Lying frogs aside, I can finally answer the pesky perennial question, that question that’s troubled techie types for the last decade or two. That question: [...]]]> Kermit’s a liar. You can’t trust a frog (and any princess worth her salt could tell you that). It’s easy being green, at least a pale sort of green.

Lying frogs aside, I can finally answer the pesky perennial question, that question that’s troubled techie types for the last decade or two. That question: Should you turn your PC off at night or over the weekend?

If you’ve been in with the IT crowd, the answer to this question has always been a hearty “Nope!” (No kisses, no frogs, no princesses.) Leave them on. (Go away.)

Enterprise-wise, you see, we need those beasts on and working; even at home, you’re screwed if you don’t let them have their way. It’s the updates you see. Miss an update and the zombies come calling.

If you turn your PC off… well, then all those nice automated things don’t get done — important things, like updates, and bug patches, and virus signatures, and disk defragging, and other gobbledygook sort of technical things. They’re necessary, unfortunately. They’re important.

When confronted, I typically explain the simple trade-offs: It’s a choice between “leave them on” or you’ll be responsible for immanentizing the eschaton, triggering the inevitable zombie apocalypse or another Republican administration — to some, no doubt, one in the same.

Moreover, you’ll suffer! If your PC is off at night; well then, all those pesky updates will have to run while you are actually trying to work, trying to finish your radically over-due dissertation about Romance in America: The Myths of the Frog Prince, or trying to put those ever-so-important final touches on your resume, or, perhaps you’re writing the great-American-time-travel novel about relativity and love across the space-time continuum. Whatever it is, it’s important stuff all, right?

Between you and me and the blue screen, there is no need to tempt the fates by actually choosing to run the automated Windows Update and Crash system while trying to actually use the PC. To do that is foolish; to do that tempts fate.

If you’re going to do that, you might as well just stop now, randomly delete the first ten files you find that end with “DLL,” slide a Kraft single into the DVD drive, and pound your head directly on the keyboard for twenty minutes. It’s easier, tastier, more entertaining to your co-workers, and, in the end, will have much the same effect on your PC. Don’t forget to un-wrap the cheese first.

(Hey,Mac-head: don’t get smug, bozo. It happens to Mac’s too. Remember, it ain’t the machine, it ain’t the manufacturer, and it ain’t the OS. It’s the universe that’s laughing at you — and the universe is OS-agnostic. Although I have heard that Mac’s will actually read a properly formatted Kraft single.)

The counter argument to all this is, of course, wasteful energy consumption — the collective impact off all those PCs and laptops leaving huge Al Gore-sized, carbon footprints all over the global rug; wastefully burning up the world, leaving us to play frog in the global green house’s boiling pot of water, not noticing that it’s getting kinda warm and wet.

It just doesn’t feel “right,” leaving all these machines humming all the time. There are more and more and more every day. It just ain’t right, right?

So, hold on to your frogs— now there’s a better answer. The answer is still “nope.” But now, the answer is “nope, but…”

Now you can leave them on “smartly,” a princely green; leave ‘em on, tuned to the heavenly sixty cycles of sun and moon and automated software-tuned power efficiency.

The answer to all this is smart, power management software. It’s all about real-time fine-tuning — my third force, the move from sampling to monitoring — has found a terrific home in Green IT. It’s time to kiss the frog.

It’s about time: It’s a fracking computer after all. It should be able to tune itself, start itself up, do what needs to be done, and then gently fall to sleep.

Previous power management was pretty stupid — essentially offering two choices — asleep or awake; governed by a timeout. Not all answers are binary, and — at least in my case — the needs varied by time of day and day of the week. I needed the pesky PC’s perky during the day, and wanted them to embrace their lethargy the rest of the time. Life is not static. All in all, my goals are simple:

• Maximize energy savings and minimize user grumbling
• Be smart yet cheap about it
• Make it easy to set up and manage

The solution is a relatively unique software and management service. The software is called “Surveyor” — it’s made by Verdiem. Centrally managed and administered, it lets us tune the power management, by time of day, by day of the week, of individual PCs across our network. It even lets us do periodic “wake-up calls” to check for those required zombie updates, and to minimize the end-user grumble factor.

With Surveyor running, you still need to leave the PCs on— but now you’ve got the ability to twiddle and tweak the power management scheme, on the fly, to suit the time of day and the needs of the office. Now, they’re on when needed, up and responsive during working hours and asleep when they’re not needed, blissfully dreaming robotic dreams of world domination or plotting to kill Sarah Connors.

Power profiles can be changed on the fly. We set up two, one for the “Workday” (basically 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM) and another for evenings, nights and weekends.

Then, we got fancy — modifying the power settings on the fly to maximize the so-called “user experience” (or minimize the grumbling) and to minimize our carbon footprints. It was item two — the user grumbling — that took some fancy footwork with the scheduling.

We solved that with a couple of what I call “wake up calls” — essentially the system automatically sends out the magic “wake-on-LAN” packet to wake the machine up. It does it once at 8:00 AM so that those early to work are greeted by a wide-awake PC; once again at 9:00 AM so that the late arrivals also get a wide-awake PC. The 75-minute Workday timeout covers lunch.

