Please take a moment to check out the companies that sponsor The Daily WTF.

TDWTF Sponsors
ChangeVision   ChangeVision - makers of astah*, a comprehensive modeling toolset that works with UML, ERD, DFD and mind mapping models within the same integrated platform. There's both a free trial and a free community edition available. They also put out a pretty unique guide called Zen and The Art of User Requirements that's worth a quick read.
BuildMaster   BuildMaster - a new and unique platform that applies the rigor of source control and the discipline of issue tracking to the rest of the application lifecycle. By integrating with numerous best-of-breed development tools, BuildMaster automates and faciliates everything from build management to workflow-driven approvals to database change scripts to production deployments.
SoftLayer   SoftLayer - serious hosting provider with datacenters in three cities (Dallas, Seattle, DC) that has plans designed to scale from a single, dedicated server to your own virtual data center (complete with racks and all)

 

Community Conferences
Not sponsors... but some fun conferences that I'll be going to this year. Got any suggestions? Drop me a line!
Code PaLOUsa   Code PaLOUsa - a two-day development conference revolving around Microsoft, Java, Ruby, PHP, and Clojure; along with sessions on higher, platform-agnostic levels. As announced earlier, if you book now with code TDWTF, you'll save $25 off registration and get a free The Daily WTF mug. I'll be doing a talk ("Infinitely Extensible"), and the whole thing looks like be a great way to spend March 4th-5th in Louisville, KY.
NOTACON   NOTACON - the annual conference held in Cleveland, Ohio, that explores and showcases technologies, philosophy and creativity often overlooked at many "hacker cons". There are over 40 presentations which are a mix of hands-on workshops and lecture style presentations, contests such as "Anything but Ethernet", prize giveaways and a whole lot of who-knows-what. Anything can happen, and usually does. My talk: Hacking the Workplace: How to Make the Most with the Least

And now, for something different. These are pretty fun... and I'd love to see some more. Please send them on in!

 

"I snapped this picture when I was doing some work in a client's server room," wrote Jeff Mercer, "I can't say exactly where it is or what I was doing, but it's pretty obvious from the picture what the box is for."

 

"I spotted this at a customer site," Andy B wrote, "now, when I said 'put that server on the rack', I meant... oh never mind, just nobody move the Server Access Facility (i.e. the stepladder)."

 

Per Ekman writes, "when the racks at our data center were full, we ended up with this confidence-inspiring network installation."

 

"KrakenLover" posted in the Side Bar, "I hadn't been working at this company for very long, when a user's computer lost its connection to the network - after testing, I was able to determine the drop was dead. The head IT guy (a.k.a. the ONLY IT guy other than myself) told me it was probably just a loose patch cable, and to go down to the server room to reseat it. Of course, the drop was not labled. But that's okay, nether were the ports on the switch."

 

"We have all sorts of high-dollar equipment at our co-lo hosting facility, from telco gear to Z-Series mainframes," Mel writes, "and then we have this. I'm not sure what was trying to be accomplished here, but I especially love the 8-port Linksys switch being used right above the perfectly fine Cisco Catalyst 2600."

 

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