Thinking aloud: Azure, AWS, DevOps, cars and opinion from Alex Neihaus

  • Summer 2012 reminiscence

    It’s the Friday before Labor Day, 2012 — the unofficial last weekend of the summer and I feel like reminiscing a little. The image in my head is the first day of school, say, sixth grade, when the teacher goes ’round the room asking what everyone did over the summer as a way of breaking the ice.…

  • Revit and Building Information Modeling

    Revit and Building Information Modeling

  • Beating back the BMW European Delivery re-delivery blues

    Anyone who has ever ordered a BMW for European Delivery and eventual shipping home knows this part of the drill. You’ve gone to BMW Welt in Munich, picked up an amazing car, had a blast and dropped it off. You knew that waiting for it was going to be hard — everyone says so and…

  • Unreal gets a new meaning

    When I was a kid, we used the term “unreal” to apply to stuff we though was so unbelievably good we couldn’t come up with a suitable superlative. Example: “Man, have you heard ‘Purple Haze?’ That Jimi Hendrix is freakin’ unreal.” While we applied the term to food when we had — ahem — the munchies,…

  • BMW M5 car porn

    Apologies in advance. But I want to share with you my lastest fantasy: a lovely blue BMW M5. I had about 30 minutes of seat time in the previous generation M5 (the engine was a V10!) and ever since, to steal a phrase from Jimmy Carter, I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times with…

  • It’s a simple head code…anyone can catch it

    This video parody of the technical gibberish many companies use to describe their technology will have you ROFL. It’s the kind of writing I hope I never end up convincing myself was necessary to describe a product.

  • The Beatles made me do it

    Way back in my youth, I succumbed to Beatlemania. That included spinning vinyl Beatles LPs backwards to hear the hidden messages they supposedly contained. So, when it came time to pick an Internet brand for myself, I spelled “toy boy” backwards. Ergo, “yobyot”. It’s short, it was available and it expresses my love of all electronic toys.…

  • Got your letter, Mitt. But I am confused.

    Dear Mitt, Thank you for your letter of “Wednesday morning.” I wasn’t surprised to hear that you need the support of “…our nation’s most committed Republicans…Republicans like [me]”. But I was a little surprised to hear I was a Republican, though. You might want to check that voter registration list you have. I’m not sure…

  • We interrupt this blog for an inspirational message

    Those of you who know me personally know that being inspirational isn’t really my forte. I’m much better being snarky and snide. (Though I’ll never master the art of impertinence like @snipeyhead has). But I needed a new post for this blog to test a fix to a problem and to push the political endorsement I…

  • Messsage to Southborough: re-elect Bill Boland

    Until this post, I have never publicly endorsed a candidate for anything. But I urge my fellow voters in Southborough to vote next Monday, May 14 (not Tuesday, as is often the case for elections) to re-elect Bill Boland as a selectman for Southborough. Why break my reluctance to publicly endorse a candidate? There are many…

  • New look, same snark

    Back in the good old days at IBM — the days when smokers were allowed to smoke inside the office — the guys would congregate in the back of the office in Copley Place (aka “New Jersey”) and through thick clouds of blue smoke bitch about management. After a moment of silence while we absorbed…

  • Lenovo does the right thing, but gracelessly

    I know you have all been waiting with baited breath to see how my attempts to get Lenovo to honor an extended warranty are going. Well, the story is over. And I remain oddly unfulfilled. Here’s what happened. The Monday after my post blasting Lenovo for a) refusing to fix a defect under warranty and b)…