Off-hours we get aggressive, switching promptly at 5:30 to the shorter timeouts, effectively putting all the un-used PC’s to sleep by 5:35 PM. We wake them all at 3:00 AM to process any pending updates — if there’s nothing to do, they’re back to sleep by 3:05 AM.

I’m a skeptic. So I metered it. The promised to save money, to knock tens of dollars off my electric bill for each PC, and to be green, seemed too good to be true.

And so, armed with my trusty “Kill-a-Watt,” the results convinced me. For a 24-hour period, the software dropped the power consumption of a typical workstation from 1.28 KWh in 24 hours, to about .62 KWh (with average usage), resulting in an estimated annual savings per PC of a little more than $20.

Even given the software costs (about $15 for the first year and $2/year thereafter), there’s a net savings of $5 per PC in the first year, with around $18 in subsequent years. For 100+ PC’s that’s real green. Besides, it’s worth it to unmask Kermit’s perfidy. Go ahead, kiss that frog. It’s easy.

In each case, I had been invited —and cheerfully [...]]]> Different venues, different audiences, but the same query: Six times in as many months, I stood in front of a group asking (perhaps demanding) that I answer the same question. Audiences can be scary — and the question pointed to the heart of the matter.

In each case, I had been invited —and cheerfully agreed — to talk about web 2.0 and online networks, these new fangled “social” technologies. But, the audiences wanted brass tacks — my academic musings and observations from on high were not enough. The crowd was hungry. They wanted the secret answer.

Folks listened patiently — but only up to a point. I, no doubt, had waxed idiotically on about social technologies being “messy, fast, and casual” — generally ill suited to any sort of organizational context. They are designed to be “personal.” They don’t adapt well to the organizational context, and I don’t think they ever will.

To that, well… I’ve always felt Marion Barry, the former Washington DC mayor, put it eloquently (in three little words): “Get over it.” The fact of the matter is, with social media, an organization no longer can speak with a single voice, or deliver a single message. We need to get over it. It’s all about one-to-one personal communications, only it’s one-to-one with thousands or hundreds of thousands, of people. Sounding silly, I’ve said that since the ‘net began and it’s truer today than ever.

But, such answers have not been enough for hungry audiences, waving netbooks, iPhones, torches and pitchforks.

Folks know there is a secret; what’s worse, they want the secret. They’re unabashed. After all, Obama’s campaign had proven it, right? The virtual cat was out of the digital bag, and it was time for me to come clean. (Pitchforks and torches not withstanding —obviously, I’ve a bit of a love-hate relationship with these presentation things.)

The question on the lips and placards of the angry villagers, the Question with a capital “Q”, is simple: “How can we raise money with these new social networking things?”

I suppose I could blame Election ’08 — specifically Barack Obama — for setting the stage. His campaign’s success was evident. They had raised money, apparently with online social networks. They had also rewritten the rules of politics, and perhaps changed the world forever.

Unfortunately, the answer is not so simple. Moreover, deep down inside, that question is tinged with an underlying belief, a belief that more “friends,” more “followers” equals $uccess. (That’s bull, by the way, pure and simple.)

Nevertheless, nonprofits are nonplussed; they want to raise money with Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever. In the end, it’s the ends. It’s dollars, not donuts, not even the euphemistic “constituent building.” It’s about money, filthy lucre— and deep down inside they know that they’re missing the boat. (So, it’s damn the Tweets, and full speed ahead.)

This belief persists, despite the facts. The facts are clear: social networks are much better “friend raisers” than they’ll ever be “fund raisers.” But, believe is difficult to fight, logically or otherwise. Social networks are the big thing, like direct mail, or telephones, or fax, or email before them. (And, like those that have come before, we are rapidly filling up web 2.0 with random streams of amazing stupidity – but that’s another discussion.)

The “Social Networks = $uccess” belief is ubiquitous. Recently, I reviewed more than 90 grant applications, proposals focused on the intersection of jazz and technology, a far cry from my typical business. However, the same threads were there — a remarkable and overwhelming percentage cited the same holy trinity: Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I read it so often I started to refer to it by acronym (FYT — pronounced Pffufft).

‘Till now, I’ve had no ready answer for the Question. Nothing I say seems to satisfy — folks want the secret code.

Lean in a little closer. Today I’m going to tell you that answer.

Here it is: the secret decoder ring, the magic ingredient, the answer to the Question of how to raise money with online social networks. Ready?

Step One… First, you get yourself an Obama.

Wait… Don’t hit that big “X” …

I say this with all seriousness. First you get yourself an Obama. That’s the secret of the Obama campaign. It was Obama — not Facebook, not Twitter, and not the bevy of would-be Dick “Bite-me” Morrises or the myriad of MoveOn’s anxious to fill up your inbox, dance across your Facebook page, or displace Ashton Kutcher in the Twitterstream of useless things in 140 characters.

The real secret is this: It’s never the tools, it’s the content. It’s never the medium, it’s the message.

