Never believe a German when he tells you he can drink you under the table. Yesterday morning at the Open Source Business Conference at the Palace Hotel in SF, the appropriately named Conference Fonzerelli noticed the wunderbar German head of Sun-ified MySQL wasn't there in time for his first talk. Fortunately, it was…

A conference you likely aren't attending — but should

confonz

3/03/08 4:30pm

The thing Valley veterans learned long ago — a business plan the startup punks of today can't execute on even when they finally figure it out — is that the real money is in writing software for massive, faceless corporations. To that end, the Software Development West conference takes place this week at the Santa…

ConFonz hits the Web 2.0 party circuit

confonz

10/18/07 7:04pm

CONFONZ AT THE WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — While the rest of the world prepares for Halloween, there was a significantly scarier sight on display yesterday at the Palace Hotel. You truly know the web 2.0 "revolution" is over when the suits outnumber the geeks. Granted, the Palace isn't exactly a geek haven. And the pricing of…

What Did McCain Google?

confonz

5/04/07 9:00pm

CONFONZ — Waaaaaaaaaaaay down at the bottom of a San jose Mercury news story on from Tuesday mentioned that Wonkette's favorite Walnuts! candidate, John McCain is visiting Google today. A shiny new dime to the first person to point us at the photos. A shiny new quarter to the first person to paste up some McCain…

Tomorrow is Caturday!

confonz

5/04/07 7:14pm

CONFONZ — Yes, cheezburgers have taken over the IntarWeb. Who are we to go against the grain? Bitching and moaning won't help. The Conference Fonzerelli is still here, though his reign of terror is coming to a rapid end. With the weekend, and the coming up, the Fonz needs to trade in his leather jacket for a…

AOL Denies Its Copying Of Yahoo

confonz

5/04/07 4:01pm

CONFONZ — The lovely thing about having a relatively well read gossip blog is that people bring the gossip to you. Case in point: the AOL Beta that resembles Yahoo's page. Someone inside AOL, or at least, inside AOL's heating ducts, brings us this report on the words of Ron Grant at yesterday's AOL management summit.

Outcast's CEO Dinner Full of Hired Geeks

confonz

5/04/07 3:48pm

CONFONZ — To be perfectly honest, Terra, just underneath the Bay bridge, is becomign the go-to spot for any and all PR firms to hold events for their clients. Unfortunately, this means that your humble narrator, the Conference Fonzerelli, has had some of his weaker moments in front of the wait-staff therein.…

Blind Item: Microsoft's New Security Bitch

confonz

5/04/07 1:24pm

CONFONZ — Ah, yes. the age old topic of security at Microsoft. Two great tastes that just don't seem to have ever made it into the same sandwich. With old MS demanding attention for its reinvigorated security efforts in Vista, you'd think they're have hired the right people to lock that sucker down. But as it turns…

Who's Gonna Buy Monster?

confonz

5/04/07 1:03pm

CONFONZ — That damn Monster is still outside your house, peeking in the windows. Every once in a while, it knocks on the window and quietly suggests that you need a new job. Well, it seems as though that Monster's got its own window knockers, and they're carrying cash. Earlier this week, the dot com's stock price…

Business Objects Has a Dumb Slogan

confonz

5/03/07 6:27pm

CONFONZ — Without pie charts, most managers would be out of a job. When your entire business is based on selling software to make people look smarter than they really are, you'd better present a front that makes your company look intelligent. So, why would Business Objects post the phrase "No Light. No Vision," on its…

M.C. Hammer Has A Posse

confonz

5/03/07 4:34pm

CONFONZ — Would you believe that M.C. Hammer is still alive? When not dancing his heart out at his Oakland church, Hammer spends his days using a Mac and jumping out of airplanes with nothing but his famous pants to save him. Further more, the man now has a startup. It's called , and you're not cool enough to see it…

Borland Is Still Screwed

confonz

5/03/07 4:13pm

CONFONZ — Ah, Borland, the former darling of software developers everywhere. Way back when, this company was the first to sell compilers at a price anyone could afford. tuly a liberating paradigm shift, no? Well, the trouble with shifting paradigms is that when someone else shifts one underneath your feet, it tends…

Valley Residents Behaving Badly

confonz

5/03/07 3:55pm

CONFONZ — Time was, we used-ta-could out homosexuals on the front page of the tabloids. Time was, revealing people's short comings in public was a lucrative business. Time was, fat bastards could be eviscerated in public without care or thought paid to their feelings and constitutions. Times change. Thus, the ConFonz…

Activision Goofs Up Spider-Man 3

confonz

5/03/07 2:30pm

CONFONZ — When it comes to making software, it's Q/A that really sucks. The job is totally thankless. As if this weren't bad enough, there is a distinctly finite amount of actual programmers in the games industry, and they all know each other. And, more importantly, they all know the ones that stink. Those stinky…

The ConFonz Goes to College

confonz

5/03/07 1:18pm

CONFONZ — Lo, and below him, he saw the valley. Above him he saw the smog filled skies, and in his hand he found a broken bottle of bourbon, half drained and bloodied. Where had this bottle come from, and why was the humble Conference Fonzerelli stumbling around on Microsoft's Mountain View campus? And, for the love…