry-on luggage in his hands. He doesn’t want to part with another $15 — or his bags.

Matt Asay, a leading voice in the open source community and a top blogger at CNet, claims he has met The VAR Guy — and The VAR Guy’s beautiful wife. Asay’s yarn makes for an interesting read. But is it true — did he really meet our resident blogger? Weigh the following facts before deciding for yourself.

In a May 13 entry, Asay writes:

Today I got to meet him [The VAR Guy] in person, along with his beautiful wife (”The VAR Lady”?). It turns out that The VAR Guy is an entrepreneur as well as a great blogger/journalist.

Hmmm. Let’s analyze that paragraph, section by section:

• Asay’s Claim: “Today, I got to meet him in person…”
• The VAR Guy’s Response: No comment

• Asay’s Claim: “… along with his beautiful wife (The VAR Lady?).”
• The VAR Guy’s Response: If The VAR Guy really had a beautiful wife, would he spend so much time blogging for so little money? And would that beautiful lady really hang out with a dork who can’t keep a day job?

• Asay’ Claim: “It turns out that The VAR Guy is an entrepreneur…”
• The VAR Guy’s Response: Yup, our resident blogger starts lots of things (online debates, skirmishes and the occasional fist fight) but can he really build a business? Surely, you need to write a business plan and find funding to succeed in business… or do you?

• Asay’s Claim: “…as well as a great blogger/journalist.”
• The VAR Guy’s Response: Guilty as charged — at least until readers discover that The VAR Guy prefers quoting himself rather than Gartner analysts.

Officially, The VAR Guy will neither confirm nor deny that he met Matt Asay. He certainly admires Asay’s blog … and all the work Asay is doing in the open source industry. And he appreciates the occassional free cup of Starbucks from a peer blogger.

Thank you, Matt, for protecting The VAR Guy’s identity — if, indeed, you really know who The VAR Guy is.