The tools can make it easier to deliver the “ask,” and they can surely smooth the logistics of it all, but it’s still all about the message; it’s the content, stupid. More followers does not equal $uccess, unless you’re Ashton Kutcher. And that only works because Ashton Kutcher is selling Ashton Kutchers. (Or maybe he’s selling Demi Moores? I’m never sure.)

There you have it, the message in the cryptex, the answer to the Question. Tools only streamline the process. Today’s fancy network tools, social or otherwise, can move mountains, remove the barriers, streamline the donation, facilitate the transaction, and instantaneously validate the act of giving, relaying thanks, community, appreciation, and a receipt.

But, fundraising is about content; it’s about the Obama-factor. Facebook? YouTube? Twitter? Pffufft… Tools don’t create community. Get over it.

The question was: “Are splash pages effective.” I thought about it for a few days and I posted a response. [...]]]> I hate splash pages. I hate being held hostage. The topic came up recently on the “Information Systems Forum” listserv. It’s a listserv of diverse participants, gracefully managed by the indefatigable Deborah Elizabeth Finn.

The question was: “Are splash pages effective.” I thought about it for a few days and I posted a response. Michael Gilbert (who I think of as my own personal Perry White) suggested I repost my response here, on the Diner. (I think he’s worried that I haven’t posted much stuff in the last few months. Not to worry Michael, it was just a dry spell caused by excessive time travel.)

On this particular list, the recent conversations have drifted into the rights and wrongs of collecting (and using) personal information (like one’s birthday) for fundraising, and, more recently, the efficacy of “splash” pages — especially by nonprofits. While musing over the thread, I was reminded by an early example — a pre-internet example — of an attempt to hold an audience hostage.

You’ll find my original post below, (slightly edited and embellished to make me look more thoughtful):

I’m equal opportunity: I hate pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-overs, fly-bys, and those cutesy floating windows too. Oh, and those “Do you want to take our survey” windows, I hate them too. Most of the time, if I can, I ignore them.

To be honest, I think, quite frankly, so does everyone else. Bottom line, if I can’t ignore such things — worse, if they try to hold me hostage — I’ll probably never return.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out how advertizing on web pages actually results in anything but ad sales to Google. In all truthfulness, I can’t even remember “seeing” the ads on most pages. My mind has learned to filter them out. Strangely, with hardcopy magazines, the adverts are half the fun of reading.

Quite on the side: It reminds me that there is a not-so-subtle schizophrenia to today’s internets — a crazy wackiness that seems to pit us against ourselves. It’s everywhere. It’s the ongoing drive to, on one hand, figure out how all this stuff might pay for itself, juxtaposed, on the other hand, with the almost universal hatred of all the ways people try to make this stuff pay for itself.

Sometimes the madness manifests itself in a particular ironic fashion. My favorite example is the use of banner ads to advertize software designed to stop banner ads. Clearly, there is a particular self-loathing paradox to that concept.

Even more clearly, there is some sort of dynamic tension between free and not free. Moreover, it’s a tension that manifests itself in the seemingly endless conversations about “monetization” that sneaks into the otherwise idealism of the bevy of entrepreneurs-two-dot-oh. I don’t have an answer, but I can tell you that the answer is definitely not irritating your members, customers, constituents, or patrons. There lies madness.

Here’s my example: It was the late 70’s. It was the pledge drive on KPFT – the Houston (Texas) Pacifica station I listened to (religiously) in graduate school.  It was a rather wild and unruly radio station.  I loved it.  Until.  That day.  That fateful day.

One day, that day, someone got the wise idea of holding the listeners ransom – they decided to play “Disco Duck” nonstop until they hit their pledge goals.

Now, rest assured, I have tremendous tolerance, and as a grad student, I was known to listen to just about anything from Neal Diamond, to Mott the Hoople, on through Coltrane, and Monk, and Miles, and to the gravely grumbles of Tom Waits, and beyond, to Zappa (turned up so loud that the nails would pop out of drywall…) all politely tempered with Elvis Costello (Elvis is King)… and, well, I admit it, maybe a little Little Feat… It was Texas, after all. (No Manilow, and for gawd’s sake, no Debby Boone — one has to draw the line somewhere.)

but…  but… but… Disco Duck … nonstop Disco Duck! Oh, the humanity.

To me, splash screens – especially ones that force you to watch some piece of, ahem… content… Well, they’re a bit like Disco Duck, played nonstop.

My rule is never, ever, ever, put a barrier between your members, customers, disciples, acolytes, or whatever, and the silver plate. Being alienated or irritating does not make you friends, and, IMHO, it most definitely does not raise money. Raising money is about message, involvement, community, and — lord love a duck —follow-on action.  At best, people learn to ignore the silly and irritating tricks (maybe they unconsciously start humming “Disco Duck” too often), at worst they hate you and never come back again.

Years later, when working with a member cooperative, I was reminded of similar mistakes made by the early food-coop movement. Someone, somewhere, came up with the hair-brained idea that members of a food-coop should volunteer time working — shinning the crystals, pricing cheese curd, or just pressing the tofu. Whoever it was should be bonked on the head, repeatedly, with a loaf of organic spelt hippy-bread.

