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Can you hear IT Blogwatch? If not, ask TellMe to tell you about Microsoft's rumored buy out. Not to mention the little printer that shreds while it works ...

Om Malik knows why:

Even an $800 million price tag would make it the fourth largest acquisition in the history of Microsoft. Why would Microsoft pay such a hefty price? C/Net speculates that the Tellme technologies could find their way into enterprise applications. Microsoft is betting heavily on the convergence of data and voice.

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At this county agency, one pilot fish serves as the point of contact between a trio of Web developers and the users who need to make changes to the agency's Web site.

"My job is to keep them from being overwhelmed by all the requests," says fish. "Users give me the information by e-mail, and I usually enhance the request with the Web page address and some direction on where on the page we want the information to appear."

So when one user wants a Web form to be updated, fish is the one who gets the request. In this case, it's a form that lets citizens volunteer for particular projects; after the citizen fills in the online form, it generates an e-mail to the proper person at the agency.

The user's request: The form must have one phone number.

If it's Thursday, it must be IT Blogwatch watching the Great Gates opine about all things tech to the great opiners themselves. Not to mention diy ghillie suits...

Pat Thibodeau hears his pain:

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates said today that he feels "deep anxiety" over the ability of the U.S. to compete globally and added that the country is risking its technology leadership because of failures in its education system and immigration policies and inadequate research spending.

Dino Perrotti spots a bargain:

Recently, it seems that there has been a subtle increase in articles, and discussions, on the need for college degrees, certifications, or any other form of continued education. In this feature, the focus will be primarily on the college degree aspect of these discussions. In most of the discussions, the popular conclusion to these debates appears to be that many favor experience over an institutional education. The trendy consensus being that a non-degreed, experienced employee will perform at a higher level than a degreed employee in more instances that not. Is this true? Can this way of thinking prove to be detrimental in the future?

The H-1B cap opposition isn't making their case to Congress and may not be able to overcome the Gates effect.

In September 2008, the London Stock Exchange collapsed because its Windows-based electronic trading platform, TradElect completely failed. Now, under new leadership, the Exchange will finally do away with its fatally flawed Windows system.

This construction company does work at job sites all over the country, so the engineers have to be supported remotely. "It seems when people do not see you much, then you are out of sight and out of mind," says an IT support pilot fish.

One morning fish gets an e-mail request from an engineer at a remote job site, asking him to install an attached "license file" on a server, so newly purchased software can be used on multiple computers right away.

Fish looks at the attachment. It's a PDF file with an invoice and license key for high-end CAD software. He asks around; nobody in the IT department knows anything about the engineer needing or buying the software.

"Good morning, you're fired and getting replaced by a software engineer from India with an H-1B visa ... APRIL FOOLS!" This is a bad joke to play on an engineer these days, because it is just too close to actually being true.

The root of "April Fools Day" goes back to the 1500s when the New Year date was moved from April 1st to Jan 1st. Those who were unaware of the change were open to pranks and jokes. They were the "April Fools".

April 1st, 2007, is still, however, the beginning of the new year for H-1B applications, and it is American engineers unaware of these activities who are once again the April Fools.

Bill Gates draws first-blood while IEEE raises an army of engineers in the pivotal fourth round of the H-1B battle of the Immigration Reform bill war.

In his opening move, the world's richest man strikes hard at American engineering careers by testifying before congress in favor of unlimited H-1B visas.  Bill's prestidigitatory presentation sought to somehow convince lawmakers that the best way to encourage American students to enter engineering is to import more engineers from other countries. 

First, he says, we must "place a major emphasis on encouraging careers in math and science".  Then he suggests opening the flood gates to foreign engineers by eliminating the cap completely, "So even though it may not be realistic, I don't think there should be any limit".  Sadly, there were no challenges to this point by the committee.  Not one Congressman or Senator suggested that increasing the cap might further discourage students from entering the engineering field. 

Despite studies which show there is no shortage of engineers, Bill Gates insists that the tech industry needs the cap raised. 

It's Monday's IT Blogwatch: in which Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage servers go missing. Not to mention unfortunate advertising positioning...

Gregg Keizer reports:

Microsoft Corp. has blamed an unspecified server problem for a 19-hour stretch during which paying users of Windows XP and Vista were accused by the company's "Windows Genuine Advantage" validation system of running pirated software. Any Vista system fingered during the episode was stripped of some features, including the operating system's Aero graphical interface. As of Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern, Microsoft said the problem had been fixed.
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The validation server snafu began sometime prior to 8 p.m. Eastern time on Friday ... Although copies of both Windows XP and Vista were being tagged as counterfeit during the 19 hours, users of the latter were especially incandescent. The WGA anti-piracy scheme for that OS disables several features when it thinks the copy is bogus, among them the Aero graphical user interface and ReadyBoost.
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Although Microsoft did not put a number to the affected systems Saturday ... it appeared to be system-wide. If so, it would be the biggest problem so far in the Redmond, Wash. developer's contentious WGA program.

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If you really want to know why I'm so pro-Linux on servers, you need only look at the London Stock Exchange's total melt down on September 8th.

Fearing political fallout, senior Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Kennedy (D-MA) retreated from the H-1B and Immigration Reform bill battlefield last week.  The McCain/Kennedy coalition split and opted not to release the immigration reform bill they've been working on. 

McCain seemed frustrated with the endeavor and is also concerned about losing support from his conservative base in his bid for the Republican presidential candidacy.  Conservative voters are strongly against guest worker programs which, many feel, leads to amnesty for illegal aliens.  The H-1B program is not related to illegal immigration but it is growing into an equally controversal guest worker program with heavyweight opponents such as IEEE-USA, the AFL-CIO, the CWA and many others who are joining in as the immigration battle progresses.

OK, I'll admit that I love using Google and I don't have to tell you it's amazing what you can find and how quickly. As this article points out, Google is a great IT tool and in fact, it helped me just today. One of our office computers (about 10 years old) went down. I had some old Windows boxes stored in the back room. So, I took apart an old broken Windows machine and used some spare parts to make one good usable one as a quick fix. Still using Windows 98 (yep, Windows 98), I needed some old HP printer drivers and found them in seconds using Google.  If you're ever bored, just Google your own name and see what comes up!

According to the Computerworld article Cobol: Not Dead Yet, Cobol may be the Rodney Dangerfield of programming languages but it also can't be beat for such uses as batch processing. Its defenders claim that Cobol is easier to learn, write, read, and manage that OO languages. Is Cobol as rock-solid as its proponents make it out to be? Are Cobol programmers dinosaurs, or are they vital to maintain all of the Cobol apps still operational in mainframe environments?

Vineet Nayar is reported to have called American graduates "unemployable"; the CEO of IT services vendor HCL Technologies was speaking recently in New York. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers debate racism, stereotyping, sweatshops, and H1B visas.

By Richi Jennings, your humble blogwatcher, who has selected these tidbits for your enjoyment. Not to mention the best gaming toilets...