Luckily, that thinking has gone the way of disco. But, it’s still a classic (and painful) example of creating an unneeded barrier between you and a sale, a member, a donation, or whatever. Good fundraising is about breaking down the barriers, not putting up new, technological ones. Keep the duck, and the splash, in the tub (with the fat man and the blues) where it belongs.

I read the announcement again. I clicked the buttons. The download started. I double-checked the URL — “Perhaps it was a fancy phishing [...]]]> I thought it was a joke. Who could blame me? After all, the announcement began: “Starting on April 1, 2009…” Then again, Microsoft usually ain’t one to make “April Fool’s” jokes.

I read the announcement again. I clicked the buttons. The download started. I double-checked the URL — “Perhaps it was a fancy phishing scheme,” I thought to myself. “Better check.” “Free” often means free trouble.

I Googled. I got half-a-dozen links. I clicked the Wikipedia entry. It said: “SharePoint Designer 2007 is available as license-restricted freeware.”

Hey, if Wikipedia says so, it’s got to be true, right?

Here’s the scoop, the lowdown, the straight poop:

As of April 1, SharePoint Designer is free. Get it here. Now, it’s not free as in speech, but it is free as in beer. Shamelessly, let me admit here and now. I use SharePoint Designer (hereafter referred to by me as SPD). I use it almost every day. It lets me work magic. It’s a buggy piece of ssssssss…software, but it lets you do magic.

Since we’re talking beer, I liken SPD to Mickey’s Big Mouth Ale — AKA the “green grenade.” It’s kind of rough, kind of wild. But, like SPD, I also like Mickey’s — at least I did when I last drank beer. Perhaps there’s still a bit o’ cowboy in me.

Nevertheless, it’s one of those things I’m not sure I want to advertise — liking Mickey’s, SPD, or the cowboy part. None of them are things you’d mention in the mixed company of a crowd of open source, micro-brew city-folk.

But, it’s true — acceptance is the first step — I like SPD — that affection affliction goes hand in hand with my liking SharePoint. Don’t tell anyone. SharePoint rocks.

Like it or not, to work SharePoint, to do real SharePoint magic, you need SPD. It ain’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. Moreover, you don’t want to touch SharePoint with FrontPage. You don’t even want FrontPage to flirt casually with IIS when it’s hosting SharePoint. You don’t even want it to sidle up and try to buy it drinks, casual-like.

FrontPage will break SharePoint quicker than you can say “Joomla.”

On the other hand, with SPD, a little bit of undaunted adventurism, and some cowboyish bonhomie, you can work magic — good magic as well as some of the sinister dark arts, things like custom workflows, fancy dataviews, and point-and-click connections to XML webservices. Welcome to the dark side.

In fact, it’s SPD that will let you turn that all-too-boring look of SharePoint into something almost purty. It’s all there, it’s all in SPD, and now it’s free.

Let me warn you though. Like that green grenade, SPD is big, and brash, and none too gentle in its approach. You know what they say about “operating heavy machinery.” SPD does not have a light touch. The fact of the matter is, SPD can wreak havoc — breaking a MOSS or WSS site in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Moreover, it’s prone to crash — especially when messing about with the dark arts of dataviews.

I’ve learned. One must use the “undo” button judiciously. Moreover, it’s wise to only create (and destroy) web parts in a temporary environment; you should, at the very least, isolate your cowboy antics to a subsite for god’s sake, if not a stand-alone development environment.

[On the other hand, that’s the nice thing about webparts — do ‘em right and once you get them done and all nice and shiny-like, just the way you want ‘em, they’re easy to move about. Importing (and exporting) is easy. I typically develop my parts on a stand-alone WSS site, and then import them into MOSS when they are acting proper. Sure, this is just good sense, but the portable nature of web parts makes this pretty easy too. ]

The Dark Arts: Custom Workflows

One of the extras you get with SPD is custom workflows. SharePoint OOTB workflows suck. Custom workflows are magic — black magic, pure and simple — and they are, to me, an example that the IT industry has finally managed to somewhat lessen the gap between the marketeer’s hype and the reality of real-life computing. Perhaps we are finally seeing the age of integrated software that actually interoperates, does what it says it does, and makes your teeth whiter, your hair thicker and more luxurious.

Back to the magic: workflows are magic. Incredibly, with SPD, custom workflows are at your fingertips for no extra costs; a standard feature in both MOSS and WSS. All it takes is SharePoint Designer. Sure, it’s not K2 — then K2 is slightly more expensive.

Here’s a simple example:

We scan lots of documents. We use a fancy scanner. It connects to an automated, server-based PDF conversion and fancy OCR system. It not only scans and converts the docs to PDFs, it also automatically tags them with custom metadata before sliding them smartly into a SharePoint document library. It tags them using information the OCR system pulls from a custom coversheet. It works. It’s great, except for some persnickety problems with people’s names.

For reasons only known to the gods of OCR, some particular names never seem to make it through the OCR process intact. Moreover, they are predictably wrong. I won’t say the original names, but my two favorite OCR errors end up as: PASSMOKE and SLANDER. And, while that might make a terrific name for a law firm, I wanted zero defects.

My solution, on the other hand, was rather simple. I used a simple SharePoint workflow. With a workflow it was easy to fix. In fact, my first cut was done in less than 5 minutes.

In a nutshell, I created a workflow that examined all new documents, looked at the metadata for the known OCR errors, and, in the wink of an eye, corrected them. No muss, no fuss, no kitchen drudgery. It only took two steps. Here’s how:

Step zero:

Using SPD, attach to the proper site and create a new workflow. You find it under File/New/Workflow.

Step one:

You see a screen like this. This is the toughest part. You’ve got to name it. While you’re here, you choose if you want it to start automatically and/or if you want it so you can start it manually. All this can be changed later, so — while debugging — I choose “manual.” Once it’s all smooth sailing, I switch it over to automatic.

Here, you also choose what list or document library or other SharePoint item you want to attach the workflow to. This is the downside of workflows, by the way. They have to be attached to a SharePoint item and once attached, they’re stuck there. This means that you absolutely have to develop the thing in a production environment. Steel your nerves and quaff that grenade.

Step Two:

Once you’ve named it and attached it to a SharePoint item, you get presented with a set of screens that allow you to build your workflow steps based upon various conditions and variables. The nice thing — starting off — it’s all point and click.

In this example, I use a set of simple IF/THEN conditions. Basically:

o IF [STAFF] equals “SLANDER”

o THEN set [STAFF] to “Correct Name”

Since the universe of errors is relatively small, it could work to simply hardcode the various cases, one after another. That’s it in a nutshell.

Step just-push-the-buttons:

Now, in reality, I got fancier. Not wanting to hard-code a series of problematic names forever, I instead decided to use an existing table of staff names — treating it as a lookup table.

SharePoint workflows can perform limited lookups, matching information in one list to fields in another. It can then, based upon that match, substitute one value for another.

In this example, the workflow fixes my SLANDER problem by checking a list of possible errors stored in one list, finding the proper name based on that match, and then slips it into the original field, correcting the error.

It takes a bit of puzzling to get the logic straight — and if you ask me, all the help text just adds to the confusion. In the end, I found that just clicking the options — in a logical order — worked. Like most Microsoft products anymore, over-thinking can get you in trouble. Just push the buttons.

Shoes [...]]]> Who’d of thunk it? A simple shoe — well, actually two — thrown with the right twist could so clearly express an opinion. An opinion so succinct, that the world can do nothing but applaud (and perhaps wish the thrower had had slightly better aim). It was a shoe heard ’round the world.

Shoes have power. You can vote with them (or I guess more accurate, you can vote with your feet). You can heat up a cold war as Nikita Khrushchev, shoe in hand, pounding on the lectern at the UN, shouting, “We shall bury you.” (Although there are those that say the more accurate translation is “We shall attend your funeral”).

Sadly, it seems, shoes can be evil too. It is because of shoes — explosive ones at that — that we now all queue up and strip down to pound stocking-footed through airports, marching a sweaty-soled tattoo through the metal detectors. It’s all, no doubt, a dastardly plan by the Fungus Liberation Front to enslave the world and increase sales of tough-acting Tinactin.

Well, 2008 — the year that was — I throw my shoes in your general direction.

I look to 2009, with hopeful eye. With hope, I celebrate the end of dumb and the beginning of smart. I celebrate that “fun to have a beer with” is no longer a presidential attribute. I celebrate that “Nobel Prize” wins over cronyism when considering important cabinet appointments. I celebrate the end of “the end is nigh, prepare for the rapture” worldview that has been used to justify inaction. (Personally, if the end is nigh, I think someone’s going to be pretty pissed to see the earth in such a sad state of repair.)

I celebrate the end of out and out denial of facts and science and truth and intelligence. I celebrate an end to the supremacy of myth and superstition and intolerance. I celebrate a return to complete sentences, pragmatism, a belief in science and technology, and – dare I say it – rationality. I throw my shoes at 2008.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere! And gie’s a hand o’ thine! And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught, For auld lang syne. (Robert Burns)

We careened through streets, shrouded in darkness, packed into a grubby ersatz-Fiat 128, a Soviet-era knockoff. I was compressed, folded, and spindled into the back seat, a human shock absorber, a Dell Optiplex cradled in my arms. With only me between the PC’s steel case and [...]]]> A Thanksgiving Tale from the Wild Wild East

We careened through streets, shrouded in darkness, packed into a grubby ersatz-Fiat 128, a Soviet-era knockoff. I was compressed, folded, and spindled into the back seat, a human shock absorber, a Dell Optiplex cradled in my arms. With only me between the PC’s steel case and the car’s steel struts, I felt every bump and grind of the ancient city’s streets. I was the car’s only functioning shock absorber. Noticing that it was past midnight, I thought: “Hey, it’s Thanksgiving.”

As we zoomed around yet another roundabout, my friend Tamás shouted over the engine noise: “This is ‘Hero’s Square. You can see the statues of the seven Magyar chieftains who led the Hungarians into the Carpathian basin. You remember, Saint Stephen — he’s there. See.” He gestured with his right hand, his ubiquitous cigarette smoldering in the other. He was a hell of a driver, Tamás. One hand always on the wheel, another manhandling the stick shift, ratcheting through the gears, clutch be damned; another Bogarting a constant cigarette, and another hand to spare, artfully used to point out landmarks and other points of interest along the way.

I struggled to see out of the side window, smudged and clouded with urban fallout and the night’s reflections. I could see shadows, light and dark, vague objects lit by the cold calculating stare of mercury lights. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I’ll have to come back here sometime during the day.” “Yes,” said Tamás. It’s a beautiful city.” With those words, he lit another cigarette and whipped the car to the right, sliding me away from the window. Like a square, steel security blanket, I cradled the PC. We dove down, down into the dark, diving driving deep into the Budapest night. I was glad he knew where he was going, or at least he seemed to know. I wasn’t going to question. If this worked, it would be he who had saved the day; saved the week, saved my ass — assuming it, and I, survived the ride.

The week had been one unmitigated disaster after another. It was one of those times where just about everything went wrong. The giant rabbit, a bunny the size of a German Shepherd, had shaken my essential belief in my on sanity. The trip had turned all too Kafkaesque, despite the fact I was in Budapest, not Prague, and Nietzsche was tumbling through my forebrain. “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger,” I muttered to myself, “especially giant rabbits.” But I am getting ahead of myself.

The story begins the week before. Plans were afoot, and I needed to quickly outfit what was to be our new office in Budapest. Tamás was moving from Prague to Budapest, others were moving from Prague to London, and still others were relocating back to the States. The Prague office was to be closed. Budapest needed to be up and running first and fast and furious. With the others, I had some time to spare and a moving company to help.

Taking it in stride, I laid out simple plans that involved donating all the existing equipment in Prague, and starting fresh in the various new locations. That meant shipping new equipment to Budapest, post haste, and that meant DHL. This was a few years ago, before accession into the EU. If you wanted to get stuff into the wild, wild east, DHL was your Jedi Knight. Try to do it yourself, and you’d be tied up in paperwork for a month, and end up paying double in taxes and quadruple in baksheesh and baklava. If I had gone that route, winter would be here, and I’d be wearing a balaclava.

My plan was simple. Ship a new PC via DHL to Budapest. Order a new MFC printer from a local vendor. Arrange for all the necessary connections for phone, fax, and internet. Time everything, just so. Arrive after the PC had cleared customs. Carry all the other bits and pieces. Leave a weekend as buffer, just to be safe. Take a day and purchase the other things I might need (like a fax machine). Spend a few days in Budapest assembling, training, eating cakes, and drinking coffee. When done, zip up to Prague, tie up loose ends there, and make it home by Thanksgiving — a simple plan that adhered to the KISS axiom.

It started to go wrong when the PC went MIA, supposedly somewhere between Ohio and Budapest. The timing of this news couldn’t have been worse. It broke while I was snoozing on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic. “They’ve lost the shipment,” said the message in my Blackberry. Bleary-eyed and stiff from the flight, I had to read the message twice as I pounded my second espresso in Schiphol Airport. “Huh,” I muttered. “DHL lost it in mid-flight?

I could of understood it if it had been routed through Amsterdam. Then I could blame it on some chocolate-crazed Dutchman or a ring of international PC thieves, trading computers for aged Gouda. But this had been a direct flight. It got on in Ohio and never got off. I felt like Jodie Foster. How can a PC simply disappear in mid-flight from a DHL plane? Its fate remains a mystery. I figure it’s somewhere embedded in a cow pasture, as it must have fallen out of the door of the plane as it banked to the left over Ohio; probably surprised a few cows, no doubt. Watch out Ohio — falling PCs! Cowdude, you’re getting a Dell!

I was committed. It was too late to turn around; too late to do much of anything. I caught my connection to Budapest with a mind towards taking solace at the hotel’s all-you-can-eat cake bar. Upon arriving, strengthened by a Sachertorte, sugar and chocolate coursing through my veins, I hatched an alternate plan.

I was not to be outfoxed by the cows, or the Dutch. Quick as a wink, with a call back to the States, my staff had a second PC out the door and onto a DHL truck. I figured if we got all our ducks in a row, I’d only lose two days. I could hang out at Café Gerbeaud, pretending to be an intellectual, eating cake and drinking coffee. Not a problem. I am especially fond of Hungarian cakes and tortes, and other pastries. I’d just have to dig up a tattered copy of Proust to complete the image. Besides, there was Tokaji to try. (I discovered I did not like it — and also learned not to say that out loud to the waiter’s face and still expect any sort of service.)

I spent the days wisely, lining up the other ducks, setting up printers, NAT routers, and phones. I even had the immensely ironic pleasure, comrades, of buying a Hungarian fax machine at the largest shopping mall in downtown Budapest. The mall is located in plaza named for Karl Marx. The machine’s instructions were in Hungarian — a lovely language with absolutely no relation to any of the Indo-European languages. Rather it is Ugric, perhaps related to Finnish, perhaps not, and thought to have originated from Siberia, one, two, or three million years ago. I was lucky. There were pictures.

Everything was ready. Then the bureaucracy took hold, like a rat terrier, and refused to let go. The paperwork accompanying the PC was incorrect. We were sub-leasing. We weren’t registered in Hungary. We didn’t exist. It was surreal. I felt unreal. According to the Hungarian authorities, I did not exist. You can’t deliver a PC to a non-existent organization, said DHL. “You don’t exist.”

Easily rectified, I thought, my sense of identity barely dented, I’ll just have new paperwork faxed over. But time was against me. First, it was now Friday. Second, there’s six hours difference between Michigan and Budapest. I had to wait for my office to wake up and get to work. By then it would be 3:00 PM in Budapest. Of course, the customs office closes at 3:00. They wouldn’t get the new paperwork until Monday. Assuming it was all in order, the earliest I could get the PC from DHL would be Monday morning. I headed back to the all-you-can-eat cake bar where I considered supplementing my diet of Dobos torte with a bottle of absinth.

Bright and early Monday morning, I was on the phone to DHL. “Yes,” they said. “The PC is here.” “No,” they said, “It would not be delivered today.”

Working reverse banker’s hours, the customs inspector didn’t start work until 4:00 PM. I thought this fact particularly strange, since the customs office closed at 3:00 PM. Logic aside, DHL assured me that the inspector would look at the paperwork that afternoon, and IF it was all in order, the PC would be delivered the following day, Tuesday.

“There’s a certain perverse logic to it all,” I thought to myself. Customs closes at 3:00 and the inspector starts work at 4:00… This meant that, no matter what you did, who you paid off; no matter how pious and righteous your life; there was no way to get something through customs in a day. I accepted my fate and waited another day. My schedule was already shot to Shineola. I was supposed to have been to Prague by now, and be headed home by Wednesday. I was now, officially, a day late and a Forint short. I celebrated with a plate of goulash and a piece of Rigó Jancsi.

Bright and drearily Tuesday morning, I was on the phone to DHL. “Yes,” they said. “The PC is here.” “No,” they said, “it would not be delivered today.”

The paperwork was not correct. The people from whom we were subleasing also didn’t exist. We couldn’t ship something to them either. “You can’t deliver a PC to a non-existent organization,” says DHL. Tamás, in his quiet wisdom, spoke up. “Why not have it shipped to me?” he said. “I exist.” Not in the mood for epistemological arguments, despite the temptation, I agreed and new paperwork was put in process.

Back to the future we went, waiting until 3:00 to have a new commercial invoice faxed to DHL from the States; back to the café for coffee and cake.

Not-so-bright and early Wednesday morning, I was on the phone to DHL. “Yes,” they said. “The PC is here.” “No,” they said, “it would not be delivered today.”

There were taxes to be paid. Since we had shipped the PC to an individual, we had to pay import duties. “Let me guess,” I said, “once we pay the taxes, we have to wait for the custom inspector to clear the shipment.” “Yes,” they said, “he starts at 4:00. We can deliver the PC in the morning.”

Time, unfortunately, was not on my side, no it wasn’t. I had shuffled trains, planes and schedules. Now I was scheduled on a train, bound for Prague, the next morning. Even then, it was going to be tight. Time was running out.

On a whim, I asked: “Is there any chance we can pick the PC up ourselves?” “Why yes,” said DHL, “not a problem. After customs clears the shipment, you can pick it up at our airport facility after 6:00.

At 6:00, we pulled into the DHL facility — a facility hidden deep in the warehouse maze that surrounds the Budapest airport. Our timing was a thing of beauty. We pulled into the lot just in time to watch a DHL worker roll two Dell boxes off the back end of a truck. They fell, with a note of fragile finality, onto a flat-bed trolley and were wheeled away into the building in front of us. “Those have got to be ours,” I muttered, “got to be.”

Bundles of paper work in hand, we stumbled into the lobby, a lobby furnished in industrial green linoleum, Formica and vinyl, even the lighting had a greenish tinge to it. I shoved the paperwork at the first clerk I could see. He smiled and said, “Yes, the PC is here.” I handed him a fistful of Forints.

As if on cue, at that moment, the double-doors in the rear of the room burst open, and two Dell boxes tumbled into the room. Like a mother who’s found her long lost child, I gathered the boxes into my arms and lovingly tucked them into the car — the monitor into the trunk and, after a little light maneuvering, the PC into the only place it would fit, the front passenger seat. We headed off, full tilt, for Tamás’ new office.

Time being of the essence, I mentally mumbled a check list of tasks that needed to be done. With luck, I figured, I could catch a late dinner. My train left early the next morning for Prague.

By 8:30, we were back at the office. I slide the hard drive into the PC. I had hand-carried it, and a spare, from the States. I checked all the cables. I smiled and plugged it in and…

I could hear the “snap.” I could physically feel the “crack” and “pop” deep in my bones. I could smell the ozone. My face must have turned ashen, as Tamás immediately said “What’s wrong.” I slumped against the wall, defeated. “I forgot,” I said. “Shit. I forgot to switch the power supply from 110 to 220. I just fried it. I give up.”

Tamás looked at me quizzically. “What does that mean,” he asked? “It means we’re screwed,” I said, screwed, screwed, screwed — even in the States, I couldn’t find a new power supply at — glancing at my watch — almost 10:00 at night. Worse than that, it’s a Dell. That means the power supply is proprietary. We’re screwed.” “Humm,” said Tamás. “It’s just a part, right? Let me call my uncle.” He pulled out his mobile phone and, after a few seconds, spoke a few words in Hungarian. He hung up and smiled.

“My uncle says that there is this special number,” he said. “It’s a number you can call and get answers to any question, 24-hours a day.” I looked at him, incredulously, thinking to myself: “Any question? – whew I can think of a few I’d like answered…” But, before I could come up with a question about life, the universe, and everything, he was already off the phone, answer in hand.

“There’s a place,” he said, jotting it down on a pad of paper. “It’s way on the other side of the city. It does all night computer repair. They have the part we need.”

Without further ado, we bundled up the PC and piled into the borrowed car — the Soviet knockoff — and headed off into the Hungarian night. It was thus I found myself, self-employed as a shock-absorber, careening through the dark streets of Budapest, at midnight, in search of a Dell power supply, the day before Thanksgiving. Rabbits were the furthest thing from my mind.

After what seemed like hours, we pulled down a dark street — more warehouse than residential — and stopped in front of what looked like a small square suburban ranch home surrounded by 8-foot tall chain link fence, festooned with video cameras, and dotted with ever popular mercury vapor lights.

The rest of the street faded away into pitch black, stomped out by lights that would shame a football stadium. We parked and stood in front of the sliding chain-link gate. “This is the place,” said Tamás, glancing at the notepad where he had scrawled the address. On cue, the chain link gate silently slide open and we walked into the graveled yard, following the concrete walkway around the side, to the back, as there was no door in the front.

A giant man, six-foot-plus, dressed all in white — white pants and a white T-shirt, with a strange belt of off-white sheep’s fleece and leather wrapped around his substantial midriff — stood at the top of a short flight of stairs. Tamás and he exchanged what I assumed were pleasantries or secret Magyar passwords, and, once complete, Tamás motioned us up the stairs and into the house.

Glancing around, readjusting the PC cradled in my arms, I began to walk up the stairs. It was then I noticed what I thought was a rather odd looking white German Shepherd off to the side of the back yard. I looked again. It wasn’t a dog — despite being at least two or three feet high. It was the ears that had made me think “German Shepherd.” It was a rabbit. It was a three-foot-tall white rabbit. It was looking at me. I glanced around wildly, looking for Alice.

Tamás called, “Gavin, are you coming in?” I stumbled quickly up the stairs, and through the rabbit hole and into the house, glancing with every step at the rabbit. The rabbit watched intently and then turned away as the door closed.

I found myself in a house furnished in gilt, white lace, bad taste, and computer parts. The furniture — where visible under the computer parts — was that particular color of white and peachy gold favored by cheap hotels and porno producers.

After a brief technical exchange in Hungarian and English that consisted mostly of grunts and technical terms like “power supply,” “220 volts,” “Dell,” “Removable hard drive,” and “200 Euros,” the dead power supply lay abandoned on one of the gilt sofas. I was 200 Euros lighter, and we were back in the car, headed through the late night streets of Budapest.

Back at the office, still feeling slightly stunned by the bunny, I slapped the power supply into the PC, check things thrice, and powered it up. All things were right with the world. Tamás had an office.

We packed up shop, and Tamás dropped us at the hotel. Up before dawn, I was on the train and bound for Prague before a bunny’s breakfast. I spent the train trip in the dining car, either dozing or thoroughly entertained by the various notifications from different GSM carriers that appeared on my Blackberry. Arriving in Prague, I once again realized it was Thanksgiving — I had not made it home. As any ex-pat will tell you, Thanksgiving in Europe always lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. Nevertheless, I had three days to finish up in Prague before my rescheduled flight back to Amsterdam, and then on to Detroit. I would be seeing no more bunnies.

Since it was Thanksgiving, the evening called for at least a fancy dinner; if not turkey, then it would have to be duck (an easy call in Eastern Europe). My choice was Obecni Dum (Municipal House). It was just a short walk away. It’s called the “Pearl of Czech Art Nouveau.” It’s a landmark in downtown Prague, and home to a pivnice (beer hall) in the basement as well as a kavarna (café) and the classy Francouzské (French) restaurant on the first floor. You can dine surrounded by deco glass by Alphonse Mucha. The food is good too. I had duck, in lieu of turkey. Rabbit seemed out of the question. I remember the dinner with great fondness, and was to see the exact setting again, later, in “Triple-X” with Vin Diesel; same table in fact — art, once again, imitating life — through the rabbit-hole.

Oh, the bunnies; they’re real, by the way, and not at all a vision born of too many cakes and tortes, too many long days and sleepless nights. You see, this arrived in the email one day, assuring me of my sanity. Thanks Jonathan.